Thank you! A welcome addition to the library.

Best regards from Cascadia,

Kenneth.

In the further spirit of proselytizing, the Berlin Philharmonic's digital concert hall is providing a month of free subscription—until the end of April. They have an incredible library of concerts, films, interviews, and an ongoing program of live concerts. An unparalleled resource!

www.digitalconcerthall.com

Blessings to Paul on his journey. Condolences to his family.

It *does* seem like an ongoing evolution, given that the first three dimension strings libraries have focused each on one of three relatively common playing styles—arco, sordino, and tasto—with all the variations in articulation that can be achieved within those styles, staccato, detaché, tremolo, marcato, vibrato, senza vibrato, etc. etc., thereby justifying the production of a full library.

Sul ponticello, as a bowing technique can be realized with all of the same rich variety of articulations and would seem to be a logical next step in that evolution of the dimension strings concept as a whole.

I agree also that there are missing articulations within the existing three libraries such as glissandi, dynamics for the sul tasto library, extended techniques like harmonic glissandi, and other special articulations that could make these libaries unparalleled for the production of contemporary forms of music. That would be another library, perhaps in the form of add-ons to the existing ones. I can see there a potentially profitable cottage industry for VSL in producing these add-ons on a modest scale and marketed as enhancements to the existing libraries. 

Hope springs eternal....

This would be a significant step forward in the ongoing evolution of the greatest string library.

Ditto on the desire for expanding the Dimension Strings line:

• Dimension Strings IV Sul Ponticello
• Dimension Strings V FX

I'd buy these in a heartbeat!

I'm going to second this. I think this is the single most common frustration working with VEP. Attempting to scroll through a large set of instruments—in my case using a two finger gesture on the trackpad—and indadvertently changing the volume level of an instrument. Most of the time I catch the mistake, but sometimes not. This is definitely poor user interface design. The same gesture must not provide two completely different functions at the same time. 

OK, I got it sorted out. For some reason "Enable Cells on MIDI Activity" was unchecked. That's the first time that's happened!

Hello,

I'm setting up a 2017 Macbook Air with Vienna software and have hit a roadblock.  I can load an instrument into the Vienna Instruments Pro 2 standalone and it plays fine using the built in keyboard, i.e. inactive cells are made active and sound, but, when I load VIP Pro instruments into Vienna Ensemble Pro 6, they don't become active and not sound.

Macbook Air, Mojave 10.14.4

Vienna Instruments Pro 2.4.17181

Vienna Ensemble Pro 6.17226 (64-bit)

I've not had this issue before so I'm not sure what might be the solution.

Thanks,

Kenneth.

Here's another user that would dearly appreciate a more sophisticated control over grouping, the appearance of groups, and the ability to selectively turn on and off some of the player icon features. With respect to this last, if it were possible to turn off the player width display it would go a long way to reduce the visual clutter when working in a MIR venue that uses a lot of players.

Best,

Kenneth.

Thanks for the detailed response Macker! That's given me some useful perspective on your technique. I particularly found the relationships between JI and PI—where they correspond in useful ways—to be particularly interesting.

Food for the algorithmic grinder at some point, methinks.

Best,

Kenneth.

I've been following this thread with keen interest since it lit up. Great discussion!  It intersects with some of my own interests. Macker, if it's not too complex a request to answer, I wonder if you might share some more details as to how you manage the relationship between vertical sonorities in just intonation whilst embroidering melodies in Pythagorean tuning and how that works in practice. If I can get a bit more detail it might be something to code into a plug-in type MIDI processor that could be used outside of the Logic environment and liberated to be active with other virtual instruments such as our VSL ensembles.

And on a light-hearted note... who cares if a performance controller that provides the "levers" allowing a more nuanced approach to tuning is not widely adopted?  I for one have spent most of my creative life designing and building tools to support my practice that would likely not be of that much interest to the creative community at large. But... and this is a profound "but"... they work for me and I can do the things I want/need to do with them.  Unless, of course, the goal is to invent the next big thing in performance interfaces and go into business to promote it. I haven't the time for that kind of career shift anymore! ;-)  I think William might have been one of those who have suggested that I might turn my performance style system for selecting articulations—an articulation engine—into a marketable tool for others to use. I always respond the same... ask someone to pay for the thing you make, and they'll ask you to support their use of it. This is even more of an issue with things made of computational stuff. Just look at our heroic team of developers here at VSL and the constant stream of requests (to put it mildly) to fix what's broken or wonky. It's a full-time job.  I'm content with my home-brew computational luthierie where it just has to work for me, leaving me most of the time for the creative work.

VSL is heading in the right direction with the model presented by the Synchron Player. The next step would be to add some intelligence based on some performance rules for articulation, dynamics, tempo, etc. that can be mapped to custom articulation sets, such as moving through the dimension tree based on the rules.

I've learned much by studying and adapting the work of Anders Friberg and others in developing my performance system.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a42d/f8c2cbb3fa304b79a5c36b510c412eaa8dbc.pdf

I'd love to be able to incorporate a more sophisticated approach to tuning. Hermode looks doable, although I too find the examples I've heard to be a lot more subtle than I'd hoped. Which brings us full circle to Macker's approach. 

That was it! The only piece of the software ecology that was not up to date. 

Thanks.

Thanks, I'll check that I'm up to date with that one.

Kenneth.

Hi Paul,

I purchased the extended Dimension Brass I package, as well as the Dimension Brass II Full libraries.  Latest elicenser, download and directory managers. After downloading the installation files and installing I find that, while the Dim. Brass II patches are all there, I cannot get VIP to see the extensions for the Dimension Brass I collection.  

I've reinstalled the Dim. Brass I extension files again, tried the Directory Manager delete-all-drag-back trick. Nothing seems to work.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Kenneth.

On the topic of USB hubs. If you're working on a laptop and trying to use a couple of USB-3 ssd plus the hardware key one of these is needed. I was also very concerned about the mechanical issues in having a rigid extension with thousands of dollars worth of licenses, etc. attached, so I looked around and found a hub that attaches by means of a flexible cable.

YES!!! In a heartbeat. And a Dimension Strings IV with all this played sordino.

"Dimension Stings III with ponticello sustain and tremolo, glissandi, spiccato, sampled trills like the Orchestral strings extending beyond half and whole tone intervals (performance trills are no substitute for sampled trills most of the time) and ideally a series of unusual string effects. Having FX on Dimension strings would be mind-blowing."

Hello Community,

I'm curious to know if anyone has been using one of the multi-core iMac Pros for VSL?  I'm particularly interested in hearing any reports on the effectiveness of the 18-core machines.

Thanks,

Kenneth.

Problem:  I've downloaded and installed both the Synchron Pianos and Synchron FX content and latest players. Directory Manager is updated with their directories containing the .vsynvolume files for both libraries.

macbook pro, osx 10.12.6

Using Vienna Ensemble Pro 6.0.17011 I can insert a Synchron Pianos plugin and get the Player but no samples load when I select a player type Concert, Intimate, etc.  Not an intuitive interface. What am I missing?

Using Vienna Ensemble Pro 6.0.17011 I can insert a Synchron Player plugin and get the Player but no FX content appears in the preset/patch panel on the right. What am I missing?

There's wall somewhere here that I'm clearly hitting that I can't see. 

Help?

Thanks,

Kenneth.

So, will there be a standalone player for this piano?  I was under the impression there was one. I actually have no use for plug-in only versions. Will there be no way to host Synchron Pianos in VE Pro?  

Thanks,

Kenneth.

I downloaded the library, installed, activated, directory managed.... something's missing. Where is the Synchron Pianos Player?  Can't find it anywhere. A search for it only reveals the library installer and the uninstaller for Synchron Pianos but no player.... ???

Thanks,

Kenneth.

Hi Anand,

If you want to get anything from Philip Glass that might come even close to the "test" you proposed earlier you should definitely stay away from his film music which, as I implied earlier, is among his most manneristic work and deserving of the brand of mediocrity you initially suggested. It's certainly about as bland as musical statements get. Also... don't go near his solo piano works, particularly if he's the pianist. There he might be approaching what William dubbed the musical version of the "utter vacuum" :-)  

But... do check out his partitas for solo violin and solo cello... he's been studying Bach it seems. Not that he's there, but then again, who is?  That, of course, is another subject for an interesting discussion... who writes the best polyphonic music?  In several places in these pieces Glass achieves that lovely multi-part quality on a solo instrument that always blows me away when I listen to Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin.  And he's writing to a certain level of virtuosity for the players that he used to do in his earlier work by means of ensemble speed/tightness in the execution of ever-changing rhythmic patterning.  Check out, in particular the Chaconnes of the violin partita.  I enjoy this new approach much more as it still speaks to his own style of figuration but looks back to a master on whose shoulders to stand on and work his own ideas through. In a curious way it works.

Kenneth.

Partitas for Solo Cello, Matt Haimonvitz

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/philip-glass-partitas-for-solo-cello/1246334842

Partita for Solo Violin, Tim Fain

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/philip-glass-partita-for-solo-violin-tim-fain-plays/978054004