You may be hearing how the harmonics of those notes interact; it may be a psychoacoustic effect.

Bowed instruments take a bit longer to "sound" as it takes a bit of time for the string to start resonating audibly.

Interestingly, most synth string patches and string machine patches emulate this natural quality of acoustic stringed instruments.

In both cases, I tend to pull back the MIDI if I want to align the resulting audio. Not always what I want though. :-)

It's kind of funny; that's about the only thing I use in RA! It's a Vietnamese Jaw Harp which isn't quite the same thing (it has both that version -- also known as a Filipino Kubing -- but also has an American Jaw Harp, but I found the Vietnamese verseion more musical and easier to mix).

Other Jaw Harp sample library sources include the Vietnamese/Filipino version in MOTU Ethno 2, and both Mongolian and Hungarian versions in Ethno World 5.

In spite of how cheap they are, I don't recommend buying one if you value your teeth. They are very painful to play and can be quite dangerous for the interior of your mouth due to the extreme pressure. I got rid of mine years ago.

Thanks for the clarification. I was quite concerned last night because I bought Room Packs 2 through 4 individually, and it was only $13 less than buying the full suite, but I wasn't sure until now whether my Room Pack 1 would still work and whether I should have bought the Bundle instead.

Now I know I can rest easy that I did the right thing, and that we'll receive new/permanent/unbundled Room Pack 1 licenses in a few days. I'm too busy recording right now to do final production work for a week or so anyway, so will not be messed up if I'm in limbo for a few days on Room Pack 1. Right now though, it works in my just-installed updated to MIR PRO 24.

This is a great gift; I noticed the files in my user area a week or two ago and downloaded them, but it seemed the samples were the same so I was already pretty sure the difference was in the programming.

I have been recommending these to people for years, hoping they'd come up for actual sale.

The only problem I had with the original set was that it was difficult to get usable volume without adding gain -- and this is coming from someone who typically records at -24 dB down from full scale!

I haven't had a chance to use the new matrices/presets/etc. yet, as I'm in the middle of moving from an apartment to a house (where I can set up a proper studio -- yay!).

Sorry; it was why I initially didn't say much and didn't mention the vendor. After the additional responses I figured I had misjudged in my caution. I didn't see a way to delete posts but can go back and just delete the content so they're all blank, if that is preferred.

Oh, I see -- it's brand new, and for some reason wasn't announced anywhere but their own website. No wonder I didn't see it.

Wow, this sounds fabulous, and I like all the mic choices (including Decca-tree)! This is a no-brainer. I need several haprsichord and church organ choices, so as wonderful as the ones from VSL are, they will never be quite enough.

Warning to those who visit the Spitfire Harpsichord video demo: the voice-over is so soft you'll need to remove all trim from your active monitors, but then be prepared to turn it down once the musical content starts!

Also, I see the discount on their news page, but it doesn't show up when I try to purchase. Maybe it expired already? I don't understand these vendors that have so many "secret releases" and sales that people on their mailing list don't even hear about! Who has time to visit a bunch of vendors' websites now and then just to see what's up? I go to Sonic State and KVR News to see what's coming out.

Thanks for mentioning Spitfire -- I've been meaning to get around to buying some of their libraries, but didn't even know they had covered the harpsichord! presumably not a standalone library like the harp. I'll look into it shortly.

I finally got around to comparing all 20 or so of my harpsichord sound sources last night, and VSL's harpsichord came out the clear winner by a country mile; albeit with fewer choices than other libraries in terms of stops, registers, etc.

It is shameful how bad most of the others are -- especially the Realsamples historic libraries. I wish I hadn't wasted my money on those. They are almost completely unusable. The idea behind them is interesting and should provide a LOT of variety, but the execution is sloppy, and scripting is almost non-existant.

The next-best source is Soniccouture's recent Conservatoire Collection (which also includes a Theorbo and a Baroque Guitar). The output is insanely low, and this is coming from someone who generally records at -24 dBFS! That's my main complaint, aside from it being a somewhat limited collection (yet well-recorded and pretty good scripting). It offers a French and Flemish Harpsichord (I generally detest the latter).

Surprisingly, after last week's Version 4 update, Pianoteq is now in the race finally, but for some reason their Grimaldi emulation sounds more like a Blanchet model than the one labeled Blanchet! In some ways this is the most playable one out there, and the timbre is fairly convincing finally. But it offers no variation on 2 x 8', 8' + 4', etc. (unless I missed that on a deeper editing page).

Precisionsound's Blanchet library is also quite good, but closer listening revealed some phasing issues and inconsistencies that ultimately put it a bit behind Soniccouture and Pianoteq. It's a perfectly usable library though, if not soloed (for which purpose I will now use VSL).

Everything else trails FAR FAR behind! That includes the Realsamples collections (English, Spinet, Lute-Harpsichord, Italian, French, Dutch, Dulcitone), EWQLSO, Bolder Sounds (ancient, so no surprise, and their newer libraries are wonderful and even some of their older/smaller ones, so I wouldn't rule them out for future releases), and MachFive (from Acoustisamples, I think). Also even my earlier favourite years ago, which was MOTU Symphonic Instrument. It sounds a bit compressed and phasey compared to newer offerings.

Up until a few years back, I owned a Roland C-80 Digital Harpsichord. It was fun for a few years, but ultimately disappointing as it sounds phasey and compressed as well as a bit baked-in even when "dry", which is typical of Roland. The newer C-30 is a big improvement but I can't see spending $4000 for it, and also only one or two of its models sound good. Maybe the next rev will be "the one".

Anyway, this is all just meant to point towards why I would like to see VSL go for some of the other ancient instruments, as even the somewhat limited Harpsichord library shows that anything they come out with will be miles ahead of anything else currently available.

Dennis Burns is a great person and a talented sampler and developer, and has really stepped up his game these past two years after finally deciding to take the Kontakt platform super-seriously and devote a lot of energy to scripting.

BOB Early Music is old but still quite useful, as are his unusual folk instruments (such as a fretless banjo, which I actually used in a soundtrack and was just what the doctor ordered to distinguish two dueling banjos from each other).

Chances are high that Bolder Sounds will issue new products eventually that take some of these older and smaller sample sets to the next level, as they've already been doing that in conjunction with brand-new releases.

RA is RA. What more do you need to know? That's the product name, so there isn't much else to say on the matter.

RA is truly awful, and the more narrowly focused products from that vendor aren't much better. For the ethnic stuff, there are lots of possibilities now, and the revised Ethno World 5 is now (finally) one of the better choices.

As for baroque and earlier, Soniccouture came out with a small but excellent collection last year that I highly recommend. And later this month, Best Service has Eduarado Tarilonte's ancient instruments collection, but it unfortunately uses the Yellow Tools Engine.

I sold my Moeck Rothenberg Recorders (SS, S, A, and T -- no B) to a close friend a few years back, after finally picking up the flute. I just didn't enjoy playing Baroque Recorder anymore at that point, compared to Modern Flute. But the sample libraries are not very helpful.

You could go with Sampletekk for a more natural tone but little expression, or Precisionsound for lots of expression but too much baked-in vibrato and other problems of that nature -- it is designed for New Age and Film Scoring vs. authentic playing.

There's been a lot of activity regarding Recorders of late. Even Ethno World has a few somewhat usable ones.

I may just buy another Alto Recorder at some point (my favourite voicing). Technology has improved since the Moeck designs of the 70's/80's. But maybe VSL will surprise us, since there probably is an actual need for these amongst volume customers (unlike Crumhorn).

That is certainly true, but Session Strings Pro is a must-have for anyone occasionally doing Disco or R&B style strings. They are deliberately cheesy, but in a good way. VSL is NOT cheesy, so is not the ideal match. I recently replaced some of my VSL tracks with Sessions Strings Pro and it was a HUGE improvement for those particular pieces. I don't think any level of production would have taken VSL to that same place, as VSL is played professionally in a classical way, with classical articulations, intonation, and expression. Session Strings can go dark, warm, cold, or harsh. It's very versatile and easy to work with. I would NEVER use it for anything classical or Broadway. But oh does it ever evoke the 60's/70's!

As fas as VSL is concerned, as of next week I will own everything VSL makes except the Windows-only stuff. Chamber Strings remains my favourite, as I prefer more intimate orchestrations where there is more expression in each part. I rarely ever even double winds and brass, unless doing Wagnerian/Straussian stuff. I generally stick to Chamber Orchestra type instrumentation.

If I were working with a real orchestra, it might be different. Probably I am just more successful with smaller orchestrations because they are more manageable in terms of not having to do so much layering and sample-switching to keep things from getting muddy, as happens so quickly with larger groupings since that's not how real orchestras play (we would need True Divisi, which we don't have with VSL).

I look forward to the arrival of Orchestral Strings I and Appassionata Strings II so that I can finally do complete comparisons of every voicing of the string family. I do find that certain articulations draw me to one vs. the other, regardless of my intended ensemble size. In those cases, I do some doubling if I needed a larger ensemble.

I'm actually surprised just how different Chamber, Orchestral and Appassionata sound from each other, given that the conditions and in some cases the players were probably about the same. And I'm really glad that's the case, because it allows me to "fake" Divisi to a certain degree.

Understood. I too have extremely high standards but this is the first time ever that something has come along in the Renaissance/Baroque realm that would work in a mock-up as opposed to only buried as an "interesting" sound in some huge production.

Choir-wise, it sounds like Soundiron's upcoming Mars and Venus choir libraries may be of interest. Only one demo so far (of Mars) but they MIGHT have done a good job of word-building for Old Church Slavonic and Gregorian/Latin contexts. I'm looking forward to it if it lives up to its promise, and can see it possibly mating with the ancient instrument libraries.

By "Hollywood", I quite specifically mean the modern movie productions that are physically based out of there and run by the big companies.

I don't consider Pixar to be Hollywood even though they are popular and widely distributed. They are located practically next door to where I work (SF Bay Area) and have different production values story-wise and musically as well. Same with Francis Ford Coppolla, who sometimes is big but is NOT Hollywood (he too is locally based). What a marvelous self-written soundtrack to "Tetro" last year! Didn't know he was a composer!

I like dynamics and contrast in the music, and story-building and character development. In other words, traditional movie-making values. And thus I contribute to local independent and short films, but put bread on the table with my day job in the audio business (where I cross paths with big names fairly frequently, but fortunately ones that I have respect for :-)), so that I don't have to take music jobs I wouldn't want.

How can you judge the samples when you didn't buy it?

You are judging the demos, which are produced in a way that I don't like also. I've learned to look past that stuff with many of these manufacturers, who for money reasons have to cater primarily to Hollywood type composers (not my bag -- I DESPISE Hollywood production values).

Nevertheless, a VSL take on ancient instruments would be different and much welcomed.

Note that the Soniccouture library is based on a SPECIFIC historical collection in Cambridge England and is limited to what was at hand. Therefore there will be no follow-on (though I did let them know about another collection they might have access to, if interested).

The only other company I have hopes for when it comes to ancient instruments is MOTU, because they "get" it. They are located in Boston, which is one of the world's major centers of ancient music (and instrument) revivalism and the location of the Friederich Heune Collection.

MOTU Symphonic Instrument had a tiny collection of ancient instruments; not enough for me to keep it. But I would be tempted back in if a follow-on version included more in that vein. They used mostly super-close-miking, so stringed instruments were a bit raspy.

But the point is that the company is made up of people who are musicians first and technicians second, so they have the right mindset to understand the needs of composers. I have petitioned them before to do more with ancient instruments -- especially as they have access.

I too have a strong interest in Renaissance and Baroque instruments -- even Medieval instruments.

Most of what's out there is low quality, and to my knowledge there is NO library with viola da gamba or viola d'amore.

Although most of their libraries (except a few of the pianos) are low res, the Sampletekk Recorders library is fairly detailed, if not terribly expressive. Precisionsound has one too, but they chose to bias theirs towards pop music, with no access to dry samples or ones without vibrato.

I think MOTU Symphonic Instrument included a Lute. I keep hoping for an update on that VI.

Precisionsound has a detailed Mandolin library but it's not one that's suited for classical work. There are quite a few other mandolins out there in various ethnic and guitar libraries, but I won't mention any of them here as NONE are appropriate for classical use.

There is a brand-new Renaissance and Baroque library from Soniccouture that is MAGNIFICENT, very detailed and expressive. It covers several holes that have been neglected by other sample library developers. NONE are part of your list, however.

Nevertheless, here's the link, which could come in handy for others. I bought it immediately, and am pleased as punch as I have been wanting a quality Theorbo and Hurdy-Gurdy for some time.

http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/20-experimental--ancient--rare/g30-the-conservatoire-collection/

At least the Theorbo is a type of Lute, which you would probably need to match to a standard Lute in many works anyway.

When I finally replaced my 9-10 year old PPC G4 iMac last month with a 2010 MacPro, I thought "all my problems would go away".

Well, they did, with one glaring exception: eLicenser hiccups!

Maybe going from a behind-the-times machine to an ahead-of-the-times machine put me outside the range of Steiberg's "commitment" to the Mac? :-)

Whatever the case, the latest update to Mac OS X Snow Leopard (I could never go past Tiger on the 700 MHz iMac), which is 10.6.5, MAY have corrected the problem, as I miraculously have have a week's worth of sessions now without a single eLicneser hiccup.

I tried to make things better by off-loading most of my download library licenses to a separate eLicenser key, but I still have upwards of 40+ licenses on the main key (the other one is in storage as those licenses are redundant vs. the DVD collections).

When I set up the new key, I actually moved my most important licenses to that key and left the unused ones behind on the old key. Everything went great until I got to around 20 licenses. Then I started getting the familiar "license not found" errors mid-session, only correctable by rebooting the computer.

There is a new iLok on its way right now, but I haven't read all the details yet about whether it supports 64-bit apps.

At any rate, the most obvious thing VSL could do to help, is to offer consolidated licenses to people who own big chunks of the library. Maybe an all-brass license, etc. I guess the tricky thing is that this might get complicated if more instruments in that category are added later.

I've kept my computer on for several days now, which is something I NEVER did in the past. One of the reasons (not the least of which is flakey power in my region), was that "stale" sessions were the most frequent cause of eLicenser troubles.

So I keep my fingers crossed that my sessions will go well today. VSL isn't all that I have on that key: the Eiosis plug-ins, a few soft synths, and one or two other vendors are on that key as well. All have the same problem as VSL licenses.

The Vienna Suite licenses, for some reason, have flagged the error far more frequently than Vienna Instruments. I have no idea why that woulkd be, other than that maybe it's because Vienna Suite uses several licenses, whereas each Vienna Instruments instance presumably only has to look up the license for the library that is being loaded?

One thing that is not clear to me, since the Extended Library multiple-purchase discount is only offered through Ilio and other US dealers such as audiomidi.com, is whether this summer special only applied to those buying full-priced Extended licenses, or also applies to those who have existing discounts due to other purchases.

In other words, can Ilio and others apply those discounts at their end before computing the total discount for multiple Extended licenses, or is this deal only applicable to those who do not have outstanding discounts (for instance, due to having Special Edition, some individual Download Instruments, etc.)?

Just a quick question, as I won't be able to install my copy until I get a new computer or hard drive (I'm too close to the edge right now):

Is the download-only Soprano Choir fully contained in this full Choir edition, or were those different sample sessions and/or a different articulation set?

I'm just trying to priotizie the order I handle projects in, as I love the dl-only library and bought the full standard+extended Choir Library last week, but don't want to waste time tracking stuff with the dl-only Soprano library now if I'm going to find that the sopranos in the full Choir edition sound a lot different (in which case I'll need to allocate time to compare more patches first).

I think this question might help others who are dithering last-minute on whether to splurge for the full Choir edition as well (not my project prioritization issues, but details about the carryover/overlap/etc, of the dl-only Soprano library with the new full Choir DVD box).

Many of the current small-profile midi-towers and Mac Mini configurations are shyer in the RAM department than the CPU -- although the new Mini's can supposedly take up to 8 GB (Apple only support 4 GB in their official statements). Some of the Windows-based small-profile PC's only take 2 GB!

What would you say is the cutoff point before an all-in-one usage of VE PRO on the main computer is more efficient than offering up a slave computer? I unfortunately can't convert my current iMac to that use as it is near end-of-life in terms of compatibility, but am considering getting a Mac Mini or similar Windows midi-tower before getting my next Main Computer (of course this means sticking with VE3 in the short term -- I already bought VE PRO though).

I don't blame VSL for the Intel-only route, but it does have the unfortunate effect of rendering most near-returement computers useless as VE slaves. So when buying two new computers, it becomes a question of the advantages in strict terms vs. the convenience of reusing an otherwise-junked older computer. :-)

I understand the latency to be equivalent to one buffer, so there doesn't seem to be an issue in that regards with running a slave vs. all-in-one on the main computer. And it's great that mixed OS's aren't an issue for the MIDI and Audio over LAN protocol (I didn't think they would be).

For those contemplating using Windows vs. Mac OS X on the slave, and Mac OS X on the master, one advantage I can see is access to more plug-ins and VI's that are Windows-only. I can't think of any that are Mac-only, except proprietary MAS format from MOTU (which can't run outside DP anyway).

All things else being equal, are there known performance differences between VE PRO running on a Windows slave vs. a Mac OS X slave, in terms of how much memory one needs on that computer?

By "built-in" EQ etc. do you mean like the new channel strip feature in Digital Performer 7, which is just a short-cut for having to insert some of the most common plug-ins individually into each channel?

I don't know what you mean by speed-varying phrases etc. I guess you're referring to some of the tempo-based Performances? I never use those -- it's just not the way I work. But maybe you mean speed-sensitive articulation? If so, VSL has that in spades, but mostly in the Extended licenses. I use them all the time, and they are quite organic and smooth. In fact, I doubt I would have invested in the extended licenses without them.

I forget the other question now. Too bad replying to a topic hides the topic from view.

Edit: OK, micro-tuning. This could be useful, if you're talking about creating scales (you can find pitches not in the standard scale via pitch bend, of course). There are a number of ways of going about this, in hardware, with MIDI controllers, via MIDI mapping, pitch bend, in software, etc. I think this topic was discussed in depth here a year or so ago, even if in the context of ethnic music (you may be thinking more in terms of contemporary classical scoring though). I seem to recall VSL responding that it wasn't worth the effort, but offering many suggestions on different approaches, each of which would have different merits and pitfalls depending on your context and whether you compose at a keyboard, in a notation program, or inside a DAW.

For a sanity check, I recommend bringing up Vienna Instruments in standalone mode outside of Digital Performer first, and also launching your eLicneser software to make sure it sees all the licenses, in addition to launching the VI Directory Manager and having it re-scan the content to make sure it finds all the libraries.

I would recommend performing those steps in the reverse order that I listed them.

Sometimes my eLicenser loses its connection, and this will cause the right-hand side of the VI interface to be blank. It can also be blank if it defaults to the Presets vs. other modes. But I'm guessing you already clicked on the other tabs around that circle in the main control section of the interface.

You can also bring up Activity Monitor to see which VSL processes are running, but don't be fooled by the status saying "Not Responding", as that is a red herring. If you see the number changing rapidly, it may just still be churning through the library content, but usually that completes before the main GUI shows on-screen.

Heehee, they didn't say WHICH holidays. :-)

Hmm, I should look up Austria's holiday schedule on the 'net...

This is a difficult problem to resolve, but Edgar does have a good suggestion about ways to try to quantify the issue, so that more of us can determine what are safe updates to do, whether we're better off with or without a hub, etc.

As someone who has developed software and firmware for almost thirty years and been in several standards committees and cross-industry partnerships, I have deep sympathy for the dilemma that VSL faces in allocating resources for licenser issues vs. internal development.

I got bitten, for the second time this year, on a proposed release date for software, by an unexpected update by Apple (this past summer, it was simultaneous updates by Apple and Sun), that broke certain aspects of long-working features. Do you think our clients care that it isn't "our fault" and that we have no direct visibility on the problem or any way to get customers to back out a Java update (not possible on the Mac, thanks to Apple's philosophy)? This ties up resources, which is hard with a small development team (or, in my case, individual). So it is always a balancing act.

Users do not expect vendors to "pass the buck". So it is not surprising that there is some extreme anger being expressed here. My own anger, however, is directed at Steinberg. Yet I do accept that VSL cannot and should not be cavalier -- nor do I think they are behaving that way, by any means. Rather, I think Edgar himself has pointed out that there are so many variables, that it would be difficult for any vendor to test every possible combination of what clients may have.

So this brings us back to the licensing choice itself. I personally feel that VSL should investigate abandoning eLicenser for something else -- especially as many of us now have large libraries and thus this approach to license verification is going to be a performance hit at some level, even in the best of circumstances. But as I have a very positive experience with another approach, I am more confident that eLicneser needn't necessarily be the only safe and viable choice for VSL to protect their property.

B.F.D. 2.0 introduced a new license protection scheme by fxpansion, that is easy, safe, and non-invasive at run-time. I have no idea what they did, or even if they licensed it from someone else, but it seems to work for them, and though they don't have as many libraries as VSL does, their libraries are as big and deep as VSL's, so the stakes are about as high regarding piracy protection.

Perhaps VSL could contact fxpansion (who are not competitive with VSL) and find out what the options might be?

But who am I to prioritize this for them? I am merely suggesting it. There seem to be workarounds for almost everyone's problems with eLicenser, even if it can be a PITA at times. I'd rather have the Choir Library ready, personally. Choices do have to be made. If we want VSL to prioritize responsibility for eLicneser problems, we suffer in other ways. Think about it.

Software engineers have a tendency to be too abstract and not grounded in the real world implications of their work (this is a big reason why I left the computer industry for the audio industry eleven years ago). I wish something could be done about that, but it is unlikely to change. I consider it inexcusable, when a license-oriented vendor such as PACE/iLok or eLicenser, doesn't calculate the harm to millions of end users of products for which they only themselves have an abstract connection. It's a disconnect, wherein the license vendor doesn't have sufficient incentive to make sure everything works.

License protection, for better or worse, has to be less punitive regarding a user's hardware/software upgrade cycle and budgeting choices for when to get a new computer, than other software and hardware. This is probably why PACE/iLok chose the web browser as their licensing interface, to better decouple themselves from system requirements (although I am unable to use their website on certain popular and robust browsers on the Mac, and let them know, to which they replied that I should use Safari instead, even though that is a sluggish and relatively unsafe browser overall).

Greg,

The Jaco demo impressed me a great deal though, and after reviewing other fretless bass guitar options from other vendors, I really couldn't find anything that matches it in detail, execution, and especially fluidity and phrasing. If this library ends up getting picked by the KVR members (which I am not one of and have no intention of becoming due to the high percentage of trolls on that forum), as the sale item for your holiday promotional, you can be sure that I will purchase it.

I am sorry, but Pettinhouse wins my vote for electric guitar playability and believability, and of course I also find VSL's excellent 7-string electric guitar to be invaluable for contexts that need that pre-overdriven sound (for which it is intended, as that is the way electric guitar is usually used in modern orchestral compositions).

At any rate, it is all relative, as there are many good choices these days -- especially compared to even five years ago. Phrasing matters to me way more than timbre, as the latter can at least be modified somewhat via filters. Not everyone has this focus on their library evaluation, and this is one of the reasons I am in the minority when it comes to being in love with Pianoteq (which most people seem to hate).

Argh, now you're taunting those of us on the Mac platform that will never get to use MIR! :-)