SE1 TLDR: THE GOOD:
- Comprehensive collection of solo orchestral instruments plus a few string and brass ensembles, including a full solo string sextet and a terrific new recording of a Hamburg D.
- Great "Synchron player" plugin much better overall than Kontakt or anything else in the biz. though Kontakt still the features leader.
- "Vanilla" flavor i.e. unopinionated sound and playing style that could be used anywhere. Arrives pre-mixed with good consistency.
- Every instrument included is 100% professionally usable, if with some mix and controller adjustments.
- Terrific value when on sale for $200.
THE BAD:
- Recorded sounds 20+ years old, not up to current standards (other than Hamburg D). But certainly acceptable.
- The "Synchron-ized" convolution plugin does too much at once, panning, EQing, and reverbing the sound in one control, you have to hunt for a compatible alternate impulse in the list if you can find one, or lose the Synchron convolution sound entirely.
- The 2nd violins are just the same recording as the 1st violins a14, with a different convolution.
- I had to minorly adjust every preset's mix to fit my taste, I haven't had to do that with BBCSO Pro or Orchestral Tools. So if you can't mix or afford mixing, well, I hope you like the tone they picked out for you. It's not that bad, fairly foolproof. But not so contemporary. With second-tier library vendors, I basically have to rebuild the sound from scratch, so Vienna remains a first-tier outfit even on their old libraries.
THE UGLY:
- Most of the bass instruments (cellos, basses, tuba, bass trombone) are all hard-panned right in the Synchron convolution plugin, you can't rearrange the stage without picking a totally different tone for a different instrument, or collapsing the virtual space. Putting all the bass in the right channel is a dismal choice for recorded music, and these libraries are only used for recordings. I suppose they want to sell you Mir Pro for that.
- They demand you pay double for "Volume 1 Plus" which gets you 25% more sampling time for mostly rarely-used articulations but some often-used ones as well. Not sure I'll spring for that, or later volumes, until I miss something.
After suffering for buying Vienna Smart Orchestra + XP instead of SE1, I finally got SE1 in the current sale for about $200 with the free Antares Choir plugin thrown in at AudioDeluxe. While I may at some point enjoy VSO+XP for the sketching workflow it was intended for, what I really wanted was some solo instruments to fill out the Epic Orchestra 2.0 that came with Vienna Ensemble Pro 7 that I bought when I got hired for my first classical orchestration gig, on a project I was doing my usual (for decades now) track/edit/mix/master on. I definitely should have bought SE1 for that, but I ended up buying Berlin Inspire 1+2 when it went on sale for $350 and that may have been better overall for that project. Since then I've added BBCSO Pro on sale for $500 and several other libraries eg Century Brass Complete for $150. Still, the SE1 is a very useful addition.
In fact I almost think the other library makers assume you have SE1 (or the older Vienna Cube era stuff) and make their libraries specifically different from it, but these old Vienna recordings are sort of the "vanilla" flavor that is more or less neutral in sound and character and the other libraries sometimes stretch a bit trying to be different. Which can be a problem, or it can be hip. Right now Orchestral Tools and Spitfire (and if you like Summer Blockbuster action trailers, Heavyocity) are the hip companies, with CSS and CineSamples starting to look a bit old, and Vienna and EastWest the aging stalwarts. EastWest seems somewhat moribund as they used SonuScore for their newer recordings...SonuScore being firmly in the second tier along with 8Dio, SoundIron, Audio Imperia, etc.
If "vanilla" doesn't appeal to you, don't get VSL, because it's all quite neutral in character. The presentations are fairly perfectionistic and restrained, with Orchestral Tools having more atmosphere and gloss, and Spitfire having more attitude. (Heavyocity, again, takes attitude to the tasteless no-neck level. Spitfire is classy attitude.) Since I make stuff happen for other people's music, I snap up the whole range when the deals are sweet enough so I can handle whatever the client wants. Or is already using on their session.
People considering SE1 are likely, like me, fairly new to orchestration, and the Vienna product line is historically confusing. The way it works is, they have old recordings done in a dry studio ("The Silent Stage") 20+ years ago with equipment that was OK then but I wouldn't use nowadays. They have an incomplete new set of recordings as well, at the old scoring stage they took over called Synchron. This is a live room, with a natural reverb burnt into even the close mics, and much better equipment in use. The old recordings sound somewhat scratchy and distant compared to the vibrant and detailed Synchron recordings, BUT, the recording and room quality isn't everything. The players and instruments were sometimes better in the old recordings I think, and in a dense arrangement, I doubt many could tell the difference in quality, but they may in character.
For a similar set (minus the pianos and solo strings) they now offer Synchron Prime Edition with the new recordings for about double the SE1 price. I demoed this (seems they yank the free demo offer pretty quickly) and decided not to buy it right now, but I am still interested in it when it goes on a better sale. The recordings for it are all deluxe quality although they do cut corners on legatos and articulations to preserve value for their premium versions of the same performances. I found the strings to be the strongest component.
And on SE1 I have to say the strings are again the strongest part. Everything is solid enough but the strings are where these recordings are still competitive. "You can never have enough choices of strings" people say and I do recommend having a variety of strings. The weak point of the SE1 strings is the 2nd violins are just a different convolution on the 1st violins, and don't even move much in the panning, so hard to get much variety there. Also the solo strings needed a fair amount of mixing help to stand on their own, but once adjusted, they work for more than just first chair duties and, while bright and forte compared to many other solo strings offerings, certainly have a place. It's a terrific value to get any solo strings at all at this price.
Speaking of needing mix help to stand alone, there is actually a Bösendorfer Imperial included as well as the modern Synchron Pianos Hamburg Steinway D. This old recording can be rescued just inside the Synchron Player, perhaps adding the free Soft Imperial as a piano layer. I've done that in this thread and offer the presets for it there as a gift to anyone making it this far through this review:
https://www.vsl.co.at/community/posts/t59173-Free-Preset-for-SE1-Bosendorfer#post311943
All in all, this SE1 was an excellent purchase, especially for the pianos and solo strings. The brass and woodwinds are useful, there is a full octet of solo winds which you usually don't see. The percussion is surprisingly good, although the "Synchronize" impulses tend to get a bit too hazy vs. the actual Synchron recordings, overwhelming the instrument fundamentals, while getting too direct-sounding when turned down. Those impulses work best on the ensemble strings, which are nearly perfect right out of the box. I will probably always have something from this library in a large session as it has so much useful stuff in it, and in a large session its minor flaws won't be too glaring.
I have zero conflicts of interest in the virtual instruments business.
Archived in case of censorship, which happened on my Prime Edition review.