Hello there. I'm now using the VI Symphonic Cube for the first time in a commercial project. I can't argue that in many ways it is incredible and adding a whole extra dimension to the music. However I am finding some less than perfect things, so I thought I'd write them down in case anyone else agrees.
1. Performance legato poramentos have only one speed! Ok, having any realistic portamento is great but you soon realize that having it at only one speed is quite limiting for good expression. The Garritan Gofriller Cello for example has many speeds, intuitively triggered by the velocity of overlapping notes.
2. The performance legatos have only 2 velocity layers. This is a bit poor for good crossfading expression, where 5 layers or more would be good.
3. You cannot crossfade the vibrato in. Ok, I know in the video tutorials there's a way to set this up so I'll figure this out, but it would be nice to have them as part of the supplied presets which are generally very good.
4. I've mentioned this before but it would be good if rather than having a global on/off switch for velocity crossfading, you can have staccato samples triggered by note velocity and sustain samples responding to mod wheel or expression pedal crossfading, because this is just more intuitive than switching on and off while trying to perform.
In all I think I've been so spoilt by the brilliance of Giorgio Tommasini's performance programming for Garritan and the new Peter Siedlaczek trumpet that in comparison the performance expression in Vienna Instruments is quite poor, stiff and old school.
Of course though this doesn't take away from the incredible achievement of the library in general - it sounds amazing and fast runs in particular are incredibly realistic!
Anyone else agree with this?