I am not posting much anymore, and I am now to be considered a minimalist (which you can check in the Orchestration forum). I now believe that the less said, the better.    Period.

However I must add that svonkampen is not correct about the Chamber Strings.

It is because he is trying to use them in the same manner as Appassionata strings.  They are a totally different sound, very bright and upfront and clear, and should be for the kind of sound they represent: chamber instruments in a smaller space such as hearing a Baroque piece or Brandenburg concerto, etc.  Beat Kaufman for one did some great things with them that you simply could not do with Appassionata for example.  But they are also for a modern, more intimate sound.  And they are very good for divisi - I like the way the sound contrasts with the larger ensembles because it actually gives you what happens when you do divisi of a larger ensemble.  You hear individual colors more clearly on separate lines.  "La Mer d'amore"  of mine (I think it is somewhere here) does this along with layered solos.

You guys can post that stuff all you like.....I know my ears...I get a solid mock-up sound for the Orchestra...and I know what I'm hearing......Why do you think there is a "less direct" preset for the chambers from Dietz? It's more of a "corrective" eq. Those things sound unpleasant, they actually "hurt" the ear, I don't know what mic's you used, what mic-pre's, how the trees where placed, etc............I'm standing my ground on this......SvK

PS.....I realize that you are after the sound of 6 violins vs. 20....BUT the 6 violins should sound "pleasant", musical to the ear, not harsh and brutal...the Chambers do not sound pleasant , no matter how many reviews from customers I read...

@svonkampen said:

[...] Why do you think there is a "less direct" preset for the chambers from Dietz? [...]

Errrr ... I never thought that a poor little EQ-preset would give the reason for conspiration theories... 😄 ... As you may have noticed, there are plenty of  "less direct", "more distant" etc. presets available for other instruments, too. The reason I created them is not to "correct" anything, but to show how versatile our samples are. "Yes, we can!", so to speak.

In Vienna there's a proverb saying "Geschmäcker und Ohrfeigen sind verschieden", which one could roughly translate as "Different people, different tastes". I would never dare to doubt your ears, SvK, but please accept that something that you don't like isn't necessarily bad for everybody else. "I know my ears", too. 😉

... now back on topic!

Kind regards,

I have to agree with Dietz - different strokes... Personally I love the chamber strings. I often use the chamber violins at low velocity to play passages I would normally write for non vibrato violin harmonics - example:

http://www.stugoldberg.com/mp3htmlpages/AB-M12-WhatISaid.html

(vsl concert guitar & chamber violins)

Used in this fashion they don't sound harsh/unpleasant at all to my ears.

Best,

--Stu

You are not going to get a huge dark filmscore string section - which is obviously what you want  - out of six violins. That is not the purpose of them.  It is the purpose of the other string ensembles.   

no, William, that is not what I'm after....I'm going for a small, intimate DARK chamber moment, within my HUGE dark film score ;-)..but I DO expect the chambers to sound warm, pleasant. Eq'ing them does not help much.....SvK.....PS: It is not nearly as apparent when playing short articulations (beat kaufmann demos....very nice by the way)....It IS really apparent when tring to do slow moving stuff, with the sustains.....SvK

That being said though William.........it would be nice to be able to write Appasionata / Divisi.......thought I could get the chambers there.......but nooooooo way.......Vienna needs to learn to to think "modular" , instead of seperate...All of the String Libraries should work together as well as on there own.....

SvK

I would love Appassionata Divisi! Also would love Appassionata I Complete (more articulations, dynamic patches, repetitions etc.)

I do not own Chamber Strings so cannot say but love the way Appassionata were recorded!

I'm all for Appassionata Divisi and yes, please, more articulations fo the original. :)

The number of e.g. violins which are  included in the voices of AS is 20. Of course this causes a very full, warm sound.

The number of violins in the Chamber Strings (nomen est omen!) is 6. Of course this causes a direct sound with a different character.

If the Chamber Strings would sound like the Appassionatas, I would be very disappointed!

So I think one should avoid to compare apples with oranges. Maybe one can get better results by using the orchestral strings for divisi. And indeed, it would be usefull to get the luxury of Appassionata divisi with 10 violins...

Best Rainer

That is exactly right, and what I was talking about with not getting the sound of 20 violins from 6.  They CANNOT sound like Appassionata because of the natural effect of the ensemble size.  For someone to COMPLAIN about that is very inappropriate. 

By the way the chamber strings ARE divisi for both the Orchestral and Appassionata.  That is exactly what i was just saying.   They work perfectly for that if they are handled correctly.  The entire philosophy of sampling these string sections has been to start with the generally useful Orchestral strings, create more detail in the Chamber and Solo, and then expand into the Appassionata.  Anyone who says that they don't mix is wrong.

If you want a demo of that just listen to Jay Bacal's performance of Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis which mixes all the strings, right?  Solo, Chamber, Orchestral, Appassionata if I am remembering right.    That did not sound too "nasty"  to me! 

William....the chambers and Orchestral 1 strings, were created long before the Appasionata Strings.....Obviously, one gets better at what one does, and the recording techniques utilized in Appass 1 are a testament to this.....They are well "rounded", and the chambers could use some of that  magic.....I don't want them to sound like 20, I want them to sound like pleasant chambers...........Also this forum should not serve as a "love fest".....After spending the equivalent of a down-payment on a home on Vienna (I'd do it again, as there are no other options), I should be able to critique where I believe it's justified.......SvK

Well, this is a fun thread.

I also have all the VSL string libraries and I love the Chamber Strings. Yes, they are strident. Sometimes too strident for some things.

However they mix well with each of the other libraries. I don’t know if I’ve ever done a piece without them somewhere in the mix.

Also, I would like them in a lighter sound as suggested by SvK – as I like the size of the ensemble.

It would be great to have a VSL legato strings ensemble that had very little or no vibrato. The overall VSL vibrato style does seem to be quite intense even when it is not wide or fast – no matter the size of the ensemble. Correct me if I’m wrong but the only major non-vibrato articulations are sustains – which limit the attack types available for use. 

Most overlooked library – Orchestral Strings. It has all the great articulations that are missing in the other libraries. Just like all the new VSL instruments, only the original Orchestral Cube-type instruments have all the great articulations. I tend to not use the Orchestral legatos very much (because indeed VSL has learned a great deal about sampling since they originally recorded it) but generally add many of the more under-represented articulations that Orch has in abundance.

I really miss recorded trills in all the sordini libraries.

Still you can’t beat VSL…yet. So it is in their best interest to continue to provide innovative strings libraries.  I'm sure that they know this and I would only presume they are under way to create these. 

I don't want to take this tread off-topic again, but I have to reply to this:

@svonkampen said:

[...] Also this forum should not serve as a "love fest". [...]

SvK, you know _very_ well that we are fine with any kind of constructive critique here - especially given the fact that this is our own, company-driven forum. The only occasions where we chime in are cases of obvious flames and blatant misinformation. But as much as you are invited to publish _your_ opinions, you have to be aware that everybody else has the same right to do so (including us VSLers ourselves) ... I can't see a "love fest" happening in this thread (apart from the fact that we love all our customers, of course 😉 ...) As I wrote before: Believe it or not, there are many people who are very fond of the Chamber Strings, and they say so just because of that, and not to do us (or themselves) a favour.

Kind regards,

@Jack Weaver said:

Well, this is a fun thread.

I also have all the VSL string libraries and I love the Chamber Strings. Yes, they are strident. Sometimes too strident for some things.

However they mix well with each of the other libraries. I don’t know if I’ve ever done a piece without them somewhere in the mix.

Also, I would like them in a lighter sound as suggested by SvK – as I like the size of the ensemble.

It would be great to have a VSL legato strings ensemble that had very little or no vibrato. The overall VSL vibrato style does seem to be quite intense even when it is not wide or fast – no matter the size of the ensemble. Correct me if I’m wrong but the only major non-vibrato articulations are sustains – which limit the attack types available for use. 

Most overlooked library – Orchestral Strings. It has all the great articulations that are missing in the other libraries. Just like all the new VSL instruments, only the original Orchestral Cube-type instruments have all the great articulations. I tend to not use the Orchestral legatos very much (because indeed VSL has learned a great deal about sampling since they originally recorded it) but generally add many of the more under-represented articulations that Orch has in abundance.

I really miss recorded trills in all the sordini libraries.

Still you can’t beat VSL…yet. So it is in their best interest to continue to provide innovative strings libraries.  I'm sure that they know this and I would only presume they are under way to create these. 

Thank you for this response.  As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  The chamber string are great for certain things.  They are not inherently terrible as has been suggested by svonkampen, but they are also not ONLY the result of smaller numbers.  They ARE much more strident than the appassionata, but one could easily find commercial string quartet and chamber string orchestra recordings that have a very velvety sound and not in-your-face at all.   There are many factors, not just the number of players. And, it was not Eq'd, processed, or tweaked to get it so smooth, but rather it was played and captured with those goals and aesthetics in mind.

Ideally, the library would be more modular, with different articualations that address issues of strident vs smooth, different mic distances, etc.  All of this, without comitting to the idea that a smaller group is automatically much more strident/dry/intimate etc.  After all, a string quartet playing the Barber Adagio in the Schubert Saal in Vienna, being listened to from the middle of the hall has a lot more in common with a "smooth" velvety sound than with an in your face "intimate" sound.  This can be achieved with the current selections, but it takes tweaking that is essentially trying to overcome some of the inherent character captured by the recording approach of the current selections.

I agree, still, VSL's approach is about as versatile and wide reaching as it gets...currently.  Therefore, this not a love-fest, but also not complaing.  Just looking forward to more developments, some which will hopefully not be just EQ and reverb since some things can only be captured, not tweaked.

O

Absolutely. This is something you can rely on. Although we _do_ process or samples as carefully as possible (to get rid of hiss, low-frequency rumble and so on), we have never processed our samples to "get a sound" (with the obvious exception of the Processed Percussion-set). What you hear is mostly as pure as technology allows for.

Reverb, or say: room, OTOH, is a different animal. I'm sure that sampled instruments have to played in the proper location, much like their analogue counterparts. Your hint at the Schubertsaal is a good one. It's exactly what we aim for with the Vienna MIR (... which encompasses a multi-sample of the Schubertsaal, too ;-) ...). We think that the "velvet" you're longing for will be in there.

Kind regards,