It looks like Mike is repressing his love for VSL, don't fight it anymore. [:P]

@Errikos said:

I don't know how I give that impression, but just in case... I actually know what there is in their libraries from their own videos. One finger plays a whole orchestra chord, right? Another finger(!) in Hollywoodwinds plays the woodwind parts of The Raiders rhythm, or the Flying Theme's rhythm, no? Properly instrumentated, voiced, and spaced for the cripple's uses, whatever those may be...

Those sorts of things are a tiny fraction of what they offer (and the one part I don't use), the vast majority of their libraries are individual samples for composing original melodies just like VSL (and I'd say they'd be just fine for all those composers you listed, in a some cases probably better than anything VSL offers).  And VSL offers things like canned runs and trills, right?

I just think it's tacky to use a site like this for wholesale bashing of other companies, and I'm disappointed that VSL often seems to tolerate it.

Well "those sort of things" are what infuriate me, and not whatever else they do. If a pharmaceutical company produces the best range of pain-killers, vaccines, etc. but also produces a line of carcinogenic drug that it pushes with the rest of its product-line, I am against that company. if the rest of the library is what the VSL will be ten years from now I don't care, and I did not refer to that aspect of the company did I? You're seriously comparing the completely generic major scale runs or trills that VSL offers with E.T. and The Raiders of Cinescamples?!

As far as what's tacky, each to his own of course, but I find your disappointment regarding VSL's tolerance for others' company-bashing posts puzzling, when I am sure you have observed their equal tolerance of people's praise for rival products on this forum, as well as their tolerance of themselves getting bashed by their own customers. 

I appreciate Dan's maintenance of good humour, it is certainly your company I was referring to, and even if your heart was in the right place (i.e. giving competent people a box of quick tools), I'm greatly concerned as to what the future will bring, for these 'noises' and 'shrieks' that you mention (but also 'ostinati' etc.), I don't want them to grow into something even more substantial. Because, let's face it, most of your buyers couldn't notate those 'noises' and 'shrieks' if their lives depended upon it. I am (just in case anyone's missed it) against fraud in general, and when a charlatan presents a demo/score to a director, where less than half the notes have been composed by that charlatan, it makes me crazy... 

Everybody: If you can notate it / MIDI it, do it. If you can't, IT'S NOT YOUR MUSIC.

@Dietz: Now I've said all I had to say. [;)]

@mike connelly said:

[...]

I just think it's tacky to use a site like this for wholesale bashing of other companies, and I'm disappointed that VSL often seems to tolerate it.

Mike, don't be unfair. We tolerate a lot of praise for other companies' products here (even "competing" ones), and we will tolerate some "bashing", too (even when it is against our own work). Apart from that, I've asked for moderation just a few postings before.

The only reason why I didn't close this thread up to now is the simple fact that we try to avoid any unnecessary restrictions in our forum (...again: even if the basic tenor of a topic is against our own products).

PS ... oh, Errikos was faster. 8-)

Well I think it's been a lively debate anyway. I've shifted my position from when I began, in the face of such a strong defence of VSL I've appreciated that although extra velocity layers, more round robins and many portamento layers at different speeds and dynamics would be a nice improvement to see from VSL's strings, at the same time VSL do so many more detailed things than others that the library is also superior in many ways. 

And... I've also had a nice warming from Errikos's mighty flame, for which I am truly thankful.

An epic chugga chugga Amen to that!

dagmarpiano,

thanks for being so cordial and friendly in your replies.  That is an unusual experience.

It is not a question of competition or what product sounds better... All I can say is that the VSL DVD-Libraries were recorded many years ago, but everything sounds still up-to-date. I am also using East West SO Platinum, Symphobia and also Cinesample Libraries. If I got a customs order for a quick production with low budget, I am using low budget and time-saving libraries like Cinesamples, Symphobia or EastWest, but when I score for our theatres, high budget orders or for Films, then I automatically compete with a real orchestra, so then I have to use VSL to reach the best result close to real orch-players. OK, you never replace a Real Orchestra, but in my case I am mixing VSL with real players; believe me this is the best situation for such or similar productions. Especially the possibilities of the VI Pro are amazing comparing with human players and I don't want to miss it. Yes, it needs a lot of time to configure every track and sequence exactly, but the result is still amazing. I am very sure that VSL will create a similar string product like DIMENSION BRASS, but we talk about 10 or 14 Violin players, I think that would be a hard task. I tested East West Hollywood Strings and they still have the same bad up- and down-bow as in Platinum before. OK, you can say in the final mix no one is listening to an exact played down-bow or a clean marcato, but the string quality itself is the point. Newer Disney Films will be partly produced with East-West products, yeah and so it sounds, it is a question of a budget and contracts; in my opinion and my recording experience with human players VSL is closer than every other product I am using and I have tested!

Finally again, it is a question of what you want to do. I don't like such discussions. It's a bit beside the real point.

@William said:

dagmarpiano,

thanks for being so cordial and friendly in your replies.  That is an unusual experience.

Thanks William. I did get initially ruffled by Errikos mocking my "great" composers. I even woke up in the night really annoyed, the night after reading that, thinking of a thousand angry replies. But in the morning I just realised I was being protective towards them because we have a good team and the composers have put in a huge amount of time and care while having to display a lot of faith in my direction (I couldn't pay much at all, just a promise of royalties later on, which thankfully is working out well for them).  By "great" I know it sounds like Great Composer as in Bach and Beethoven but I was being colloquial. I meant, they are composers and they're great people and I personally think they are very talented at what they do, having rejected many tracks by otherwise good writers who happen to not understand the genre very well.

So anyway, apart from that moment, I can see that it's all good natured underneath the fiery rhetoric, and I think it's right to be passionate and heartfelt about your values, especially if you're a composer and music is your heart and soul.

This is becoming an interesting, and relatively long forum thread, and yet... VSL has not blinked once to indicate that New VSL Strings are in the works, or will be released in the near future.  

Hopefully they are seriously listening to our requests, and are developing a New Strings Library to complement the current line-up of Strings they currently offer, or maybe it's already something they have been working on, and is very close to be announced.   

Should I be optimistic ?

Strongly agree with most of the remarks made here. In terms of shaping the fine points of string playing,  VSL strings are still unsurpassed in my experience. However, combining them with other libraries seems to be the way to bring about truly high-end realism and compensate for sporadic "thin" sound (f.e. I am just in the process of getting some pretty spectacular results with the VSL-HSO-MIR combination...). With all combinations of this sort the following rule seems to apply: you have to use the VSL strings as the main bulk, and "melt" the other library to this main bulk. The other way around tends to produce inferior results.

@Errikos said:

I'm greatly concerned as to what the future will bring, for these 'noises' and 'shrieks' that you mention (but also 'ostinati' etc.), I don't want them to grow into something even more substantial. Because, let's face it, most of your buyers couldn't notate those 'noises' and 'shrieks' if their lives depended upon it. I am (just in case anyone's missed it) against fraud in general, and when a charlatan presents a demo/score to a director, where less than half the notes have been composed by that charlatan, it makes me crazy... 

Everybody: If you can notate it / MIDI it, do it. If you can't, IT'S NOT YOUR MUSIC.

There are many real-life instances I can make the self-same argument behind.  You appear to have the opinion that music is composed in a kind of vacuum and the 'composer' is a God; and anyone that doesn't follow this need to micromanage every detail isn't a composer. Extend that some more and you should demand of yourself that you play every instrument in the orchestra, or at least every roll on a drum must be something you can 'midi'... every trill, every ornamental detail, every gesture must be written out as it was imagined perfectly by The Composer God (Baroque performance practice rather refutes you on this, does it not?) In The Beginning...

NB:  for instance, a buzz roll on a snare isn't available to the piano roll composer unless at least a start of the roll is provided in the library. It isn't possible to achieve the effect otherwise. I am an experienced percussionist and am not THE LEAST interested in doing more work than I have to, to realize a part. VSL addresses this for composers on one level, Animato addresses it on another. EG: I have used more than once *loops* in VSL Percussion, 'Thunder Sheet' that provided me with the perfect effect, that wasn't exactly my preconception but did a lot more and enriched the piece. Following your arguments, I should have shot myself in the foot before proceeding, behind the idea 'I am grander (ie., need to be in my own mind) than anything anyone else can provide' and come away with something less.

So, your argument is shown, by resorting to the real world, to be of the fallacy, reduction to the absurd. You have a straw man you're leaning on as well, 'loops users', which you will have forced on anyone that doesn't find your requirements to be theirs particularly, in this regard.

You have an opinion you state as if a fact, 'most people that would buy this library are incompetent'. You have that as a premise going in. Your premise is supported only by your opinion and both are circular to each other. I looked closely at Animato and I understand there are a number of things I won't have thought of by particulars but given a context might be very useful and inspiring in the creation of a composition. You will eschew any/all of this in favor of your prejudice (and what might appear to be a pretty grandiose delusion of what a composer does, or 'must do'), and impoverish your creativity accordingly I think.

@noldar12 said:

One of the greatest things about Vienna is the very fact that it is not "Hollywood".  One can do so much more with it in so many different styles, compared to the orchestral offerings of the "noble competition".  From former experience (years ago) as an orchestral musician, to me, VSL, more than any other library sounds the closest to a real symphony.

The stylistical flexibility of the VSL really is unique. Almost anything can be achieved, depending on one's production skills and sound aesthetics.

@goran c said:

The stylistical flexibility of the VSL really is unique. Almost anything can be achieved, depending on one's production skills and sound aesthetics.

Unfortunately not everybody can see that, often too busy looking for a Zimmer sound, not that there's anything wrong with that, but there is so much more.

@Errikos said:

I'm greatly concerned as to what the future will bring, for these 'noises' and 'shrieks' that you mention (but also 'ostinati' etc.), I don't want them to grow into something even more substantial. Because, let's face it, most of your buyers couldn't notate those 'noises' and 'shrieks' if their lives depended upon it. I am (just in case anyone's missed it) against fraud in general, and when a charlatan presents a demo/score to a director, where less than half the notes have been composed by that charlatan, it makes me crazy... 

Everybody: If you can notate it / MIDI it, do it. If you can't, IT'S NOT YOUR MUSIC.

I'm no musicologist or anything but isn't this usually notated as a cadenza?  Boroque/Classical music in particular used cadenzas extensively.  A lot of Bach's music was comprised of cadenzas too but they were still Bach's compositions.

However, I think you're missing the point that Errikos is making.  It's one thing to hire a saxophonist to improvise 20 or so bars in one of my compositions but it's a whole other thing to load up the "saxophone cadenza" patch into my sampler and press C5 to activate it for 20 or so bars then bounce out the final mix and call it all my own.  I'm assuming that you gave this saxophonist at least a credit line in your album right?  I think that is what troubles Errikos, and me too come to think of it, that no credit is givin where the credit is truly due.  At least I think that's the point Errikos is making.  I'm embarrassed to admit it but sometimes Errikos talks and he may as well be speaking Greek because I'm not sure what he's going on about.  And, as chance would have it, Errikos is Greek. What a coincedence!  But I've learned a lot form his posts if I might add. 

And let's take the argument EVEN FURTHER.  What about the sound engineers who mixed and mastered your composition.  Most of us do it ourselves using presets but if you're fortunate enough to have somebody else working on that for you, should they get some co-composition credit as well?  Afterall, they are the ones filtering out the bad frequencies, the mud and seperating out all of the various parts within the piece so that you can hear the main themes counterpoints etc. Although it is more crucial a step in Rock/Pop and Electronic music sound engineering is truly an art in itself.   

@jasen - Thanks for the kind words.

@civilisation 3

Thank you for making my points in your own words (and not knowing it of course)... The saxophonist that will provide the solo SHOULD receive a credit somewhere on your CD - Sax solo by So&SO, which would be your acknowledgment that HE wrote/improvised that part and it was not your music. It was his melodies following the harmonies/rhythms that you provided. I can't believe you're considering NOT giving credit to that player - actually, I can... But that is not what I said. I am not referring to a short section of a whole piece (like where that sax solo would fit), but to this endless cloned aural diarrhoea that has become indistinguishable from soundtrack to soundtrack, and from composer's website to composer's website these days, because the basic musical building blocks have been the same; downloaded, and then cut and pasted from one part of the computer screen to the other... Hmmm, great artistry...

MIDI a drum roll? Of course not; you'd get it from the library presets, BUT, I said that you'd have to be able to MIDI, OR notate the music in order to be considered yours. If you can't notate a drum roll, we have even less to talk about than I thought. There's more: Is it a snare drum roll? Is it a tympani drum roll? In this case you must specify pitch. Soft, medium, or hard sticks? Does it start or end on an accented note? Etc. etc. Basically the more you define, the more the music is yours, the less you define, the more it is NOT your music and it is a COLLABORATION based on some ground rules and ideas that you provide, but still a collaboration. I mean WAKE UP people!!!! Would you consider me the writer of a script if I hired someone ELSE and instructed him - "I want a seduction scene here, it takes place in a bedroom of a hotel, between Paul and Mary (see I'm giving the names of the characters...), they're in their early-20s, and they're university class-mates, and she succumbs at the end of it. Now YOU sit down, and write the 2-pages-long dialogue..." Would this be considered my work because I provided the idea and the setting?....... Or I could give the same instructions to two actors. That would be called IMPROVISATION on their part, and I would not get credit for writing the scene. In music, we really have con-fused everything these days...

Also, how many times do I have to say that I differentiate between the absolutely generic presets that VSL provides, and the index-finger-symphonic-chord or index-finger-section-chord/rhythm that cripples/incompetents-targeting software companies provide? You yourself say that software like Animato furnishes you with ideas you would not have thought of. Well, where do I say something different? I bet that if in the future there is software that can write the piece for you (but for which you will be providing "important" aspects like the key of the composition, tempi, notation-font, title...), you would buy it, and proudly put your name as the composer at the top. I am talking about you after all and if you look closely at what you say, you don't contradict anything but my classification of you (and similar others) with the term 'musical cripples'. I stand by that nomenclature and there's not ONE composer I respect that ever worked in the manner you describe.  - No, I don't respect Cage as a composer, and as far as the aleatoric passages in some Lutoslawcki, Penderecki, and Ligeti works are concerned: a) They specifically wanted "random" in those sections, but they could notate one version of those passages (i.e. they had the knowledge), and b) those passages form secondary musical material (in most cases), not the basis of the main composition. In Threnody for example random forms the main idea, but that was the most accomplished way to notate the score to get those desired results.

And where is the reductio ad absurdum  you furnish me with proven? And what do you mean when you say that what I say is only my opinion?.. As opposed to whose?... Of course I speak for myself - maybe you don't - and my opinions and aphorisms are out there in the open for acceptance or criticism. However, as you proved in that other thread, you don't know how to argue, you're just a reactionary, and an IGNORANT one at that when a) you called the melodies of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Chopin, Puccini, Bizet, etc. "paltry" (your word) compared to the melodies you admire (but no examples were given for comparison), b) when you elevated the musicianship of a street performer above that of Bruckner (and I'm sure over everybody else in the history of western music before 1950), c) when you referred to musicians such as Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, as my 'straw' men, etc. There are other instances in which you displayed the "breadth" of your musical horizon, but what you said in this last post of yours speaks volumes anyway, so I won't say more.

Because of this thread, and where I see musical creation heading, I decided to sport that motto of mine as my signature from now on, maybe some people will wake up to themselves...

To risk some (perhaps) bad humor (apologies if there are places the tune is not known-and if not known, you are probably better off <smile>)

To the infamous tune about bottles of beer...

One hundred preset arpeggios to use,

One hundred preset arpeggios,

Press a key down,

Noise all around,

Ninety-nine preset arpeggios to use.

Etc., etc., etc.

Serious comment: I find it personally sad the way that the creative process is seemingly continuing to be defined downward.  Why worry about hard work and effort when pre-recorded building blocks are instantly available?  I will confess to not being a "great" composer by any stretch.  But better to do the best one can seeking to create one's own original material than rely on the prerecorded presets of others.  Better to be an original on the skill level of a Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf than a clone.  Even he occasionally created something fairly good.

I think there is a basic misunderstanding going on about the purpose of some sample libraries which contain pre-recorded ensembles doing things.

The purpose of these libraries is not to have idiots holding down a button and calling it their composition. It's to solve a problem, where the big great sample libraries can have certain giveaway moments of sounding unrealistic. Certainly my purpose in making my libraries was just so that in my productions I could blend in something that sounds very real over the top of VSL or HS, to paper over the cracks so to speak.

Now, if some idiot who has no understanding of music wants to hold down a few notes and make compositions by trial and error, well, good luck to them but they won't get very far before it makes no musical sense.

And now let me interrupt that thought with another which goes back to the original post - VSL and Hollywood Strings.

I was just working on something (which I wrote myself, no 'auto-Zimmer' button used 😊 ) and I thought I'd put the same MIDI through VSL and Hollywood Strings:

http://www.ooberman.net/dg/HSvsVSL.mp3

Blind test time. Which do you think is which, the first or second? To be fair I need to say that no work has gone into trying to get it sounding real. It's just raw quantized MIDI going straight into simple sustain patches, in Hollywood Strings and in VSL Appassionata strings. So yes, a much better job can be done than this, but it reveals something about the raw sound of each, and it also tells you what kind of results you can get with basic quantized MIDI.

Which is best? And which is which?

😊

I think the first half is Hollywood Strings, second half is VSL.  There is definitely more room sound built in with the first half than the second.  Which can easily be fixed with MIR or any reverb for that matter.  Also, the sustained is a dead give away for me as it has a severely disconnected sound when trying to play legato lines without any altering to the sample.

Maestro2be

@goran c said:

The stylistical flexibility of the VSL really is unique. Almost anything can be achieved, depending on one's production skills and sound aesthetics.

Unfortunately not everybody can see that, often too busy looking for a Zimmer sound, not that there's anything wrong with that, but there is so much more.

Since this thread has become like a killer in a slasher movie who keeps popping up when you think he's dead, I will add that I just listened to Session Strings which is another example of something different that you can do with VSL.  So-called "Contemporary" strings are simply dry smaller ensembles, which are all possible in VSL. 

It is the depth of sound that makes VSL stand out above the others.  Someone here was complaining about how it was stupid to use classical pieces or famous film pieces to do demos.  That is absolutely wrong, because the demos taking on the challenge of the greatest, most wide-ranging  music show the superiority of the VSL approach.  Ever notice how all the other libraries demos are all "written-to-the-sample" demos?  Guess why.  Try doing Vaughn-Williams 2nd Symphony or the score to LOTR with Session Strings.  Or Hollywood strings. Or Ma and Pa Kettle's Strings, or whatever...    [+o(]