There is enought to compare in the meantime on eotte.blogspot.com. Most "string comparisons" have been made in 2011 so far, so just find your way somewhere there.

If you want a specific test just let me know.

@aron said:

In my opinon the most important thing missing from vienna is no active control over the vibrato.Somthing that hollywood strings has.any comments on the effectiveness of this from hw strings users would be appreciated because i have yet to hear a demo where this is demonstrated.I really hope vienna has this as a high priorty because it would make the strings far more expressive

There is active control over vibrato. It is called crossfade.  There are many variations of vibrato within the VSL strings already.

You want an artificial control that morphs senza vibrato with vibrato digitally?  Perhaps that is done on some phony sounding things or sample modeling of various kinds.  However, the VSL approach has been "pristine" in that it tries to present the authentic sound of original recordings unaltered by digital fakery.  This makes it not quite as mindless to use as some other libraries, but infinitely more valuable in lasting musical quality, because you are using actual recordings of musicians, not digital effects which any moron can do nowadays. 

On this question of changing from vibrato to non vibrato, there are already patches that are no vibrato, progressive vibrato, espressivo vibrato vs. normal vibrato, etc.  So simply by layering  those, you can do a crossfade to change the sound. 

However, you will notice that the levels of vibrato in Appassionata strings for one example are already very appropriate for the dynamics.  In other words, rarely would you hear heavy vibrato with pp.  And it is normal to have more on louder dynamics - for more expressive vibrato.  This is exactly what happens in the layered samples, accessed either by velocity or crossfading that works perfectly with the ensemble. 

This question, of needing artificially morphed vibrato levels, is of very little practical significance to me in doing the most complex arrangements, especially when one hears the natural sounding vibrato of the Appassionata strings which I have tended to default to these days. 

 You can do non vibrato/vibrato crossfades in all Collections, apart from Orchestral Strings. Actually that's not quite true. You can crossfade from non-vibrato to vibrato, but the patches that have vibrato are rather anemic in nature, and not really up to the task, IMO.

What you can't do in any of the Collections is non vibrato/vibrato/molto vibrato crossfades, and this is a shame.

DG

At that point you should consider hiring an orchestra ;) 

Until date, I think VSL still offers the sample libraries with the highest realism and musical behaviour, especially when used in VI PRO.

It really responds to orchestration skills in real life. 

Cheers,

Bart

@bartdelissen said:

At that point you should consider hiring an orchestra ;) 

Until date, I think VSL still offers the sample libraries with the highest realism and musical behaviour, especially when used in VI PRO.

It really responds to orchestration skills in real life. 

Cheers,

Bart

 Or record your own library. [;)]

Seriously, the only Collection that you couldn't do what I want is the Orchestral strings, because the patches don't exist, but the reason you can't do it with the others, is that you can only set up a 2 patch xFade in VI Pro, and you would need a 3 patch xFade to do what I want.

DG

Recording your own library would be very common 5 years ago. But it's not that neccesary anymore. If you really want to go to the next step, just hire the musicians you need. You could still make it a hybrid production if you like. 

Can't you work around the doulbe crossfade on two tracks then? soft-middle on one track middle-expressive on a second one? Limitations stimulate creativity ;)

Bart 

@bartdelissen said:

 Can't you work around the doulbe crossfade on two tracks then? soft-middle on one track middle-expressive on a second one? Limitations stimulate creativity 😉

 

Having to use more than one track per instrument would be like going back to the dark ages for me. Yes, of course I can find a way round it, but it is no very elegant and the whole point of VI Pro is elegance, IMO.

DG 

@Another User said:

As far as authenticity and "digital fakery" are concerned, every time you change the dynamic level you are effectivley using morphed samples and to great effect.(

That is not true.  Changing the volume level of a sample is profoundly different from morphing between waveforms such as what you are suggesting, and does not involve any change in the harmonic/acoustic structure of a recording, only its amplitude.  That does not result in a different timbre, only a difference in recording level.

 btw I would add that in looking over the Cube patches for violins just now, you have selection between not only the naturally ocurring vibrato changes between 4 velocity layers, but also in Chamber STrings - no vib, vib and espress. vib; Orchestral Strings no vib and regular vib; and Appassionata regular vib and "strong" vib which is an extremely espressivo vib beyond the already very expressive vib on the main samples.  All of these have embedded within them multiple vibrato levels inherent in the different dynamics (which you might hear very clearly with the Orchestral strings pp layer which is almost senza vibrato).  And of course all of them can be crossfaded, which with ensembles sounds so much like actual prerecorded dynamic changes that you literally cannot tell the difference.  So that is why I say there is already a lot of control over vibrato within the already recorded strings that artificial morphed-waveform changes would not be superior to. 

@DG said:

Having to use more than one track per instrument would be like going back to the dark ages for me. Yes, of course I can find a way round it, but it is no very elegant and the whole point of VI Pro is elegance, IMO.

I remember my Gigastudio tracks for a large project.  Each instrument had about 10 to 16 sub-tracks just for one line of music.  For example, an entire track for two notes not covered elsewhere.  A nightmare. 

 I have to do it in my template for strings to switch between poly and mono mode...  [:D]

@William said:

I remember my Gigastudio tracks for a large project.  Each instrument had about 10 to 16 sub-tracks just for one line of music.  For example, an entire track for two notes not covered elsewhere.  A nightmare. 

 Me too, and I am never going back to that.

DG

Yes, that is where you are not being forced to do more, but actually the same, as the original sound would be doing.  I say "sound" because of course one is not doing as much as a live player, but one is trying to emulate the individuality of a single player or group of players.  So it is good to deliberately separate tracks for individual players. 

There is one thing I have separated tracks with that contradicts this - timpani.  The reason is, I often write a sforzando attack followed by a sudden pianissimo roll followed by a crescendo.  If you do that on one track, you will find that you have to suddenly crossfade down the roll, which sounds weird.  But if you have a fortissimo single note starting on one track without crossfade, at the exact same time your pianissimo roll starts on another with crossfade,  you can do perfectly the often-heard dramatic timpani sforzando attack followed by a crescendo roll.  I am always needing that.  Probably a need for cliches but whatever... 

I am thinking that in VE5 you could program one layer to respond to  crossfade but the other layer not.  Is that true DG?  I have not tried it yet and have persisted in doing it the way I used to.   

@William said:

 

There is one thing I have separated tracks with that contradicts this - timpani.  The reason is, I often write a sforzando attack followed by a sudden pianissimo roll followed by a crescendo.  If you do that on one track, you will find that you have to suddenly crossfade down the roll, which sounds weird.  But if you have a fortissimo single note starting on one track without crossfade, at the exact same time your pianissimo roll starts on another with crossfade,  you can do perfectly the often-heard dramatic timpani sforzando attack followed by a crescendo roll.  I am always needing that.  Probably a need for cliches but whatever... 

  

In VIP 2 I have single notes with Xfade off and rolls with it on for exactly the reasons you describe.

DG

Yes, the contrast between key-on velocity on one channel and crossfade on another gives you more possible expressions.  I have found that the crossfaded timpani cresc/dim is absolutely indistinguishable from the recorded cresc/dims in any orchestral useage.  So you have a lot of variety possible there.

Concerning the strings, I am wondering if anyone is doing divisi with contrasts in noticeable size between the various string ensembles.  I have found that creating a matrix with Appassionata 20 players (in violins) that splits into two part Orchestral violins (14 players) sounds almost perfect as a 2-part divisi.   Even though the numbers do not match precisely, the sound is exactly like a divisi of that original massive ensemble sound.  You have to reduce the volume of the 14 player slot to approximately 80 or the doubling will increase the level incorrectly.  Likewise, if you need three part divisi, you can split the Appassionata violins into three chamber violins patches (or the other strings analogously) and by correcting the volume on the smaller ensemble (which has three notes so is close to tripled in volume)  it sounds excellent.   You have the option of adding a solo also on any of the parts, since the numbers are still close (and therefore indistinguishable audibly) and it adds another layer of complexity to the mix.

Yeah I agree with William's divisi and layering ideas.  I did try once, layering solo violin on top of orchestral strings.  It was magnificent... but I didn't experiment too deeply. It added that extra layer of "a few musicians that stick out a little bit on an expressive passage" which is very satisfying to hear on lyrical passages.  The catch however, is that the solo instrument has to be mixed just right - its quite (pun blatantly intended) fiddly to get it to "blend" but "stick out" at the same time.

I wanted to point out a few other things, too, about VSL's dry approach versus other libraries embedded-reverb approach.  There are the usual arguments, that it allows us to place instruments anywhere in the stereo field, and allows us to place the instruments in different reverb spaces... but I think there are a few more profound points about dry recording that make it a brilliant design decision:

(1) VSL's legato is not just superior because it existed when other libraries didn't have it.   It is superior largely because they recorded *dry* legato.  Even though other libraries have finally caught up to the idea that they need to record performance intervals, they're still missing that dry recording is key.  Legato samples recorded with reverb still have some significant problems.  In particular, how do you stitch together the samples and deal with reverb tails of previous notes?  The only logical place to create that stitch, especially to support the composer's arbitrary sequence of notes, is just before the legato transition to the new note.  But when there's reverb involved, then the next note needs to somehow magically know what the reverb tail of the previous note should sound like.  Its extremely difficult to edit the samples so that legato AND reverb are simultaneously seamless for all possible intervals.

(2) Another fundamental detail that makes VSL vastly more expressive and versatile is that EVERY articulation can be shortened... not just sustain types.  Consider a staccato note (or worse, a detache note) with reverb embedded in the sample.  What if you want that note to be even shorter?  Then the software needs to truncate the sample (including that chunk of reverb), and then salvage the reverb tail they recorded... that stitch between the truncated sample and its reverb tail becomes difficult because the jump in timbre at the seam just doesnt quite match.  On the other hand, VSL can play shorter staccato notes easily, because non-reverb truncated sample and non-reverb release can be stitched together more easily.  But this advantage goes even deeper.  Adjusting the length of short notes becomes an additional way to vary the expression, in addition to round robin samples and velocity layers.  A well placed full staccato sample amidst secco, staccatissimo notes might add just the right amount of emphasis, whereas a new velocity layer doesn't sounding right.  

I personally felt that this aspect of expression wasn't there in other libraries, but its been (pun blatantly intended) instrumental in my mixes =)