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  4. Another "How to Expand SE" thread

  • Another "How to Expand SE" thread

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    Hi everyone! I have been using SE 1 and SE 1 Plus for about a year, and with the student discounts I decided to look for upgrades. I'd be glad if you guys can help me decide. I know that this topic keeps coming back but I feel like everyone has different needs and it's difficult to try to deduce things to my needs looking at other threads. :)

    Warning: Long post ahead.

    So, all in all, I'm quite happy with SE, but obviously, it's a little limited. I will be upgrading to VI Pro 2 in any case. I'll try to go section by section, thinking out loud.

    I'm ok with percussion now; I don't plan to upgrade any time soon.

    I would like to upgrade woodwinds. In fact, that would be the first thing I would like to upgrade. But none of the woodwind libraries answer my needs. I rarely write a3, and I don't have a great need for auxilliary instruments right away. Therefore, I'll be upgrading woodwinds as single instruments. And since there's no discount for single instruments now, I decided to put this on hold and concentrate on possible benefits I could get from discounts.

    Ditto for the brass. The only thing lures me is, of course, the Dimension Brass. The question is: is the Dimension Brass a good add-on for the SE Brass, orshould I wait and get at lest the full Horn and Trumpet before diving into Dimension Brass? 

    The difficult part is obviously the strings. My string needs are: I write divisi extensively, and I like using different techniques as much as possible. Unfortunately, none of the libraries in VSL address these two issues:

    - It seems that Solo Strings are great for techniques, but I'm not sure how often I will be actually calling for solo strings, so I think I should get all the grounds covered for section strings first. 

    - Chamber Strings look great in size. It would be nice to have them for divisi writing. But I'm not really impressed with the number of techniques in Chamber Strings I. I feel like the Dimension Strings would be better than Chamber Strings in that sense. 

    - Dimension Strings is much better than Chamber Strings for divisi writing, and offers more sound variations. They are both not very varied in technique but Dimension Strings appears to be superior in sample content anyway. In what way Chamber Strings would be preferable to Dimension Strings?

    - Orchestral Strings is great in itself. The only problem for me is: no divisi. All those nice samples that does not come in Chamber or Dimension Strings will be forced to be performed tutti.

    So, for the strings, I have the following ideas for upgrade:

    1) I can get the Orchestral Strings and stop worrying about divisi (which is hurtful) :)

    2) I can get the Dimension Strings and use it together with my SE Strings. Do you think this is going to be a good combination? I've read many times that Dimension Strings are better thought as a supplementary library than a full fledged string library on their own. Alternatively, I can get the Chamber Strings to use with SE Strings. But like I said above, I don't really see any superiority of Chamber Strings over Dimension Strings. (I don't have pressing concerns for sordino right now. And I'm OK with waiting for the Violas and Bassi in the DS).

    It might be possible to supplement these with SE Chamber Strings (i.e. SE Strings 2 and 2 Plus) to have a quick fix for the divisi problem. But if I'm not going to upgrade to full Chamber Strings in the future, I really wouldn't like to purchase the SE version as it would just end up sitting in my hard drive. 

    Sorry for the long post but the bottom line is: should I upgrade to full Orchestral Strings, or should I get Dimension Strings (or Chamber Strings)? And what do you think about having Dimension Brass without the full solo Brass instruments (which look much, much better in terms of technique)?

    Thanks everyone for reading, and thanks for the replies in advance!

    Best,

    Oguz
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    I'd get what you need most first, which sounds like woodwinds.  Since you don't use auxiliary instruments much, why not get the Woodwinds 1 library?  You might end up with a3 instruments that you said you don't use often, however in my experience the a3 samples are so perfectly timed with one another and well-matched in terms of timbre that you can get away with using them as a2-a4, you really can't tell how many instruments there are.  Just "more than one".

    As for your string questions...that's always the trickiest question!  Everyone's very selective about their string samples, whether they realize it or not, and it's hard to find one library that fits your needs perfectly.  I'd suggest getting something like Orchestral Strings, then adding Dimension Strings down the line.  It might take you a bit longer to get where you'd like to be but at least you'll have literally everything you need at that point.

    (Though if you get a discount on DS too, it might be worth it to buy now before you lose the discount option and the price increases.)
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    Hey Casiquire. Thanks for the reply!

    When I said I don't usually write a3, I meant more like never. :) (Although yesterday's Mahler 9th concert made me change my mind a little) In addition, the WW sounds of VSL is so great that even SE is very satisfactory. That's why that I'd rather supplement other things first, since I won't be getting any discounts on single woodwinds.

    Honestly speaking, I really like the SE orchestral string sounds too. That's why I started toying with the idea of adding dimension brass to the collection. But I'm a little undecided about the dimension series in general since many people say that they are not good as "main" libraries and one should use them as supplements, or layers. Does anyone have any experience with using SE and any of the dimension products together? It would be a great insight for me now.

    By the way, I don't have an extra student discount on DS unfortunately. So I might be favouring DB at the moment for that reason also.
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    As many here in the forum have done, I also started with the SE series.  When upgrading, I would seriously suggest looking at the full libraries, and then use the SE samples to fill in as needed.  The full libraries have many more articulations, and the dynamics articulations, in particular, can also be of real use.

    The a3 instruments in the woodwinds really can be of use.

    As far as where to start, some have gone the route of adding AP strings.  Both AP strings and chamber strings have an advangtage of providing sections for each string group in one library.  OTOH, orchestra strings do provide the real bread and butter.  If you do primarily small ensemble composing either the chamber strings or solo strings could be a good place to start.

    In the end, it really depends on what style(s) you prefer to write in, and what libraries mesh best with what you are seeking to write.  None of us can really answer that for you.
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    Thanks for the reply noldar!

    I have checked individual string libraries. AP sounds great but unfortunately it neither has a good variety of techniques, nor divisi possibility, that's why it's not really up on my list.

    About the WW libraries, right now, I am not interested in purchasing them; I feel like brass (for sound) and strings (for divisi) require reinforcement more than the woodwinds. My question is, is there a downside of jumping right to DS and/or DB before obtaining the full orchestral string and brass libraries?

    I feel like DB is great in general. I get that since there are less articulations than Brass I, DS might not be great for solo brass writing, but I use them mostly as ensembles and I feel like purchasing full brass instrument as single instruments; as I need them. 

    As for DS, I'd like to have it since I tend to write a lot of string divisi, in many different combinations. I started this thread to find out whether SE orchestral and solo strings are enough to benefit from DS, as many people seem to think they are better used as additions other string libraries. Besides this, is there any advantage of Chamber Strings I over DS? It feels like DS has pretty much the same artuculations as CS I and has much, much more possibilities.
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    Note that I do not own DS, as I do not currently have sufficient computer power to run it as I would prefer to run it if I had it.  Also, if you need all string sections, only violins and cellos have currently been released.

    The traditional way of doing string divisi in VSL has been to layer orchestra/chamber/solo strings.  Divisi has been handled by using orchestra strings on one part and chamber strings on the other.  The solo string part more or less functions as the section leader.  From comments of those who own it, layering DS provides even greater realism.  If you have both SE 1 and 2 (don't recall) then you could do the layering within SE.

    As for the full libraries, generally, it is best if possible, to purchase both the standard and the extended portions.  You are right in that the standard portion of the full libraries do not contain that many additional articulations (the fast legatos in the strings are of particular use, though fast legato is not included in chamber strings).  It is the extended portion of the library that really helps to round out and complete the articulation set.

    As for AP strings, I also - so far - have decided to pass on it, largely for the reasons you stated (and the very minimal articulation set for the basses). 

    Finally, one alternate way of handling divisi would be to duplicate each section as needed (probably only once in SE, given the whole tone sampling), use the transposition trick to avoid phasing and divide the parts out that way as needed.  Whether this would be a good way to go about it or not, is an open question.
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    I have only SE 1 now, so I don't have access to even SE chamber strings. The kind of layering of Orchestra/chamber/solo works in a way I guess, although I would have done it only with chamber+solo in divisi probably. But I'm not just talking about div a2. I'd like to be able to do div x, and DS seems to be the only way of doing it. Transposition thing is good too, of course, and I'm using it for flute 2, oboe 2 etc., but even though I trigger different samples, orchestral strings are orchestral strings, and a couple of them stack on top of each other is not very convincing divisi in my opinion. I guess it's possible to fool the ear by mixing chamber/orchestra or solo/orchestra in a specific way to sound like "less" violins, but if there's something like DS, why not go ahead and get the real thing, is my idea. My only concern is I have seen it stated time and time again that DS is not enough stand alone, but I don't understand why people say that, and I'd like to hear from users of DS about this. This is how I intend to use it with SE:

    - For example, for tutti violin I, I can have the SE orchestral layered with, say, 4 dimension violins. When there is div a2, I can have 8 dimension violins + solo violin for variety, on the one side of the desks and a similar configuration on the other. When there is div a3 I can have 5 dimension + solo, and so on. And this way, DS can make up for the missing velocity layers and whole tone sampling in SE by creating more variety. I feel like I can also use them by themselves for smaller projects. And there is the possibility of layering them on top of each other, either by using different strings (since they sampled the same notes in different strings also) or with semitone transposition. In the real world 10-12 violins (or even less) violins do sound like a full section because of the internal variety of each instrument. Why is this not achievable with DS? (unless one is looking for a big, big hollywood sound, which is not the thing I'm after).

    So, casiquire, noldar, and the rest of the dear VSL community, please help me with this: I am going to go ahead and upgrade my strings. I have SE 1 and SE 1+ which gives me the SE versions of Orchestral strings. I realized that I absolutely need divisi in strings, and I would like to have as many divisi possibilities as possible. I would also like to have a lot of articulations, of course, but both of them does not seem to be possible. So I have three choices:

    - I can get the DS and call it a day.

    - I can get the Chamber Strings I (full library)

    - I can get full Orchestral Strings and SE Chamber Strings.

    Which one would we the better option? Am I right in assuming that if I jump in with the DS now, I might benefit more in the future since VSL might go ahead and extend the DS articulations? Does the large variety options of DS make up for the lack to articulations in order to achieve realism (for example the missing runs, or fast articulations and such, are they obstacles in getting real sounding performances)?

    And I also decided to go ahead and get the DB. Should I reconsider and get the Brass I full library instead? I'll be writing the brasses mostly as ensembles and I feel like if it doesn't satisfy the soloistic needs, I can always purchase single instruments if my SE brass is not enough. And I feel like there is no need for a4 or a3 samples in the Brass I, since DB is supposed to be achieving that effect much better (besides the muted a4 and a3 etc.) What do the people think about this?

    In short, am I wrong in thinking that Dimension series are the way to go now?

    Thanks again!