Hi John I am not Paul and as a User nor someone in any way related other to VSL than you.

Have xou seen all Westlake Pro Videos about Synchron-Strings and Player. Presmably most of your question might be answered here.

1) As far as I understand you should make a difference between "real" recorded Legato and only scripted Legato many Kontakt Libraries offer. (Meanwhile of course also the meticoulosly sampled VSL-Legato is obviously organise with scripts but more to bring to gether the most fitting samples than chnaging the pitch of any or cheep "scripted legato" things like that)

2) Yes "massive of samples" but 1) with SSD's a powerful System and a Preload at 3172 it will be realistic to work with as we are used to.

3) As far as I understand I can not see the velocity VSL tends in any way "to get rid of"Velocity XFade. I fear you might perhaps misunderstood something.

4) the most detailed information I know you can get in the linked 2018 VSL Westgate Pro Sessions. As far as I understood, the more or less 'two dimenional' Matrix-system is replaced with a still more powerful but at the same time musically better focused  (8) multidimensional (System) based on aticulation/sound dimensions which each can provide a bunch of variations either to scroll or to switch and if I understood right you still can chose yourself wether you intend to switch with Keyswitches or CC, while CC's are of course "betterr" if you want to use any kind of XFade in a certain "dimension".

As far as I can see the Synchronplayer is meant foremost for Synchron-Libraries to make their power in the most convimient way available. Previous Libraries are at least intended to adapt to the Synchron Player (which imho would especially make a lot sense for all dimension libraries) but of course we presumably have to wait that they start doing this until at least everything with the exiting Synchronlibraries works fine with the Player.  So we just need some patience.

... may it be may or may it not be may 😛

"So probably no release in April either?"

"Unfortunately it rather looks like May."

Woohoo. It's May! It's May!

@plowman said:

"So probably no release in April either?"

"Unfortunately it rather looks like May."

Woohoo. It's May! It's May!

Yes, It's May, and let's hope they don't bump it again to June !   

Time to get serious VSL. Let's have it this month. 

Hi Eloy, 

We are definitely getting closer.

We will announce the release only when we are ready. 

Really sorry to keep you all waiting like this, it is a bigger task than we hoped, and it will turn out great. 

But it really takes everything we have to make this player the foundation for our upcoming products. 

The Synchron Pianos has helped a lot with optimization, and we are thriving on that. 

Thanks for bearing with us!

Paul

@Paul said:

Hi Eloy, 

We are definitely getting closer.

We will announce the release only when we are ready. 

Really sorry to keep you all waiting like this, it is a bigger task than we hoped, and it will turn out great. 

But it really takes everything we have to make this player the foundation for our upcoming products. 

The Synchron Pianos has helped a lot with optimization, and we are thriving on that. 

 

Thanks for bearing with us!

Paul

Thank you for the update.

Will VSl be doing anything to address the legato? I honestly can't believe that you or VSL as a whole are happy with how the legato has turned out. It pales in comparison to even something as old as your own original strings library that i have in the special edition set!

What went wrong? Will you be re-recording the transitions/legato part of the library? It would seem odd to have this series as your new flagship product with the legato being so much worse than the competition.

I know this sounds harsh but it is about time we all faced facts and were honest (even VSL themselves). The legato is no good. It is unnatural. Somehow the attacks after each transition are too much; so much so that it barely sounds like a legato instrument at all.

It would be such a shame to resign the rest of the library to obscurity because of this, as the actual sound, tone and other articulations sound gorgeous.

We are all musicians and we all know what sounds good and what doesnt, and it is time to be brutally honest. There is something wrong with the legato. You know it and i know it and anyone musical who listens to a piece with legato transitions using Synchron knows it as well.

It is hard to believe any professional or even hobbyist will be using the Synchron series as a whole for their main orchestra due to this so i would have thought it would be in VSL's interest to re-do/re-record the legato part of the library.

I do not feel any necessity to judge anything before it is ready. Synchron Strings are ready for me if we can use them as it is intended to: with the Synchron player.

I do not care who ever tells me what ever about what he thinks a legato should be or not. I am pretty confindent to get out from that librariy what I want to get. For me there is absolutly no need for any "harsh" opinion.

Just really try to work with the best you can get. And this is exactly the reason why we meet here and not anywhere else 😉.

Paul,

I'm excited with the prospect of controlling Dimension Strings with the Sy Player.

With this be on the table?

@LAJ said:

The Legato won‘t be changed by the Player-features. And if someone never answers to a certain question, the answer is „I have no idea“ or „No“.

Normally I would not purchase an orchestral product from a competitor cause VSL is great and offers all the great sound and flexibility I want. BUT ... I bought my first non VSL orchestral product HZ-Strings and I like it. Their (SF) new Player is good too.

Eptesicus, what keeps you from purchasing a 2nd String product as an alternative?

The Synchron Player will be great. But it will not change the recorded sound. And a re-recording? Forget it (Return on invest)

I do have other string libraries but old ones - i have VSl orchestral strings (as part of the special edition), Hollywood Strings Diamond and more recently soaring strings.

I bought Synchron Strings for the " legato re-invented" . The marketing made it appear that this would be the next big thing in legato sampling.

In reality they have gone so backwards that it isnt even as good as their very first legato string offering!

You say forget about re-recording bvecause of the return on investment, but that is my argument as to WHY they should re-record. They can't seriously expect profesionals in the industry to be using the legato in this library seriously until it is fixed, and that in turn ruins the prospect of composers using the Synchron series for a coherent orchestral sound. WIthout good legato strings, the whole library, as an orchestra, is a dud.

I think that VSL guys have more pressing matters than trying to make player which is very late to the party, work with old libraries ;)

Ok, we've had our laughs, time to get serious. As you clearly can't say "when", which suggest that you are far from finishing it, maybe you could start revealing some secrets of features that you are 100% confident will be in final version of player? So more of a "what' kind of question. Mixer doesn't count!

Are you planning to add some kind of presets like in pianos to model sound of strings? What about new algorithms that you advertised? What will they do? Does the new player will unlock some additional power behind 1 000 000 of samples that are taking half of my SSD? By that I mean for example measured tremolos, time-stretch, additional legato manipulation etc.?

Thanks for any information that will be inofrmative ;)

Of course.  Don't assume I mean't 1st iteration.  I believe I heard mention of this and that it would eventually happen.

We are halfway through May. I remember similarly waiting months in anticiption for ProDrummer (EastWest) and when the demos came out, it was a joke. What sucks is that I've paid for Synchron Strings and have been waiting half a year for its player to be released. This has been an unpleasant experience, and I've heard how diligent composers have been trying to make this work through the existing player, but I tell you making music shouldn't be about pulling hairs out to get it to sound good. 

Pjotr you should go for the VSL Westlake Pro session where Paul demonstrates the Synchron Player to come very detailed. And of course the concept of Articulation-Dimensions is not only a cool feature. It is kind of the principle of the sampleplayer reinvented for musical very efficient and reasonable use.

And yes since the Idea when I first sugested it to organize Orchestral samples like that in 2013 was the answer of what I need to make the best use of the power of Dimension-Strings it would definitly make very much sense at least to bring the dimension-Libraries into the synchron player.

But I do not agree, that the "sound" would not be different with a new player, since you never hear just any pure and isolated legatotransition, but always hear the whole musical context and therefor it is for me more than evident that it matters if the player ready to make the most elaborate use of the Libraries which was intended by the developpers or if you are still restricted by the limits of a player which was developed to cope with the very first VSL Orchestral Libraries but of course not for what we got with the Dimension-and Synchron Libraries. In so far imho all "Legato"-Discussion seem at least to me pretty theoretical. Judge it if you are able to use it how it is intended and than choose from the Stringlibraries on the market the one which offers the most diversity, Power and realism. ... (and I am sure we will soon meet here again😉)

The manual for the SY Player is now posted

Oh I have even downloaded and installed the Player to, but ffor the Moment only for use of the "FX-Strings". The decisive Question is, when the SY-Strings I and SY-Perc.I is available as SY-Playerfomat-Download. Until them all we have is more or less the manual 😉

So what I have gathered is just like all software.  You will need to wait 9 months before it is usable for Prime Time.

Early Bird offer means, buy it, wait 9 months, download, then use.

@SonicSonar said:

So what I have gathered is just like all software.  You will need to wait 9 months before it is usable for Prime Time.

Early Bird offer means, buy it, wait 9 months, download, then use.

No download it use it have then after 9 month download it again to use with the new Player it takes 2 dayes to download wat a waist

Here it is in March of 2022 and I have the Synchron Player. The problem is that it constantly crashes and, in my case at least, is unusable. By the time I have restarted my computer for every third measure I'm done and don't want to work anymore. What a drag. Very, very disappointed in VSL.

Incidentally I am using a 6 core i7 with 64 gigs of ram and can't even get a single instrument to work properly. I have absolutely, without question, narrowed down the problem the to suck ass Synchron Player. Sorry to curse but I feel ripped off.