"I'm referring to the building of an instrument from the several available patches/articulations. This is a type of flexibiliy preceding any FX, and focused on creating a sound with the raw possibilites of the original instruments. At the moment, it seems to me that Vienna Instruments Pro is the only player with that degree of power.

...This is the original mission of VSL: making a credible simulation of a real ensemble/orchestra. It's also what makes them so different than the others.

In this vein: I hope VSL will expand their VI collection with more extended techniques. Orchestral Spheres and Dimension Strings III/sul tasto were beautiful tries. I hope there will be more for this kind of 'flexibility' in the future." - Paolo

Paolo that is exactly right - "flexibility preceding any FX" and "raw possibilities of the original instruments"  - that is what makes VSL totally different from all other sample libraries.  You can go into the the most basic performance of each instrument at a level beneath anything else, and so control the performance elementally.  I haven't found this with any other sample library and it needs to be continued.  I agree totally with your demand for extended techniques  - the sul tasto Dimension Strings are great, and to have extended techniques would make that even better.  Even though the Synchron series is great for people who want an instant approach to mixing etc., the Dimension Strings are the true artistic flagship of VSL because they have become more detailed and complex than any other sample library ever done.  They are not generic, not simplistic, but have the natural complexity of acoustic musical performance and the fact that one can control each and every player in the ensemble makes the possibilities for that library endless.  

I really hope that VI Pro is continutally updated and remains the flagship sampler. I don't like using the Synchron Player, because the 'dimensions' make it much slower and awkward to use. The matrix system in VI Pro is sooo much better.

A resizable interface for VI Pro would be nice ;)

I typically find the VI series more useful than the synchron series, except for percussion & pianos. VI + MIR is generally superior to Synchron IMO.

@antcarrier said:

I really hope that VI Pro is continutally updated and remains the flagship sampler. I don't like using the Synchron Player, because the 'dimensions' make it much slower and awkward to use. The matrix system in VI Pro is sooo much better. A resizable interface for VI Pro would be nice 😉 I typically find the VI series more useful than the synchron series, except for percussion & pianos. VI + MIR is generally superior to Synchron IMO.

@William said:

Paolo that is exactly right - "flexibility preceding any FX" and "raw possibilities of the original instruments"  - that is what makes VSL totally different from all other sample libraries.  You can go into the the most basic performance of each instrument at a level beneath anything else, and so control the performance elementally.  I haven't found this with any other sample library and it needs to be continued.  I agree totally with your demand for extended techniques  - the sul tasto Dimension Strings are great, and to have extended techniques would make that even better.  Even though the Synchron series is great for people who want an instant approach to mixing etc., the Dimension Strings are the true artistic flagship of VSL because they have become more detailed and complex than any other sample library ever done.  They are not generic, not simplistic, but have the natural complexity of acoustic musical performance and the fact that one can control each and every player in the ensemble makes the possibilities for that library endless.  

I'm no expert on the sampling process or what goes into it, but it seems to me the concept behind the dimension series is the closest to a realistic ensemble one will ever get with samples.  Sample modeling (and SWAM) are great in concept and uber-performable but, to my ears, aren't quite "raw" enough to sound like anything other than a highly refined synth.  The demos for dimension strings are, hands down, the best string library demos I have ever heard.  The Vivaldi mock-up had my jaw fall through the floor to the other end of the planet.  I eagerly look forward to the day I can afford the bundle.

I've read so many threads on the wet vs. dry debate and the common criticism I see leveled at dry libraries (and VSL's VI series by association) is that they lack depth and spacialization that no amount of reverb or eq can fix, even with MIR, SPAT, VSS2, etc.  I suppose this is technically true, but in practice I find the difference in realism and depth between an in-situ library and a properly MIR'ed/SPAT'ed/EQ'ed and verbed library to be negligible (at least in stereo) and pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.  Far more relevant to realism and liveliness is the amount of articulations and how much control you have over them; Beat Kaufmann's demos (like the Holberg suite for Orchestral Strings) are a testament to that.  Of most relevance, of course, is the music itself.

Even so...the whole debate got me thinking: what if dry libraries were mic'ed like wet libraries?  What I mean is, what if a stringle ensemble was mic'ed similarly to the way they would be mic'ed on a scoring stage, except in the Silent Stage?  I presume what one would get is a library with a wealth of spacialization options, but no inherent reverb.  Theoretically, it would be the best of both worlds - you can mix and match as much "Far", "mid" and "close" dry signal as you want, and then add ambience/reverb/MIR whatever of your choice to these dry mic positions to custom tailor the space rather than being locked in to whatever baked in ambience the library comes with.

There's probably a very good reason why that wouldn't work, but I'm no expert, so I wouldn't know what it is.  I thought it an interesting idea, though...

- Sam

I'm getting great results with spatialization using MirPro.  I do not think its any less spatial then so many libraries with recorded mic positions.  But it is just a little more involved to understand how to set it up properly.  Personally I think a lot of people gravitate towards products like EWHO Diamond because its just simple to use and has the magic spatial sound without any understanding of audio engineering.  A lot of people using this stuff are not audio engineers, they are composers and arrangers that are easily overwhelmed by the flexibility of MirPro, and even ViPro's flexibility is simply not for everyone.  I think that is Synchron's selling point and will be useful for many people. 

Myself, I choose flexibility and the ViPro player is one of the main reasons I made a big investment in VSL libraries this year, but only if combined wtih MirPro in order to get the spacialization that is missing from the dry samples.  

Maybe eventually they will provide all of the performance capability in Synchron player that is currently available in VIPro, in terms of matrixes, layers and all the rest it can do.  But then it will still come back to the fact that with the dry libraries and MirPro I can get a very wide variety of orchestral sounds using different roompacks and MirPro configurations.  I think that will always be an advantage over Synchron with basically one stage and a few mic positions...which is more similar to many other libraries on the market...and nothing against that, I think a lot of people do prefer to work that way, its more simple, though more limited.  I think there is a place for both products.  But personally I do not see a point of having both.  So I hope VSL will continue to expand the VI series.  They did exactly that this year with the new Dimension string articulations...so I am hopefully this will continue, though admittedly the VI series is already quite extensive and complete.

What about the dynamic flexibilty of Synchron Strings I vs counterpart in VI?  That is another tonal/timbral advantage over the VI instruments.

And for clarity, my argument is that even a casual hobbyist should have both VI and Synchron products... all of them. 😉

@stephen limbaugh said:

What about the dynamic flexibilty of Synchron Strings I vs counterpart in VI?  That is another tonal/timbral advantage over the VI instruments.

Can you please expound on what that is and why its an advantage?  I don't have the synchron strings.  I have a lot to learn about my $10k VI library before buying more.  😉

A quick comparison of the two players is this, in my personal view:

- Synchron Player, based on a coherent metaphor of folder hierarchy, could be more immediate to grasp for the new user. How do you reach a particular sound? Just follow the path (as the Rabbit was telling Alice).

- Vienna Instruments' matrices are totally reconfigurable, and you can choose the number, size, position of the cells everywhere. Apart for you, nobody else will immediately be able to read a custom preset. And reading factory presets is not easier.

- Reaching a sound in VI can be a lot faster than in SP: point at that cell in the matrix. With SP, you have to go through the full path everytime.

- Crossfading between more that two layers is the real bonus of SP. Being able to fade between non vibrato, vibrato and molto vibrato, or between sul tasto, normale, and sul ponticello is something I've always wanted in VI. Will be there further development for VI? Please, add a third column of slots in a cell!

- Controller assignment is much quicker in SP. You don't use CC1, you use a meta-control that you can globally assign to CC1, but also to any other controller. With VI you have to reprogram all matrices. (This is another thing I would like to see in VI: meta-controllers!).

- The standalone version of VIP allows for nearly-quick replication of presets from existing presets. A true life-saver.

Paolo

@stephen limbaugh said:

And for clarity, my argument is that even a casual hobbyist should have both VI and Synchron products... all of them.

@antcarrier said:

A resizable interface for VI Pro would be nice 😉

Yes....that would be really nice 😄

The crossfading of articulation rather than the dicrete switch is a very compelling feature of Synchron.

EG: trem to sul pont trem

Also a patch which is set from low to high via this crossfade, set in its mixer spatially, low left to high right or vice versa, and additionally sends to reverb and other enhancements with a single CC is ground-breaking.

There is no audible difference between that and a crossfade between tremolo and sul pont tremolo routed through MIR in VE which is easy to do - just crossfade them in a VI slot.  

However, I have to say this is starting to be like Mac vs. PC and that kind of argument is fruitless.  

They are both good, and it just depends on your personal preferences of work. 

@William said:

However, I have to say this is starting to be like Mac vs. PC and that kind of argument is fruitless.

@William said:

There is no audible difference between that and a crossfade between tremolo and sul pont tremolo routed through MIR in VE which is easy to do - just crossfade them in a VI slot. 

There are for example dimensions with 3 bowing articulations, regular half trem, ponticello in FX Strings. In one dimension under Special pads, there appears a 4th, but I may have added that. #3 is vertical trem.
I'm aware of slot xfade, but isn't the A slot still going with B on top? At a certain point the higher slot isn't, in this.
I'm saying something affirmative, not negating anything, so it isn't argumentative saying I like something FFS.

@civilization 3 said:

There are dimensions with 3 articulations, trem, half trem, vertical trem, trem sul point in FX Strings.

I'm aware of slot xfade, but isn't the A slot still going with B on top? At a certain point the higher slot isn't, in this.

The first case you describe is not exactly a crossfade. It seems more a selection of separate articulations via a continuous controller. The listed articulation don't seem to be inherently made for crossfading. Trem <> half trem can be crossfaded, but vertical trem <> trem sul pont don't seem to have any relation in a continuous space.

In VI, two slots can be crossfaded. You can choose either to let the controller increase the volume of the B slot, or crossfade between A and B. This is only possible with two articulations.

Paolo

Well I was just talking about the often used orchestrational effect of a string group changing slowly from tremolo to sul pont tremolo - an effect heard commonly.  That can be done perfectly with a slot crossfade in VI. 

@William said:

Well I was just talking about the often used orchestrational effect

William, I'm sorry if I made confusion by inadvertently indirectly responding to you. What I was trying to say, is that the list of articulations in FX Strings, as written by Civilization, don't seem to fit in a traditional transition between articulations in a real orchestra. What is called "vertical trem", for example, should be what other call "vertical scrubs" or "spazzolato", a quick but smooth movement between tasto and pont, all in a single, repeated gesture.

Going from a "sul tasto", to "normal" or "ordinario", to "sul pont" is another matter, since this is, as you say, now considered common writing. With VI you can fade between two articulations. With SP you can do it with as many articulation as you like, but choosing is a dimension has to be "parallel" or "separate". In the first case, you can crossfade though the whole dimension (or tree branch).

Paolo

I've often struggled with one kind of case in which multi-mic live stage recordings can be somewhat of a hindrance.

If I want to alter an instrument's close mic sound creatively and perhaps even radically using various Fx, then the problem is of course that all the various ambient mics still 'give away' the instrument's original sound. Sometimes this doesn't matter much, but there are also cases when it really does matter and is definitely undesirable.

Depending on what kind and degree of creativity has been applied to the instrument as heard on the close mic(s), it may be difficult if not impossible to use Fx to make all the original ambient mic streams appear to be genuine ambient renditions of the modified close mic sound. In these cases I tend to do without the original ambient recordings for this instrument, and mock up some new ones based on the instrument's modified sound - while of course endeavouring to make these new ambiences stay in keeping with the qualities of the overall mix as derived from the original live stage.

I suppose what I'm talking about here is likely to be an edge case if not irrelevant for the great majority of traditional concert hall orchestral renditions. But I'm thinking it's very relevant to today's high-excitement, max impact, Fx-riddled movie and video game scores.

Apart for the differences between baked in reverb and added reverb in orchestral ensembles, my main concern is that I'm not always writing for a full orchestra needing a big hall reverb. I very often write for smaller ensembles, requiring a smaller venue.

The great thing of VI+MIR is that you can also customize the ambience, and choose the right one. Teldex or Synchron are the best for an orchestral movie soundtrack. But for the rendering of a classical piece, the Great Hall at the Konzerthaus Wien is a lot better. And the dry studios at the Funkhaus are excellent for more neutral prototypes. And there are pieces that absoutely ask for a church reverb.

So, I really hope there is hope for the future of Vienna Instruments.

Paolo