Have to share this little story with you:
My wife is my harshest critic (...for better or worse!) but I really trust her ears because she knows what real instruments are supposed to sound like, and she's heard me play my trombone in orchestral, jazz, chamber, rock, and all possible music ensembles. Anyways, I trust her ears.
She's a modern dancer/choreographer and I'm composing some music for her current project. I've written a couple of movements, and had her check them out so I can make changes, etc.
Her past comments and criticisms over the years are mostly concerning the sounds of real instruments I've been emulating, and I'm very picky and I know what real instruments should sound like. I've been using some very good libraries over the years, good competitors to VSL, but I've never used any VSL libraries for one reason or the other, which was they might have been too expensive for me at the time, or that I thought that what I was using was already very excellent.
But...my wife/chief critic has always been saying things like "is that a kazoo trying to be a bassoon?"; "...those string sound like a plastic synthesizer, I hate them and can't get past it"; "...those are supposed to be trumpets?"; .." .... where's the breath in the bass clarinet? Sounds too fake!"; etc. etc. etc. etc....
Well, I recently bought the Synchron-ized SE 1 and 1+ libraries.
So, I replaced my existing orchestral sounds with my new Synchron sounds in the latest movement for my wife and made the necessary adjustments she needed....and waited for her latest feedback, fully expecting to hear some criticism or other about some aspect of the orchestral sounds.
A miracle!!!! She loved it, and said that nothing bothers her at all and she can fully concentrate on the dance now without being distracted by some sounds that were bothering her. (....that's one reason a lot of music for her over the years has been primarily electronic soundscapes or music scores using a minimum of live instrumentalists overdubbed over other sound sources.....she knows what real humans are supposed to sound like and anything less is too distracting)
To me, this is the greatest compliment ever, because she really knows what good music is supposed to sound like with emotion and convincing playing.
Wow.... there you have it.
Thanks to VSL for making my music more convincing and making my marriage even better!