What an intelligent, thorough and excellently written review! I for one agree with every word of it, especially the last part ---

"...one of the most important products in the history of modern music technology. Reviewers are supposed to keep their distance, but even with my eyes wide open, I have to confess to having fallen madly in love with it. It's awesome and inspiring to work with."

Why thank you, sir!

As I posted at NorthernSounds, they did an excellent job of editing down the excessive number of words I dumped on them.

I did make one mistake that needs correcting: there certainly are cymbal swells in the library. It's only the metal sticks or the brushes that don't have them (I forget which and am on my PowerBook at the moment).

I also see that my acknowledgement of Craig Sharmat's and Christian Marin's help is missing! Hopefully it's in the print version.

In any case - thanks for an enthusiastic, yet down-to-earth article, Nick.

/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library

Hello Nick,

I also want to thank you for this professionel and concise review.
Really enjoyed reading it.

best wishes
Herb

What you see there is about 2/3 of what I wrote. I promise you it started off a lot less concise!

But it was a very enjoyable adventure, Herb. With normal reviews, you simply run a product through its functions and write it up. That might take a day or two. A complicated product like a synthesizer could take as long as four or even five days (and the last time I did one of those was when I was the editor of the magazine [Recording] and I didn't have to worry about how much time it was taking - i.e. I was on staff!).

This was just a *little* bit different, as you can imagine! The scope of the product is way beyond anything I've ever worked with before.

Nick,

You shouldn't be so modest. Having written for commercial magazines (though not as well as you do), I understand what you're talking about. But if somebody can edit your original creation to something good it's good to begin with. I personally would find it very difficult to review this library because it is so HUGE as well as so well done in its details.

Sincerely,
William

Thanks, but actually I'm not all that modest! [:D] What I gave them originally was probably better than the abbreviated version. The problem is that it was too long, and we knew that going in. I could easily have written twice as much, of course, because there's so much to talk about.

Nick,

My hat is is really off here. Any talented writer can describe a large system using a large number of words; doing so using a modest number of words, rendering things in proportion, is the unheard-of holy grail. Your distillation of the meaning of VSL in multiple dimensions (sampling, audio, programming, performance, ...) is accessible yet doesn't truncate substantive considerations. It's very illuminating, tight writing, and I'd say you've made a real contribution to everyone concerned. My best compliments on your abilities and efforts in achieving this.

Jim

I'm not worthy... [:O]ops: