I've read Stefan's most recent post on this topic carefully, and offer one or two points.
Stefan, if your experience with EW is a good one, and the product is one of many to suit your clients, it's good for you, and ultimately your choice. Your opinion is as important as anyone else's, and should be considered with an open mind.
In this 21st Century there are many companies all vying for your hard earned dollar, and occasionally, you get to benefit from a group buy, or a heavily discounted product. It's timing, and often a reflection of the current economic state of a company or business, or a drive to get more business through aggressive marketing and the resultant 'special offers.' This is the meat and potatoes of business, and ONE of a number of ways to conduct business today.
Naturally there are other ways, including developing and selling a product that is of the highest calibre, and using the value and quality to sell the product, not discounts or special deals.
This way is just as relavent, and often longer lasting.
But it's also important to respect that others don't have the same opinion, and can express their views passionately, possibly because they are frustrated with one thing or another.
There's another consideration.
I write orchestral music these days, what you 'young 'uns' call classical (!). I always did, but also paid my way in life by writing music for adverts and other things in different styles. It was bread and butter. And back then in the infant days of music technology, my fellow composers and musicians and I would swap notes, and listen to the latest 'sound' eager to try and improve our stock of available samples, and soundfonts. I would often spend hours trying to get a reel to reel to playback in exactly the same place as tracks i'd recorded on a computer or 8 track cassette recorder. (Before the days of computerised sync between r to r's and anything else)
And orchestral music, in particular, strings and woodwind were the holy grail.
If you had a good soundfont of a stringsection that didn't sound like a tin can being dragged down a blackboard, you were lucky, and the envy of others.
Samples have come a long way since then, but the discussions and passions aroused by the merits of this product versus that remain the same, and will continue in the future.
The VSL vs EW discussion is one in a long line, and the fact we have such outstanding quality available these days is a credit to those aspiring to provide us with ever better products.
I wrote my opinion, and it is only my opinion, because i'm not arrogant enough to presume to speak for others. VSL for me, and for what i want, is the better product, based on experience composing, and playing in orchestras of all sizes. It's still only my opnion. You have yours. Aristote and others have theirs too.
You have said it's your opnion that people are using this site to damn a product.
It's their choice and their experience, and just as valid.
For me, having struggled, fought and argued with my computers, sounds and equipment over many years, VSL is the closest i have heard to the sound i know and want. The intimacy of a small room is just as breathtaking as the power of a large hall, and i have to say, based on the Demos, i think VSL is capable of both.
I still have a question mark as to EW's capacity to sound right in an intimate environment, and i think their philosophy is based on a big sound, rather than a good one.
But that's just my opinion!
Regards to you all,
Alex.
