Just feeding some more solutions in here that were already discussed with older VSL versions and are still a possible solution to new ones. Just take a look at this thread and the all the other threads I linked there in my post so you can some more impressions about possible solutions:
http://community.vsl.co.at/viewtopic.php?t=4602

The only thing that could be added here, that the new VSL VI's don't allow the user easily to adjust sample pitch like in a sampler (or do they? I actually don't know but I would be surprised if they do). Meaning to involve program re-programming once for samplers (pitch everything up or down and fill in the holes with a stretched version of the lowest/highest sample). So the approach with doubling a line with a wholetone higher pitched variant of the same sample set would not apply so easily with the VIs, but you could recaculate the BPM of the piece for the piece to be recorded a wholetone deeper or higher, and then pitch it back the wholetone to the desired pitch in your audio editor. For everything else I strongly recommend reading the threads and trying to understand the reasoning of both sides.

All the best,
PolarBear

@William said:

I do not like the insipid whining tone of this thread.

First of all the orchestral strings can be used for first and second violins, just not for 1st and 2nd that come together on a single line. So it is not that big a deal. Unless you are idiotic enough to write the same notes for first and second constantly. Do you do that? If you do, you deserve to have all your samples taken away and should be in solitary confinement at Alcatraz for a month.

Secondly, you could use chamber strings on second. if that is not acceptable because you are a twit, you could do what the whole point of Appassionata was - to add even more sounds to the huge, existing library of string sounds. Now you have three different ensembles, totally different samples. Appassionata should be used for first violins anyway, since they are the best sampled violins in existence and anyone who does not have them is a fool.

What you want is total perfection, instantly. You are NOT going to get it in this universe. So stop snivelling about it. And BTW I am so sorry you spent some money. Do you have any idea of how much money I have spent on equipment and samples? And am I here writing posts whining like yours about it? NO! I may be spiralling downqard into debt, misery and ultimate destruction, but am I whining like you? NO! Don't come to me with these stories! [8o|]

Nice attitude William. I'm glad we have a self proclaimed dictator of appropriate posts on the forum.

Clearly you're from the ranting school of posting, which I have no problem with, although your anger surprises me a little. What you declare is insipid and whining , others might find tactful and polite. If you can't deal with that, perhaps best to stay out of other people's threads.

I don't expect perfection. But I do expect to be given the right to complain when I believe something is not done right. How I complain, is my perogative, not yours.

I hope that's direct enough for you

Jules

Hi Polarbear.

Many thanks for the response.

You're right, there are workarounds to the lack of Second Violins, and I have searched the forums and tried some of them. The Chamber Strings section I personally don't find quite right in an orchestral context, although I have used it, and it's certainly better than nothing. I haven't tried pitching other sections up or down and retuning, and don't even know if this is possible with the VI Player.

I only installed the Appassionata Strings yesterday, and I'm very much hoping that these are the solution for big unison lines and will make other workarounds unnecessary. The good people at VSL have told me that they were recorded for exactly this purpose.

In case I've been misunderstood, my original point is that, given that people are looking for workarounds for Second Violins, that seems to suggest, there's a shortfall in the Symphonic Cube. If that's accepted, it might have been nice if Symphonic Cube owners were offered some kind of incentive to purchase this upgrade and complete the orchestra.

Thanks again for your help Polarbear.

Jules

I really don't want 2nd Violins for various reasons:

1) The cost of duplicating the recordings (passed on to the customer).
2) The extra disc space that it would all take.
3) A gazillion more articulations to hunt through.

However, I would imagine that a 2nd Violin of the Solo Strings could be very handy for some people. I would certainly like more "2nds" for some Woodwind and Brass instruments. Orchestral violins though is unnecessary, because there are so many layering possibilities and articulations that avoiding phasing is easy, without going to any trouble with pitch shifting.

DG

Jules, you'll be happy with the Appasionatas, don't worry.

In my setup I need to layer them because the Appasionata "teasers" which are in Special Edition come only with a sus and a staccato articulation. So to fill the legato gap in a line I double this sus patch with the normal violin legato. Works well enough for me, at this moment.

And Daryl has good points as well.

Thanks for the helpful posts guys.

I'm no bigshot on orchestral arrangements, so perhaps there's some degree of inexperience at play here, but when working with the East West Symphonic Orchestra, I found it very effective to double up certain legato passages with both 1st and 2nd Violins, when one needed a theme or top-line to come through really strongly in unison. I was just a little surprised when I couldn't do the same with the Vienna Instrument. After all, an orchestra has two violin sections and ocassionally they play the same part.

All of that said, the Appassionata Strings sound superb - I tested them this morning. Even on their own, they provide an extremely full and lush sound, and obviously could be layered with the Orchestral Violins if one wanted two violin sections playing together but perhaps mixed slightly differently. I'm well pleased.

It doesn't alter my initial point that, in the absence of two violin sections in the Symphonic Cube, I personally think it would have been a constructive gesture for VSL to offer SC owners an incentive to buy the Appassionata Strings.

Thanks again

Jules

No, you're not being inexperienced by doubling up 1sts and 2nds. This is very common, both at the unison and the octave. What you can do is just ad a little chamber or solo to the 2nds (and/or 1sts) and ride the volume up and down, alter the timing slightly, both to give a more live feel, and to make each section more independent.

FWIW never copy and paste from 1st to 2nd violins. Always program from scratch. this way it is more likely that you will avoid any phasing, even with the same patches.

DG

As to being fair, the App violins were originally a free download, so I certainly can't complain that I've been treated unfairly.

DG

@DG said:

As to being fair, the App violins were originally a free download, so I certainly can't complain that I've been treated unfairly.

DG

Hey Daryl

What do you know about Louis Lowendall violins?

@DG said:

As to being fair, the App violins were originally a free download, so I certainly can't complain that I've been treated unfairly.

DG

Hey Daryl

What do you know about Louis Lowendall violins?
Nothing.....

DG

@Another User said:

As to being fair, the App violins were originally a free download, so I certainly can't complain that I've been treated unfairly.

I didn't realize that, and I agree that's a very fair deal. It's a shame VSL haven't continued to extend the same offer to Symphonic Cube owners - it would solve this problem (sucha as it is) in one fell swoop.

Thanks again

Jules

All right I was ranting there. I happened to be in Rant Mode and you set me off somehow. It can't be explained. It is a simple fact of nature.

However I agree with DG about the redundancy of recording 2nd violins. With the massive numbers of samples involved, the time and money has been better spent with more multifarious articulations and ensembles. As DG also points out, phasing often does not happen with lines coming together if they are not exactly the same MIDI timing.

I have been dealing with this extensively in my demos, and find it a non-problem with the different possibilities of scoring afforded by the different ensemble sounds. However, even though you can use for example Appassionata on 1st, and Orchestral on 2nd and think you are so cool with your completely different sample sets, I predict that you will default to Appassionata on both 1st and 2nd. In fact I guarantee it. Because it makes the entire orchestra sound richer with a more espressivo 2nd violin section.


BTW what is far, far more needed than a 2nd violin section is 2-player desks and a complete second solo violin.

@Trailerman said:

I'm no bigshot on orchestral arrangements, so perhaps there's some degree of inexperience at play here, but when working with the East West Symphonic Orchestra, I found it very effective to double up certain legato passages with both 1st and 2nd Violins, when one needed a theme or top-line to come through really strongly in unison. I was just a little surprised when I couldn't do the same with the Vienna Instrument. After all, an orchestra has two violin sections and ocassionally they play the same part.

Are you sure you read all the linked threads? The pile of workarounds are for that rare "occasions" like you say, and they don't really justify the cost of having a full violin section recorded, again. If you read all threads carefully you would have come to the conclusion that layering chamber or solo strings or pitching patches aren't the only "solutions" to a very questionable "problem". I could think of at least 4 more which I and others already described in these threads. Additionally, Appassionata's would fit perfectly where a workaround could fail. If you think that's a reason not to buy VSL, fine, go elsewhere, there are plenty. The choices and possiblities given by VSL aren't the same there though, and I think that may be also *because* they went for an almost completely redundant sampling session while trying not to exceed the aimed price tag. Anyway, don't fall into the trap of thinking too theoretical, it's not a practical problem. You'd be surprised vice versa as well if you found out about EWQLSO not offering an Appassionata equivalent or not being able to do performance trills and runs. I could go on here for some time.

However, I may agree that with better expertise of VSL recordings of a new set of string ensembles would perhaps stand out over the current 1st violin. Still, as the major part of forum members I do think that a 2-player desk and a second solo violin would enhance things a lot more and another full ensemble (that could also be easily substituted by another company's) would stay third option in line only. The first two are less expensive and affordable for everyone while offering a yet unexperienced pile of possibilities, representing the best bang for the buck as they say.

On a sidenote, I will never understand why VSL wouldn't get their acts together and provided a fairly simple and effective update to sample libraries and VI's, taking the programming work away from the users, by offering the pitched patches. For the sample libraries the user could do this by himself and only time for programming it would be holding it from him, for the VI's it would be a major PITA to recalculate the BPM of a pitched track, record, pitch and then rerecord everytime you need that kind of thing, when it could be a lot easier with fairly simple programming in the first place. Maybe they will provide it someday. I already suggested that in one of the older threads, also. You already guessed how much reaction it received. Well, actually indirectly it did receive some: numerous threads addressing the same thing.

All the best,
PolarBear

Hi Polarbear

@Another User said:

If you think that's a reason not to buy VSL, fine, go elsewhere,

Did I say it was a reason not to buy VSL? I think you have misinterpreted my posts.

I must admit that I'm surprised that when one offers any kind of criticism here, or mentions a competing product, people start jumping down one's throat. Oh well, I guess that's just the way forums are. I actually think the VI is an awesome product and have said so many times, I just don't believe in spending my time on sycophantic ramblings. EWQLSO is not a patch on the VI Cube, I'll happily say that now, although it also costs infinitely less, and does have some nice touches, and a great sound for certain types of production. Please don't let's start a debate on that though - it's like comparing Apples and Oranges, and I only mentioned it in an earlier post, because I ocassionally found it helpful to use the EW Violins to double up with the VI Violins.

I'm very happy with the VSL, I just think they should have extended the offer of the Appassionata Violins to all Symphonic Cube owners, to compensate for what some (myself included) perceive as a shortfall in the basic package. Of course if people prefer to use workarounds for when they need 1st and 2nd Violins in unison, as you might, then that's fine too. The number of workarounds available does not change my opinion though.

Thanks again for your input.

Jules

Dear All,

The lack of seconds only has a measurable and obvious impact when doubling at the unison. Therefore this is pretty much the only practical use for the seconds (sampling navel-gazing aside).

If the lack of seconds really irks you, this approach is reasonable:

1sts - Standard Strings
2nds - Standard Strings
Doubling Unison - Appassionata String, possibly even layered lightly with chamber

You are sacrificing availability of the tone of the appassionata strings for the vast majority of your score for the sound of a more realistic unison (which in my opinion usually isn't a sacrifice worth making), but if you are that worried about it, this is a potential solution.

Regarding the post further up about shifting the samples of a semitone up to generate a "new" section, pitch bend is one of the controllers available for mapping (most obviously to the pitch wheel) in the VI interface as I recall. I don't really see why this isn't possible, although I haven't tried it myself.

Hope this is of help.

Kind Regards,

Nick.

@Trailerman said:

I must admit that I'm surprised that when one offers any kind of criticism here, or mentions a competing product, people start jumping down one's throat. Oh well, I guess that's just the way forums are.

The VSL one in particular.

The Appassionatas for violin unisons is much more convincing than any combination of two independent single violin sections. The cross-resonance of the added violin bodies doesn't seem to happen. So, for violin unisons the Appasionatas are a better approach than other company's two violin sections, that's what I think.

Nick, Mathis - The more I hear the Appassionata strings, the more I agree with both of you. This seems to be the solution for strong unison lines.

Nick, I'm not sure I follow the point about sacrificing the Appassionatas for the rest of the score. Is there any reason why it can't be used in combination with the Orchestral Violins (as 1st and 2nds) throughout the score, each used where they work best. I'm not hearing sufficient differences in fundamental tonal character to make this a problem, although I haven't explored in depth yet.

Thanks for your help.

Jules

Dear Jules,

I do hear the tonal difference which is why I avoid using them interchangeably on the same line - both in numbers and in style of execution. However, the credo is "if it sounds good, it is good". Don't let yourself be limited by my perceptions - mine are probably wrong anyway (or at least as right or wrong as anybody else's)!

Kind Regards,

Nick.

Thanks Nick

I suspect you just have better ears than me!

Regards

Jules

Almost certainly just bigger.