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  4. "Problems I have with Solo Strings"
  • L
    L
    noldar12, you are right; my first post got off on the wrong foot. I regret that. But some of the contributors seem to feel that I was attacking them. It's the VSL product that I was up against, not the users.

    _TUTORIALS_

    DM33, thanks again for your advice about the tutorials. I would like to learn from them. It's proving more difficult than I expected, though:

    • The CPU issue is a big handicap. In order to play the first 9 notes of the Bridge, I had to get past 15 interruptions of either "running out of CPU power" or "the operating system held off interrupts for too long". And I had muted every track except for the solo viola.
    • Every tutorial I've looked at uses the Extended Edition. So far, I've been able to play them because of the 30-starts free license, but it won't be long before the tutorials become unplayable for me.
    • The things I really want to learn, aren't satisfactorily demonstrated. I've gone over the Bridge in more detail, and found several instances of notes that were intended to be sustained, but weren't. The following timings are what I get after importing the MID file into Pro Tools. The first piano note is at 25.2 seconds and the first viola note is at 40.5 seconds.
      • At 1:53, G#4 is notated as 4.52 seconds but dies after 2.68 seconds.
      • At 2:18, F#3 is notated as 4.66 seconds but dies after 4.2 seconds.
      • At 2:57, the last viola note in the piece, the harmonic on C#5 is notated as 8.66 seconds but dies after 4.76 seconds.

    And these are the officially published examples of what the product can do? Unsatisfactory.

    _SUSTAIN_

    I've found that using controller 64 (sustain) leads to more problems. If the sustain starts just before the end of part 1 of the note, and ends just after the start of part 2, I get the sound of two violins playing the same note slightly differently. When a subsequent note (on a different pitch) starts, it sounds like one of these two violins is dropping out. This problem is at its worst for a diminuendo -- when the first part has a higher velocity than the second part. So I've stopped using ANY controllers to paper over the bow changes. Of course this leaves audible bow changes. Many more of them, and more audible, than in a professional performance. Unsatisfactory.

    _HARMONICS_

    I've been trying to use Solo Strings to demo a piece I wrote two years ago. That piece includes violin harmonics sounding D#5 and F#5. These are produced by fingering bottom G# and touching the D# a fifth above it, and by fingering bottom B and touching the F# a fifth above it. This sounds the third partial. Apparently the guys in Vienna have never heard of such a thing. Their software cannot be coaxed into sounding violin harmonics in this range.

    No combination of "Oct" and "Transp" in the Edit Cell page will allow you to produce these harmonics from the violin patches.

    My demo will have to use viola harmonics for these two notes. The sound is noticeably different from the surrounding violin harmonics. Anyone listening to my demo will say "what an unprofessional job he did".

    I now realize that this oddity is why I came to the false conclusion that the harmonic patch was monophonic. In my tests, the lower notes were E5 and F#5, and they never sounded. Now I know that the VSL design correctly allows double-stopped harmonics, but incorrectly omits the valid pitches D#5 through F#5.

    Another bad design decision about harmonics is less serious, because the workaround is easy and the sound is not bad. That was the decision to map harmonic patches an octave lower than they sound. I don't recall any score where this practice was followed. In fact the OPPOSITE has sometimes been done, in double bass parts, where harmonics sound an octave lower than written. But I can work around this problem using "Oct".

    Another thing about harmonics: Vienna Symphonic Library GmbH is guilty of false advertising. Read their web page
    http://vsl.co.at/en/211/442/344/350/217.htm which clearly states that the Standard Edition (Solo Strings I) contains "numerous natural and artificial harmonics". In fact, the natural harmonics are not included in the product. Articulation 11 VI_harm-nat_sus is a Level 2 articulation. Therefore the very commonly used violin harmonics G4 and D5 will not be available to me. I have been cheated.

    Dear forum members: Convince me that I'm wrong about any of the above, please. I paid more for this product than the cost of some computers, and I would like to believe that I have paid for a great product. So far it appears to be a collection of beautiful samples that will require many headaches to work with.
  • M
    M
    last edited
    last edited

    @Another User said:

    Another thing about harmonics: Vienna Symphonic Library GmbH is guilty of false advertising. Read their web page
    http://vsl.co.at/en/211/442/344/350/217.htm which clearly states that the Standard Edition (Solo Strings I) contains "numerous natural and artificial harmonics". In fact, the natural harmonics are not included in the product. Articulation 11 VI_harm-nat_sus is a Level 2 articulation. Therefore the very commonly used violin harmonics G4 and D5 will not be available to me. I have been cheated.

    Dear forum members: Convince me that I'm wrong about any of the above, please. I paid more for this product than the cost of some computers, and I would like to believe that I have paid for a great product. So far it appears to be a collection of beautiful samples that will require many headaches to work with.

    As for feeling you are being "attacked" read these sentences and then think again. Come on dude, give me a break. After all these pages, and you STILL are going at it. "GUILTY OF FALSE ADVERTISING!!! I HAVE BEEN CHEATED!!! MANY HEADACHES TO WORK WITH!!! VSL CAUSED THE 9-11 ATTACKS!!!!"

    Really, man. Seriously. Would it have been that hard to come on here and say "Hey, whats up? I thought i was supposed to get Artificial Harmonics? Can someone please explain?" Or, "Hey why are my sustains not really sustaining... someone please tell me if i am overlooking something."

    But no, you are addressing some of these issues with a litigious approach in the way you are wording your concerns. Do  you expect everyone to jump along with you and join in the witch-hunt? Obviously VSL is doing SOMETHING right or they wouldnt be in business.

    Man i TOTALLY understand your frustration, as i have it sometimes with certain issues, but it wouldnt kill you to tone it down with the accusations and show a little bit of etiquette. Im not trying to attack you or anything, im just merely trying to help you see why you feel like you are being attacked. This has been one of the friendliest forums ive ever dealt with. Everyone on here is always helpful and excited to be involved... even PaulR  ðŸ˜Š  So i says this with only sincerety, that if you dont want to feel you are being "pushed back," try coming here with a little less accusatory nature and less denunciating of the product. This forum is here to help you, okay?

    Group hug.

    -plaster
  • T
    T

    The key word for Londoner is patience.  You'll find ways to workaround the supposed shortcomings you mentioned.  Will VSL replace live players?  Not now.  But whose expecting that?  

    Two points Londoner makes that I agree with.  VSL does use a lot of memory, and the newcomer sometimes suffers because he paid a lot of money for his VSL instruments only to find his computer doesn't support them very well.  And, yes, the manuals are sometimes unclear and perhaps too abbreviated for newcomers.  Once again--patience.  One discovers a lot of great things about VSL over time.

    Perhaps a tutorial that discusses in detail the memory requirements of VSL would be useful.  Granted, optimization is well explained, but how about a video aimed at newcomers that discusses VSL memory issues?  It might be helpful for those, like me, who bulldozed along with CPU overloads, rather than get a new computer.  Looking back, I should have thrown in the towel long before I did.  A video might have helped me see the error of my ways.

    Good luck, Londoner.  Give VSL more time, and all best.                                   Tom M.
  • L
    L
    Thanks, mplaster and Tom23. I am sorry that I got the facts wrong. I had thought that Solo Strings I meant the Standard Edition, and Solo Strings II meant the Extended Edition. Thank you for correcting me.

    Obviously I have expressed too much frustration and disappointment in these pages. I invite everyone over when they're in London and we can drink a few beers and laugh about some of the silly things that have transpired. But my joy will be even greater if I can find solutions to some of the problems that have surfaced in my attempts to use Solo Strings.
  • N
    N

     Londoner, I believe you are right about the description in solo strings - the articulations description contains an error regarding harmonics in the standard edition that has unfortunately never been fixed (it is something I had asked about more than a little while ago, as no other library listed natural harmonics as part of the standard library).

    As for samples/articulation ranges, it is a tough call.  It is impossible for a company to include every articulation for every possible note, with every possible playing nuance.  At some point decisions must be made regarding what to include and what to exclude.  For example: as a bassist, I would wish that the highest major third of the solo range had been sampled, but there are very few players who can play those notes truly well.  While not unimportant, their use is also not common, so for general use, there is justification for excluding them.  Overall, I think the VSL team has made excellent choices in their decisions of what to include and what not to include.
  • D
    D

    Hi guys,

    first of all I want to say that I'm very sorry - there was indeed a mistake in the sample content descriptions (which I obviously wasn't aware of). The Solo Strings Standard Library only contains staccato and sustained notes of artifical harmonics, all other harmonics articulations are part of the Extended Library.

    I'd like to apologize for any inconvenience caused by that error. It's not always easy to keep track of all the samples ...

    Kind regards,
    David Ender / VSL manuals
  • OceanviewO
    OceanviewO

    Hello David,

    Any possibility that VSL might publish something that would facilitate working with the samples? Many work-arounds get listed on the forums. Could these be gathered up? Could VSL publish its own suggestions, etc?

    Thanks.
  • Z
    Z
    Hi everyone,

    I feel obliged to throw in my two cents since Londoner has cited my own previous posts in some of these discussions.

    First off, we all know that VSL is a great product. I bought the Solo Strings first and proceeded to purchase numerous other libraries and a dedicated computer to run these over the course of the following six months. (I am a private individual so VSL is very expensive for me... in fact the most expensive music technology product I've bought in 5 years). So no bones there.
    I'd also like to point out that some of the remarks made in this thread (but more especially in the more recently created accompanying thread here), I find some of the comments to be less then gracious (though as previously pointed out an angry title never helps). The accusation of trolling and working for the other side have been raised against myself also despite my attempts at constructive criticism. And Londoners comments (despite the underlying anger) really did point out issues which are important to people like myself who work in a certain way. I think the defensive attitude of many here shows a reluctance to accept that there might be issues with our beloved VSL systems into which we invest so much time and money. But there are some issues which are a nightmare for many of us VSL users... no matter how elegant the workarounds seem for some of you... they are not practicable in the context of those who work primarily on Sibelius or Finale composition systems. I think the point is that VSL is the best system if you want your VSL work to be used as the final output (say in a film or TV score) but less then ideal if you are composing for a real orchestra and VSL is being used as a mock up.

    My main concern with VSL with regard to the sustain issues which seem so central to the issues both I and Londoner appear to be having is that VSL does not seem to have the capacity to update these files. The decision to loop or not to loop appears to have been made at the editing stages of the samples when developing the solo strings. As someone who has in the past been commissioned to make sample libraries myself I can attest to the fact that at the recording process there is indeed no guarantee that things will work out as planned and that seems to be the case here. I would really welcome a version of these samples which was less then ideal in terms of sound quality but which at least looped. And it would be great if an update were made available which addressed these issues. From what I can gather Solo Strings I was one of the first libraries created and issues which encountered then have since been addressed in more recent libraries.

    Hope these comments are met with non knee-jerk reactions folks...

    jurgen from Ireland
  • D
    D

    Hi Oceanview,

    thanks, your suggestion is certainly worth thinking about - only it's a capacity problem. Gathering together the info is no mean task, and I confess that at least at the moment it seems too much to handle to me. But how about opening up a "Work-arounds" thread? If people contribute to that, it would be easier for me to edit, publish and regularly update a .pdf containing all those user tips & tricks - much easier than reading through thousands of pages [;)]. (I did that once and it was really hard work. Only the forum contained about a 5th of what it does now.)

    Kind regards,

    David Ender / VSL manuals
  • W
    W

    .
  • Z
    Z
    Hi William,

    I'm not sure who you mean by "you people"... however my reference to knee jerk reactions is, I believe valid, in so far as many of the responses to some of these issues fail to give any consideration to the wider requirements of the VSL user base preferring instead to take a default defensive position in light of any criticism. (The OP can of course be blamed for the tone on this particular topic and I'm not here to defend that.)

    But the central point for both myself and the OP is that decisions were made in the creation of the Solo Strings libraries (and some others also) which make life exceptionally difficult for those who use VSL to make mock-ups of orchestral works before sending the scores to a real orchestra for performance. For us, the suggested workarounds are less then ideal and the inconsistencies within the Solo Strings are frustrating (especially as these often only come to light after weeks of frustration and subsequently analysing what we might be doing wrong). If VSL works well for you then I'm delighted for you but you must respect that there are others who have different requirements and where even a slight compromise in terms of sound quality would have been happily accepted if this were to mean all sustained instruments actually sustained. Jumping in with comments without taking this into account could very easily be seen to be a knee jerk reaction no?

    The sample libraries were privately commissioned by music publishers/composers who required specific libraries not then available (late 90's). One of these was a sample library for Chester Music London's specific use with the Grammophone award winning artist Carol Cerasi and her period harpsichord and the library in question has since been used by numerous other artists and appears on a number of releases including a recent appearance on a Planet-mu label release.

    By the way I'd be very interested in your own working method... does your VSL output end up being your final output or is it just a tool for composing? If the latter then perhaps you might put forward some more constructive advise to those of us facing the above problems.
  • A
    A

    zentrumsounds,

    If you are still working with Finale I present some workarounds for the non-looping patches in this thread:

    http://community.vsl.co.at/forums/t/24478.aspx

    (see tip No 4.)
  • Z
    Z
    Thanks Albert,

    i actually moved to Sibelius last year though your workarounds can be transferred to this programme also. However the problem being referred to here is that in some instances sustain patches in the solo strings are in fact not looped or in some cases only looped for a specific dynamic level. So unfortunately this soloution won't work in this instance.

    Thanks!