I hope so! :-]

/Dietz

I think William's point is valid. You can have a gazillion samples of various articulations related to the solo violin - but unless you're willing to massage the expression & dynamics and also willing to engage in programming for hours to achieve a somewhat realistic 3 bar solo violin passage - you're probably not going to get something that can fool the experts. So the issue seems to be how much time are you willing to put into a 20-30 second passage? Because I thought part of the reason for VSL and performance tool was to SAVE time.

Frederick Russ
www.sanctusangelis.com

I agree with that Frederick. and what I notice about the solo violin samples for example, are the huge possibilities of working with them, because there are so many samples, and so many ways of controlling them in midi. On my Allegro for Violin and Piano, I only did a basic version. There are so many things that could be changed, with alternate samples, articulations, etc. that it is almost endless. And sheer laziness on the composer/performer's part starts to enter into it. How far are you willing to go, and how long to work, to perfect something? Though the fact that there is a sample library with so many possibilites, and you have that luxury of choices, is really wonderful.

I play guitare since a long time ( more than 20 years ) and I'm sure I'll never hear a sampled guitar wich will be enough real and it's certainly the same thing for a violonist, pianist etc ...

but I love using sample for composition and the realism is enough for me, samples are very good tools for composition ( no need of session studio musician, no need recording and premix ).

that's the place of samples for me and I'm happy from the result of the horizon violin ( euh ... it takes time to make a complete track [:)] )

Roughly same as William and Frederick...

I personally think the Solo Violin is amazing. In fact, if you write a truly idiomatic passage for it, and change articulations frequently, it's almost unbelievable. I'm using it right now just for composition. I've got a little Max/MSP patch that does some interpretation for me, and I run from Finale on a Mac through to VSL on a Giga PC. Even just with this composition setup I'm finding the Solo Strings to be very impressive. I think you just have to be very carefull in the sample choices you make. For example, I'm finding that there are many times when I'll use a "prog-vib" or "port 0'5s" sample in place of what might otherwise just be "ord". This gives the line some shape, and varies the sample selection, making it harder to recognize direct repetitions of a particular sample. Anyway, if you take some time to create an all-round instrument, with all the articulations you think you might want to use, then it doesn't even have to take a great deal of "programming" during the composition process -- just the occasional test of a couple of different possible articulations, and go with the one you prefer. I'm very happy with them. In fact, I'm pretty sure that in the right instrumental setting, and with some careful composition, I could fool a great many people into thinking the VSL Solo Violin was the real thing!

J.

[...]

Don't get me wrong, though... There are certainly things that the Solo Violin doesn't manage so well - fast pp passages being a major one - but often you can even get around those by twisting your thinking a little. For example, I've found that "soft and fast" can, in some cases, be done better with the senza vib or progressive vib samples than any of the performance instruments. Anyway, just wanted to make it clear that I do acknowledge the limitations. But I'm generally very pleased.

J.