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  4. Halion Symphonic Library vs Vienna Instruments SE?

  • Halion Symphonic Library vs Vienna Instruments SE?

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    How's the quality, and is the workflow for the former different from the latter? Thanks
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    hello.

    I've used both of these orchestra libraries.  Here's what I've found:

    I've found the quality of VSL instruments to be much better than the Halion Libray.  That's not to say the Halion Library is really bad!  Halion works very well for getting the articulations in, and getting a good idea of what your piece may sound like live.

    The difference for me, is that I can get a better picture of the live orchestra sound with VSL.  I do have to make sure I use the artulation presets for the VSL instruments I have for Cubase or Sibelius.  You'd be very happy with the articulations this way, because they contain real-life samples of things like trills, and so on.
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    I find I like to use both. I find HSO cello's have a much softer, smoother sound than VSL with better velocity cross-fading. Viola and violin are better in VSL. What I will also say is that VSL strings can sound a little dark at times. What I like to do is if I want a really expressive legato Violin section for example, I will use VSL as the main section with a HSO solo violin playing the same line just to add a little extra brightness to it. I find this works really well. I thiknk that HSO may have a slightly better sound quality 'out of the box' but VSL can produce a more realistic performance. Overall I would say these really do complement each other really well.