@mplaster said:

Wow, thanks for taking the time to do this, Erik.

Firstly, i have to eliminate LASS. I am sure LASS shines on certain things, but on *this* demo and *this* type of music, it's not too successful, in my opinion.

That leaves me with VSL versus Hollywood Strings.

In this demos, to me, the Hollywood Strings sounded like it fit perfectly in a soundtrack; had a very "cinematic" feel to it. It's odd for me to try to reconcile how something "musical" can have it's own descriptive character as "cinematic" or "perfect-for-film." But in that respect i think Hollywood Strings succeeded.

As for VSL, the VSL version of the demo, to me, sounded the most like an actual real orchestra; meaning, there was an "essence" about it that felt mostly as if i were in a concert hall listening to it. I am going to assume that the reverb, placement, effects, etc. were all identical for each track (aside from LASS's self positioning). And therefore i am going to conclude that the fact that HS sounds more "cinematic" and VSL sounds more "real orchestra" is not an anomaly of different mixing/reverb settings. And therefore, from that, i am going to conclude that the difference is inherent in the actual sample data, the amount or articulation content, and the playability of each library's sample set.

Therefore, in MY opinion, VSL takes the gold, HS the silver, and LASS the bronze.

Although i must concede that at that point much of it comes down to what the user him-or-herself is really looking for. As always, different strokes for different folks. To me, HS would seem to be more appropriate for someone doing video game soundtracks, or Hollywood-esque scores. And VSL would seem to fit better the user who is trying to imitate a real orchestra for music and song. And please dont take that out of context. I do not at all mean to imply that Video Game and film composers are any less musical than the rest of us. There are good and bad in both film scoring and music/song-writing. I simply mean to illustrate a difference in not only what the composer himself wants to sound like, but in what the consumer/recipient/audience is expecting to hear in whichever media they are experiencing.

Anyhow, awesome work Erik. Thanks for taking the time to produce these and let us hear them!

- michael

Hi Tralen,

You are right for the first Appasionata version: I removed it, it just doesn't do right to this library.

Furthermore I have made a second reverbed Orchestra version, now with Origami (spatializing) and QL Spaces (EWQL).Nice comparison also with a slightly longer verb in the QL Spaces version.

I haven't been able to do a decent one in MIR yet, but that will undoubtly follow within a few days, so "stay tuned!".

Also for me was the Chamber version surpringly good!

Hey Erik,

This is perfect timing for me. I've been looking at all the strings libraries recently.

Appassionata2 is probs my favourite as far as overall balance and sound. (fast bits aside) Feels really smooth. What was the reverb/stage on that? VSL Standard Orchestra is also nice actually and punchy in comparison. Gotta be TOP 2

HS is kinda nice, bit bright maybe and I would have to do some work on that and it's basically whether you want the "Hollywood sound" out of a box or not really. This thing looks hugh and demanding and that's got to be a real consideration. As well as the fact that VSL stuff is much more tweekable/reliable compared to PLAY.

Some good deals on HS/HB Gold combined at the moment though. VSL would do well to do something similar.

Paul

Well, it is demanding.  I admit to not using it much until I got a Gold license, as the Diamond was a bit of a bloated sluggish pig, not to put too fine a point on it.  It does sound great, if pitchy.  In fact, my main complaint with HS and LASS is the thing so many people are saying is great, which is the fact that they are pitchy.  I say this in response: it doesn't sound more human because of that - it sounds more like you got the "B" players to do your session.  As a side thought - maybe it's not a lack of tuning problems that make one's strings sound fake...

My general feeling about EW is that their libraries are ambitious, often very good-sounding, inspiring, and sometimes incompletely programmed or recorded.  One needs to look no further than the QLSO to find, for example, curiously- and inconsistently-articulated attacks on the 6-Horn ensemble or three-trumpet ensemble, or abrupt cutoffs on releases in many of their titles, SD and SDII having notable examples.  Admittedly, I have never attempted to record a giant library using a large number of musicians before, and perhaps it is beyond the scope of any reasonable-priced library to have all perfect performances without making the library a losing proposition money-wise - after all, look at what you get when you buy QLSO Platinum (or Gold, even.) - pretty impressive.  It's still pretty great to be able to drop something in that sounds mostly there.

But what I can say is that VSL seems to suffer far less from tuning and articulation issues than any others - and also that I've had a great deal of success making VSL sound satisfyingly "Hollywood" with the right ambiences and positioning, maybe a hair of layering, and maybe the occasional bit of distortion (from Devil-Loc or the like) - whereas HS is HS, pretty much.  If you get a lot of the VSL strings, you can get a lot of different sounds out of them.  I'll never forget the first time I took something written with App strings and converted it to the Chamber stuff - the Chamber Strings are very agile and easy to direct.  It made the App strings feel like I was driving a city bus by comparison.  Not that they're bad at all!  Just that when the sound of more players is involved... Anyway, it would be nice to have more, shall we say, florid playing options in VSL than are currently offered, but that often seems to come at the expense of malleability in programming.  Though if anyone can make it work, maybe it'll be the folks from Vienna.

@dragsquares said:

I say this in response: it doesn't sound more human because of that - it sounds more like you got the "B" players to do your session.

That is exactly my opinion. Mentioning the issue on the forum of Audiobro didn't help at all, on the contrary: there are some LASS believers who really think that you first have to make  'music' before complaining about patches that are fully out ot of tune. A mock-up of whatever piece with only the First Chair patches gives a ridiculous result, not even on a level of B-players, it just lacks any level. Combining FC, A,B and C makes the pain less, but still audible.

And...you are right on this also: HS is a bit (sometimes more than a bit) out of tune in some patches.

On the contrary: with VSL, besides the abundance of articulations, also this element is in hands of the users of VI Pro with all kinds and levels of what I call "dis-tuning".

Does anybody have listened to the original DVZ results (35 and 70- players) BTW?

Nice job. I prefer the VSL Orchestral version. I’m not sure that the score calls for this, but I could imagine a mix of Chamber and Orchestral sections in this piece.

Overall very nice, and there are (at least) a few moments of truly exceptional programing !

Hi,

There is an add-on, if interested visit this page.

Erik

Yes, but VSL without MIR is like a Porsche without a blonde.

(Forgive me ladies! By the way, I prefer Ferrari and brunettes [8-|])

I worked on a piece the other day that used CineBrass but needed some good strings.  I own HS but frankly I don't use it.  Too much hassle and I need something that just works..  So I turned to Appassionata Strings.  Done.  Perfect.  Love the legato.  Love assigning the mod wheel to velocity x-fade.  Everything works.  I did a Herrmann styled piece a while back with CineBrass and I also used the Orchestral String trills from VSL.  What delighted me is that the harder the velocity, the faster the trill (at least it seems this way).  Briliant.

Can't wait for VI PRO 2.0  

Hi Fiery,

@Fiery Angel said:

I own HS but frankly I don't use it.  Too much hassle and I need something that just works..

Agreed, but in Cubase 6 with its expression maps, in which articulations/patches can be assigned to channels (!!), the hassle is over, at least if you meant that. In all other DAW's it is a real nightmare I guess.

I will check your trills*velocity asap!

Also for me: eager to getting to know VI PRO 2.0!

Personally there are elements of different ones I like.  The App version is good but too dry for my tastes but the detail is nice...although the basses always sound muddy to me though.  The HS versions I like till it tries to do the TREM parts and the detail is lost.  This would sound much better with the stage or a close/main mic mix.  The LASS would work if you panned everything and brought up the verb...a little too dry to me.

Despite those comments thanks for doing this..well done!

@dragsquares said:

I admit to not using it much until I got a Gold license, as the Diamond was a bit of a bloated sluggish pig, not to put too fine a point on it.

I agree that the App basses sound "muddy"!

 They don't sound muddy. 

You are hearing a larger number of players.  Listen to the Chamber basses.  You will think they sound clear.  Why?  Because there are only two.  On a larger group of low instruments, the sound is huge, deep and booming, but that is not the same thing as muddy. 

@devastat said:

Hollywood Strings Diamond performs very well when you run it from a SSD drive. I have two SSD drives as RAID 0 (software) and HS performs extremely well on those disks. Also the recent 2.0 update as well as PLAY 3 that just got released makes it really fast to use (again if you are running it from a SSD). I have to say that the fact is that there isn't anything even close to Hollywood Strings on the market right now when it comes down to a true "Hollywood" John Williams type sound.

Yes, it sounds good and big, etc.  We all know that, which is why we bought it.  My point is, as far as I can recall, before Diamond came out they didn't say anything about it requiring more hardware to actually work in the way it should - I could be wrong about that, but I kind of expected it to work as well as the other libraries under the same conditions.  Then I was thinking, at least it ships on a drive...but it was a drive they didn't recommend for optimal use.  At the time, although it did a few things that VSL didn't (like crossfading dynamics on legato, for instance) and although it sounded great out of the box, it seemed way less efficient, and I wound up getting Gold as my second license so that I could use it without spending $5k at a minimum for another Mac to play a $1400 library.  (With intonation issues, that takes a bit more work than VSL to get the timing on legato patches right.)  Don't get me wrong - I do really like the way it sounds.  But let's not say it isn't a bit of a pig for resources if it requires the absolute fastest tech available to really do what it's designed to do.  Because that is what a pig is.  A resource hog.  Fortunately, bacon makes everything taste better.

@dragsquares said:

I wound up getting Gold as my second license so that I could use it without spending $5k at a minimum for another Mac to play a $1400 library. (With intonation issues, that takes a bit more work than VSL to get the timing on legato patches right.) Don't get me wrong - I do really like the way it sounds. But let's not say it isn't a bit of a pig for resources if it requires the absolute fastest tech available to really do what it's designed to do. Because that is what a pig is. A resource hog. Fortunately, bacon makes everything taste better.

@devastat said:

SSD disks are fast becoming industry standard in the computer world (and most likely in 2-years time most of hard disks are only SSD disks) so I wouldn't necessarily call it the "fastest tech available". All that HS requires is a fast hard drive and a quite decent computer (nothing fancy), altho I think it does work quite nicely even on a regular 7200rpm hard drive. Offcourse memory is another factor you might want to have 12GB of ram, but given the fact that memory is so cheap these days.. P.S The only difference between Gold and Diamond version of HS is that Gold only has mid mic positions and it's lacking bowchange legato patches, so you could have just copied the mid mic positions only from the Diamond installation disk and save the money spent on the separate Gold license..

I don't mean to appear argumentative, but let me clear up a few points.

First, the last one.  Gold is 16-bit.  Less data throughput.  Easier on a system.  Not the same as Diamond using only one mic position.

Second, the second to last.  I've never run HS on a system with less than 16GB RAM.  That's a good thought, of course.

Third, SSD's are an emerging standard.  But they are not the industry standard yet in our business.  Why?  Not inexpensive enough.  They'll be the standard when nobody's buying platters anymore - or when a library that really (come on, now, it really does) requires SSD actually ships on one and it doesn't increase the price by half or more.  So a library that really doesn't do everything it should without the fastest tech available was a bit of a shock to many people, I think - certainly based on lots of posts here and elsewhere.  Also, I'm guessing there may be a minor misunderstanding here - but within reason, a drive like the OWC top-of-the-line SSD could easily be considered the fastest tech available, standard or not.  Arguably faster and more suitable for sample streaming by virtue of its large numbers of iops than, say, fiber-channel 15k drives.

I suppose what I'm really getting at is this: I could be wrong, but to my memory, before HS was released there wasn't any (or much of any) mention of the fact that to really do a full contemporary arrangement with everything online, that you would really want to spend @$950 on an SSD system - and oddly enough, before Play 3 was released there wasn't any mention of the fact that to get the same functionality as Play 2 in certain instances, that you would have to upgrade your RAM.

Now, I don't have anything against upgrading hardware for software.  I built PC's to run Giga and later VSL.  I remember when MOTU seemed to code for computers that hadn't quite been built yet.  And the price I pay for being an early adopter of EW software and libraries is that I often don't find out until I install the stuff that my system is lacking in some way.  It's not EW's fault if I'm eager and willing to live on the bleeding edge (when I'm not in the middle of a project, anyway).  It is, however, worth noting that the FAQ that was just released is the first document that indicates that Play 3 might require an upgrade - and it was released after the beta cycle and after the product was released.  I don't know why that is, and I don't really care.  Someone else can go there (and has).  

Anyway, just clarifying my position.  

Also, even though VSL does a bit less in terms of things like modwheel crossfades in the stock library, I don't ever run into things I can't do with it because my system is choking.  And I like my Hollywood sound that I get from it...[:D]