Out of curiousity, have you tried some of the older pre-AP strings techniques?  If not, try layering the SE orchestra strings with the SE chamber strings (and even the SE solo strings if you want).  Try detuning the chamber strings layer slightly from the orchestra strings (1 or 2 cents). 

That likely will give you a thicker more lush sound and also provide an easy way to write divisi.  For me, the design of Play is far too awkward to easily work with, and while LASS was intriguing, the lack of articulations compared to VSL was a major issue - note that I also am more interested in traditional orchestral/chamber music, as compared to epic Hollywood.

<edit> Note that I do not own HS as Play didn't play nice with me (EWQLSO).  Likewise, I do not own LASS, for the above mentioned reason.

@bhartmann said:

When I am arranging HS, notes drop out constantly, like a synth running out of voices.

I like the East West samples in general, and admire that company a lot, but have to say that the VSL Appassionata are the best overall string sound available, and have become my normal strings in all arrangements. 

The reason is, that although you can throw out a lot of gigabytes and "features" and so on, the basic string sound is what really matters.  In my experience, there is nothing that can approach the Appassionata violins, violas and cellos in the basic, instant, beautiful rich string tonality.  And it is fairly low in CPU demand.  That is because the playing and recording was tweaked to be a deep and rich string sound that composers usually want.  You can record a million samples of something that doesn't have that, then brag about how big it is, but it still will just cause a lot of problems. 

Also, what you bring up with the interface is what I've noticed many times - the VSL software using Vienna Ensemble is so logical and useable, that I no longer want to use Kontakt or other proprietary sample players and in fact am becoming very choosy about them.  Because none of them are as good as Vienna Ensemble.  It is so easy and musically logical to load, select and play, that I no longer want to deal with the "All samples in your lap and you figure out how to use them" approach of other players.

I should emphasize that probably no one will ever regret getting the Appassionata strings.  I am doing a new recording that uses a lot of strings, and though I have done a huge amount of Appassionata recordings,  I was still freshly amazed by the instantantaneous beauty of the sound using them.  It is astounding how authentic the sound is using the simple combo of:  legato 4-velocity, sustain, detache and staccato.   Four articulations!  And they cover almost everything you could ever compose. 

One other thing - they are tweaked in general so that the most needed, useable sounds are all right there, instead of being  buried within a lot of unnecessary patches.    But if you want something less usual, you can always supplement with more App articulations, such as tremolo or sforzando/dynamics,  or the other strings that VSL offers, and they fit perfectly into the workflow.  Including the divisi effects possible with Orchestral or Chamber/Solo, as well as adding Solo on top of Appassionata for more "texture" effects of espressivo in doubling violin, viola or cello lines.  

Hi William,

I don't mean to butt in, but I am at a point where I am seriously considering either going more into VSL or over to LASS. I do a LOT of divisis and I am quite impressed by how LASS handles this... but that's not my question. :D

I completely agree with your comments about the inital beauty of a sample lib. I liken this to my guitar students, many of whom spend THOUSANDS on guitars that... on paper... are fantastic, and yet sincerely struggle to get a 'sound'. And for whatever reason, I stumbled upon a $175 stratocaster 30 years ago that just rocks. There's a LOT to be said for hitting a note and just -feeling- a good sound and I'm glad that Appasionata does it for you... but that's not my question. :D

My question is: why do you like the VSL -interface- so much? Especially since you work so much with your own presets. In fact, that's been my main gripe with VSL. I wish it -was- more like Kontakt. Part of it is because VEP is an external app so it's not really -inside- Cubase so I often lose track of articulations because it's hard to 'follow' the MIDI in Cubase along with the articulation changes in VI. But almost everything... like the nomenclature (matrices, presets, etc.)... feel like they went out of their way to come up with their own vocabulary. Did you experience this at first? If so, was their an 'epiphany' moment or some other insight you could give me? I -really- struggle with this. I love the sound of VSL Chamber Strings, but I find the -mechanics- so tedious vs. the sonically inferior EW (sorry guys, it's true, makes everything sound like some Video Game) that I can never -relax- and just -write-. Always so much 'twiddling'. Any thoughts?

---JC

 Hi Suntower,

Well, I started with the earlier player, which was more basic.  This is still accessible in the basic VE player.  I still like that interface the best actually, though it can't do everything that the Pro version can do.  But it is very elegant which I value more. 

The thing I like is how the instruments are all present, right there on the line of patches, and you can see how they are switched instantly.  Also, there is no excess of controls - just the basics.  But they are musically important basics, like the perform control for release time, or the controls for what controller is assigned.  It is very straightforward.  So I got used to that basic player.  I admit that I nowadays will often create an orchestral setup in the basic player, and then, only after it is all made and most of the music finished, convert it to Pro version.  Then it can be tweaked further if needed.

Thanks so much for taking the time. If I may trouble you a bit more:

On a daily basis, what features of VI Pro do you find indispensable? I had a demo (which timed out) and the only thing I found immediately helpful was the time-stretching on bowings with a lot of 'sawing' (timing the bow lengths to the tempi). What do -you- find particularly useful about VI Pro? Maybe I'm just not 'advanced' enough yet to even know what I'm missing.

---JC

Hi Suntower,

the Video Tutorials are focussing on all aspects of VI PRO, step by step [:)]

A few key-words are hidden on the product page as well.

Best,

Paul

I hate Kontact :) haha. VSL is much better to use in my experience, and I love having VEP seperate. If Cubase crashes under a large project load, often the file is corrupted, and you may have to go back a generation in your backups. I may do quite a lot of work in a half hour saved into that project file - that is then lost. That was always my problem with Cubase. With VEP and Cubase it's kind of a layer of redundancy. I keep a save of both versions and that goes a long way to protecting against corrupted projects. The VEPro module inside Cubase is not very memory intensive and when you freeze an instance you basically put aside a whole bunch of channels EQ's and so on and just have a neat stereo pair left. It's really the perfect way to work (for me). ;) I just need a faster machine so I can run more instances at once. ;)

Why I hate Kontact: compared to VI Pro it's just so utterly un-intuitive and madenning. I have some Native Instruments stuff which I use for various projects, drums, other instruments, not a lot but I do use it, and whenver I do and I wnat to adjust things like Reverb or eq or do various routing, say especially with multi channel drum instruments I find it so hard. If I want to do the same thing in VEPro and route things through Cubase it's extremely easy and intuitive. But, all this is just me.

No it's also me.  I feel the same way about Kontakt, and use it for some few things that VSL doesn't yet have but dislike having to. As I said elsewhere, Kontakt is just dump all the samples in your lap and you sort them out.  No elegance, actually almost no organization at all.  Certainly nothing for orchestral musical use. When you use Kontakt, you are using something that is for sampling helicopter landing sound FX as much as it is for orchestral performance.    But maybe I've been spoiled by how elegant the Vienna Ensemble interface is. 

@Suntower said:

Thanks so much for taking the time. If I may trouble you a bit more:

On a daily basis, what features of VI Pro do you find indispensable? I had a demo (which timed out) and the only thing I found immediately helpful was the time-stretching on bowings with a lot of 'sawing' (timing the bow lengths to the tempi). What do -you- find particularly useful about VI Pro? Maybe I'm just not 'advanced' enough yet to even know what I'm missing.

---JC

The main thing that is indispensable is MIR.  It is absolutely essential to anyone using sampled orchestral sound to use this.  It addresses everything that composers doing MIDI have always needed but never had until now.

Thanks William.

I started a new topic on this in the software section. If you have a moment, please reply there. Appreciate the feedback.

---JC