Hi David,

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts, it´s much appreciated!

We´re proud that musicians around the world are inspired by our products, and hope that the next steps will be just as exciting as the last 13 years!

Best,

Paul

i totally agree david,

i love toying around with other libraries - especially since many of them sound great/finished out of the box. but when it comes to real productions, i most of the times find they do not offer the kind of flexibility and precission i need to bring my ideas to life.

that's how - over the years - i've learnd to trust vsl to make the right decessions. life's just better if you have partners you can trust ;)
here's to the future!

I also completely agree with "timeless" as the first samples done by VSL more than a decade ago are still a basic part of the library.  What other technology has that staying power?  Musical instruments.  A Stradivarious is technology - a perfected form of technology.  Maybe the real reason for the timeless quality is that - VSL is not just a collection of ephemeral data that comes and goes, but truly a musical instrument.

My experience is that whenever I think about using another library developer, I just found that for realism of classical pieces its no contest. One of main reasons is surely controller software VI and VE. I just cant imagine I can create big orchestral composition with other controller software. Many thanks to VI team for such a great job. [Y]

I find myself wanting to join in the praise. I bought the old Giga cube, in something of a hurry, way back when it was on a really good deal for students, since I would probably never have managed to get my foot on the ladder again. At the time I couldn't afford a PC powerful enough to run them, and didn't own Gigastudio. I gradually worked towards that. Meanwhile Vienna moved on, and I upgraded to the Vienna Player versions, still without being able to use them. Then we had a builder in to bash through two rooms in order to make a studio, and all my equipment was packed away for three years (laziest builder in the world).

So I'm just finally setting up, about 10 years after first buying the samples. I was a little worried that I would find Vienna feeling old. Obviously a sound is a sound, and I knew that the recording quality of Vienna would last for a long, long time, but I thought I might find it had been surpassed in terms of playability. In the interrim I've also bought lots of Kontakt stuff, also without being able to really use it, and thought some of it might make me wish I'd never bought Vienna. But I'm finding quite the opposite. Vienna is just awesome. Far from starting to think in terms of replacing it for my orchestral needs, I'm now hoping the Vienna team go on to replace all my Kontakt ethnic and pop instruments. I want a Vienna gamelan, duduk, ondes martenot, African ensemble, etc, etc...

I have the exact same feeling as Pingu on the older sounds.  I started using the 1st Edition when it first came out, on Gigastudio, which was constantly crashing, but the sounds were so great I had to finish the music I was doing.  All of those same sounds I am still using regularly!   I've abandoned all the other libraries from the same time.

Ondes martenot - that would be a fantastic VSL sample library because it uses legato, is extremely complex analog with the tubes and varying in sound, and is next to impossible to get a "live" one (though Howard Shore did on the Ed Wood score).

In a Way you are right that VSL should start with ethnic Instruments. But the orchestral Library is not finished. Especially Film composers need dark/thrilling Horror- Wood and String effects. Don't you miss that as well? I really do.

But I agree. VSL Samples are timeless. That why I decided to invest in these samples instead of East West or Project Sam. The only Products I bought from These firms are true strike 2 and storm drum 3. 

I hope that VSL will record ethno instruments which fit into the orchestral context in the future [Y]

I listened to the Instruments mentioned above. And Duduk DOES fit very well into the orchestral context [B] [Y][Y][Y]

One other thing I notice is I recently went to another library's site and saw how they have some basic sound libraries which are inadequate compared to VSL, and then some performance libraries in which there are no basic sounds but instead just some specific "angelic" or "dark" or "creepy" performances.

This has become more and more common.  Whenever you get one of those libraries, you get something that is a performance by musicians who use basic sounds to create "angelic" or "dark" or "creepy" sounds.  

The goal of VSL is to create that basis which musicians use to create ANYTHING.   Which is the same thing as a symphony orchestra sitting in front of you ready to play. 

So when you obtain VSL, you have that power and don't need all the lame performance libraries that give you a re pre-digested sound.  Especially when VSL is constantly expanding the sound base.  The Dimension Strings are just the first part of that.

In my opinion there are two important points why people love the VSL Library :

1) Sounds are dry (Silent Stage), compared to many others which are recorded wet.

At first it is more work to make them sound impressive, but we are so much more flexible with that architecture.

2) The player works. Period.

Reliability is so unbelievably important. if the VST is unstable, it can sound as good as it wants, users will hate it. (North Sounth East and West, New York Rio Tokyo...we all know)