William,

Your sarcasm is not appreciated, my point of view on this is valid and I will imply anything I deem to be representative of my opinion. I love VSL but they are not beyond reproach. (and yes I've heard of, bought and use professionally everyday, all of the VSL strings)

The transposition button is a good idea, but why have it when it's surely possible to have a dedicated set of samples for the 2nds?-- it comes across as a cobble because there are no 2nds. Having said that, if VSL are not forthcoming in this, the transposition button would be a more realistic thing to aim for as you have said, but come on William, don't you think it would be better to have dedicated samples that have as many articulations and section sizes as the 1st's, it can only help the realism.

Your prejudice to other libraries is unfair in some cases. Yes there is rubbish out there, but there is some good stuff too, one calls to mind Spitfire and Orchestral tools. None of course compare to VSL in terms of articulations, MIR and GUI design, but in terms of sound and musicality, there advantages to having these libraries aswell. (in fact essential for me as there are no 2nds in VSL). Of course it depends on what you are writing- best solution is obviously to mix 'n' match when needed.

Please take this response as a friendly reply, and if you respond be courteous to another persons opinion, especially if it doesn't quite chime with yours.

Mike.

Oh man! I'm getting flashbacks of 2007 and 2008 when furious wars were waged on this forum between the "for the 2nds" verses those "against the 2nds."  I hope we're not digging up hatchets that were burried between forum members a long time ago on that debate.

It kind of reminded me of those Miller Lite Beer comercials from the 80's where the two camps were standing against each other shouting, "Tastes great"  "No, Less Filling" Tastes great!, Less filling! TASTES GREAT!!! LESS FILLING!!!, (it's funny how beer keeps finding its way back into this discussion😊🍺)

Anyway, the transposition trick button goes beyond a 2nd violin section.  That is just one possibility but how about a string quintet where you usually have a 2nd solo violin.   The same goes for a solo woodwinds or brass.  What if you want a 2nd Violas section in your orchestra?  Yes, they could just record a whole new set of samples with different players and different instruments but what about those who can't afford to buy the 2nd set.

The transposition trick button would just be another tool in addition to time stretching, start offset, Humanize, APP sequencer etc. to get more out of the samples you already have whether you have everything VSL has ever produced or just the SE.  It's a God send that VSL offers these tools at nominal prices.  What other companies out there are doing that?

Didn't know there was a previous war on this, will look back on it.

Jasensmith....yes you're right, a handy button to have especially on a budget,  but who in their right mind would want a 2nd vla section! (before you all chime in , it's just a muso joke!  you know like the one about the definition of perfect pitch - throwing a viola into a toilet without it touching the sides...)

I still stand by my opinion on a 2nds section however, and do find it strange that a flagship like VSL has none, but lets keep it civil. 

Mike.

The only point I was making was that transposing 1st to seconds, whatever the instrument - allows ALL the samples to be duplicated on another instrument, instead of forcing the sample maker company to do every sample twice.  Which inevitably results in FEWER SAMPLES.  

btw I don't care  about the various "biting responses"  from denizens of the internet.  I was just making a point about a technique that can add a huge amount of utility and power to the already existing sample collection. 

Well, we know that Dimension Strings involved around a million samples. About a quarter of which were presumably violins. So just the second violin section for DS alone would be another 250,000 samples. One could perhaps cut down on some of the articulations as it's only the second bank, but only so far before losing the versatility and realism that we flock to VSL for in the first place. I sometimes write second violin parts just as technical as the first, and cutting out too many articulations would hamper that. Add to that the additional samples for the Appassionata, Orchestral, Chamber and Solo libraries, and the sample count climbs higher still. And to integrate fully with the other samples, the recording and editing process would have to be exactly aligned with the original ones, which in some cases are ten years old, so may prove tricky to duplicate. The point is that recording the samples for a second violin section would be very time consuming and far from cheap. Given that we've found workarounds for the lack of second violins for the whole time we've been using VSL to date, I wonder how many users would then pay out for the real thing. A new set of second violin samples would come at the expense of time VSL could spend doing other things, and money you could spend on other things.

A transposition trick button, on the other hand (not that the two have to be mutually exclusive), would presumably be easier to implement. I have no coding knowledge whatsoever, but given that half the functionality is already there, I would hesitate to suggest that it might even be the sort of tool included free in a new version of VIP. It would not be anything like as complicated to program - I'm guessing - as the APP sequencer, after all. It would offer much greater versatility - string quintets were mentioned as needing two solo violins, but I thought standard quartets did too? I routinely use two banks of cellos as well as two violins, so the ability to equally double the cellos would be much more appreciated to me at least than just a second bank of violins. It could also double thing like piccolos to help balance the one piccolo against the three-flute ensemble.

I usually find I get a better sound by having the first and second violin sections using different articulations, but there are some situations (like pizzicato) where that isn't much of an option. The transposition trick is very useful in those instances, and a button would make that easier. But I can certainly live without it too :-).

That explains the idea far better than I did. 

Recently I have been doing a lot of experimentation with pushing humanize settings in Dimension strings, along with layering Solo, as far as I can get them to go.  The complexity of sound now available is off the charts! 

Also, it is funny how actual string players and conductors DO NOT WANT the 2nd section to sound different.  They want them totally equivalent to the firsts.   Only people using samples want 2nd players to sound different.   But that already exists - these are just some of the section possibilites now:

1st Violins Appassionata- 2nd Violins Orchestral

1st Violins Orchestral - 2nd Violins Chamber

1st Violins Chamber - 2nd Violin - Solo (common in a theater orchestra)

1st Violins 4 D Vns - 2nd Violins 4 D Vns

All of those involve no transposition.

Add just one transposition, along with layering and humanize settings, and the possibilites for creating different sounding 2nd sections with no compromise whatsoever are so complex it would be way too hard for me to be willing to list. 

O.K., I won't bug anyone with more harping on this.  2nd harp or otherwise. 

@William said:

[...]

1st Violins Appassionata - 2nd Violins Orchestral

1st Violins Orchestral - 2nd Violins Chamber

1st Violins Chamber - 2nd Violin - Solo (common in a theater orchestra)

1st Violins 4 D Vns - 2nd Violins 4 D Vns

All of those involve no transposition.[...]

👍

... one of my personal favorite setups, for huge, vivid sting sections: 

1st: Appassionata + a bit of Chamber for finer articulations + 1st half of Dimension

2nd: Orchestra + 2nd half of Dimension

I'm going to have to try that!   One combination I love is Appassionata with a small amount of solo violin and 4 D violins.  Right now I am having fun trying out new combinations which the D strings have increased exponentially.

This is getting to be like Martha Stewart Living but since we're swaping strings recipes it's more like Dietz Tinhof Living (with Samples)

Here's one I'm going to try on my next project:

Basically a German seating, or traditional, but replace the 1st and 2nd violins section with a 1st and 2nd violas then just one violin section to be placed where the violas usually sit.  The celli and bassi remain the same.

I don't have AS or Dim Strings so 1st viola would be OS VA layered with CS VA, while 2nd violas would be CS VA with just a pinch of Solo VA..

The only violin section would be OS VI with CS VI a pinch of Solo VI and just a dash of OS VI mutes.

I think this will give your ears a rich and darker flavor overall for strings which is the string sound that I am particularly attracted to. 

And yes Mike I am in my "right mind."  The voices I hear in my head have assured of that🤫

Now... does anybody have any brass or woodwind recipes they'd like to share?

Such an automatic transposition trick feature would indeed be most welcome 😊. But why only include a “button” for a second version and not go all the way, implementing a “menu” that lets one pick from one of three or even five different versions (0, ±1/2, ±1).

Ideally they would come with their own MIRx settings making them even more distinct. This works already really well for the two distinct MIRx settings that are available for the woodwinds.

That's a good idea, to have as many additional instruments as practical.  I think if you go beyond two in either direction it starts getting to be a little too much pitch shifting.  Though I actually like the timbral effect of shifting down two semi-tones which creates a slower vibrato and slightly darker tone.

I want to emphasize Kai's point in that a "transposition trick" feature should let you choose the amount and "direction" of the transposition manually.

[DAW/VE] sounding pitch MIDI --in--> [VI] MIDI transposition and pitch shift according to selection --out--> [DAW/VE] sounding pitch AUDIO out! :D