Well, I think sometimes things just don't really pan out. That's life.

I had high hopes for this library and was one of those who pre-ordered. The thing is that I usually never pre-order stuff and never have. The only exception to this rule was SyS, because based on previous experiences, VSL was the one company I kind of trusted blindly - turns out that one time exception came back to bite me like a mofo. It's my fault, and it's not the end of the world. but there you go.

Tbh, what stings more is not the fact that I find the library not worthy of using, but exactly that in some ways, what happened here kind of feels like a breach of trust. I always associated VSL with meticulous quality, a no-nonsense, no-shortcuts approach, innovation. I feel that SyS betrays those expectations.

So much about the library seems fibbed, band-aid, makeshift, cheapened out. The omission of standard articulations, the fake patches, the tacked-on transitions ... actually I even feel there was even some blatant false advertising. For example: the articulation list always stated "marcato", whereas there is literally no marcato in this library. Not even a "fake" stacked patch, like the sfz. The only "marcato" thing in SyS is a dimension preset where a long note is being stacked with a short one - something you could do yourself any time.

This is just completely the opposite of what I've come to expect from VSL. Their products always reflected that they were willing to go the extra mile - this one on the other hand makes it obvious that they were trying to cut corners and skimp their way around as many things as possible.

Or maybe they just made a bunch of wrong decisions. I'm sure they worked like crazy on this thing. But to me it seems that the effort was spent in the wrong areas. For example, I believe much was expected to come out of the many dynamic layers, which to me totally backfired, because the benefit is almost inaudible/nonexistent. It only makes the patches even more fiddly and difficult to use and blew up the library to an absurd size, whereas those gigs would have been way wiser spent on more articulations and more variants of true recorded dynamic performances.

Not sure the many mic positions are really needed either. 3-5, each with a clear purpose and distinct sound, would have been enough.

I believe that it would probably be better to record legato samples as a whole - without transition samples crossfading into standard sustains. I'm not an expert on this, but it seems that some other developers took this approach and it sounds way more real.

The tone is kind of brittle and overly sharp with some odd biting resonance you can't really get rid of. The basses are great and the violas are really nice too, but the celli do have this problem and the violins are just incredibly weird - screechy, but flat, lifeless ... can't even describe it.

I also feel that nobody needs two different vibrato intensities you can't even crossfade through coming from novib, when even the strong vibrato actually hardly produces any emotive vibrato. I'm sure that most people would end up not using the normal vibrato at all, while still struggling with getting some kind of passionate movement out of the lyrical one.

I've been trying to mock up some stuff originally done with other libraries and it just doesn't come out right. To me it just doesn't work. The violins are the weirdest. The tone is odd, the legato hurts inside and the results just don't really sound musical. Fiddling with it is hard work, but you end up just having to admit: the other version you already had just sounds more beautiful and real.

I can already see the buffoon comments stating that it's my fault because apparently I was too stupid to "master" this woe-ridden product or didn't have the necessary rigor, but even if that were true: why should I? It's just not worth it. What's the point, when there's already stuff available that produces better results with less painstaking effort?

There's parts of the library that are great soundwise, but ultimately, there's just to many problems. I gave up on it and finally deleted it from my drive. I don't really think that things could be improved here. It would be so much of an overhaul, they could almost just as well make a new library. It's a shame. I'd sell it, but honestly, I'm not sure who's supposed to buy this thing off of me.

The whole "synchron-ized chamber strings" thing also kind of strikes me as a band-aid solution and a cash-in with leftovers, and I'm not sure that's a philosophy I'm willing to support. I just hope that VSL carefully reassesses when it comes to the rest of the Synchron line. I do really like the percussion. Maybe things can turn out different for winds and brass.

I'm not trying to bash anyone either. Sometimes you put a lot into something and it just doesn't work out, and that's tough to deal with. I think it's a shame that VSL is facing all this backlash, as I'm sure they were incredibly busy and hard at work making this library.

I don't know what went wrong. Perhaps the concept sounded great on paper but didn't fly in practice. Perhaps cost-cutting measures because the stage cost them tons of money. Or maybe the library actually is exactly what they wanted and believed in, but turns out that the expectations of the users were misjudged and the market isn't embracing it at all. I really do wish them all the best with the next product and that they successfully bounce back from this setback.

JimmyHellfire，my applause to you.

Your statement is absolutely correct about everything with decent politeness.

Every words are just right there in position to express our exact feelings towards this SyS product.

So, I think we have made statements, requests and we just let the market decide.

If it's a good product, I think it will be great for a long time and people are going to recommend it continuously to friends around. VSL will receive a lot of orders when people are considering to buy new string libraries.

If it's a bad product, and if VSL is not willing to do anything about it, that's it, that's fine. That's how life goes. We just leave and buy other string libraries for our music production.

@HBen said:

It will be a big tragedy that people started to shut up and remain silent, turn around and leave. It is good to have some people that are complaning here, at least that proves people still have faith in you. They still have some expectations. VSL please do something positive to improve your product.

You are totally right. Don't listen to chatty people, mostly if they are posting tons of low quality music qualifying them as noisy chatters. If you count, finally they are just 2 or 3... the others prefer talking about facts (and often are posting good music, such a coincidence 😛 ).

@JimmyHellfire said:

Well, I think sometimes things just don't really pan out. That's life.

I had high hopes for this library and was one of those who pre-ordered. The thing is that I usually never pre-order stuff and never have. The only exception to this rule was SyS, because based on previous experiences, VSL was the one company I kind of trusted blindly - turns out that one time exception came back to bite me like a mofo. It's my fault, and it's not the end of the world. but there you go.

Tbh, what stings more is not the fact that I find the library not worthy of using, but exactly that in some ways, what happened here kind of feels like a breach of trust. I always associated VSL with meticulous quality, a no-nonsense, no-shortcuts approach, innovation. I feel that SyS betrays those expectations.

So much about the library seems fibbed, band-aid, makeshift, cheapened out. The omission of standard articulations, the fake patches, the tacked-on transitions ... actually I even feel there was even some blatant false advertising. For example: the articulation list always stated "marcato", whereas there is literally no marcato in this library. Not even a "fake" stacked patch, like the sfz. The only "marcato" thing in SyS is a dimension preset where a long note is being stacked with a short one - something you could do yourself any time.

This is just completely the opposite of what I've come to expect from VSL. Their products always reflected that they were willing to go the extra mile - this one on the other hand makes it obvious that they were trying to cut corners and skimp their way around as many things as possible.

Or maybe they just made a bunch of wrong decisions. I'm sure they worked like crazy on this thing. But to me it seems that the effort was spent in the wrong areas. For example, I believe much was expected to come out of the many dynamic layers, which to me totally backfired, because the benefit is almost inaudible/nonexistent. It only makes the patches even more fiddly and difficult to use and blew up the library to an absurd size, whereas those gigs would have been way wiser spent on more articulations and more variants of true recorded dynamic performances.

Not sure the many mic positions are really needed either. 3-5, each with a clear purpose and distinct sound, would have been enough.

I believe that it would probably be better to record legato samples as a whole - without transition samples crossfading into standard sustains. I'm not an expert on this, but it seems that some other developers took this approach and it sounds way more real.

The tone is kind of brittle and overly sharp with some odd biting resonance you can't really get rid of. The basses are great and the violas are really nice too, but the celli do have this problem and the violins are just incredibly weird - screechy, but flat, lifeless ... can't even describe it.

I also feel that nobody needs two different vibrato intensities you can't even crossfade through coming from novib, when even the strong vibrato actually hardly produces any emotive vibrato. I'm sure that most people would end up not using the normal vibrato at all, while still struggling with getting some kind of passionate movement out of the lyrical one.

I've been trying to mock up some stuff originally done with other libraries and it just doesn't come out right. To me it just doesn't work. The violins are the weirdest. The tone is odd, the legato hurts inside and the results just don't really sound musical. Fiddling with it is hard work, but you end up just having to admit: the other version you already had just sounds more beautiful and real.

I can already see the buffoon comments stating that it's my fault because apparently I was too stupid to "master" this woe-ridden product or didn't have the necessary rigor, but even if that were true: why should I? It's just not worth it. What's the point, when there's already stuff available that produces better results with less painstaking effort?

There's parts of the library that are great soundwise, but ultimately, there's just to many problems. I gave up on it and finally deleted it from my drive. I don't really think that things could be improved here. It would be so much of an overhaul, they could almost just as well make a new library. It's a shame. I'd sell it, but honestly, I'm not sure who's supposed to buy this thing off of me.

The whole "synchron-ized chamber strings" thing also kind of strikes me as a band-aid solution and a cash-in with leftovers, and I'm not sure that's a philosophy I'm willing to support. I just hope that VSL carefully reassesses when it comes to the rest of the Synchron line. I do really like the percussion. Maybe things can turn out different for winds and brass.

I'm not trying to bash anyone either. Sometimes you put a lot into something and it just doesn't work out, and that's tough to deal with. I think it's a shame that VSL is facing all this backlash, as I'm sure they were incredibly busy and hard at work making this library.

I don't know what went wrong. Perhaps the concept sounded great on paper but didn't fly in practice. Perhaps cost-cutting measures because the stage cost them tons of money. Or maybe the library actually is exactly what they wanted and believed in, but turns out that the expectations of the users were misjudged and the market isn't embracing it at all. I really do wish them all the best with the next product and that they successfully bounce back from this setback.

+1

I would love to hear a reply to this post from VSL/Paul .  But I doubt we will hear from VSL about this. They are totally ignoring it. (which is not a good, or wise attitude). 

+1

Well, I'd love to hear some replies from VSL. Otherwise, this will become another edition of story about the Emperor's New Clothes, only VSL and a small portion of people think this product is good enough on the market.

It's not a good attitude to ignore customer's feedback, other companies would listen to customers and do some improvements, but it seems that is not the case here. Sad.

@LAJ said:

You all write the same shit since more than a half year. Why don‘t you switch to another product then? Sorry, but I don’t get it.

What answer do you expect?

... something like ...
Paul: „Hello all, I would buy HZ Strings“ ... won’t happen.

So, if you don’t like the product, take action.

I think this thread is kind of the self-therapy-group for Synchron-Frustrated non active Musicians.

You have to be very calm and friendly otherwise they will fall again in deep Synchron-Frustration 😛

@LAJ said:

You all write the same shit since more than a half year. Why don‘t you switch to another product then?

I have. I'm only posting here so that you have something to complain about. Maybe you should show some gratitude.

I took action and already switched to another product and also deleted Synchron Strings from my disk. But it's more than that in my opinion.

It's about reputation. I own many VSL libraries, but I lost faith. And the release of synchron-ized Chamber Strings as a probable fix for Synchron Strings emphasised this feeling.

For a new string library in 2018 I had high hopes. The competition has introduced way more advanced features and new innovative approaches over the years. Synchron Strings still follows the same patch structure as in the older libraries, disappointing for me.

It's their first wet string library, so I only want that they admit that something went wrong or that they expected more themselves or that they keep on improving this library. I would totally understand it, because it's a new way of recording and editing and they have to gather new experiences as well.

I love the older products, so I only want that VSL keeps on making good libraries (again). But if they don't care about our feedback, sorry, but than they have to face the truth. I think they know it, I can't imagine that Synchron Strings sold well. And, for me, VI Pro is far superior than Synchron Player, it has used to be and is still the best sample player on the market.

Couragous statements. Based on what expierience did you boldly state such simply incredible wrong Facts?

@Pixelpoet1985 said:

- The competition has introduced way more advanced features and new innovative approaches over the years.

- Synchron Strings still follows the same patch structure as in the older libraries, disappointing for me.

- they have to face the truth.

- And, for me, VI Pro is far superior than Synchron Player, it has used to be and is still the best sample player on the market.

As far as I remeber right you call yourself a beginner. And what exactly did make you the one who would be able to demand that someone "face the truth" while your own statements ar so far from anything what we associate with the meaning of the word "Truth"?

If anything you said would have had any substance you would have been concrete. You instead just state a bunch as harsh as general statements proving more than once on how little concrete knowledge is based what you write here. Sorry. either be concrete, or a bit more cautious in annoying others with such disproportionate harsh comments.

VSL is definitely the best sample producer in existence, but I have to say Jimmy Hellfire's post was very accurate, thoughtful and really well-written, not at all hostile.  I would call it constructive criticism as it is very detailed and shows a lot of knowledge as well as really good ears concerning problems.  I think maybe the problems can be put down to Synchron Strings being a new direction and somewhat "Experimental" perhaps (?)  One striking thing which Jimmy mentioned was the many velocity layers - I also heard no difference from the previous string libraries created by this increase in layers and was surprised by that.  Also I noticed the Player is oddly similar to the CSS player though not as easy to use.   But I don't mean to be dismissive as it is obviously a very seriously created library with a lot of potential which Beat Kaufmann ( a guy who is now pissed off at me totally due to my critique of his Sousa demo) and Steven Limbaugh and Guy Bacos showed.  (Those are the ones I heard that I thought were really great - probably others as well...) I think people should not be alarmed as VSL has a great history of being very fair to customers and will certainly be fixing problems.

William I consent it is a great relief, if the annoying sound of hostility could be left behind.

I nevertheless do not consent his long posting, without giving the anmswer he expects to get from me.

It might be, that the kind of default settings chosen. But thoses Settings are not more than a starting point. To get what  you want, you should use not the default settings, buit the options. They are the product and its power.

Has Jimmy for instance worked seriously on the EQ-Settings in the Mikrophone Mixer to get the sound he was looking for before criticising the current sound?

Yes the structure of the Articulation-Patches are completly different than they have been in VSL or more orl less any other Library. Many things for which I previously was forced to search different patches for i can now get what I need, either with the available variations or CC Programming.

Each single Patch is simply much deeper usable in different contexts, than the patches have been before, which have been good for one occasion but make you go to search for the most appropriate patch for the next occasion. To keep now all reasonable Variants available in the context of a certain type of articulation finally makes a very differentiated Workflow much more efficient.

However, since we currently just know Vol.1 I expect, that further Volumes will in any way improve whatr is already there. so how ever more or less well tempered we discuss here things will always become better.

I think that is a good point and had a similar feeling about it being capable of a lot of development depending on how much you work with it, so I think you're right there also. 

- Also, I should have added your work with it has been very impressive as well.

@Pixelpoet1985 said:

- The competition has introduced way more advanced features and new innovative approaches over the years.

- Synchron Strings still follows the same patch structure as in the older libraries, disappointing for me.

- they have to face the truth.

- And, for me, VI Pro is far superior than Synchron Player, it has used to be and is still the best sample player on the market.

Even as a beginner I can make statements. I'm not an idiot! I'm still learning, but I'm able to compare sample libraries. And there are several other users which are disappointed by Synchron Strings, too. 

You have your opinion, and I have mine. The old(er) VSL libraries are several years old. The competition doesn't sleep, they have indeed innovations and new approaches. I can't name them all, I'm still noticing it. When I'm saying that Synchron Strings has the same patch structure I mean e. g. regular legato - fast legato - slur legato. These patches are in the older libraries, too. I expected something new when Synchron Strings was announced, maybe some all-in-one legato patch with adaptive legato like in e. g. Berlin Strings or CineStrings. I don't own these libraries, but I'm watching videos and reading reviews.

There are indeed some “improvements” in Synchron Strings. Repetition samples are now integrated into the legato patches. That's useful. But I don't want to call them “innnovations”. Dimension Strings was kind innovative, but what next? Do you own a string library other than from VSL? Maybe you don't know what innovations I mean. It's just a question, please stop making me the bad guy here over and over again. It's just my opinion, I have a right to say what I think, even if it's harsh or severe sometimes. I love VSL and I own many products, but their recent behaviour with Synchron Strings and Synchron-ized Chamber Strings is a bit weird. 

“They have to face the truth.” Maybe it was a bit unclear. I meant that when they don't take our feedback seriously, than they will loose (potentials) customers. And I can't imagine that Synchron Strings sold well, neither Synchron-ized Chamber Strings. I don't know, for sure, but I'm guessing from what I'm hearing from others. The majority of users seems disappointed and unhappy.

Concerning Synchron Player ... I mean, VI Pro is superior at the moment. There are two of my favourite features which are missing in Synchron Player: 1) Humanize, and, 2) Auto-Voicing. I also find the general workflow much easier with VI Pro, but maybe because I'm used to it. Apart from handling multiple microphones there is no real benefit for me.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but VSL does actually read these posts very seriously - I know that for a fact.  (Don't ask why!!!😎)  I also am a huge fan of VI/VE/MIR and in complete and religious awe of Dimension Strings 😇which I think is the greatest technological accomplishment ever done in music history.  (Is that overstating it? Hmm.... no.)

But Synchron promises to be very good also and is still being perfected, so I think people should not panic about it and think they wasted money.  Definitely not a waste with all the carefully detailed samples that have been recorded, and the player is still being perfected and VSL will not leave anyone out to dry, I know that from past experience.

@William said:

But Synchron promises to be very good also and is still being perfected, so I think people should not panic about it and think they wasted money.  Definitely not a waste with all the carefully detailed samples that have been recorded, and the player is still being perfected and VSL will not leave anyone out to dry, I know that from past experience.

👍

.