NEW: SYNCHRON-ized Solo Strings

[Paul]

Hello everybody,

Our SYNCHRON-ized Solo Strings are finally available, so log in and check YOUR price on our product page – if you already have any registrations of our Vienna Instruments Solo Strings, these will be taken into account!

Watch our screencast and walkthrough videos and learn what makes this collection stand out, and how YOU can create such beautiful pieces yourself! Oh, and don’t forget to check out our incredible audio demos, we are always and again blown away by the creativity and craftsmanship of our composers!

Now, let’s find out what’s NEW for both crossgraders and Newcomers!

#1 Additional Instruments

Solo Violin 2 and Solo Cello 2 are now included (GREAT for string quartets and it’s an additional choice in timbre!!), so you get more than 150.000 Samples for those 6 instruments!

#2 More variety with the new Synchron Player Time-Stretching feature

Time-Stretching will be great to use with short notes, portamento, glissandos, upbeats, scale runs… but also vibrato control becomes a very interesting topic, and all of this happens in real-time!

#3 Improved Release Samples

• For Short Notes like Detachés
• MULTI SHORTS, our famous performance repetitions with an improved repetition logic (Our Synchron Player “gets” if a note is a starting note or part of a phrase).
• New Release Samples also for our dynamics: A great tool for more expressive and authentic articulations, as you can “exit” the dynamic progression at any time!

#4 Improved Articulations:

As with all SYNCHRON-ized products, we have done our very best to improve our sample database, which, in the case of our SYNCHRON-ized Solo Strings, resulted in

• Many additional looped patches for sustains, trills, tremolos....
• Optimized Velocity XFading
• Dynamic Layers in our Multi-Shorts, to access even the smallest nuances in timbre, with up to 9 velocities
• An improved calibration of the volume levels within the instrument itself and in correlation to all Synchron Series products.

#5 Sul Tasto / Normal / Ponticello XFade

You even get Sul Tasto and Ponticello Legato, with a great possibility to blend between those playing techniques for all essential articulations!

Enjoy this new release!

[MMKA]

I just want to say how enthusiastic I am about the many improvements of SYNCHRON-ized solo violin Guy Bacos shows us in the screencast of "Delicate Memories". The expression in one long note is something I'm always looking for and Guy shows here the improved possibilities, very natural, very expressive. 
Congratulations on this great work, team of VSL!

[daviddln]

Hello Paul

Thanks!! Were the samples re-mastered like you did with SYNCHRON-ized Chamber Strings ?

Best,

David

[Paul]

Hi David, 

Those were not re-mastered, we're very happy with the sound.

With the SYNCHRON-ized Chhamber Strings, we just found a great opportunity for sonic improvement, so we had to do it 😊

Best, 
Paul

[daviddln]

Thanks Paul. I've just purchased the library. Very exciting.

Best,

David

[bogdan]

Thank you for this release, that is awesome. And Paul, I would say that maybe you find the same solution for the Choir and Solo Voices ;)

All best

[opusmodus]

Hi,

Is the MTS implemented as it is in the Vienna Instruments or is the SYNCHRON-ized library not supporting anymore mictononality (microtunning).

[Dewdman42]

Thank you for the cross grade pricing on this.  Will definitely grab it.

[plowman]

What Dewdman said. That is a remarkably generous crossgrade. 

[PaoloT]

https://forum.vsl.co.at/topic/48065/Microtones And Sequencers/267822

[pat]

Just upgarded solo strings to Synchronized Solo Strings having gone from the Standard to the Full articulations via the Synchonized solo strings upgrade, all I can say is these are fantastic. Super playable, fantastic sound, very responsive, and the solo strings with the Syncrhon Player works perfectly. Using my Kawaii VPC-1 88 note controller, to my surprise, results in incredible velocity control of even the sustain solo strings, beyond what I have ever experienced. I can bring out the top voice of say a two voice sustained string part like never before. I would go as far as to say these Synrchonized Solo Strings respond better and are more playable than any other string library I have ever used going back many years of professional music production for TV and Music Libraries. Highly recommend these.

[Acclarion]

I'm in full agreement with you, Pat!  They're awesome :)

[ASMI]

Are you guys working on providing expression maps for Cubase?  Thank you

[Dewdman42]

I've playing around with Cubase Expression Maps a lot lately.  The thing about Cubase Expression Maps is that the feature has a lot of flexibility and could be used a variety of different ways..  and the same is true of VSL instruments..they have so much flexbility, much more so then most of the competition.   That makes it difficult to predetermine ahead of time what a good general use expression map should look like.  Every user will be a little different in how they like to work, the particular articulations they tend to use, etc.

If you try to make one all encompassing ExpressionMap, it would end up being too large...and would be somewhat difficult to use by virtue of being too big.  Or might not even be possible to include ALL features of an instrument in a single expression map.

Really what you need to do is think about how you would like to work with Synchronized Solo Strings, then think about how you would like your method of use laid out in the Cubase Piano Roll as expressionmap lanes...then program the expression map the way you want it to suppor that.  Cubase ExpressionMaps are really powerful.  You can make some very simple ones very easily of course, it will take 10 minutes to make some basic ones.  The more powerful ones using all 4 articulation group columns can take a lot of time to figure out and configure.  But can result in a much more consolidated piano roll view.  but again..how you set that up will depend a lot on how you like to use the VSL instrument (or any other instrument).

[Dewdman42]

Playing around with Synchronized Solo Strings today.  I have to say I find this to be extremely playable and the Synchron Player Tree view of the slots and articulations makes it more intutive to get to the desired articulations (compared to ViPro).

I suppose the fact that Synchron room is built in is giving me an initial impression that is very favorable also.

@ASMI I was trying to see how I might setup an expression map for this if I were doing one, and the conclusion I came to very quickly is that there is no single expression map that would serve well.  I can find very few reasons to use the 4 articulation Groups.  The way it is setup, you pretty much just have a few dozen different possible articulations, and it takes a few keyswitches to get to each one.  Which is fine, you can setup a a single-group expressionmap in cubase with a few dozen rows for each unique articulation, but that would be an unwieldy expression map, having too many expression map lanes.  

I think what I will do is create one super large expression map that basically has all possible articulations for an instrument, then when I use it in a project, I will initially go in, copy the expression map, delete all the slots I know I will not be using and then go on to making music.  So at least that initial template will have all the keyswitches programmed, but won't really be useful without removing all the lanes you know you aren't going to need.  

Its either that, or start with very simple expression map and then manually build it up as you go, which isn't that bad once you know what you're doing...and will end up always each project having exactly the expression map needed to keep minimal number of expr map lanes and also avoid having to embed keyswitches in your tracks.

I think in some cases I would also reprogram some of the patches to use DimCtrl instead of keyswitch for some things.  For example, you  might want to have an expression map lanes for Sustain, Legato, Portamento, Marcato. But when legato is active then there are 6 categories of legato...which in the preset is determined by yet another keyswitch.  I would probably change that one to use a Dim-Ctrl instead.  That way you don't have to embed a keyswitch in your track, don't need to waste an expressionmap lane for the legato-type...and you can instead use a CC lane for determining which type of legato to use.

Its a balancing act and everyone will probably come to their own preferred way of working with the instrument, both the Synchron Player and Cubase expression maps are pretty flexible...so you just have to decide how you want to work.  

But I do think in general with VSL instruments, they tend to be setup in a way that will not benefit from Cubase ExprMap groups feature.  In ViPro, you could probably use group#2 to address that A/B switch if you're using it.  Synchron doesn't have that one though.  I can't really find a good reason with Synchronized Solo Violins to use more than one expression map group, so far.  That means programming it is very straightforward, but it also means the expression maps will become very long with lots of slightly different articulations...and too many lanes to use effectively in Cubase pianoroll witout removing the lanes you know you will not be using.

Hope that makes sense.

[lunar_28664]

I'm enjoying trying out this library as well and there are certainly some new expressive possibilities. Using the "basic" template with one or two additions and changes makes it fairly easy easy to programme. There is one thing -- and I think this is more a question about the whole Synchron player -- is that I cannot find a way to properly programme the dynamics for individual patches. Sure you can set an overall volume but how do you set the dynamic range? In VI this can easily be done by lowering or raising the floor for instance. I particularly would like the Dynamic patches to have more flexibility.

I suppose as a workaround, you can vary the CC11 level but it should be doable within the player. I know there have been one or two posts about dynamic range in Synchron in general but am I missing something here on my particular query?

David

[Rangi]

Hi there - I think I'll get this as I already have solo strings, and the extras sound cool.

One question though  - I have a piece where I want the players on the short notes on the open strings, and to let them ring (l.v.). Will any of the changes to the instrument, or now being via the synchron player allow this? And how will I control it from Sibelius (I dont think it's in the sound set)

 

Barton.

[andi]

Hello Barton!

You can trigger any SYNCHRON-ized Solo Strings patch you want with Sibelius with help of the custom slots. Open strings articulations are available for Violin 2 and Cello 2. Of course the lowest note of each instrument is available for all Solo Strings as open string.

Best regards,
Andi