Cubase has been my primary DAW for many years now, but last year when Studio One release 5.3 with Sound Variations automatically integrated with the Synchron Player I was interested, given that Cubase has not in recent years done much of anything to upgrade or add the features I cared about the most (one being the tedious user interface for expression maps). It was precisely the simultaneous crossgrade offer of about $200 that enticed me to leap. Without it I would not have done so.

I consider myself to be rowing a boat with two DAW oars for the present.

I doubt it would be accurate to say Studio One has become the DAW of choice for VSL users. But I would guess that the percentage of it's users, though smaller relative to Cubase and Logic, is definitely growing.

If you don't already, you could frequent the VI Control forum section labelled "Your DAW" to get a good feel for what new Studio One users think.

DaddyO --

Thanks for speaking in.

And for the VI link. I will check it out. 

Hello,

to those who already use the VSL in Studio One: does the Synchron Player integration indeed work automatically for you without installing anything or any prior setup, as described in the videos? I have tried it with both Synchron Strings 1 and pro and the Synchron player works otherwise fine in Studio One (sequences are played back normally), but there are no Sound Variations listed anywhere (the Sound Variations editor remains empty when I load a preset in the Synchron Player, the Sound Variation menu item does not appear in the context menu when control-clicking on a note, ...). I tried this with the most recent version 5.5. 

Is there anything I am missing?

Thanks for any help!

Hello Kai

For me this worked out of the box without any problem, and I just love it! (Best new feature since Cubase articulation maps)

Just to be on the safe side, you are not using VE in between?

All the Best

Gabriel

Hello Gabriel,

thanks for your quick feedback! That's really strange then, and I don't understand what is going on. Which Studio One version and system are you using?

Since you use Studio One, I have another question: I have been playing with the Sound Variations editor a bit myself (using VI libraries). This works fine, but it seems as far as score symbols are concerned, it is not possible to trigger Sound Variations based on several score symbols (e.g. staccato and con sordino symbols to obtain the con sordino staccato playing technique). Is this correct?

In Cubase Expression Maps there is no such restriction. Unfortunately, Cubase Expression Maps are otherwise pretty clumsy and limited compared to what e.g. Dorico offers by now.

Thanks and best regards

Kai

Hello Kai

I use Version 5.4.1 (might upgrade to 5.5 soon)

I don't use the score editor that much (after hours of work I am pretty happy with my Notion mapping). I played around with Notation symbols for few minutes right now, and it seems that every notation symbol can only be mapped once (So you can use staccato for whatever you want to, but then it is "used", so no con sordino in combination with legato, no staccato con sordino, ...)

All the best 

Gabriel

Hello Gabriel,

ok, maybe in this case the 5.5.0 update broke something there.

Thanks for the confirmation regarding the score. Good to hear that the combination of Studio One and Notion works well. I am hoping to finally be able to use a single Music Application for everything (so far I am going back and forth between Logic and Dorico ... which is rather inconvenient)., but in this case Studio One won't be the solution either.

Maybe the new Dorico 4 with its enhanced Midi-editing features, will do the trick (as far as there are no audio files involved in the project), because its notation and score playback features are unmatched.

Thanks again and all the best

Kai

Hi Kai, sound variations for the VSL Syncron player in Studio One only work with :-

VST 2 version of the Syncron Player ( it will not work with VST 3 or AU versions) 

Need to be running Rosetta version of S1

Hopefully VSL developers are working on an AU version of the syncron player that can utilise both sound variations and enabling us to run S1 in native ( silicon ) mode.

John

Hello John,

thanks so much for your very helpful feedback, this explains it! I am ion a M1 Mac and in the Plug-In Manager S1 only shows the AU version. It is a pity that so many useful features don't work anymore with VST3. Let's hope for a native AU version that works then.

All the best

Kai

update: 

On Rosetta using VST3 (not VST2) it indeed works. It would be useful if VSL would add this info somewhere in the small print on the S1 page, since I am sure I am not the only one on an Apple-silicon Mac and I did not even know before how to (deliberately) run an App in Rosetta 😊 (which is surely also much slower).

@Kai said:

... it seems as far as score symbols are concerned, it is not possible to trigger Sound Variations based on several score symbols (e.g. staccato and con sordino symbols to obtain the con sordino staccato playing technique). Is this correct?

In Cubase Expression Maps there is no such restriction. Unfortunately, Cubase Expression Maps are otherwise pretty clumsy and limited compared to what e.g. Dorico offers by now.

Thanks and best regards

Kai

Are you saying that Steinberg's Expression Maps are somehow different (improved?) in Dorico as compared to Cubase?

Yes, by far 😊. Aside from the fact that the Expression Map editor and the implementation of score symbols is a nightmare in Cubase, Dorico has several big advantages:

- in Cubase one can assign at most four different specifiers (like staccato, ...), simultaneously to get a particular playing technique, while in Dorico there is no restriction. I.e. one can e.g. specify no vibrato, legato, on the G string, played by four players and with an accent 😊.

- In Cubase these even have to be in a particular order for things to work, while in Dorico there are no restrictions 

- and finally Dorico Expression Maps offer criteria for an automatic playback of a score. Unfortunately, so far only the note length is supported, but nonetheless this way long or various short notes can automatically be played with the appropriate playing technique, and this works really well. As soon as Dorico offers more such criteria the playback will be mostly automatic and one will only have to tweak here and there.

Hi Craig,

I'm just getting into composing and orchestration. I abandoned Samplitude after Windows stopped playing nicely with my interface last year. I was running Bootcamp on an older Mac Mini so retreated to OSX and tried everything else before settling on Studio One. Mainly I use VE7Pro to host instruments but use VST 3 and sound variations in S1 as well. I am not missing Samplitude at all since I can't imagine doing what I can now. With S1, VE7 Pro and VSL Synchron Player it's a whole new world.

Vinny.

Thanks for speaking in. Fascinating to hear.

I still love Samplitude for Editing/Mixing, and because I know it so well I can immediately get work done.

However, I'm moving toward Studio One for composing, and am finding the new features in v.5 hugely compelling; and the cooperative effort with VSL to be so helpful!

Can you point me to any helpful resources you've benefitted from in combining VEPro with S1 for an orchestral template? I own VEP, but have not started using it yet.

What advantages have you found by loading instruments into VEP rather than directly into Studio One?

@Kai said:

ok, maybe in this case the 5.5.0 update broke something there.

I updated now, it works great 😊

@Kai said:

ok, maybe in this case the 5.5.0 update broke something there.

I updated now, it works great 😊

Hello Gabriel,

thanks for the feedback! Yes 5.5 works fine 😊.

As John pointed out this was a Mac problem. This feature requires VST3 which is not natively supported so far on recent Macs. I can run S1 in emulation mode to use VST3 and there everything works.

Hi Craig,

Sorry just saw this. Lots of youtube videos on templates for VSL . Anne Kathrin Dern has some.

VEP does a great job of resource management and all your samples are loaded up and ready to go. I find I can reference a lot of instruments in VEP from S1 and still record audio without a lot of latency or S1 crashing. If S1 does crash everything is still loaded in VEP so you're up and running again fast. VEP also loads up MIR if you have it and once you get the routing figured out, wow.

There's no way of getting around the fact that building templates is time consuming though. Reminds me I have to add in my Synchronized Special Edition samples,

Vinny,

By any chance would you be willing to share your S1/VEP template?

I understand that within S1 there in an Exchange feature for users. I could see this being such a helpful thing to build community among new users. 

Meanwhile, I'll check out Dern's videos. Can I presume that even though she's working with Cubase, what she shows for VEP applies just as well to S1?

Craig

@Vinny Colletti said:

Hi Craig,

Sorry just saw this. Lots of youtube videos on templates for VSL . Anne Kathrin Dern has some.

VEP does a great job of resource management and all your samples are loaded up and ready to go. I find I can reference a lot of instruments in VEP from S1 and still record audio without a lot of latency or S1 crashing. If S1 does crash everything is still loaded in VEP so you're up and running again fast. VEP also loads up MIR if you have it and once you get the routing figured out, wow.

There's no way of getting around the fact that building templates is time consuming though. Reminds me I have to add in my Synchronized Special Edition samples,