"Dual String Colors" without Standard library?

[Sakamoto]

Hi friends,

does it make sense to get the "Dual String Colors" without owning the Standard Dual Strongs? As I already own the "Synchron Strings Pro" I don´t want to spend on the Dual but I want to get the soft articulations of the Colors.

Bes Alfred

[nick.halliwell]

Hi Alfred,

You certainly can do that and it's on offer at the moment, if I remember rightly €145 for the Standard library, which is a really good deal. Obviously the big advantage of having all three Duality editions (Regular, Sordino and now Colours) is that the samples match really well. However this is more the case for Regular and Sordino than for Colours. The former two have pretty much exactly the same articulations, edited in the same way so, for instance, you can programme a part for Duality Regular then simply switch it to Sordino and it'll all play back correctly, but with a muted sound (or vice versa). This isn't entirely the case with Colours as it has a lot fewer articulations so some tweaking will be required but it remains so to a fairly large extent as the articulations that are common to all three libraries will match. Then, of course, the other great thing about Duality is that you get two sections, one large in a large space, and one small in a smaller, dryer space.

The other option is the Dimension Strings Tasto, which I also have. These are almost completely dry and are great for divisi, as you can create sections of 1-8 violins, 1-4 violas/celli (can't remember if it's 3 or 4 bassi...) which is really useful. However if you're in the Synchron universe the Duality Colours may be best for you.

They're all great, basically, it's simply a matter of what you actually need for your own purposes... Hope this helps.

Nick

[Sakamoto]

@nick-halliwell said:

Hi Alfred,

You certainly can do that and it's on offer at the moment, if I remember rightly €145 for the Standard library, which is a really good deal. Obviously the big advantage of having all three Duality editions (Regular, Sordino and now Colours) is that the samples match really well. However this is more the case for Regular and Sordino than for Colours. The former two have pretty much exactly the same articulations, edited in the same way so, for instance, you can programme a part for Duality Regular then simply switch it to Sordino and it'll all play back correctly, but with a muted sound (or vice versa). This isn't entirely the case with Colours as it has a lot fewer articulations so some tweaking will be required but it remains so to a fairly large extent as the articulations that are common to all three libraries will match. Then, of course, the other great thing about Duality is that you get two sections, one large in a large space, and one small in a smaller, dryer space.

The other option is the Dimension Strings Tasto, which I also have. These are almost completely dry and are great for divisi, as you can create sections of 1-8 violins, 1-4 violas/celli (can't remember if it's 3 or 4 bassi...) which is really useful. However if you're in the Synchron universe the Duality Colours may be best for you.

They're all great, basically, it's simply a matter of what you actually need for your own purposes... Hope this helps.

Nick

[Helmholtz]

Alfred, your question seems to me highly dependent on which of the additional "soft" (flautando & tutti/pianissimo) articulations and patches that Duality Colors has, compared to SSPro, that you would value highly and want to use. Also then arises the question of which of those Colors "soft" extras could perhaps be mimicked to some extent in SSPro by using "Timbre" and "Envelope" controls.

A full list of the articulation/patch specifications for Duality Colors can be found under the "Content" heading in its Product pages, so you can at least compare them with the articulation/patch specifications in the SSPro handbook.

Of course the one giant difference is that Duality Colors can present the larger (Stage A) and smaller (Stage B) subsections individually or together, with the possibility of each subsection's audio being routed and processed separately. This feature alone makes Duality a dream machine for me.

I'd say the question of whether or not these differences would "make sense" for you to buy Duality Colors must be yours alone to judge; difficult though that may be without the opportunity of auditioning Duality Colors side-by-side against your SSPro before buying. I've been able to do this auditioning since installing Colors (I too have SSPro, also SS1 and SSElite among many others) but of course have no way of knowing how someone else would value the various and often subtle differences I'm hearing. Speaking for myself, Duality (regular, colors & sordino; all with additional mics) is now my go-to library - I'm very pleased with all of it!

I don't know if a demo license is available for Colors but it might perhaps be worth you emailing VSL to ask.