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  • Show me the demos...

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    Hi folks -

    Forgive me for all of my posts! I'm on a rare vacation... I am seriously considering buying many, or all, of the VI library. That's a substantial investment for any of us. What's holding me back is that I'm not impressed with the verisimilitude of the [string] demos, with the VERY strong exception of Jay Bacal's work, which astounds me, and is the reason why I bought the Solo Strings library.

    I am an amateur, and I'm perfectly willing to accept that my OWN failure to get, say, the Chamber Strings library to sound 'real' is due to my lacking skills. But even, say, the Barber Adagio work left me feeling kind of electronic.

    Could someone please point me to the best demos? I'm particularly interested in strings, which are the hardest to do, in my opinion. And also, tell me if I just need to work harder with the libraries - perhaps what really gets you the good stuff is the kind of coaxing that Mr. Bacal must have done? Jay?

    I'm been steadily upgrading from the days of my S-760, in pursuit of the 'real' sound, as nothing I'm writing will likely ever be played by real musicians. If I could hear some work done with strings that really struck me as almost indistinguishable from the real thing, then I would jump to buy the rest of the library.

    Thanks for your help,

    Eric
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    elksman--

    First, i must commend you: for considering yourself as an "amateur", you certainly seem to have a very clear concept in your head of the sound you want. That is probably the most crucial element of creating tracks with virtual instruments.

    But to some extent, the demos must be judged apart from the library itself, if you will. The totality of a library's capabilities is not always reflected in all of the demos you hear. I don't think there is anyone using the Cube in whole or in part (or VSL SE/PE for that matter) who wouldn't be the first to say that they could have done more with it. Everyone is in constant pursuit of how to make their sequences better, more believable, more convincing, more musical. That involves a lot of different steps-- a well-conceived orchestration, and a *mastery* of mixing-- an understanding acoustical behavior, understanding what reverbs to use, which ones not to use-- and how to use them effectively.

    I say all of this because I assume you have heard all the demos on this site as well as those on ilio.com. I still think there were some wonderful tracks done for the SE and PE that rival some of the ones done for the VI Cube. But everyone feels differently about how to go about the process, what a good string sound is, what a good mix is, etc.

    It may be a little tricky waiting for a demo which contains strings that have been programmed in a way that matches your own concept. Jay, Beat, Maarten, Herb, and others have done some wonderful demos, imho.

    But I dare say that for as wonderful as VI is, there are indeed times when one can tell that it's not a real orchestra, a goal we all share. The question remains whether that is due to the limitations of the collection or the user.

    The answer may have more to do with the fact that we're all still discovering-- but if you're coming from the S760 like I have, then you've come a loooooooooooog way.

    The choices out there for fully features orchestral libraries out there are slim with VSL's level of quality and expressive capabilities. If you want VI strings-- don't hesitate to get them unless you know that another collection can do it better than VI.

    I hope you do find what you seek and accomplish what you've conceived. Best of luck.
    [:P]
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    JWL -

    Thank you for your kind and thoughtful reply. It does stand to reason that to get that sound I'm looking for will take the time and patience to work with the interface, mixing, etc. I must say that I got the Solo Strings up and running last night and out of the box, it was wonderful. Best of luck to you in your work, as well.

    Regards,

    Eric[/u]