# London Symphonic Strings - worth it??



## kunst91 (Oct 21, 2015)

Theres an insane deal through VST Buzz on London Symphonic Strings (very new library, correct?) by Aria. Anyone tried them? Any good? I love their Surdos and Snares.


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## Zhao Shen (Oct 21, 2015)

Would like to know this as well, I'm tempted to do it just to add more colors to my orchestral strings palette - it's an insane discount, and LSS seems to have a wide range of articulations.


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## VSTBuzz (Oct 21, 2015)

Hey guys, we obviously can't give our own opinion on them, but here are two videos of real world mockups to give you an idea of what they can do:

LOTR: 
Pirates of the Carribean:


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## Matt Riley (Oct 21, 2015)

Anyone using these that can tell us your experience?


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## jononotbono (Oct 21, 2015)

I'm really intrigued as well. The offer means they are at £64!


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## kunst91 (Oct 21, 2015)

They're very new so it's likely that not many people have tried them


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## Matt Riley (Oct 21, 2015)

When were they released?


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## kunst91 (Oct 21, 2015)

Matt Riley said:


> When were they released?



Early 2015 I believe


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## lucor (Oct 21, 2015)

They have been discussed before on VIC. If I remember correctly, the general consenus was that the samples themselves are really good, but it had some problems regarding the scripting. Not sure if they fixed that yet, but for that price it's still really tempting.


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## Zhao Shen (Oct 21, 2015)

After looking into them a bit deeper, to my ears at least they are a fairly dry library, which is quite useful, HOWEVER the legatos don't sound particularly good. I could definitely hear them being layered under something to add some more depth.


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## gjelul (Oct 21, 2015)

I got the Snares / Surdos and that collection sounds good.

The price for the LLS is a no-brainer for someone wanting to add another string library. 
However, personally I am resisting the temptation - in the demos they sounded way too thin for my taste.


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## willbedford (Oct 21, 2015)

I bought the violins when they first came out, thinking it would be a good layering library. Unfortunately I never really found any use for it, so it's been gathering dust ever since.
I guess it depends what string libraries you already have. If you're just starting to build your sample collection, you'll definitely get some use out of this (and it's worth picking up at this price). If you already have some of the higher end libraries like Mural, Cinestrings, Berlin Strings etc., LSS might not be so useful...


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## jononotbono (Oct 21, 2015)

I own 8Dio Adagio and Agitato and just bought Albion 1 Legacy and Albion One. I think I will resist at the minute because I want to learn them first. Hopefully I'm not making a mistake...


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## NYC Composer (Oct 21, 2015)

Some naked string demos would help. As is, all the demos have the strings buried in layers of stuff, and there aren't examples of the various articulations, so it's like a blind buy for very little money.
Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances.


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## jononotbono (Oct 21, 2015)

It's also 40gb in size (which is a good thing in my opinion) but also another dent on my SSD Real Estate, for a risk! I could be so wrong though and they could be awesome. I agree, some naked demos would be great!


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## cyoder (Oct 21, 2015)

I think they had video walkthroughs of exposed patches back when they were released, but I can't find them now. It seems they were removed, which is odd...they were quite helpful if I remember clearly.

Best,


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## wpc982 (Oct 21, 2015)

It's pretty easy to get giant Gb sizes: just use multiple microphones, 24bit. Alas, that does not translate very well into usable sounds.


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## jononotbono (Oct 21, 2015)

wpc982 said:


> It's pretty easy to get giant Gb sizes: just use multiple microphones, 24bit. Alas, that does not translate very well into usable sounds.



Absolutely fair enough.


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## bryla (Oct 21, 2015)

84€ sale on VSTbuzz for the next few weeks!!


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## VSTBuzz (Oct 21, 2015)

Hi guys, a few of you have asked to hear some naked demos.

Each section has its own youtube video which runs through the demo track in full, and then solos the string section so you can hear it in isolation. Take a listen to them on http://vstbuzz.com/deals/75-off-london-symphonic-strings-aria-sounds/

Or here are the videos - just skip to half way through each to hear them:


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## Hanu_H (Oct 23, 2015)

Did anyone buy this already? If you did, what do you think about it? I am just thinking this might be a nice addition to LASS, to make it sound bigger...any thoughts on that?

-Hannes


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## GdT (Nov 9, 2015)

I bought all LSS. Violins I & II, Violas, Celli & Bassi.
I like the sound. They sound impressive to me and I intend to use them.
The only issue I hit on was when I setup a Kontakt 5 multi for every articulation (channel switching using Audio Grocery excellent switching MIDI plugins in Logic).
The Kontakt multi for one section with all articulations loaded uses well over 4GB of memory.
So when I try to setup a Logic template for the whole string orchestra with all articulations loaded it used up all of my memory! I even put in an extra 8GB to make it up to 26GB.
Since I mainly use VSL, I don't use Kontakt that much; so have the Kontakt memory manger turned off . Does anyone know if that would help?


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## d.healey (Nov 9, 2015)

GdT said:


> So when I try to setup a Logic template for the whole string orchestra with all articulations loaded it used up all of my memory! I even put in an extra 8GB to make it up to


You could save a lot of memory by converting the samples that come with LSS into Kontakt's compressed NCW format - just make a back up before you do in case you make a mistake.


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## GdT (Nov 10, 2015)

d.healey said:


> You could save a lot of memory by converting the samples that come with LSS into Kontakt's compressed NCW format


Thanks for the suggestion. However I did already try that. I think ncw files just save space on disk. It seemed to me they used about the same memory when loaded up in Kontakt. But then again I am no Kontakt expert.


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## d.healey (Nov 10, 2015)

GdT said:


> Thanks for the suggestion. However I did already try that. I think ncw files just save space on disk. It seemed to me they used about the same memory when loaded up in Kontakt. But then again I am no Kontakt expert.


That's odd, they should use less in Kontakt too - I'm on a PC though so might be different


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## The Darris (Nov 25, 2015)

GdT said:


> I bought all LSS. Violins I & II, Violas, Celli & Bassi.
> I like the sound. They sound impressive to me and I intend to use them.
> The only issue I hit on was when I setup a Kontakt 5 multi for every articulation (channel switching using Audio Grocery excellent switching MIDI plugins in Logic).
> The Kontakt multi for one section with all articulations loaded uses well over 4GB of memory.
> ...



I don't know what other libraries you have but you could always use the Kontakt feature, "Update Sample Pool" which will unload any unused samples from memory thus allowing you to run in a "direct-from-disk" setting. This works really well if you are using Solid State drives but can work okay if you are using at least a 7200Rpm hard drive. LSS doesn't use any special tempo scripting so DFD would work fairly well for the standard articulation. This again will depend greatly on your processor and type of hard drive but is a great work around if you want patches loaded but don't want to use up your RAM.


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## GdT (Nov 26, 2015)

The Darris said:


> use the Kontakt feature, "Update Sample Pool"


Thanks for the suggestion Darris. The samples are loading from SSD, so that should work nicely. I will give it a try.


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## Lode_Runner (Sep 29, 2016)

Reviving this thread as VST Buzz is now doing a big discount on the London Symphonic Strings *Solo* Strings Bundle. Just wondering if anyone has the solo strings, and what they think of them? Seems a bit short on articulations - no pizzicato, sul ponticello, sul tasto, flageolet etc.


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## Quasar (Sep 29, 2016)

Lode_Runner said:


> Reviving this thread as VST Buzz is now doing a big discount on the London Symphonic Strings *Solo* Strings Bundle. Just wondering if anyone has the solo strings, and what they think of them? Seems a bit short on articulations - no pizzicato, sul ponticello, sul tasto, flageolet etc.



I recommend that you look for alternatives if you want a low-cost solo strings library such as Kirk Hunter or PragueSounds.


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## Lode_Runner (Sep 29, 2016)

Tugboat said:


> I recommend that you look for alternatives if you want a low-cost solo strings library such as Kirk Hunter or PragueSounds.


Thanks Tugboat. I'll check those out. It's not really that I'm looking for cheap string options so much as I'm wondering if this is a no brainer at 75% off.


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## Fleer (Sep 30, 2016)

Better jump at the Embertone Solo Strings bundle.


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## Lode_Runner (Sep 30, 2016)

Fleer said:


> Better jump at the Embertone Solo Strings bundle.



Oh, I will be. Already have the cello and violin, and plan to get the bass and viola in the next couple of months.


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## Crowe (Aug 19, 2019)

Necro-posting for the sake of posterity.

This was the first strings library I bought about a year ago and today, after truly trying to make it work, I've deleted it from my drive and I don't think it'll ever return.

I'm not someone with Spitfire Libraries or even things like CSS. I use Palette and NI Symphony Series because that's what I bought after and which have served me infinitely better.

Just a couple of reasons why Aria London Symphonic strings is not a useful libary:

- Loading a multi for one Ensemble with your basic articulations will devour your RAM like mad. There's no real logical explanation for it other than that the samples are badly compressed and the scripting is very wonky. Every triggered sample, even when set to 'update' and on one mic, takes multiple megabytes of space. I thought I was seeing things, but yeah.
- The quality of the recordings varies wildly per Mic position and the general quality of the recordings gets worse the lower you get in tone.
- This means that, although at first glance the Basses sound very real, the overall quality is _atrocious_. Wildly varying RR's (in volume as well as accentuation) and an incomprehensible amount of background noise in the form of wooden pops, ticks and what I think is shuffling of players. It doesn't matter, there's an actual range on certain mics that's simply unusable.

Anyone truly considering buying this whenever it comes back on sale, please don't. It's truly, really not worth it. The joke's on me, because someone told me the same thing when I asked if I should get this. If you have more patience and are more prodigious than me, you may be able to get some use out of this but personally, I am glad I've finally given up.

Bright side: I learned to identify what sound I really don't want from my string-plugins.


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## kitekrazy (Aug 19, 2019)

This was really promising when it came out but really needs someone with great programming skills in Kontakt.


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## wcreed51 (Aug 20, 2019)

It's not coming back. They lost the licesnsure for the sample content.


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