# I'm tired of all the legato issues in SINE



## daviddln (Jan 30, 2022)

Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows 1&2, Berlin Orchestra - Created With Berklee... All these libraries have legato issues. And some of them (like BSSB) have been out for months and there are still no updates. I like OT libraries but this is really frustrating.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 30, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows 1&2, Berlin Orchestra - Created With Berklee... All these libraries have legato issues. And some of them (like BSSB) have been out for months and there is still no updates. I like OT libraries but this is really frustrating.


I recently bought Berlin Strings and so far I don’t have any issues. What issues should I test for?


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## daviddln (Jan 31, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> I recently bought Berlin Strings and so far I don’t have any issues. What issues should I test for?


Hi
Here are some audio examples from Miroire, Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows and Berlin Orchestra.
For Berlin Strings, pick the Violas and play the notes E2-G#2-B2 as I did.


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## constaneum (Jan 31, 2022)

Awful


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## JTB (Jan 31, 2022)

The viola will sound okay in musical context I would expect; I have never noticed it. And after testing my Kontakt versions it is just as gnarly. Those brass transitions however....


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## Maarten (Jan 31, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Hi
> Here are some audio examples from Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows and Berlin Orchestra.
> For Berlin Strings, pick the Violas and play the notes E2-G#2-B2 as I did.


That's really horrible. Thank you for posting this. These are expensive libraries. Don't they have quality control in Berlin? Hopefully this post will trigger some reaction from OT.


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## Trash Panda (Jan 31, 2022)

And yet a one man show in Cinematic Studio Series and a small operation like Audio Imperia, who charge a fraction of the price, can avoid embarrassingly bad issues like this. 

@OrchestralTools what’s your excuse for your lack of quality control? It’s bad enough that your libraries are overpriced compared to the market. They should be pristinely QC’d at such a premium price point.


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## filipjonathan (Jan 31, 2022)

Trash Panda said:


> And yet a one man show in Cinematic Studio Series and a small operation like Audio Imperia, who charge a fraction of the price, can avoid embarrassingly bad issues like this.


Damn... On point tho.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 31, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Hi
> Here are some audio examples from Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows and Berlin Orchestra.
> For Berlin Strings, pick the Violas and play the notes E2-G#2-B2 as I did.


Tested on my end, absolutely brutal....thanks for the heads up. I just bought them, so I’ve requested a refund.
For the price of these, I’m baffled as to how they can get away with this.


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## MartinH. (Jan 31, 2022)

Trash Panda said:


> And yet a one man show in Cinematic Studio Series and a small operation like Audio Imperia, who charge a fraction of the price, can avoid embarrassingly bad issues like this.



I wonder if it may actually be easier for a one man show to do quality work. You need fewer products to sustain ongoing costs, you're always the one person responsible for everything, can't hide behind "not my responsibility", and have to make sure every release is brilliant since you can't afford to have a dud in your portfolio if you only release one big product every couple of years. I mean, it's pretty consistent that the one man show devs have better QA than the big companies, isn't it? 

I've barely touched my Metropolis Ark 3 that I bought a month ago because all the little inconsistencies and annoyances frustrate me so much.




Jeremy Spencer said:


> I just bought them, so I’ve requested a refund.


Let us know if/when you get it.


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## Scripter (Jan 31, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Tested on my end, absolutely brutal....thanks for the heads up. I just bought them, so I’ve requested a refund.
> For the price of these, I’m baffled as to how they can get away with this.


Haha don't want to be mean but refund on a digital product you've already downloaded? Don't thinks this is or was ever possible. But if you got a refund let me know.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 31, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Hi
> Here are some audio examples from Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows and Berlin Orchestra.
> For Berlin Strings, pick the Violas and play the notes E2-G#2-B2 as I did.


I just listened to your brass examples...damn! How did that get out the door at OT??


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 31, 2022)

Scripter said:


> Haha don't want to be mean but refund on a digital product you've already downloaded? Don't thinks this is or was ever possible. But if you got a refund let me know.


I probably won’t, but I was reading their 14 day “cancellation policy”. It doesn’t mention anything about downloading.


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## Drundfunk (Jan 31, 2022)

Trash Panda said:


> And yet a one man show in Cinematic Studio Series and a small operation like Audio Imperia, who charge a fraction of the price, can avoid embarrassingly bad issues like this.
> 
> @OrchestralTools what’s your excuse for your lack of quality control? It’s bad enough that your libraries are overpriced compared to the market. They should be pristinely QC’d at such a premium price point.


Well to be fair, afaik Orchestral Tools is also a small team operation. Doesn't mean I don't agree with you, especially considering how expensive OT products are.


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## Scripter (Jan 31, 2022)

Don't know what OT is doing recently... Actually have some really good products especially the Arks but the functionality with SINE is just ...


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## Scripter (Jan 31, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> I probably won’t, but I was reading their 14 day “cancellation policy”. It doesn’t mention anything about downloading.


Hm that's right but as I think that's already regulated by the normal laws of your country. But of course I would be really happy for you. .)


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## RogiervG (Jan 31, 2022)

what amazed me, is that the viola thing is something i've never heard of before on vic.
Seems, it's not that bad in context for people to notice? (or nobody uses it with E2-G#2-B2?  )

If it's also in the kontakt version (which is years old now) as some here confirmed, why isn't this been fixed in those years?


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## Scripter (Jan 31, 2022)

RogiervG said:


> what amazed me, is that the viola thing is something i've never heard of before on vic.
> Seems, it's not that bad in context for people to notice? (or nobody uses it with E2-G#2-B2?  )
> 
> If it's also in the kontakt version (which is years old now) as some here confirmed, why isn't this been fixed in those years? jaw drop....


Really don't know. Guess the people aren't on VI haha. Just joking but this is strange indeed. 

Why I doesn't get fixed = to less complains and the library get's bought anyways. ;9


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## Cdnalsi (Jan 31, 2022)

Never mind the god awful UI of SINE, but man those examples are brutal.

I was actually eyeing some of OT's stuff, I'll stay well clear. Thanks for the heads up!


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## JotaArkham (Jan 31, 2022)

I was considering to buy BS Special Bows, but having heard these examples, I prefer to wait until they are fixed.


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## curtisschweitzer (Jan 31, 2022)

RogiervG said:


> what amazed me, is that the viola thing is something i've never heard of before on vic.
> Seems, it's not that bad in context for people to notice? (or nobody uses it with E2-G#2-B2?  )
> 
> If it's also in the kontakt version (which is years old now) as some here confirmed, why isn't this been fixed in those years?


Probably because in context the viola stuff isn't terribly noticeable or for that matter outside what can easily happen (and does happen) in live scenarios all the time. It is good evidence that small intonation issues in strings are just a simple fact of life and massaging them out of libraries entirely is neither necessary nor desirable (in the context of strings specifically).

The brass stuff seems much more problematic and likely to cause issues IMHO, although now that it has been brought to OT's attention, I'd of course be willing to give them some time to sort it out. (I don't have time to check at the moment but as a user of BB Brass on Kontakt I haven't run into these in hundreds of hours of use, so I suspect it is a SINE issue that can hopefully be addressed quickly).


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## daviddln (Jan 31, 2022)

Here are three new audio examples from Miroire, Berlin Orchestra and Berlin Brass. In the last one, I'm just crossfading between dynamic layers. I don't know where this lowest E comes from.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Jan 31, 2022)

Yes - some of these were brought up when the Berlin SINE series launched in November. Since then, OT provided one small update for trumpets (obviously not fixed still) - and has released 3 new libraries. Meanwhile, ISW has updates TSS numerous times to address user feedback, as has Sonokinetic for their strings. BSS issues are now over a year old with no updates to that library. If you think OT is actually going to fix any of these, their track record will leave you disappointed and appalled.

I’m sure the OT / SINE apologists will chime in soon though…


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 31, 2022)

curtisschweitzer said:


> Probably because in context the viola stuff isn't terribly noticeable or for that matter outside what can easily happen (and does happen) in live scenarios all the time. It is good evidence that small intonation issues in strings are just a simple fact of life and massaging them out of libraries entirely is neither necessary nor desirable (in the context of strings specifically).


I’ve never heard live players sound like this, it sounds more like a bad programming glitch.


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## AMBi (Jan 31, 2022)

Hearing those brass examples is gonna make it hard to sleep tonight


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## daviddln (Jan 31, 2022)

And with the Trumpet Ensemble, if you play legato lines, the lowest notes are also there. I'm just playing with the Trumpet Ensemble, no other instruments added.


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## ism (Jan 31, 2022)

JotaArkham said:


> I was considering to buy BS Special Bows, but having heard these examples, I prefer to wait until they are fixed.


You are doing yourself a very great disservice. The Special bows are incredible.


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## davidson (Jan 31, 2022)

Orchestral tools have the worst QC from any of the 70+ devs ive bought from bar early keepforest releases. Some presets are fantastic, some are horrendous. I still bought ark 5 though and I’m considering the new violin so my lesson obviously hasnt been learnt 🥴


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## Vik (Jan 31, 2022)

Scripter said:


> don't want to be mean but refund on a digital product you've already downloaded? Don't thinks this is or was ever possible


From VSL's site:
"Unlike many other sample library developers, we offer a "No Hassle" return policy. If you're not satisfied with your purchase at the VSL web shop, for any reason, you may return it for a refund or an in-house credit, within 14 days from the day of purchase."

Some may possibly suggest that with such a policy, their finances will go down the drain and therefore kill further development, but they've been around for 20+ years, have what many consider the best player (Synchron), they allow resale of libraries, and many also consider VSL to have the best quality control. They seem to be able to spend money where it matters the most in the long run: making good libraries and making users happy.


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## ism (Jan 31, 2022)

Vik said:


> From VSL's site:
> "Unlike many other sample library developers, we offer a "No Hassle" return policy. If you're not satisfied with your purchase at the VSL web shop, for any reason, you may return it for a refund or an in-house credit, within 14 days from the day of purchase."
> 
> Some may possibly suggest that with such a policy, their finances will go down the drain and therefore kill further development, but they've bee around for 20+ years, and both have what any consider the best player (Synchron), they allow resale of libraries, and many also consider VSL to have the best quality control – they seem to be able to spend money where it matters the most in the long run: making good libraries and making users happy.


Dongles.

Don't get me wrong, I mean DEATH TO DONGLES and all. But this is definitely an upside to dongles.


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## Vik (Jan 31, 2022)

ism said:


> Dongles.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I mean DEATH TO DONGLES and all. But this is definitely an upside to dongles.


VSL are switching to iLok soon, which can be used dongle free.


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## Scripter (Jan 31, 2022)

Cdnalsi said:


> Never mind the god awful UI of SINE, but man those examples are brutal.
> 
> I was actually eyeing some of OT's stuff, I'll stay well clear. Thanks for the heads up!


Actually considered to buy the Ark Bundle but now... guess im gonna buy the Audio Imperia Libraries instead. It's not only cause of the Libraries but SINE is just goddam uncomfortable and "ugly" (not really but hard to use.) Just my 2 cents


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## Cdnalsi (Jan 31, 2022)

Scripter said:


> Actually considered to buy the Ark Bundle but now... guess im gonna buy the Audio Imperia Libraries instead. It's not only cause of the Libraries but SINE is just goddam uncomfortable and "ugly" (not really but hard to use.) Just my 2 cents


Yeah I was kind of in the same boat as you are, and finally decided on Spitfire's BBCSO Core and a few other little gems. Their Apple Silicon native player works flawlessly for me, and it's also gorgeous


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## FireGS (Jan 31, 2022)

daviddln said:


> And with the Trumpet Ensemble, if you play legato lines, the lowest notes are also there. I'm just playing with the Trumpet Ensemble, no other instruments added.


That's hilarious.


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## Scripter (Jan 31, 2022)

Cdnalsi said:


> Yeah I was kind of in the same boat as you are, and finally decided on Spitfire's BBCSO Core and a few other little gems. Their Apple Silicon native player works flawlessly for me, and it's also gorgeous


Hm ya but Spitfire... Not a fan of them to be honest. (They have excellent libraries from what I heard but they are quite expensive. Albion is something I considered for some epic Orchestral Stuff, but Jaeger seems to be a great option too. Struggling right now haha.)


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## Cdnalsi (Jan 31, 2022)

Scripter said:


> Hm ya but Spitfire... Not a fan of them to be honest. (They have excellent libraries from what I heard but they are quite expensive. Albion is something I considered for some epic Orchestral Stuff, but Jaeger seems to be a great option too. Struggling right now haha.)


I wasn't going either way about them myself until I really started researching which orchestra to buy, and with the sale they have going (I think today's the last day) for BBCSO - which in my opinion sounds amazing - and ticking all the compatibility boxes I needed - Spitfire seems to be leaving all these more established players in the rear-view mirror.


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## Casiquire (Jan 31, 2022)

Vik said:


> VSL are switching to iLok soon, which can be used dongle free.


However your choices are apparently iLok dongle or iLok cloud which is super unreliable. Pick your poison.


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## Scripter (Jan 31, 2022)

Cdnalsi said:


> I wasn't going either way about them myself until I really started researching which orchestra to buy, and with the sale they have going (I think today's the last day) for BBCSO - which in my opinion sounds amazing - and ticking all the compatibility boxes I needed - Spitfire seems to be leaving all these more established players in the rear-view mirror.


Haha ya that is a point. Guess I'm just one of these odd "Kontakt" is amazing individuums. Love to have my libraries all in one place, especially with the hundreds I have...


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## Scripter (Jan 31, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> However your choices are apparently iLok dongle or iLok cloud which is super unreliable. Pick your poison.


Actually had never problems with licensing using ILok Online without a Dongle - but yeah I know enough who also say ILok = Poison. :D


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## Frederick (Jan 31, 2022)

Hm. Without fixes to such horrible errors, my guess is the reputation of Orchestral Tools being one of the top developers will be in shambles. The Berlin Series are their flagship libraries afterall. Fixing these errors is probably not that expensive. They'd have to have serious brain damage not to fix them (eventually).

I only did some try outs with the Berlin Series, but I didn't encounter that many errors. I thought most of it sounded fine. My main problem is memory management, the lack of a useful purge function. With so many solo instruments doubling others, I wonder if it would be possible to live with these problems until they are fixed. Still, for now I'd rather focus on my other virtual orchestras and only return to these when the most heinous errors have been fixed.


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## Rudianos (Jan 31, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Hi
> Here are some audio examples from Miroire, Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows and Berlin Orchestra.
> For Berlin Strings, pick the Violas and play the notes E2-G#2-B2 as I did.


Trumpet 1: Yeah there is something going on in the P MP MF area in the dynamic shifting. 1 layer is out of tune with the other. Don't hear it if its contained to 1 dynamic. Notes Bb Db C @OrchestralTools Are you aware of these issues?


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## muk (Jan 31, 2022)

If you followed the Sine release thread a bit, this doesn't come as a surprise. Though the examples posted here are inexplicable, and inexcuseable. I too am of the opinion that Orchestral Tool's quality control is horrible. It makes their products unuseable for me in a professional context. Also, OT fixes almost none of the glaring issues. I don't buy from them anymore.


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## GMT (Jan 31, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Here are three new audio examples from Miroire, Berlin Orchestra and Berlin Brass. In the last one, I'm just crossfading between dynamic layers. I don't know where this lowest E comes from.


I'm actually beginning to enjoy these.


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## Zanshin (Jan 31, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> However your choices are apparently iLok dongle or iLok cloud which is super unreliable. Pick your poison.


There is a choice at least.

iLok is better than eLic in my experience, comparing dongle to dongle


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## Vik (Jan 31, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> However your choices are apparently iLok dongle or iLok cloud which is super unreliable. Pick your poison.


The annual $30 zero downtime fee should cover such reliability issues, shouldn't it?


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## Zanshin (Jan 31, 2022)

Back when the Sine versions were released, @SimonCharlesHanna was nice enough to do a live stream and demo the issues he was experiencing in both Sine and Kontakt versions of the Berlin libraries.

From my memory - Berlin Strings we pretty close for both Kontakt and Sine.

Woodwinds were more problematic in Sine, and you miss all the legacy instruments as well in Sine. But even still, they were very inconsistent from instrument to instrument even in the Kontakt version.

Brass on Sine was horrible, I wasn't all that impressed with it on Kontakt either (way too few dynamic layers and needed a top layer).

I ended up buying just the strings based on what I heard (plus BSS and Character Strings). I can recreate OP's issue with the Violas. Once in a while I've experienced similar issues elsewhere in the various string libraries but they have been easy to work around for the most part (force another legato type etc). The strings overall are quite beautiful and I don't regret the purchases at all. I did go into it with both eyes open though, I was expecting problems. Buyer beware.


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## muziksculp (Jan 31, 2022)

@daviddln ,

These issues are quite annoying. Have you reported them to OT Support, are they aware of all of these issues in their Berlin Main Series ? 

I find it very uncomforting that they haven't posted updates to fix, and improve their Berlin Main Orchestral collection since it was released. It would be helpful to hear from @OrchestralTools about all these issues, and why they have not fixed them yet via updates, given it's been quite a while since they were released.


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## daviddln (Jan 31, 2022)

muziksculp said:


> @daviddln ,
> 
> These issues are quite annoying. Have you reported them to OT Support, are they aware of all of these issues in their Berlin Main Series ?


No. I thought a lot of people were already aware of these issues.


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## muziksculp (Jan 31, 2022)

daviddln said:


> No. I thought a lot of people were already aware of these issues.


I would recommend you email OT-Support and inform them of all these issues, and support them with some audio examples, they will not be ignored. I don't know what was reported to them so far. But you surely found a bunch of issues that need to be fixed.


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## Rudianos (Jan 31, 2022)

Maybe trying to fix everything all at once which I think is a mistake. Start with the brass go down score order one instrument at a time. Release as they come. And prepare for a couple of rounds of doing that.

Overall I'm actually quite pleased with the purchase of the Berlin Mains and Ark on Sine. Miroire too. Great tone and expressiveness love the room love the mics. Haven't felt the connection with VSL Synchron. For as tight as it can be. None of the issues in Berlin cannot be worked around.

I have total confidence that will address these issues. Maybe if we all have some time we can send some midi and some audio files to the company.


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## Casiquire (Jan 31, 2022)

Vik said:


> The annual $30 zero downtime fee should cover such reliability issues, shouldn't it?


I didn't think so; i think if you're offline you're offline and there's nothing you can do about it. But i haven't ventured into that cloud myself, so grain of salt!


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## Vik (Jan 31, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> grain of salt


No worries, I never enter internet forums without salt!


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## jonathanwright (Jan 31, 2022)

muziksculp said:


> I would recommend you email OT-Support and inform them of all these issues, and support them with some audio examples, they will not be ignored. I don't know what was reported to them so far. But you surely found a bunch of issues that need to be fixed.


Good advice.

I know we all understandably like to vent, but venting here really doesn’t resolve anything without notifying the developer too.

If you bought a car and bits started falling off the moment you got it home, you wouldn’t go on a forum to moan about it then stop using it and leave it sitting on your driveway to rust, you’d complain to the manufacturer and get it fixed.

I‘ve had a couple of issues with SINE, and in both cases contacted OT, and within a couple of days they had identified the issues and they were resolved in the next update.

I‘m not dismissing anyone’s genuine issues or annoyance at all, just saying it’s probably more productive to talk directly with the people that can help. If they don’t? Then demand a refund.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Jan 31, 2022)

jonathanwright said:


> Good advice.
> 
> I know we all understandably like to vent, but venting here really doesn’t resolve anything without notifying the developer too.
> 
> ...


You might be new given this advice - not sure - but I and many others have reported numerous issues to OT over many months. Best case, they have acknowledged it but not done anything. Worst case (which some folks have indeed experienced), OT has responded effectively saying “by design”. They also don’t give refunds.


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## Frederick (Jan 31, 2022)

jonathanwright said:


> I know we all understandably like to vent, but venting here really doesn’t resolve anything without notifying the developer too.


Of course, you are right. Still, I think the general assumption in this thread is a lot of issues have been reported to them months ago and except for one update nothing has been fixed from the user perspective. And now even worse problems are found. Ones they should know of by now as they are not subtle. And then there are those memories of other SINE releases that have reported issues that still haven't been fixed.


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## Tralen (Jan 31, 2022)

jonathanwright said:


> If you bought a car and bits started falling off the moment you got it home, you wouldn’t go on a forum to moan about it then stop using it and leave it sitting on your driveway to rust, you’d complain to the manufacturer and get it fixed.


I agree about opening the tickets, but...

This isn't any forum. This is the most prominent forum for Virtual Instruments, the forum where OT regularly makes announcements and silly teasers. If they find the time to do that, why shouldn't we expect them to find the time to appear when called on a thread where a number of users are exposing their grievances?


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## daviddln (Jan 31, 2022)

muziksculp said:


> I would recommend you email OT-Support and inform them of all these issues, and support them with some audio examples, they will not be ignored. I don't know what was reported to them so far. But you surely found a bunch of issues that need to be fixed.


Allright, I'll send them an email tomorrow even though I'm not really sure it will change anything. Berlin Strings Special Bows have been out for almost a year now and there are still no updates. But who knows?


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## Casiquire (Jan 31, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Allright, I'll send them an email tomorrow even though I'm not really sure it will change anything. Berlin Strings Special Bows have been out for almost a year now and there are still no updates. But who knows?


I just sent emails to support, it was pretty easy. They confirmed the issues and said they'd be taken care of in the next update; that wasn't very long ago so we'll see.


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## muziksculp (Jan 31, 2022)

I recently communicated with OT-Support to request that they add Studio One Pro 5's Sound-Variation feature into their SINE player, so articulations will be showing up in S1Pro 5.5 automatically, and updated automatically (bi-directionally) if they were edited/customized by the user. They told me that they forwarded my request to their development team.


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## Jett Hitt (Jan 31, 2022)

I suspected at the time that the one little update they issued during the Black Friday sale was just a Hail Mary to salvage sales at the time, but others said there would be an update before Xmas or just after. And here we are at the 1st of February. They had to fix the mic merge issue in BSS, and that only took what, ten months? I am heavily vested in OT libraries, but I won't be buying anymore until they fix some of this crap.


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## FireGS (Jan 31, 2022)

jonathanwright said:


> If you bought a car and bits started falling off the moment you got it home, you wouldn’t go on a forum to moan about it then stop using it and leave it sitting on your driveway to rust, you’d complain to the manufacturer and get it fixed.


Problem here is that your "car" has a dedicated industry behind it suitable, able, licensed, and certified to make those repairs, including the manufacturer. Talking here and sending tickets is akin to asking Toyota Headquarters in Tokyo to personally fix *your* car.


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## Jett Hitt (Jan 31, 2022)

FireGS said:


> Problem here is that your "car" has a dedicated industry behind it suitable, able, licensed, and certified to make those repairs, including the manufacturer. Talking here and sending tickets is akin to asking Toyota Headquarters in Tokyo to personally fix *your* car.


This is it. There is simply no way to make them do anything about it. They have gotten by with it for years, and as long as people continue to buy their libraries, they have no motivation to fix anything. You can send all the tickets you like to tech support, but they already know. They made a conscious decision to let these libraries go out the door in this shape. If you want them to fix it, quit buying their shit.


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## Zanshin (Jan 31, 2022)

Rudianos said:


> I have total confidence that will address these issues. Maybe if we all have some time we can send some midi and some audio files to the company.


I don't expect they will fix much given what history has taught us. Also most of the issues that turned me off the Woodwinds and Brass were present in the Kontakt version. The Brass.... bad dynamic layers crossfades, not enough layers, and now a tacked on FFF layer... you believe that's even fixable? 

Shit in, shit out.

I do agree that the Berlin libraries, even the Brass, can sound quite beautiful if you are willing to work around the issues. For how much they cost, that was too much of a compromise for me (for the Woodwinds and Brass).


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 31, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Hi
> Here are some audio examples from Miroire, Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows and Berlin Orchestra.
> For Berlin Strings, pick the Violas and play the notes E2-G#2-B2 as I did.


Lol! That BO trumpet 2 patch should be renamed “drunk hobo clown stumbling home from the bar at 3:00am”!

I also sent an email to support, along with the string examples.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Jan 31, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> I don't expect they will fix much given what history has taught us. Also most of the issues that turned me off the Woodwinds and Brass were present in the Kontakt version. The Brass.... bad dynamic layers crossfades, not enough layers, and now a tacked on FFF layer... you believe that's even fixable?
> 
> Shit in, shit out.
> 
> I do agree that the Berlin libraries, even the Brass, can sound quite beautiful if you are willing to work around the issues. For how much they cost, that was too much of a compromise for me (for the Woodwinds and Brass).


Despite its issues, I gueninely think Berlin Brass is still the king of brass libraries. 

End of the off-topic, I also find the SINE ports disappointing. :/


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## jbuhler (Jan 31, 2022)

muk said:


> If you followed the Sine release thread a bit, this doesn't come as a surprise. Though the examples posted here are inexplicable, and inexcuseable. I too am of the opinion that Orchestral Tool's quality control is horrible. It makes their products unuseable for me in a professional context. Also, OT fixes almost none of the glaring issues. I don't buy from them anymore.


For me, the issue isn't the quality control of the release products—because that's a very hard task that all developers struggle with to a certain extent— but that OT is so slow to do maintenance on the libraries. Back in the Kontakt days, the only real updates came when they moved the instruments to NKI, so it's long been clear that maintenance is not really a business priority. They've been a bit better with Sine, but only a bit, and maintenance has been neither speedy nor predictable. Many instruments haven't received any updates at all; even Sine hasn't really received the regular maintenance that software of that kind really has to have. On the other hand, the only OT library that I've found impossible to work with is the Sine version of the Woodwind soloists. (Fortunately, I don't have the Sine Berlin Brass, which seems to have many issues.)


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## Zanshin (Jan 31, 2022)

Emmanuel Rousseau said:


> Despite its issues, I gueninely think Berlin Brass is still the king of brass libraries.



I respect that, we all have a different itch that needs scratching, and if you are happy with the Kontakt library as is, that's great.

My issue is with the blind faith that all these issues are going to get fixed when history has shown us that probably won't happen. Buy it (or don't) for what it is, there's no guarantee that anything will change.


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## jbuhler (Jan 31, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> My issue is with the blind faith that all these issues are going to get fixed when history has shown us that probably won't happen. Buy it (or don't) for what it is, there's no guarantee that anything will change.


Yes, I think you have to buy from OT with the expectation that the library when you buy it will not change much in terms of fixes. So then it's a question of whether it is worth it to you to work with the instruments in the state they are released in. 

On the whole, I've found that to be the case. I do not in fact encounter issues very often and I use the libraries quite a lot. Sometimes on the forum you'd think the libraries are completely unusable, and that is simply not the case. Indeed, generally, the issues are masked by context or the libraries have enough redundancies built in that you can work around an issue. Indeed, in general, I have more issues with the implementation of Sine, and hope to get improvements to it more than I need updates to the libraries. But even in its less than adequate state, I prefer Sine in nearly every case to the Kontakt version of these libraries.


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## Trash Panda (Jan 31, 2022)

MartinH. said:


> I wonder if it may actually be easier for a one man show to do quality work. You need fewer products to sustain ongoing costs, you're always the one person responsible for everything, can't hide behind "not my responsibility", and have to make sure every release is brilliant since you can't afford to have a dud in your portfolio if you only release one big product every couple of years. I mean, it's pretty consistent that the one man show devs have better QA than the big companies, isn't it?


It's actually harder for a smaller operation to operate with a high level of QC because there aren't as many resources to do the grunt work necessary. Companies like OT, CineSamples and Spitfire just don't prioritize good sample editing and engine scripting because their (apparent) focus is the recording process and the marketing.

Having consistent timing and rock-solid coding isn't as sexy as recording at famous studio X with famous engineer/group Y.


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## AndrewS (Jan 31, 2022)

sheen said:


> How about if all of it fell off?


That's not very typical, I'd like to make that point.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Jan 31, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> I respect that, we all have a different itch that needs scratching, and if you are happy with the Kontakt library as is, that's great.
> 
> My issue is with the blind faith that all these issues are going to get fixed when history has shown us that probably won't happen. Buy it (or don't) for what it is, there's no guarantee that anything will change.


Oh I do agree with that. I don't think these issues are going to be addressed anytime soon. I have Berlin Brass since 2017, some issues I've been reporting years ago are still present to this day. I am still using the Kontakt version (my latest album "Two Worlds", linked in signature, is 99% Berlin Brass). But even with that, I think it's still the best. That's the complexity of Orchestral Tools, I guess ^^


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## cedricm (Jan 31, 2022)

To be fair, big organizations can suck too. 

Native Instrument 's Native Access is an absolute disgrace with known bugs not fixed for years. When you ask they' ll just send the links to individual installers. 

You'd think Waves would know Steinberg did not define default folders for VST2 plugins, and that's why 99.99% of developers, even one-man shops or Freeware, have the courtesy to ask where you want to install the plugins. 
I've requested them many times to upgrade Waves Central, but they simply send a link to a "how to move the plugins" kb entry. 
And I should pay $240 a year min for an "update plan".


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## odod (Jan 31, 2022)

BS is a BS now with this issue ..


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## Getsumen (Jan 31, 2022)

Honestly, there are so many little things that devs can do to improve the user experience is what ircks me, not the scale of the issues.

I think people here are overstating the severity of these issues (cept for the brass, I've more or less only heard bad about the SINE ports) A few bad transitions while annoying isn't the end of the world (and certainly wouldn't be enough to justify not getting a library if you like everything else about it)

What IS annoying though is that it would take OT very very little effort and time to fix these issues. But they don't. Why? Like Mic Merge fiasco, ok I get that there was probably some underlying technical issue preventing it. (10 months worth? debatable). But for some of these transitions, it's literally just tuning them, a few seconds to fix. For samples playing on the wrong note, I guess that might be a little bit longer to fix but it can't be something that takes months to address.

Likewise, devs could also just publish their delay timing info instead of having people guess it but they don't either. C'mon


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## NoamL (Jan 31, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Hi
> Here are some audio examples from Miroire, Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows and Berlin Orchestra.
> For Berlin Strings, pick the Violas and play the notes E2-G#2-B2 as I did.


Maybe I'm making a fool of myself here. But. My view is: they have decent enough programming and good concepts for what they want to sample. But in the past, they have not worked with high enough caliber musicians. And they aren't inspiring & disciplined enough to their musicians during recording sessions. 

The bad-sample examples shown here, apart from the bad sample callup for the trumpet instrument, are all the musicians' fault: spotty tuning, flubbed transitions, or they just sound bored playing a sustain. There really isn't much that CAN be done to "fix" this, it had to be correct on the day, unless OT wants to book those musicians again for a followup session... This is an attitude that 1st call scoring session musicians already have. They will ASK for another take if they know they can nail it down better.

The old WW library and the Arks have always sounded decent enough at least. I recall at one time they had the personnel of their libraries advertised together with their products and the WW players were professional symphony musicians.

There is a reason people still use CineBrass.


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## José Herring (Jan 31, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Hi
> Here are some audio examples from Miroire, Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows and Berlin Orchestra.
> For Berlin Strings, pick the Violas and play the notes E2-G#2-B2 as I did.


Dear Lord. Seems as if Sine isn't handling the crossfading well. That is definitely a problem with the programming of the player. The transition sample is playing along with the sustain sample. How one releases a product like this is verging on unethical.


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## JTB (Jan 31, 2022)

José Herring said:


> The transition sample is playing along with the sustain sample.


Also, in the Kontakt version of BS the release samples of the notes are continuing even after the transition to the next note.
The last note here is a G#2 and its release has chair noise and a string pluck. You might need to turn it up a bit to hear.
View attachment Noisy.mp3

Now here I have transitioned down to the G2 and because BS is sampled in whole tones, I am getting 2x the chair noise and string plucks.
View attachment 2 Noisy.mp3

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but in a monophonic legato patch, shouldn't the release sample for the first note be cut off after transitioning to the next note?.


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## José Herring (Jan 31, 2022)

JTB said:


> Also, in the Kontakt version of BS the release samples of the notes are continuing even after the transition to the next note.
> The last note here is a G#2 and its release has chair noise and a string pluck. You might need to turn it up a bit to hear.
> View attachment Noisy.mp3
> 
> ...


These are much better. Correct though in a perfect world we would not hear the transition. But our world isn't perfect. Though the Sine version is just bad and utterly unprofessional. Disappointing truth be told. I thought that OT would hold itself to a higher professional level.
Good thing we have options.


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## JTB (Jan 31, 2022)

José Herring said:


> These are much better. Correct though in a perfect world we would not hear the transition. But our world isn't perfect. Though the Sine version is just bad and utterly unprofessional. Disappointing truth be told. I thought that OT would hold itself to a higher professional level.
> Good thing we have options.


OT have obviously calculated that the disgruntled customers on this forum are not costing them enough sales to justify the cost of fixing the issues. It's all about the bottom line baby!
With the huge help of the usual apologists that chime in like clockwork, I can't see their business model changing anytime soon.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 31, 2022)

JTB said:


> Also, in the Kontakt version of BS the release samples of the notes are continuing even after the transition to the next note.
> The last note here is a G#2 and its release has chair noise and a string pluck. You might need to turn it up a bit to hear.
> View attachment Noisy.mp3
> 
> ...


Have you sent those to OT support?


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## lgchess2 (Jan 31, 2022)

I really love the sound of Teldex and OT's take on sampling orchestral instruments. For my taste they are unmatched. Unfortunately, this is where my love affair ends. Random 50% bundled discounts for those who happen to have $1000 or more on hand. The single instrument purchase prices are cringe worthy. If you were to purchase Ark V- (1) instrument at a time you'd pay 769E. Same library cost around 200E if you could afford the Ark bundle a few weeks ago. I'd be hard pressed to name a company this hostile to the lil guy. Customer loyalty has never been an OT strong point tho. They didn't even have a user account area until sine. I've never received emails about sales nor vouchers i've earned. Going back to Sine. This player is an absolute nightmare in Logic. ARK 4 won't even run in standalone on my Mac, constant crashes. I've been running it in VEPro which is a lot better, but not without issues. Specifically, the gui randomly becomes a clusterf**k. To be fair Ark 1 and JXL Brass have worked just fine. 
The browsing experience has got to be among the worst in the market. Page down doesn't scroll. I use an old trackball with no scroll wheel. To scroll down i have to (open a visible library than wiggle my mouse in just the right area to wake up the scroll bar in sine.) The mixer is a joke. It's 2022 FFS, give us a fader with db markings. Perhaps, a meter that shows actual DBSF while you're at it. For as much shit as Spitfire gets, i've had zero problems with their new player. Synchron is on another level. I didn't have this many issues with Play when it came out. 
Almost forgot the joyous task of having to disable round robins and re-save patches. Plenty of examples to choose from in this thread alone.
As much as I love the sound of OT products i'm out for now.


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## JTB (Jan 31, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Have you sent those to OT support?


It was more about the scripting than anything. Why are we hearing the release of the first note in a monophonic legato patch 1 second after the first note has finished?. 

Rhetorical question BTW.


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## jonathanwright (Jan 31, 2022)

FireGS said:


> Problem here is that your "car" has a dedicated industry behind it suitable, able, licensed, and certified to make those repairs, including the manufacturer. Talking here and sending tickets is akin to asking Toyota Headquarters in Tokyo to personally fix *your* car.


True, but any fixes for my car would also be needed for every other car of the same model they’ve manufactured. They wouldn’t be just fixing mine, but all of them.

If things are really unacceptable, demand a refund, kick up a fuss.

I’ve done that before with one library and after a few email exchanges (mostly trying to give me a voucher/credit instead of a refund) I did get my money back. This is despite the license saying it was not possible. Admittedly I had purchased a fair bit off them before this, so that may have helped.

The one good thing about all these new bespoke sample players with inbuilt licensing is that the reasons for not giving refunds hold far less water. The potential for theft is far smaller than in the cracked Kontakt days.

Indeed it’s about time trials were offered from within the players - especially with something like SINE where it would be easy to log in and download a time limited product.


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## ism (Feb 1, 2022)

NoamL said:


> Maybe I'm making a fool of myself here. But. My view is: they have decent enough programming and good concepts for what they want to sample. But in the past, they have not worked with high enough caliber musicians. And they aren't inspiring & disciplined enough to their musicians during recording sessions.


Ok, sorry, but ... attacking the OT musicians ... huh?

I mean, loads of respect for your amazing work with things like CSS. And of course also respect to anyone who prefers that aesthetic.

But while I'm relative new to the OT rabbit hole, I'm really finding, aesthetically, that it's amazing.

For starters, the OT sound is amazing. It's more classical that the more hollywood libraries, though still with a cinematic quality. It sits beautiful next to Spitfire, though again, there's a critical difference, in somehow a more expansive, classical elegance.

Judging CSS by this standard (though it's is not something I recommend, for it's not fair to CSS-quo-CSS), it just seems to fill the room, and very quickly I feel it risks becoming almost ... claustrophobic. Both because it's kind of a mediocre hall for orchestral recordings, but also because the performances are so over the top in their high romantic style, it sometimes just all feels like it expands to fill all the available space, spatially and expressively - which, very often, judged by it's own aesthetic standards, is of course precisely the desired effect, so yay CSS.

But OT offers a different sense of embodies physical, and aesthetically expressive space. From which, for instance, can be drawn a sense of lyrical intimacy, born of a sense of embodied presence in room. Combined with the range and subtitles available across the articulations, this really opens some very powerful lyrical possibilities. And this, I feel, is every bit as much down to the carefully crafted nuance of the performance, and the breadth of performance captured across the articulations, as the Teldex sound.

It's also fundamentally different concept from CSS. CSS bakes the arcs in from the legato to the mono-shape progressive vibrato. Which is a stunningly good realization of the uber high romantic expressive legato meets uber high romantic expressive progressive vibrato. 

The Berlin libraries can approach this, but never quite equal it. Instead, they offer you all kinds of control over shaping arcs, which opens up all kinds of expressive space far beyond CSS, Vista etc. Of course, it does take a little more work, you're never going to get quite the high-romancitism in the legato of CSS or Vista, and relatedly, it's definitely not designed for plonkability.


Of course these bugs are annoying. I've yet to encounter one in the wild, but I appreciate people reporting them as it's a useful good heads up. But this, like issues with the SINE GUI, I mean sure, they're very real, but (nearly) every library has these issues, and they're usual perfectly straightforward to work around in a library of this depth. So if you're focused on what the library can do, uniquely, then it makes for like 1% of the experience. A frustrating 1%, to be sure. But at the end of the day, there's a unique lyrical voice I find in Berlins Strings, and other OT libraries, that I just don't hear anywhere else.

Also, yes, there are inconsistencies. But digging into this library, I would interpret most of them as design choices to maximize the expressive space. The Vl I, for instance, has a different dynamic range than the Vl II. Which you really feel in articulations like the expressive longs. This means you really don't want to be copying and pasting midi data between Vl I and Vl I in the way you can in CSS or Vista. But it also means that you've got two completely different expressive voices, which can be used to great effect (this is something I love about LSCS also). The Berlin Vl II is quickly becoming perhaps my favourite lyrical Vl patch. It's just so completely different from things like Vista or even the more soaring Vl I. 

I'm guessing here, but this was probably a design decision made before it was clear that homogeneity and copy and paste "consistency" were going to be in such vocal market demands. So it does involve more time digging into the library. But the expressive palette and depth of performability to be found here is wonderful, and well worth a couple of extra key switches imo.



Anway, lots of respect for other libraries and other aesthetics - and I'm obviously not the tiniest bit interest in convincing anyone who prefers other libraries or aesthetics that this is a better library or a better aesthetic. It isn't. They're all very much entirely their own things.

Just that in the spirit of "musicians helping musicians" I think it's worth balanced this unfortunate attack on the OT musicians with another perspective.

Which is: I love the OT musicians. We need more of their subtly and nuanced performances in samples.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Feb 1, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Hi
> Here are some audio examples from Miroire, Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows and Berlin Orchestra.
> For Berlin Strings, pick the Violas and play the notes E2-G#2-B2 as I did.


For the sake of comparison, I replayed your Berlin Brass examples with the Kontakt version. No editing, legato type switch or anything, just pure raw performances.

I'd invite everyone to compare and draw their own conclusions.

@NoamL with all due respect my dear friend, even if I totally get your point I don't think the musicians are the ones to blame here...


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## prodigalson (Feb 1, 2022)

JTB said:


> OT have obviously calculated that the disgruntled customers on this forum are not costing them enough sales to justify the cost of fixing the issues. It's all about the bottom line baby!
> With the huge help of the usual apologists that chime in like clockwork, I can't see their business model changing anytime soon.


I'm not sure you can have it both ways that the disgruntled customers here (who are in the clear majority) have no sway for OT but the 2, maybe 3, "apologists" are a huge help? 

To be completely fair, the word "apologist" is hyperbole when no one here has said the issues don't exist or even suggested anyone is wrong for being frustrated. The aplogists you're talking about are, from what I can see, simply people that are acknowledging the issues exist but have shared a more favorable view here of the subjective significance of the issues and/or real world experience on how showstopping they are or just a different take on WHY they exist in the first place. *AKA a different experience/opinion.* Are those not allowed?


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## Rudianos (Feb 1, 2022)

Emmanuel Rousseau said:


> For the sake of comparison, I replayed your Berlin Brass examples with the Kontakt version. No editing, legato type switch or anything, just pure raw performances.
> 
> I'd invite everyone to compare and draw their own conclusions.
> 
> @NoamL with all due respect my dear friend, even if I totally get your point I don't think the musicians are the ones to blame here...


Thanks for sharing. That really shows its not the musicians - not the samples - its how they fixed it all together for SINE. Agreed?


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## daviddln (Feb 1, 2022)

Emmanuel Rousseau said:


> For the sake of comparison, I replayed your Berlin Brass examples with the Kontakt version. No editing, legato type switch or anything, just pure raw performances.
> 
> I'd invite everyone to compare and draw their own conclusions.
> 
> @NoamL with all due respect my dear friend, even if I totally get your point I don't think the musicians are the ones to blame here...


Yes, I also think the problems come from SINE. And to be perfectly fair with OT, the Trombone 1 and Trumpet 2 examples I posted come from Berlin Orchestra, not Berlin Brass. But I specified it for each audio example.


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## IFM (Feb 1, 2022)

I finally had a chance to listen, yikes! I definitely won't update BB to Sine.


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## Scripter (Feb 1, 2022)

IFM said:


> I finally had a chance to listen, yikes! I definitely won't update BB to Sine.





Emmanuel Rousseau said:


> For the sake of comparison, I replayed your Berlin Brass examples with the Kontakt version. No editing, legato type switch or anything, just pure raw performances.
> 
> I'd invite everyone to compare and draw their own conclusions.
> 
> @NoamL with all due respect my dear friend, even if I totally get your point I don't think the musicians are the ones to blame here...


Yep now definitely sure! Don't gonna buy the Ark Series for SINE, instead I go with Audio Imperias Jaeger Bundle next Black Friday or so. It's hilarious what issues SINE actually has - without even thinking about how bad it's designed. I stay with Kontakt. But thanks for this thread I was really one sec before buying the Arks and probably regreding it afterwards without even talking about that I don't want to support such shit. (Sorry makes me really angry to something like this without OT even joining the discussion to verify that they going to change something. No hate against OT nor the musicians behind but this is just unfair for that much money you take from your customers.)


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## Casiquire (Feb 1, 2022)

"Apologists" are mentioned as a pre-emptive smear against anyone who doesn't come here with the intention of bashing OT. It's an effort to wipe out any positivity or anything constructive from the thread. Fair enough, when i get frustrated by a library I sometimes resist positivity and need to get my grievances out without feeling like fans are piling on me in defense of something they love too. So in that respect, I'm not here to say that these issues are acceptable.

On a more constructive front it doesn't seem like all of the issues were present in kontakt which makes me think a fix is not only easy, it's probable. The sample material is there and the other fix they released since transitioning to SINE was also a conversion issue, so i think reporting these was worth the effort. Will they get fixed? Who knows. But sometimes apologists provide a sense of a library's usability beyond its limitations and i find importance in that too. And i agree that neither the complaints nor the "apologists" have the kind of impact on sales we think they do.


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## ism (Feb 1, 2022)

JTB said:


> usual apologists


Bit of an ad homenim, that. Quite insulting in fact. But no matter.

Because look, this is a completely legitimate thread of consumer complaint. I get that. And have taken great pains to always recognize and affirm the legitimacy of these complaints. No one is gaslighting anyone, these issues are real, and pressure on OT to fix bugs is a good thing. On this I don't see any disagreement.

But the logic of dismissing anyone expressing positive reaction to the the Berlin libraries as an "apologist" - or a "shill" or "gaslight" on other threads which have got rather more abusive toward positive opining - is the logic of an irate consumer.

It's the logic of "the squeaky wheel get greased". The more of a death spiral of negatively toward OT we, irate consumers create, the more likely they'll listen to us. And that's certainly a real effect. And anyone who says anything positive is therefore harming out interests as irate consumers.


But when logic spills over into attacks of "apologist", "shill" "gaslighter" on alternate approach ... I have to wonder if the the interesting of our irate consumer self, maybe isn't being allowed to unhelpfully override the interests of our consumer selves.


So I understand this when I say that I completely accept the logic of how me saying *anything* positive about OT actively harms the interests of all the irate consumers. So sorry for this ... I guess.

But we all of us also have interests as composers also. And what is in all of our interests as composers - if we take off our irate consumer hats and put on our composer hats - is engaging in these libraries for what they are.

So, exploring the depts of musicality to be found, finding workaround to issues, celebrating and sharing the vast amount of music that can - uniquely, I'd argue - be made with this libraries. Rather that just all jumping on the death spiral bandwagon into a death spiral of negativity.

For people considering whether to buy, there's defiantly important and relevant information around the issues with SINE and bugs in the library (especially the brass it would seem). So such complaints are critical information in the spirit of "musicians helping musicians".

But this sole focus on this irate-consumer-hat only (enforced by attacks on anyone who takes off the irate-consumer hat to venture an opinion from a composer-hat persepect) risks also being harmful to people's decision making.

Case in point - the special Bows. Wonderful, singular, library. There's nothing like it out there. I use it in both SINE and Kontakt. And seriously, there's no really issues with it, beyond what you'd expect (and deal with and work around, entirely without drama) in any other library. It's a fabulous library. A superb piece of engineering and artistic vision. I use it all the time.

But when we see people avoiding it because of a general death spiral of negativity ... 

And to be fully true to spirit of "musicians helping musician", I feel strongly that this requires providing perspective from *both* the irate-consumer side (which again - NO ONE - is suppressing), *and* the aesthetically engaged composer hat perspective, which often benefits from focusing instead on what musical space there is to be found with the libraries that we actually have and not just the ideal libraries that we feel we deserve.

So sure. If we're only allowed to approach an OT thread with our irate-consumer hats, then fine. Lets have a scorched earth boycott all OT libraries until they hear our voices. Freedom or death etc. But this seems a little extreme. 

And I'd certainly think about avoiding Berlin Brass for the moment, based on what I've read. So I do read thread like this with, maybe not an irate-consumer hat myself, but maybe sometime somewhat-miffed-consumer hat. And I do value this critique (as I keep repeating, over and over).

But it doesn't consume the entirety of my being. So count me out.


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## daviddln (Feb 1, 2022)

Scripter said:


> Yep now definitely sure! Don't gonna buy the Ark Series for SINE, instead I go with Audio Imperias Jaeger Bundle next Black Friday or so. It's hilarious what issues SINE actually has - without even thinking about how bad it's designed. I stay with Kontakt. But thanks for this thread I was really one sec before buying the Arks and probably regreding it afterwards without even talking about that I don't want to support such shit. (Sorry makes me really angry to something like this without OT even joining the discussion to verify that they going to change something. No hate against OT nor the musicians behind but this is just unfair for that much money you take from your customers.)


To be fair, I haven't noticed any issues like the ones I posted for the Ark Series. But maybe others have.


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## jbuhler (Feb 1, 2022)

Emmanuel Rousseau said:


> For the sake of comparison, I replayed your Berlin Brass examples with the Kontakt version. No editing, legato type switch or anything, just pure raw performances.
> 
> I'd invite everyone to compare and draw their own conclusions.


The Sine version of trombone 1 (the only instrument of BB I have) is not as bad as the BO version, or at least the recording of BO posted above. But the issue is definitely present. And the issue on the Bb mostly comes from the mf sample, which seems badly tuned. Oddly neither the A below or the B above has the issue, at least not close to the same extent, which is a bit strange since I thought the sampling was diatonic.


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## Casiquire (Feb 1, 2022)

ism said:


> It's the logic of "the squeaky wheel get greased". The more of a death spiral of negatively toward OT we, irate consumers create, the more likely they'll listen to us. And that's certainly a real effect. And anyone who says anything positive is therefore harming out interests as irate consumers.


I actually disagree. We've seen big devs choose to just throw their hands up and leave the forums in the past. If we push devs away we're only hurting ourselves and the forum as a whole.

Not to imply that's what's happening here or with OT specifically, but there are very few devs who seem to directly react to what happens here, and i can't see death spirals helping.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 1, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I actually disagree. We've seen big devs choose to just throw their hands up and leave the forums in the past. If we push devs away we're only hurting ourselves and the forum as a whole.


So what are we supposed to do, just sit idly by while nothing happens? OT is notorious for doing nothing. It is not like they really respond here anyway. Occasionally Tobias will say something, but they never jump on and say "Hey we're gonna fix that" or "There's an update coming." They aren't interacting now, but there is no way that they cease to read what is written here because that would be a colossally bad business decision.


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## ism (Feb 1, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I actually disagree. We've seen big devs choose to just throw their hands up and leave the forums in the past. If we push devs away we're only hurting ourselves and the forum as a whole.
> 
> Not to imply that's what's happening here or with OT specifically, but there are very few devs who seem to directly react to what happens here, and i can't see death spirals helping.


Yes, I agree. There's a logic of constructive engagement that I think may very often trump the "squeaky wheel" logic.

We've seen this with vi-c and many companies who withdraw in disguise and what the feel is disproportionate, unbalanced, and sometimes abusive negativity.

I think the logic of the sqeak wheel needs to be challenged. But there's still, undeniably a logic to it.

And it's also social media marketing 101 to not engage with a internet swamp. One an information cascade gets going, there's nothing to be gained for a company to engage with it, except more abuse.


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## Casiquire (Feb 1, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> So what are we supposed to do, just sit idly by while nothing happens? OT is notorious for doing nothing. It is not like they really respond here anyway. Occasionally Tobias will say something, but they never jump on and say "Hey we're gonna fix that" or "There's an update coming." They aren't interacting now, but there is no way that they cease to read what is written here because that would be a colossally bad business decision.


That's a false dichotomy


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 1, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> That's a false dichotomy


You’re gonna have to do better than that. How’s it false? What do you think the alternatives are?


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## Casiquire (Feb 1, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> You’re gonna have to do better than that. How’s it false? What do you think the alternatives are?


I already explained above. There can be a conversation that isn't strategically set up to be a death spiral. We have them here all the time.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 1, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I already explained above. There can be a conversation that isn't strategically set up to be a death spiral. We have them here all the time.


We've had the conversation about OT for years, and nothing ever improves.


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## Casiquire (Feb 1, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> We've had the conversation about OT for years, and nothing ever improves.


Then a toxic thread won't change that either


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Feb 1, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> Then a toxic thread won't change that either


How is it toxic? Don't you think those issues need to be discussed or documented?


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## Casiquire (Feb 1, 2022)

Emmanuel Rousseau said:


> How is it toxic? Don't you think those issues need to be discussed or documented?


Yes. I've already been over this. They can be discussed without toxicity. That's my point.

Starting the thread out by saying anyone who isn't here to bash OT is an apologist is toxic


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 1, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> Yes. I've already been over this. They can be discussed without toxicity. That's my point.
> 
> Starting the thread out by saying anyone who isn't here to bash OT is an apologist is toxic


I don't think that there is anything toxic about pointing out the perfectly obvious: OT sells really expensive libraries and seldom, if ever, issues updates. It is not toxic to say so. It is just true.


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## ism (Feb 1, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> I don't think that there is anything toxic about pointing out the perfectly obvious: OT sells really expensive libraries and seldom, if ever, issues updates. It is not toxic to say so. It is just true.


Very true, very well establish, very universally recognized ... but also kind of not the point. 

Anyway, this is kind of beaten to death. The only point I wanted to make is that there are good things about OT libraries too. And there's no need to boycott the Arks and the Special Bows because the c# in the brass has an issue.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 1, 2022)

ism said:


> Very true, very well establish, very universally recognized ... but also kind of not the point.
> 
> Anyway, this is kind of beaten to death. The only point I wanted to make is that there are good things about OT libraries too. And there's no need to boycott the Arks and the Special Bows because the c# in the brass has an issue.


There are GREAT things about OT libraries. I wouldn't bother to have the conversation if there weren't. I own 13 of their libraries. I love the sound. But given what they charge, there should be some attention to maintenance.


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## Casiquire (Feb 1, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> I don't think that there is anything toxic about pointing out the perfectly obvious: OT sells really expensive libraries and seldom, if ever, issues updates. It is not toxic to say so. It is just true.


You're not responding to my point which I've reiterated a handful of times now



Jett Hitt said:


> There are GREAT things about OT libraries. I wouldn't bother to have the conversation if there weren't. I own 13 of their libraries. I love the sound. But given what they charge, there should be some attention to maintenance.




We agree here a hundred percent


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 1, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> You're not responding to my point which I've reiterated a handful of times now


At some point, it has to become clear that this salient point that you think you have reitereated is not at all clear.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 1, 2022)

So just an update from my end; I emailed support regarding those noted legato issues from Berlin Strings, along with a few audio examples, and as expected, I cannot get a refund. I don’t fully understand what their 14 day cancellation policy actually means, but it doesn’t matter at this point. Support were actually quite courteous in their reply and I will now await their reply regarding a possible fix for those bugs. Aside from the free Sine instruments, this is actually my first purchase with OT. With the academic discount, I picked up the 1st violins, viola‘s, cellos and basses (longs/shorts). Since the pricing was quite reasonable, I figured it was a good place to get my feet wet and see what the orchestral tools environment was like. After using them for almost 2 weeks now, I must admit these are the most beautiful sounding strings I have ever owned. The room sound is fantastic and they blend nicely with Hollywood Strings and BBCSO. I will inevitably end up purchasing the remaining parts of the library, as I know these will be a permanent tool in my templates. I also let support know that Con Sordino’s Should be considered for a future update, you would think they would have been included considering the hefty price tag.


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## Nigel Andreola (Feb 1, 2022)

Vik said:


> From VSL's site:
> "Unlike many other sample library developers, we offer a "No Hassle" return policy. If you're not satisfied with your purchase at the VSL web shop, for any reason, you may return it for a refund or an in-house credit, within 14 days from the day of purchase."
> 
> Some may possibly suggest that with such a policy, their finances will go down the drain and therefore kill further development, but they've been around for 20+ years, have what many consider the best player (Synchron), they allow resale of libraries, and many also consider VSL to have the best quality control. They seem to be able to spend money where it matters the most in the long run: making good libraries and making users happy.


VSL promotes their products with 30 day free trials which is super neat of them. Now that Spitfire and OT have their own player, I see no reason they can't do the same. Best Service appears to have a try before you buy system but I haven't tried it.


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## NoamL (Feb 1, 2022)

Rudianos said:


> Thanks for sharing. That really shows its not the musicians - not the samples - its how they fixed it all together for SINE. Agreed?


Yes my mind's changed from this.


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## Tralen (Feb 1, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> So just an update from my end; I emailed support regarding those noted legato issues from Berlin Strings, along with a few audio examples, and as expected, I cannot get a refund. I don’t fully understand what their 14 day cancellation policy actually means, but it doesn’t matter at this point. Support were actually quite courteous in their reply and I will now await their reply regarding a possible fix for those bugs. Aside from the free Sine instruments, this is actually my first purchase with OT. With the academic discount, I picked up the 1st violins, viola‘s, cellos and basses (longs/shorts). Since the pricing was quite reasonable, I figured it was a good place to get my feet wet and see what the orchestral tools environment was like. After using them for almost 2 weeks now, I must admit these are the most beautiful sounding strings I have ever owned. The room sound is fantastic and they blend nicely with Hollywood Strings and BBCSO. I will inevitably end up purchasing the remaining parts of the library, as I know these will be a permanent tool in my templates. I also let support know that Con Sordino’s Should be considered for a future update, you would think they would have been included considering the hefty price tag.


The 14 days refund is just if you don't download the libraries. An excuseless bait that shouldn't be accepted after a company has its own player and licensing.


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## Casiquire (Feb 1, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> At some point, it has to become clear that this salient point that you think you have reitereated is not at all clear.





Casiquire said:


> Starting the thread out by saying anyone who isn't here to bash OT is an apologist is toxic


Can't be much clearer


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 1, 2022)

Tralen said:


> The 14 days refund is just if you don't download the libraries. An excuseless bait that shouldn't be accepted after a company has its own player and licensing.


The thing is, it doesn’t mention anything about downloading, but it is what it is.


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## AEF (Feb 1, 2022)

no VI crashes as much or as many DAWs as SINE does.

No piece of software I own causes the fan to go as much as SINE does.

It is an absolute mess, and such a shame bc OT libraries are probably my overall favorite.


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## Casiquire (Feb 1, 2022)

Nigel Andreola said:


> VSL promotes their products with 30 day free trials which is super neat of them. Now that Spitfire and OT have their own player, I see no reason they can't do the same. Best Service appears to have a try before you buy system but I haven't tried it.


I'd love demos and trials to become the norm!


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 1, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> Can't be much clearer


But the thread doesn't start out that way. The OP never mentions apologists.


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## Tralen (Feb 1, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> The thing is, it doesn’t mention anything about downloading, but it is what it is.


It is on Section 6 of the Terms and Conditions, "Exclusion of cancellation rights".

It is one of the most obscure language I've seen regarding this, but I believe they are talking about beginning to download when they say "begun to execute the agreement" after "regarding the delivery of digital content".


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## Casiquire (Feb 1, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> But the thread doesn't start out that way. The OP never mentions apologists.


Fair enough, it came up on page 2 then started to echo. It's a distinction without a difference though given that my point isn't "this is where toxicity started" but rather "toxicity is bad"


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 1, 2022)

AEF said:


> no VI crashes as much or as many DAWs as SINE does.
> 
> No piece of software I own causes the fan to go as much as SINE does.
> 
> It is an absolute mess, and such a shame bc OT libraries are probably my overall favorite.


Are you on PC or Mac? I’m on a new Mac and so far it has been decent. Took my a while to get my head around the workflow, but so far it’s okay.


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## Rudianos (Feb 1, 2022)

AEF said:


> no VI crashes as much or as many DAWs as SINE does.
> 
> No piece of software I own causes the fan to go as much as SINE does.
> 
> It is an absolute mess, and such a shame bc OT libraries are probably my overall favorite.


weird, after rescanning libraries, 0 crashes in 5 weeks.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 1, 2022)

Tralen said:


> It is on Section 6 of the Terms and Conditions, "Exclusion of cancellation rights".
> 
> It is one of the most obscure language I've seen regarding this, but I believe they are talking about beginning to download when they say "begun to execute the agreement" after "regarding the delivery of digital content".


Yes, it looks like it was strategically written by a corporate lawyer or something. I don’t understand why they can’t just word it like “within 14 days, once you start downloading, you are not entitled to a refund“. Unless, of course, they don’t want to make that clear.


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## Tralen (Feb 1, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Yes, it looks like it was strategically written by a corporate lawyer or something. I don’t understand why they can’t just word it like “within 14 days, once you start downloading, you are not entitled to a refund“. Unless, of course, they don’t want to make that clear.


The fact that other developers _*do*_ make that clear points in that direction.


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## Nigel Andreola (Feb 1, 2022)

AEF said:


> no VI crashes as much or as many DAWs as SINE does.
> 
> No piece of software I own causes the fan to go as much as SINE does.
> 
> It is an absolute mess, and such a shame bc OT libraries are probably my overall favorite.


I've found Best Service Engine2 to sometimes shut down my DAW. There is no pattern or reason I can find for it to do it. It is not using much CPU or RAM. I use Cubase 11 on windows 10. I've yet to have that happen with SINE. SINE is overloading your CPU? I don't know what CPU you have, but I do recall OT used to state rather high CPU frequency requirements for their instruments. If I remember correctly, they required 4ghz or higher i7 or better. Now they just say Intel Core i5 or similar, which isn't very helpful. Many may be using chips from other vendors or old i5 chips. Some may have low frequency versions. This is often the case with laptops. That might be the cause for the stability problems some are having. I had serious performance issues with my DAW untill I enabled the option for Cubase to put my PC into permanent boost clock mode while it is open.


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## dts_marin (Feb 1, 2022)

I call BS (not Berlin Strings) when they design a whole new proprietary file format which is the best™ according to their fancy keynotes yet if you ask them why there are no refunds now that they don't use Kontakt they say it is because of piracy. Security was never a concern when developing the format?

I don't like weak excuses for anti consumer policies. No amount of legalese should justify this fraudulent practice. I hope the camera man they hire for their next keynote has shaky hands and a slightly faulty camera which they will only realise after the footage is delivered to them.


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## Cdnalsi (Feb 1, 2022)

Perhaps a small tangent but so far we've got Spitfire with their plugin, OT with SINE, EastWest with Play/Opus, and VSL have their own (Synchron?). What are some others that are not Kontakt based?


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## Casiquire (Feb 1, 2022)

Cdnalsi said:


> Perhaps a small tangent but so far we've got Spitfire with their plugin, OT with SINE, EastWest with Play/Opus, and VSL have their own (Synchron?). What are some others that are not Kontakt based?


Virharmonic, Toontrack, and then the whole world of synths


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## Nigel Andreola (Feb 1, 2022)

Cdnalsi said:


> Perhaps a small tangent but so far we've got Spitfire with their plugin, OT with SINE, EastWest with Play/Opus, and VSL have their own (Synchron?). What are some others that are not Kontakt based?


If you mean other sample players that people develop their libraries for, and not stand alone instruments and synths, here are some I have installed: Engine2, UVI Workstation, HALion Sonic SE, Ivory VST and Soundpaint. Decent Sampler is one I have yet to play with. There's a community of people making free instruments for it on the pianobook website.

There are some great guitar and keyboard libraries for UVI. Engine2 has some excellent world and ethnic libraries and a lot of great demo content available for it. The full orchestra package Iconica was sampled by OT and loads in the Halion players.


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## soulofsound (Feb 1, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I didn't think so; i think if you're offline you're offline and there's nothing you can do about it. But i haven't ventured into that cloud myself, so grain of salt!


Cloud is ok-ish. It's the only iLok that works for me after i had a mobo reset and had to beg to release my licenses with each of the developers i bought from. Luckily most did this automatically but ReLab still hasn't released my license. Then didn't i read somewhere iLok was hacked years ago? If so we are spending hours trying to make it work and paying for it at the same time. There must be a better solution for this.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 1, 2022)

I really like the sound of the Berlin series, the wealth of content, my Berlin Brass mockup of the Olympic Fanfare was my favorite one I did out of MSB and HB - probably what drives some of my intense disappointment with OT and their general practices / timelines. If I didn't like the product, I wouldn't care (though probably wouldn't be thrilled given the price points). Disappointment fuels anger, especially when the initial approach has been very courteous. We've asked OT for updates on timelines, to consider crossgrades to Kontakt versions, etc. - and worse than a quick "Unfortunately, not possible" is the total silence from them. All the while still promoting their latest release here. So as I have said previously here, they have done the work themselves to turn customers who could've been their greatest advocates into passionate detractors instead - and that will have at least some consequence as long as they continue with their approach.

As for the sensitivity around "apologists", when folks come to threads that are so clearly started on the basis of discussing issues with the library and say things like "I'm sure they will get to it", "Let them know and they'll fix", "Just ask for a refund", etc., it not only makes excuses for OT but also ignores (and possibly negates) the experience and actions customers have already taken to no avail.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 1, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> I really like the sound of the Berlin series, the wealth of content, my Berlin Brass mockup of the Olympic Fanfare was my favorite one I did out of MSB and HB - probably what drives some of my intense disappointment with OT and their general practices / timelines. If I didn't like the product, I wouldn't care (though probably wouldn't be thrilled given the price points). Disappointment fuels anger, especially when the initial approach has been very courteous. We've asked OT for updates on timelines, to consider crossgrades to Kontakt versions, etc. - and worse than a quick "Unfortunately, not possible" is the total silence from them. All the while still promoting their latest release here. So as I have said previously here, they have done the work themselves to turn customers who could've been their greatest advocates into passionate detractors instead - and that will have at least some consequence as long as they continue with their approach.
> 
> As for the sensitivity around "apologists", when folks come to threads that are so clearly started on the basis of discussing issues with the library and say things like "I'm sure they will get to it", "Let them know and they'll fix", "Just ask for a refund", etc., it not only makes excuses for OT but also ignores (and possibly negates) the experience and actions customers have already taken to no avail.


Agreed.

At this point, even if OT offered me a refund, I wouldn’t take it. I really like these strings and I’d like to continue our push to resolve the issues.


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## ism (Feb 1, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> "I'm sure they will get to it",


Who has ever said this about OT?


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 1, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> I really like the sound of the Berlin series, the wealth of content, my Berlin Brass mockup of the Olympic Fanfare was my favorite one I did out of MSB and HB - probably what drives some of my intense disappointment with OT and their general practices / timelines. If I didn't like the product, I wouldn't care (though probably wouldn't be thrilled given the price points). Disappointment fuels anger, especially when the initial approach has been very courteous. We've asked OT for updates on timelines, to consider crossgrades to Kontakt versions, etc. - and worse than a quick "Unfortunately, not possible" is the total silence from them. All the while still promoting their latest release here. So as I have said previously here, they have done the work themselves to turn customers who could've been their greatest advocates into passionate detractors instead - and that will have at least some consequence as long as they continue with their approach.
> 
> As for the sensitivity around "apologists", when folks come to threads that are so clearly started on the basis of discussing issues with the library and say things like "I'm sure they will get to it", "Let them know and they'll fix", "Just ask for a refund", etc., it not only makes excuses for OT but also ignores (and possibly negates) the experience and actions customers have already taken to no avail.


^THIS^


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## Quantum Leap (Feb 1, 2022)

Chances are this is a relatively easy fix and they will do it soon. They don’t want dissatisfied users. I’ve had a couple issues with Sine, but its new software. I think this is a very good company. And I’m really not clear on which company causes my giant template to crash sometimes. I get various messages. Could just be the multiple engines fighting for bandwidth? More suspicious of Kontakt than anything. Used to blame PLAY, but I think OPUS has its act together mostly. Spitfire and Vienna seem solid to me.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 1, 2022)

Quantum Leap said:


> Chances are this is a relatively easy fix and they will do it soon. They don’t want dissatisfied users. I’ve had a couple issues with Sine, but its new software. I think this is a very good company. And I’m really not clear on which company causes my giant template to crash sometimes. I get various messages. Could just be the multiple engines fighting for bandwidth? More suspicious of Kontakt than anything. Used to blame PLAY, but I think OPUS has its act together mostly. Spitfire and Vienna seem solid to me.


I certainly hope you're right! They should take a page from EW with how quickly issues were addressed at the OPUS launch. Great customer service too.


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## Quantum Leap (Feb 1, 2022)

Yeah but PLAY was different. Not so fast. It took a long time because the underlying PLAY architecture couldn’t really handle such massive libraries on average computers. EW waited a while to release OPUS and made sure it was pretty solid before they did, because they didn’t want another backlash.


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## Quantum Leap (Feb 1, 2022)

Interestingly, the issues with PLAY early on were the best thing that happened to the industry, because it gave new developers a window. If PLAY had been amazing from the start, there might not even be a Spitfire or OT.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 1, 2022)

Heard back again from OT support….

“While we worked hard to port our Kontakt collections as close as possible to SINE, we are aware there are some bugs that made it through the release. 
Rest assured this is not something we are overlooking. We are in the process of confirming and reporting all of these bugs. 
I had listened to the E G B viola issue on VI Control before. All of the ones that were reported in that thread will also be added.”

I don’t have a history with OT, but I think this was a decent response. They also said Sordinos are high on the wish list. To be fair, let’s give them an opportunity to follow through with the bugs.


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## jbuhler (Feb 1, 2022)

Quantum Leap said:


> Interestingly, the issues with PLAY early on were the best thing that happened to the industry, because it gave new developers a window. If PLAY had been amazing from the start, there might not even be a Spitfire or OT


Play had its issues but it was the constant licensing errors from ilok back in the day that drove me toward Kontakt libraries, and why I moved there rather than to Hollywood Orchestra. The ilok issues have long since been resolved but that created the window for me.


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Feb 1, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> So just an update from my end; I emailed support regarding those noted legato issues from Berlin Strings, along with a few audio examples, and as expected, I cannot get a refund. I don’t fully understand what their 14 day cancellation policy actually means, but it doesn’t matter at this point. Support were actually quite courteous in their reply and I will now await their reply regarding a possible fix for those bugs. Aside from the free Sine instruments, this is actually my first purchase with OT. With the academic discount, I picked up the 1st violins, viola‘s, cellos and basses (longs/shorts). Since the pricing was quite reasonable, I figured it was a good place to get my feet wet and see what the orchestral tools environment was like. After using them for almost 2 weeks now, I must admit these are the most beautiful sounding strings I have ever owned. The room sound is fantastic and they blend nicely with Hollywood Strings and BBCSO. I will inevitably end up purchasing the remaining parts of the library, as I know these will be a permanent tool in my templates. I also let support know that Con Sordino’s Should be considered for a future update, you would think they would have been included considering the hefty price tag.


This is just really great to hear, Jeremy 👍

I have BWW and am only getting started, but this library has the most beautiful sounding woodwind samples. It is pure joy using it. I can hear that’s exactly how you now feel about your string purchases which makes me happy for you.


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## JTB (Feb 1, 2022)

The thread started being about OT's reluctance to address issues with their software. Which seems to be 99% agreed on. Then, the thread gets derailed as per the usual with 'I don't find these issues to be show stopping" and "Their WW are so beautiful".


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Feb 1, 2022)

JTB said:


> The thread started being about OT's reluctance to address issues with their software. Which seems to be 99% agreed on. Then, the thread gets derailed as per the usual with 'I don't find these issues to be show stopping" and "Their WW are so beautiful".


“The viola will sound okay in musical context I would expect; I have never noticed it.”

- JTB in post no. 5 on page 1 in this thread 🙂


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 1, 2022)

JTB said:


> The thread started being about OT's reluctance to address issues with their software. Which seems to be 99% agreed on. Then, the thread gets derailed as per the usual with 'I don't find these issues to be show stopping" and "Their WW are so beautiful".


Yes, all true. What exactly is your point? I think the whole thread is very constructive.


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## JTB (Feb 1, 2022)

Henrik B. Jensen said:


> “The viola will sound okay in musical context I would expect; I have never noticed it.”
> 
> - JTB in post no. 5 on page 1 in this thread 🙂


So I see you decided to quote only half my statement. Hmm...


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Feb 1, 2022)

JTB said:


> So I see you decided to quote only half my statement. Hmm...


Ah, never mind, this is silly. We are derailing the thread further. Let’s forget it and get back on track. I meant no harm! ☀️


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## JTB (Feb 1, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Yes, all true. What exactly is your point? I think the whole thread is very constructive.


The point being, that no company wants bad press. When a thread like this pops up it could be deemed as bad press right?. Which may or may not influence the company to consider addressing the issues that are widely accepted to be present. But if half way down the article the press turns into good press then the company will be less likely to address the issues.

If an article was written about a company that was dumping sludge into the creek, it would be considered bad press and potentially harmful to the company's future. But if half way through the same press article it stated that the company had donated $200,000 to the Save the Koalas Foundation it would be deemed as not so bad press. Meanwhile they are still dumping sludge into to creek.


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## jbuhler (Feb 1, 2022)

JTB said:


> The point being, that no company wants bad press. When a thread like this pops up it could be deemed as bad press right?. Which may or may not influence the company to consider addressing the issues that are widely accepted to be present. But if half way down the article the press turns into good press then the company will be less likely to address the issues.


I think this is naive in the extreme. The documented problems on here might get addressed if OT decides they are going to address issues. But a thread like this will have practically no effect on whether OT decides to address issues. You will have far more influence on that count by complaining directly to support.

If it makes you happy to vent, rant away. But don't be under any illusions that it is more effective than any other ranting on the internet. It's exactly like all the other ranting on the internet. And a purely toxic rant thread is liable to be even less effective than that.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 1, 2022)

JTB said:


> The point being, that no company wants bad press. When a thread like this pops up it could be deemed as bad press right?. Which may or may not influence the company to consider addressing the issues that are widely accepted to be present. But if half way down the article the press turns into good press then the company will be less likely to address the issues.
> 
> If an article was written about a company that was dumping sludge into the creek, it would be considered bad press and potentially harmful to the company's future. But if half way through the same press article it stated that the company had donated $200,000 to the Save the Koalas Foundation it would be deemed as not so bad press. Meanwhile they are still dumping sludge into to creek.


The thing is, OT has seen this (and other) threads regarding the legato issues and have politely acknowledged the issues in my recent correspondence. I’m new to the OT world, so in all fairness, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. So far so good, hopefully we’ll see some results. I think everyone here agrees that despite the bugs, the Berlin series is still totally useable and is a beautiful sounding library. With the said bugs fixed, it will be a great boost of confidence for their user base. I will inevitably be going down the OT rabbit hole (my wallet is going to hate me big time).


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## Zanshin (Feb 1, 2022)

I think everyone starts out with that same positive attitude. “The are gonna fix this stuff man, don’t sweat it!”.

Then a couple of years later you are full on JTB-ing here on VI-C


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## JTB (Feb 1, 2022)

'I'm Tired Of All The Legato Issues In Sine' is bad press on a forum where the company who developed the software is advertising its products.


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## jbuhler (Feb 1, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> I think everyone starts out with that same positive attitude. “The are gonna fix this stuff man, don’t sweat it!”.
> 
> Then a couple of years later you are full on JTB-ing here on VI-C


If they didn't fix it without ranting, they are most unlikely to fix it with it. That's my take, being somewhat prone to yelling myself, and occasionally adept at it. But to be effective rather than just cathartic, yelling needs to be carefully modulated and properly timed. This thread is not that. OT knows it is an issue, has admitted that it is an issue, but for whatever reason hasn't done much about it. A person in that situation, are they going to respond favorably and change when you yell at them? I mean OT is a company not a person, that's true, but it is still small enough that it behaves more like a person than a corporation. 

Indeed, I would go so far as to say the company simply isn't organized now, and has never been organized to prioritize maintenance, and that's not likely to change without a change of leadership. Because this kind of decision is made at the top. Sure, if enough people stop buying OT's libraries, the company will go under or, if they have outside investors, the leadership will be changed. But then you either don't have the company or you have the company under new leadership, and so likely no longer making the kind of libraries that you found appealing in the first place. Is that what you want? I mean, it's fine if you do, but that is the flip side of taking your marbles and going home. There may not be a game tomorrow.

Would you prefer a technically perfect library that is very meh, or a technically imperfect library that is inspiring and has touches of brilliance? I mean, sure, we'd like both. But what if the economics, for whatever reason, simply don't permit that? And, yes, sometimes the stars align and we can get both, or something approaching it. But the whole industry suggests that the stars do not align very often, and before anyone submits the usual suspects as counter examples, I believe every one of them has had extreme difficulty delivering their libraries even close to the delivery date promised, sometimes missing by a year or more. Which leads to a second question: would you prefer a library be put on the market only when it is perfect or would you prefer that a library be delivered when it is usable but still has a number of significant flaws? I find there is a real opportunity cost to waiting, that I can usually work around imperfection (sometimes the imperfections can even be inspiring!), and so prefer the second option here. But I also think those who prefer to wait are making a reasonable choice. And, yes, I understand that the fact that a library is released with significant flaws often means that library forever has significant flaws. But I can live with that, as I figure the "as is" status into my calculus of whether it makes sense to buy a library. I can't remember ever buying a library on the promise of future improvement, though of course when any improvements come, I'm happy to receive them.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 1, 2022)

JTB said:


> 'I'm Tired Of All The Legato Issues In Sine' is bad press on a forum where the company who developed the software is advertising its products.


Jeez, the forum is saturated with this sentiment for numerous libraries. I don't think anyone in this thread has trashed OT, just vented about a history with some unresolved bugs. That's the beauty of this place, we can vent our frustrations. A lot of developers actually get involved with the discussions, especially guys like Paul Thomson and Nick Phoenix. Even Hans chimes in now and then.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 1, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> believe every one of them has had extreme difficulty delivering their libraries even close to the delivery date promised, sometimes missing by a year or more.


The OPUS release saga was epic! Poor Nick got Lynch mobbed during that one! But....here he is, just shows he's a reasonable developer (who also "gets it" because he's also a customer of other developers).


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## Jose7822 (Feb 1, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> I think everyone starts out with that same positive attitude. “The are gonna fix this stuff man, don’t sweat it!”.
> 
> Then a couple of years later you are full on JTB-ing here on VI-C



That was me a couple of months ago after purchasing the Berlin series on SINE. They did a couple of bug fixes back then, which gave me a little hope, but I admit that I started feeling skeptical given the number of obvious blunders surfacing that still linger to this day.

OT, if you're really listening, please do something about these bugs in a timely manner (not a year from now). Seeing you release new libraries after another without prioritizing the issues found in your flagship product is not a good look. It makes me question my decision of purchasing your libraries, as opposed to another company that cares about fixing bugs ASAP. As much as I love the sound of your libraries, had I known what I know now, I would have probably not pulled the trigger on the Berlin series late last year. I will not buy a single instrument from you until these issues are resolved. Sure, I'm just one guy and won't even make a dent to your finances, but I won't be fooled again. Hopefully you will prove me wrong and then all will be good in the Universe ^_^.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 1, 2022)

Jose7822 said:


> That was me a couple of months ago after purchasing the Berlin series on SINE. They did a couple of bug fixes back then, which gave me a little hope, but I admit that I started feeling skeptical given the number of obvious blunders surfacing that still linger to this day.
> 
> OT, if you're really listening, please do something about these bugs in a timely manner (not a year from now). Seeing you release new libraries after another without prioritizing the issues found in your flagship product is not a good look. It makes me question my decision of purchasing your libraries, as opposed to another company that cares about fixing bugs ASAP. As much as I love the sound of your libraries, had I known what I know now, I would have probably not pulled the trigger on the Berlin series late last year. I will not buy a single instrument from you until these issues are resolved. Sure, I'm just one guy and won't even make a dent to your finances, but I won't be fooled again. Hopefully you will prove me wrong and then all will be good in the Universe ^_^.


Well said, and I get it. I’ve been hearing about the OT gripes for years, hence the reason I spent $$ that I was willing to gamble if the sections I bought were as bad as I anticipated (which they aren’t). If these bugs are fixed, it will give me the confidence to spend more on OT stuff…it's definitely not cheap.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 1, 2022)

Jose7822 said:


> It makes me question my decision of purchasing your libraries, as opposed to another company that cares about fixing bugs ASAP. As much as I love the sound of your libraries, had I known what I know now, I would have probably not pulled the trigger on the Berlin series late last year.


This is really the underlying impact. It's not about "ranting" so OT listens. It's about a trail of feedback, unresolved issues, and business tactics that are discoverable by potential customers in the future. Reputations are built or dismantled over time, through customer experience and attitudes. Play didn't just magically acquire its less than stellar reputation. It was due to numerous customer complaints over years. 

This forum may just be a sliver of the broader composer community on the internet, but for better or worse, it serves as a stopping point for those who are interested in sample libraries. To research which ones to buy, to understand the issues to expect, to know which developers to steer clear of. We have all taken advantage of that - and benefited from it. Valid criticism does not so easily disappear in that regard. Tides turn - and they're not so easy to turn back. OT can be a hero to its customers - or turn itself into a villain (as other developers have discovered). Whatever their reputation ends up being - good, bad, or both - it'll be earned and deserved.


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## jbuhler (Feb 1, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> This is really the underlying impact. It's not about "ranting" so OT listens. It's about a trail of feedback, unresolved issues, and business tactics that are discoverable by potential customers in the future. Reputations are built or dismantled over time, through customer experience and attitudes. Play didn't just magically acquire its less than stellar reputation. It was due to numerous customer complaints over years.
> 
> This forum may just be a sliver of the broader composer community on the internet, but for better or worse, it serves as a stopping point for those who are interested in sample libraries. To research which ones to buy, to understand the issues to expect, to know which developers to steer clear of. We have all taken advantage of that - and benefited from it. Valid criticism does not so easily disappear in that regard. Tides turn - and they're not so easy to turn back. OT can be a hero to its customers - or turn itself into a villain (as other developers have discovered). Whatever their reputation ends up being - good, bad, or both - it'll be earned and deserved.


This sounds reasonable, but I'm not sure it works that way. Reading the forum, I'd say opinions are mixed on pretty much every developer and library. That's completely understandable because we all have our own preferences and our own musical needs, but it can be hard to see what the consensus is if you don't spend lots of time here. 

Someone coming to a thread like this will of course see lots of negative comments about OT and lots of unfixed problems in their libraries. Is that a fair assessment of the forum's consensus on the company? Well, I would say there is a consensus that you can't expect OT to fix a certain class of problem in a timely fashion, but I think there is a much wider range of opinion about how serious that is to the usability of the libraries. And that is perhaps the rub. I use these libraries all the time, and I just don't encounter issues very often, and when I do I find a workaround and move on. But saying that I find the libraries are very usable in their current state, that a lot of issues that seem glaring in isolation disappear in context, is not the same as saying I wouldn't like the libraries improved. Because I would. Though truth be told I would benefit a lot more from workflow improvements in Sine than library fixes. 

In any event, I'm not sure a thread like this would be helpful to anyone who is thinking about buying a library from OT. Well, maybe it will mean they buy a library from OT with a lowered set of expectations, that if the price of the library seems expensive the money you are paying is not going to get you anything close to a perfect library and its imperfections are not likely to be fixed any time soon. So those lowered expectations might in turn keep them from starting a thread like this. So, yes, there's that.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 2, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> This sounds reasonable, but I'm not sure it works that way. Reading the forum, I'd say opinions are mixed on pretty much every developer and library. That's completely understandable because we all have our own preferences and our own musical needs, but it can be hard to see what the consensus is if you don't spend lots of time here.
> 
> Someone coming to a thread like this will of course see lots of negative comments about OT and lots of unfixed problems in their libraries. Is that a fair assessment of the forum's consensus on the company? Well, I would say there is a consensus that you can't expect OT to fix a certain class of problem in a timely fashion, but I think there is a much wider range of opinion about how serious that is to the usability of the libraries. And that is perhaps the rub. I use these libraries all the time, and I just don't encounter issues very often, and when I do I find a workaround and move on. But saying that I find the libraries are very usable in their current state, that a lot of issues that seem glaring in isolation disappear in context, is not the same as saying I wouldn't like the libraries improved. Because I would. Though truth be told I would benefit a lot more from workflow improvements in Sine than library fixes.
> 
> In any event, I'm not sure a thread like this would be helpful to anyone who is thinking about buying a library from OT. Well, maybe it will mean they buy a library from OT with a lowered set of expectations, that if the price of the library seems expensive the money you are paying is not going to get you anything close to a perfect library and its imperfections are not likely to be fixed any time soon. So those lowered expectations might in turn keep them from starting a thread like this. So, yes, there's that.


It does work that way but you’re obviously welcome to your opinion on how brand reputations are built or broken. Just because forum sentiment can vary doesn’t mean it won’t turn the tide in one direction or another. A lot comes into play like recency, discoverability, competitive landscape, etc. Maybe OT monitors sentiment analysis and everything is peachy - or maybe they’re right at the inflection point.

All buyers have decisioning thresholds - price being an obvious one, but there are others - including easily discoverable reviews from previous buyers. It’s hard for a brand to hide in today’s world. A thread like this has its use in sharing that. A buyer may still go ahead and buy OT’s libraries due to other factors (demos, their videos, other word of mouth on this forum), but the point is bad feedback will have an impact - perhaps a small one, perhaps a large one. Either way, it’ll be there.


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## jbuhler (Feb 2, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> It does work that way but you’re obviously welcome to your opinion on how brand reputations are built or broken.


And you’re entitled to your opinion, which I find as implausible as you find mine. Unless you want to bring credentials of expertise on the matter we’ll leave it there.


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## doctoremmet (Feb 2, 2022)

Plus, threads like this tend to go all meta as soon as the three page mark is hit, and become discussions about brand value, toxicity, etc instead of just being about the issues at hand (for at least 50% of the discourse). I bet that’s a unique feature of VI-C somehow.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Feb 2, 2022)

doctoremmet said:


> Plus, threads like this tend to go all meta as soon as the three page mark is hit, and become discussions about brand value, toxicity, etc instead of just being about the issues at hand (for at least 50% of the discourse). I bet that’s a unique feature of VI-C somehow.


Absolutely this. Some of you guys make these kind of threads incredibly hard to follow. Seriously, I understand that you like talking and want/need to make your point, but past a certain amount of posts like this the whole thing becomes unreadable.


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## Xiaodong Li (Feb 2, 2022)

It might be too late for me to chime in, but as a working professional relying on these tools, I gotta say this is both unacceptable and inevitable. I own all the Orchestral Tools major libraries, all Cinematic Studio Series, old VSL SE, and some Spitfire ones, Project Sam, Strezov etc., there has not been ONE library that doesn't have flaws. Even the best of all VSL, in terms of quality control, has failed me for simply being way too "perfect" and "pretty". But the real world is a lot more complicated than we thought it would be. There are times when I find the older and more synthetic sounding SE version of VSL with only 2 velocity layer more useful than CSS, there also are times when I use BS with prominent tuning issues sounding better than anything else when layered with real flute and oboe players.

All I am trying to say is there are always good and bad sides of something, and sometimes we have to deal with it and it doesn't always have to be a bad thing.

I am really not a apologist, just a practical musician trying to work with what I have.


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## Jose7822 (Feb 2, 2022)

Xiaodong Li said:


> It might be too late for me to chime in, but as a working professional relying on these tools, I gotta say this is both unacceptable and inevitable. I own all the Orchestral Tools major libraries, all Cinematic Studio Series, old VSL SE, and some Spitfire ones, Project Sam, Strezov etc., there has not been ONE library that doesn't have flaws. Even the best of all VSL, in terms of quality control, has failed me for simply being way too "perfect" and "pretty". But the real world is a lot more complicated than we thought it would be. There are times when I find the older and more synthetic sounding SE version of VSL with only 2 velocity layer more useful than CSS, there also are times when I use BS with prominent tuning issues sounding better than anything else when layered with real flute and oboe players.
> 
> All I am trying to say is there are always good and bad sides of something, and sometimes we have to deal with it and it doesn't always have to be a bad thing.
> 
> I am really not a apologist, just a practical musician trying to work with what I have.



I don’t think anyone here is expecting a perfect library because, like you said, they don’t exist. However, given the premium price one pays for OT libraries, a higher level of QC is warranted. These issues, while inevitable, need to be addressed in a timely manner if OT really cares about QC and their customers. That’s all one could ever expect from them, or any other developer, and it’s completely reasonable.

In my opinion, “dealing with it” is exactly the problem, and the reason why these issues keep getting ignored. If people don’t express their concerns then problems don’t get acknowledged and resolved. This is EXACTLY the reason why these forums exist, so that we as customers can have these types of conversations. Luckily, the developers sometimes also get involved and I really appreciate that. It is a joy when you hear a developer not just interact, but also listen, to their customers. To me those are the ones doing it right.

Anyway, OT has apparently listened and they have acknowledged the issues brought up here and elsewhere. Only time will tell what they will do about it.


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## ism (Feb 2, 2022)

doctoremmet said:


> Plus, threads like this tend to go all meta as soon as the three page mark is hit, and become discussions about brand value, toxicity, etc instead of just being about the issues at hand (for at least 50% of the discourse). I bet that’s a unique feature of VI-C somehow.


Yes, it's very frustrating.

Except that this account misses the fact that the reason to go "meta" here was that the thread had descended into a toxic death spiral to the point to attacking the musicianship of the OT performers and was convincing people that it wasn't safe to purchase any OT libraries, even ones completely immune from the issues reported here. 

So annoying as going meta may be, I'd argue that at least it pulled the thread back from it's descent into an information cascade of harmful misinformation. And maybe - once all the meta crap had eased - restored some constructive balance to the (again, completely legitimate) criticism of (again, completely real) issues.

(Seriously, It's not like I enjoy this kind of stuff.)


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## doctoremmet (Feb 2, 2022)

Oh @ism agreed, no worries. Every single response was warranted in that regard. So my above remark is merely descriptive in nature and acknowledges the fact that there were accusations made, proper responses posted and all that jazz. 

Again a mere observation. The fact remains that OT can be considered “a big gun triple A bunch of sample recordists” with a sample player that does not live up to what’s to be expected. Also given the price point of what’s on offer. This is sometimes reason for a conversation. And those tend to go all meta hahaha. No offense


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## doctoremmet (Feb 2, 2022)

doctoremmet said:


> Oh @ism agreed, no worries. Every single response was warranted in that regard. So my above remark is merely descriptive in nature and acknowledges the fact that there were accusations made, proper responses posted and all that jazz.
> 
> Again a mere observation. The fact remains that OT can be considered “a big gun triple A bunch of sample recordists” with a sample player that does not live up to what’s to be expected. Also given the price point of what’s on offer. This is sometimes reason for a conversation. And those tend to go all meta hahaha. No offense


And now we’ve gone meta meta. Sorry about that.


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## ism (Feb 2, 2022)

doctoremmet said:


> Oh @ism agreed, no worries. Every single response was warranted in that regard. So my above remark is merely descriptive in nature and acknowledges the fact that there were accusations made, proper responses posted and all that jazz.
> 
> Again a mere observation. The fact remains that OT can be considered “a big gun triple A bunch of sample recordists” with a sample player that does not live up to what’s to be expected. Also given the price point of what’s on offer. This is sometimes reason for a conversation. And those tend to go all meta hahaha. No offense


No worries, just commenting on the ebb and flow of these dynamics.

Dammit, just went meta again! It's like I can't help myself.


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## ism (Feb 2, 2022)

doctoremmet said:


> And now we’ve gone meta meta. Sorry about that.


Too funny. I think we both realized this at the same instance.


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## doctoremmet (Feb 2, 2022)




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## daviddln (Feb 2, 2022)

Xiaodong Li said:


> It might be too late for me to chime in, but as a working professional relying on these tools, I gotta say this is both unacceptable and inevitable. I own all the Orchestral Tools major libraries, all Cinematic Studio Series, old VSL SE, and some Spitfire ones, Project Sam, Strezov etc., there has not been ONE library that doesn't have flaws. Even the best of all VSL, in terms of quality control, has failed me for simply being way too "perfect" and "pretty". But the real world is a lot more complicated than we thought it would be. There are times when I find the older and more synthetic sounding SE version of VSL with only 2 velocity layer more useful than CSS, there also are times when I use BS with prominent tuning issues sounding better than anything else when layered with real flute and oboe players.
> 
> All I am trying to say is there are always good and bad sides of something, and sometimes we have to deal with it and it doesn't always have to be a bad thing.
> 
> I am really not a apologist, just a practical musician trying to work with what I have.


Of course, you may like one library for its character or expressiveness better than another, it's a matter of taste, but being in tune is the least you can expect from a library when you buy it. I have all of the VSL and CSS libraries and I never noticed issues like these ones. They are not perfect, but they don't have tuning issues.


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## Vik (Feb 2, 2022)

"We are in the process of confirming and reporting all of these bugs"


If 'confirming and reporting' bugs still is all they do 2-3 months after reports about these bugs started to pop up from their users, they'll lose future customers. IMHO they should have started _fixing_ these bugs a long time ago, and reported that they were doing that.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 2, 2022)

Personally, I think that these types of threads do have an impact on developers. They take this forum fairly seriously. VSL has Ben who regularly comments, and when he is away, Paul Kopf makes an account and shows up. A few years ago, Spitfire was raging out of control with the hyperbolic marketing, and quite a few members here became quite vocal about it. Their used car salesman lingo has since been dialed back. I think that this forum serves as a barometer for many developers (certainly not all or perhaps even a majority), and it is clear that OT reads this forum. As a confessed OT fanboy, I say give'em both barrels. It can't hurt, and you might just get some updates out of it.


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## Fever Phoenix (Feb 2, 2022)

Yes, Berlin Brass on Sine is unusable for me. 


The arcs series works fine for me. But the Berlin Brass Legatos and Runs patches make me wanna jump out of the window..

never using BB, just got it last BF sale :/

I had not time to write them yet. I did wrote about an issue with MA5, regarding the tempo synced chords. Took them over a week to answer. 🤷‍♂️

So, so far BB was a waste of money in my case.


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## sheen (Feb 2, 2022)

...only 296 days until BF 2022....hold the line!


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 2, 2022)

Fever Phoenix said:


> Yes, Berlin Brass on Sine is unusable for me.
> 
> 
> The arcs series works fine for me. But the Berlin Brass Legatos and Runs patches make me wanna jump out of the window..
> ...


So I have to ask....why haven't you reported the BB issues to OT support? That was three months ago that you bought it.


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## Fever Phoenix (Feb 2, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> So I have to ask....why haven't you reported the BB issues to OT support? That was three months ago that you bought it.



Because they released an update and I thought 'oh great, bad transitions will be fixed'.. When I checked the updated library I was still very disappointed in the legatos and even more the runs patches..

I should have reported the issues by then probably, but forgot about it tbh, working on a big project I just went back to my usual brass setup as I had no time to fiddle around with a new workflow.

I figured the port was still new but at some point the library will be improved.

The reason I reported the MA5 bug is that it was/is an actual bug (chords not playing at 95bpm)

With BB I figured this is how it more or less sounds.. I don't like it, think it sounds way below what OT usually delivers, but it is not a bug per se.. But mainly I just forgot to report due to a busy schedule


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## Fever Phoenix (Feb 2, 2022)

..and it was two months ago that I bought it @Jeremy Spencer  

and end of the year is usually deadline madness for me


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 2, 2022)

Fever Phoenix said:


> Because they released an update and I thought 'oh great, bad transitions will be fixed'.. When I checked the updated library I was still very disappointed in the legatos and even more the runs patches..
> 
> I should have reported the issues by then probably, but forgot about it tbh, working on a big project I just went back to my usual brass setup as I had no time to fiddle around with a new workflow.
> 
> ...


Fair enough. I just feel it's important to report bugs as soon as they are noticed, otherwise we can't really complain. I hope the Brass gets ironed out for you! Even with the sale, it was a pretty penny.


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## Fever Phoenix (Feb 2, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Fair enough. I just feel it's important to report bugs as soon as they are noticed, otherwise we can't really complain. I hope the Brass gets ironed out for you! Even with the sale, it was a pretty penny.


yes, I agree.. I am usually quick about it. Also, there was so much noise about the Berlin ports, one woukd have thought they really gonna look into the complaints about BB..

well, now I have some days off and will send them my questions about the issues with the runs and legatos


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## Igorianych (Feb 2, 2022)

This thread really lacks guys from OT

As a loyal customer, I also want fixes...

Peace...


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## tim727 (Feb 2, 2022)

(1) OT has a long history of really poor QC and often equally poor customer relations.

(2) No one should outright dismiss someone else just because the person's opinion differs from their own. (This goes in both directions.)

(3) Someone is not an "apologist" simply because they don't feel particularly bothered about these OT issues. In fact, "apologist", "shill", and "fanboy" are probably words that we can just outright remove from the VIC lexicon.

(4) Warts and all OT is still my favorite dev because the sound of their libs blows everything else out of the water (and then shoots it out of the sky once it's airborne as well). I'm addicted and can't stop. Though I do think that SINE is ... well ... let's not get into that 

Be kind to each other.


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## Casiquire (Feb 2, 2022)

tim727 said:


> (1) OT has a long history of really poor QC and often equally poor customer relations.
> 
> (2) No one should outright dismiss someone else just because the person's opinion differs from their own. (This goes in both directions.)
> 
> ...


Yep I'm on board with all of this


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 2, 2022)

tim727 said:


> (3) Someone is not an "apologist" simply because they don't feel particularly bothered about these OT issues. In fact, "apologist", "shill", and "fanboy" are probably words that we can just outright remove from the VIC


Na, I’m a fanboy, a pissed off one mind you, but a fanboy. And from the sounds of it, so are you.😂


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## jbuhler (Feb 2, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> Personally, I think that these types of threads do have an impact on developers. They take this forum fairly seriously. VSL has Ben who regularly comments, and when he is away, Paul Kopf makes an account and shows up. A few years ago, Spitfire was raging out of control with the hyperbolic marketing, and quite a few members here became quite vocal about it. Their used car salesman lingo has since been dialed back. I think that this forum serves as a barometer for many developers (certainly not all or perhaps even a majority), and it is clear that OT reads this forum. As a confessed OT fanboy, I say give'em both barrels. It can't hurt, and you might just get some updates out of it.


Yeah, except I don't think the commenting here had much effect on SF's marketing at all. SF's marketing changed because it's in the nature of marketing to change. Appeals stop working, often very quickly. You have to find another. (I don't think the appeals stopped working because they were criticized here; they stopped working of their own accord.) But I would say their business is still as driven by marketing as it ever was. (I like SF products.) OT's marketing has changed considerably too. Compare the campaign for something like Metropolis Ark 1 to MA5.

I would agree that documenting flaws can't hurt. But also some awareness of what's an egregious flaw versus what's merely irritating, and that the existence of irritating flaws, even a high number of them, do not render a library either unusable or terrible. I also think to some extent documenting frustrations with a library can be helpful to yourself, to others, and to OT. But here I like to see some openness to discussing workarounds—finding solutions to the current situation—without being called an apologist for OT or secretly working for OT. That would also allow a bit of discussion of the costs and limitations of those workarounds, which might help persuade the company, if anyone from OT is really monitoring these threads on an ongoing basis, which I have my doubts, that the issue is worth fixing as it makes more visible how people are using or wanting to use their products and the roadblocks they are encountering.

My sense is that OT monitors these threads closely just before and after releasing a product, but otherwise checks only occasionally, and I would not count on an issue that is raised in these threads actually being entered into their system, so if you want something fixed, you need to report it to support. Because they don't fix things in a timely fashion, that can often feel futile (there are still unfixed bugs in BSS that I reported more than a year ago). And because it feels futile, it can lead to outbursts. All of which is completely understandable. But are the outbursts effective at anything except venting? In this case, I have my doubts.


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## labyrinths (Feb 2, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Yeah, except I don't think the commenting here had much effect on SF's marketing at all.


I think the only effect it had was to drive Christian and Paul away from the board entirely. It would be nice to have open and even justified and appropriately _angry_ criticism without devolving into the ad hominem we can see here. When people start accusing developers of being incompetent, lazy, etc. it becomes much less likely those developers will keep listening to and engaging with the conversation.

For the record, I think _most_ of the discussion in this thread has been fairly reasonable.


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## Duncan Krummel (Feb 2, 2022)

tim727 said:


> In fact, "apologist", "shill", and "fanboy" are probably words that we can just outright remove from the VIC lexicon.


Can we collectively also dispense with all of the unnecessary metaphors and similes? You only need this if a person is struggling to understand something. Instead, threads are taken over with “imagine it’s like this,” “actually, this metaphor doesn’t hold up because of this one difference between sample libraries and spaceships,” “actually spaceships aren’t different at all you’re just not seeing it.”

Rarely is anyone unable to understand, but literary devices make us feel smart so we abuse them. I just want it to stop…


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## jbuhler (Feb 2, 2022)

tim727 said:


> (1) OT has a long history of really poor QC and often equally poor customer relations.
> 
> (2) No one should outright dismiss someone else just because the person's opinion differs from their own. (This goes in both directions.)
> 
> ...


This is a good list. I've had mixed results with (1), and generally good and helpful exchanges with support—except very early on when I couldn't get help getting some Capsule functionality to work. They couldn't initially solve the issue I was having with Amber, but they never made is seem like it was my fault of that of my system. And the issue did get resolved in the next update of Sine so it had a happy ending. Personally, I find their QC is roughly on par with the rest of the industry on release, but they haven't historically fixed things, so you live with the issues forever. Almost everyone in the industry does better on this count than OT. So a year or two into a library, their libraries have more issues than most others of similar age.


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## tim727 (Feb 2, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> Na, I’m a fanboy, a pissed off one mind you, but a fanboy. And from the sounds of it, so are you.😂


Guilty 


Duncan Krummel said:


> Can we collectively also dispense with all of the unnecessary metaphors and similes? You only need this if a person is struggling to understand something. Instead, threads are taken over with “imagine it’s like this,” “actually, this metaphor doesn’t hold up because of this one difference between sample libraries and spaceships,” “actually spaceships aren’t different at all you’re just not seeing it.”
> 
> Rarely is anyone unable to understand, but literary devices make us feel smart so we abuse them. I just want it to stop…


I'm a bit confused ... are you suggesting that I'm suing literary devices excessively and you are suggesting I should not or are you making a more general comment about what you see on VIC?


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## Duncan Krummel (Feb 2, 2022)

tim727 said:


> Guilty
> 
> I'm a bit confused ... are you suggesting that I'm suing literary devices excessively and you are suggesting I should not or are you making a more general comment about what you see on VIC?


General comment! I see it ALL the time and it almost always serves no purpose other than avoiding an actual answer.


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## tim727 (Feb 2, 2022)

Duncan Krummel said:


> General comment! I see it ALL the time and it almost always serves no purpose other than avoiding an actual answer.


Gotcha. I understand why you might be frustrated with that, but as an "abuser"  of such devices myself I will say that the notion that people use them to make themselves feel smart is _not_ necessarily the case. For me personally my brain tends to think in abstractions and I find metaphors to be a useful device as I find that they are able to take the essence of something while leaving behind the other less relevant details and then project that essence onto a simpler and easier to understand domain, thereby making one's overall argument easier to digest. But certainly it's not an infallible approach as one person's apple is another's orange. Uh oh there I go ...


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 2, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Yeah, except I don't think the commenting here had much effect on SF's marketing at all. SF's marketing changed because it's in the nature of marketing to change. Appeals stop working, often very quickly. You have to find another. (I don't think the appeals stopped working because they were criticized here; they stopped working of their own accord.) But I would say their business is still as driven by marketing as it ever was. (I like SF products.) OT's marketing has changed considerably too. Compare the campaign for something like Metropolis Ark 1 to MA5.
> 
> I would agree that documenting flaws can't hurt. But also some awareness of what's an egregious flaw versus what's merely irritating, and that the existence of irritating flaws, even a high number of them, do not render a library either unusable or terrible. I also think to some extent documenting frustrations with a library can be helpful to yourself, to others, and to OT. But here I like to see some openness to discussing workarounds—finding solutions to the current situation—without being called an apologist for OT or secretly working for OT. That would also allow a bit of discussion of the costs and limitations of those workarounds, which might help persuade the company, if anyone from OT is really monitoring these threads on an ongoing basis, which I have my doubts, that the issue is worth fixing as it makes more visible how people are using or wanting to use their products and the roadblocks they are encountering.
> 
> My sense is that OT monitors these threads closely just before and after releasing a product, but otherwise checks only occasionally, and I would not count on an issue that is raised in these threads actually being entered into their system, so if you want something fixed, you need to report it to support. Because they don't fix things in a timely fashion, that can often feel futile (there are still unfixed bugs in BSS that I reported more than a year ago). And because it feels futile, it can lead to outbursts. All of which is completely understandable. But are the outbursts effective at anything except venting? In this case, I have my doubts.


There is no way to really know what brought about the change in Spitfire's approach, but it would have been hard for them not to have noticed the criticism. I, too, like some of their products, but it got to the point that I just stopped watching the product announcements. "Just let me hear it. I don't need to hear what you have to say about it."

We'll just have to disagree about how much they watch these threads with no way to ever know who is right. I posted about Dorico the other day, however, and Daniel Spreadbury replied in 30 minutes. I think that they are watching. Unfortunately for all involved, both user and developer, when we are posting, it is usually out of frustration. What developers would do well to remember is that if a user is posting, it is likely because they care deeply. I personally care very deeply about OT because I think that they are the best in the business. (Likewise, I am starting to care deeply about Dorico.) 

Ironically, I haven't noticed most of the problems detailed in this thread, but back before Xmas, I spent days and days with Sine player crashing both Logic and VEPro. Tech support was totally unhelpful. They had already fixed the problem and issued an update, but they couldn't be bothered to tell me about it. The update was already out when I started corresponding with them, but no one said 1.0.8 fixes this. They just went on Xmas vacation. Sine never told me there was an update, and I toiled for what seemed like an eternity. I finally decided to reinstall Sine as a last resort, and there I discovered 1.0.8. How can tech support be so clueless? I am still pretty pissed off about that. It is a a reflection of their attitude in a microcosm. I find their hubris pretty repulsive. But damn I like their samples.


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## Tralen (Feb 2, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> But are the outbursts effective at anything except venting? In this case, I have my doubts.


They are certainly effective at warning your fellow members to not commit the same mistakes that you did.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 2, 2022)

Tralen said:


> They are certainly effective at warning your fellow members to not commit the same mistakes that you did.


The problem is that I would make them all again. I love OT libraries, even if I don't love OT.


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## Casiquire (Feb 2, 2022)

Duncan Krummel said:


> Can we collectively also dispense with all of the unnecessary metaphors and similes? You only need this if a person is struggling to understand something. Instead, threads are taken over with “imagine it’s like this,” “actually, this metaphor doesn’t hold up because of this one difference between sample libraries and spaceships,” “actually spaceships aren’t different at all you’re just not seeing it.”
> 
> Rarely is anyone unable to understand, but literary devices make us feel smart so we abuse them. I just want it to stop…


It's no different from when it's cold outside and you have to let the car warm up for five minutes first


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## Casiquire (Feb 2, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> There is no way to really know what brought about the change in Spitfire's approach, but it would have been hard for them not to have noticed the criticism. I, too, like some of their products, but it got to the point that I just stopped watching the product announcements. "Just let me hear it. I don't need to hear what you have to say about it."
> 
> We'll just have to disagree about how much they watch these threads with no way to ever know who is right. I posted about Dorico the other day, however, and Daniel Spreadbury replied in 30 minutes. I think that they are watching. Unfortunately for all involved, both user and developer, when we are posting, it is usually out of frustration. What developers would do well to remember is that if a user is posting, it is likely because they care deeply. I personally care very deeply about OT because I think that they are the best in the business. (Likewise, I am starting to care deeply about Dorico.)
> 
> Ironically, I haven't noticed most of the problems detailed in this thread, but back before Xmas, I spent days and days with Sine player crashing both Logic and VEPro. Tech support was totally unhelpful. They had already fixed the problem and issued an update, but they couldn't be bothered to tell me about it. The update was already out when I started corresponding with them, but no one said 1.0.8 fixes this. They just went on Xmas vacation. Sine never told me there was an update, and I toiled for what seemed like an eternity. I finally decided to reinstall Sine as a last resort, and there I discovered 1.0.8. How can tech support be so clueless? I am still pretty pissed off about that. It is a a reflection of their attitude in a microcosm. I find their hubris pretty repulsive. But damn I like their samples.


I wouldn't be so sure that Spitfire noticed or cared about the criticism. Truth is, it landed them at the top of the page for a while after every release getting dozens and dozens of pages half full of comments saying "I can't stand this marketing" and the other half of comments saying "BuT yOu'Re StIlL cOmMeNtInG" ad infinitum, so everyone who was interested was sure to see that a new library came out.

I still maintain that our influence here is smaller than we think it is, but that doesn't mean they'd be mad about being at the top for as long as possible.


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## Duncan Krummel (Feb 2, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> It's no different from when it's cold outside and you have to let the car warm up for five minutes first


First of all how DARE you


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## Casiquire (Feb 2, 2022)

Duncan Krummel said:


> First of all how DARE you


I'm being cheeky but i totally agree that sometimes the extended metaphors get totally out of hand


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## Duncan Krummel (Feb 2, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I'm being cheeky but i totally agree that sometimes the extended metaphors get totally out of hand


Oh I know; airing my grievances here is not my cup of tea but I couldn’t resist this time!


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## ism (Feb 2, 2022)

But ... life without metaphor would be like ... vi-c without strings libraries.


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## jbuhler (Feb 2, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> Ironically, I haven't noticed most of the problems detailed in this thread, but back before Xmas, I spent days and days with Sine player crashing both Logic and VEPro. Tech support was totally unhelpful. They had already fixed the problem and issued an update, but they couldn't be bothered to tell me about it. The update was already out when I started corresponding with them, but no one said 1.0.8 fixes this. They just went on Xmas vacation. Sine never told me there was an update, and I toiled for what seemed like an eternity. I finally decided to reinstall Sine as a last resort, and there I discovered 1.0.8. How can tech support be so clueless? I am still pretty pissed off about that. It is a a reflection of their attitude in a microcosm. I find their hubris pretty repulsive. But damn I like their samples.


I remember this, and I thought the response from support was uncharacteristic. So either support hadn't been updated about 1.08, or something got overlooked, such as they presumed for whatever reason that you had 1.08 already installed. As I said, my interactions with support have all been very cordial and as helpful as they could be. The situation with Amber wasn't properly resolved by support, and they didn't inform me when the new Sine version came out. But the problem did resolve itself. As I mentioned, early on I did have an experience very much like yours when I was trying to set up Capsule and they had designed it in such a way that I couldn't set it up the way I wanted. That was not a pleasant exchange, and was part of why I never went full in on the Mains in Kontakt.



Jett Hitt said:


> There is no way to really know what brought about the change in Spitfire's approach, but it would have been hard for them not to have noticed the criticism. I, too, like some of their products, but it got to the point that I just stopped watching the product announcements. "Just let me hear it. I don't need to hear what you have to say about it."


Yes, but isn't that really just evidence that the ad strategies were no longer working? Of course we don't know why SF changed approach on the marketing, but I have to believe it was because it ceased being effective not because people were complaining about it. I mean the ad campaigns stopped working for me too, and I wasn't doing much complaining. And I doubt they needed us to tell them the marketing strategy had stopped working very well—they'd have all sorts of better metrics than forum posts telling them that. But, yeah, short of someone from the SF marketing team showing up here and telling us how they make these sorts of decisions, it's just more or less informed speculation.


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## tim727 (Feb 2, 2022)

Duncan Krummel said:


> Oh I know; airing my grievances here is not my cup of tea but I couldn’t resist this time!


Not your "cup of tea"? Since surely you must not have meant that metaphorically, I'm puzzled as to why you would have made such a manifestly obvious statement


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## Duncan Krummel (Feb 2, 2022)

tim727 said:


> Not your "cup of tea"? Since surely you must not have meant that metaphorically, I'm puzzled as to why you would have made such a manifestly obvious statement


I reaped what I sowed; I dug my own grave; my goose has been cooked!

I should probably stop now


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## Mike Fox (Feb 2, 2022)

Great thread (despite the endless Segways/detours). Even if a toxic, or an apologetic post gets tossed in here or there, raising awareness to the general public about such issues is what gives VI-C its value.


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## JTB (Feb 2, 2022)

Fever Phoenix said:


> Yes, Berlin Brass on Sine is unusable for me.





tim727 said:


> Warts and all OT is still my favorite dev because the sound of their libs blows everything else out of the water.


How is this going to help any musician make a good decision.?
Anyone can hear the sound of the samples on the OT website (Kontakt versions BTW). Raising awareness that for some the libraries are unusable is the most helpful thing here.

If I bought a Bosendorfer with three un-tuneable keys I would be livid. Even if the other 85 keys "blew everything else out of the water".


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 2, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Yes, but isn't that really just evidence that the ad strategies were no longer working? Of course we don't know why SF changed approach on the marketing, but I have to believe it was because it ceased being effective not because people were complaining about it. I mean the ad campaigns stopped working for me too, and I wasn't doing much complaining. And I doubt they needed us to tell them the marketing strategy had stopped working very well—they'd have all sorts of better metrics than forum posts telling them that. But, yeah, short of someone from the SF marketing team showing up here and telling us how they make these sorts of decisions, it's just more or less informed speculation.


Given what I know about man and his love of money, you're probably right. If it had been rolling in, they would have just kept on making it.


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## tim727 (Feb 2, 2022)

JTB said:


> How is this going to help any musician make a good decision.?
> Anyone can hear the sound of the samples on the OT website (Kontakt versions BTW). Raising awareness that for some the libraries are unusable is the most helpful thing here.
> 
> If I bought a Bosendorfer with three un-tuneable keys I would be livid. Even if the other 85 keys "blew everything else out of the water".


Do those specific words of mine that you quoted help someone else make a decision? I don't know ... may yes, maybe no. Perhaps someone might look at what I wrote and take away from it "he has a lot of issues with OT but wow ... he feels that the sound quality of the libs is *so* high that it still makes their products worth it". Or perhaps they won't. Every individual is different and everyone has different needs and a different way of looking at things. Some people might take value in what I said and others may not. Similarly some might take value in the things you've said and others may not.

It's also worth noting that merely listening to demos on a company's website really doesn't tell the whole story. Lots of stuff can be cleverly hidden in demos. It's also possible that demos might do a lib a disservice as well, depending on the circumstances. I'm sure almost everyone can agree that getting feedback from people that actually own a lib can be quite valuable.

Edit: I would be similarly livid under the same scenarios you mentioned. I've actually been one of the more critical people of OT on this forum over the last couple months. But it's worth mentioning that I own just about all their stuff on Kontakt so that greatly colors my perception. I would never stand for some of the things I've heard from the SINE versions of these libs. The Kontakt libs of course are not perfect either, but all in all I do love them and they make the backbone of my template.


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## jbuhler (Feb 2, 2022)

Tralen said:


> They are certainly effective at warning your fellow members to not commit the same mistakes that you did.


Which mistakes would those be exactly? The only OT library I feel was a mistake was the woodwind soloists and there have been few postings about the deficiency of those that would have changed my mind. The Berlin Strings purchase was so long ago and that was for the Kontakt version so the point is moot, and I’m mostly pleased with the Sine version. Your comment makes no sense.


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## JTB (Feb 2, 2022)

tim727 said:


> But it's worth mentioning that I own just about all their stuff on Kontakt.


This ^ is absolutely worth mentioning. Friendly reminder, this thread is called 'I Am Tired Of All The Legato Issues In SINE'. The entire purpose of this thread was IMO to:

a) Jolt OT into action. 
b) Warn others about the issues.

Praising OT libraries for their stellar sound without stating that you a referring to the Kontakt versions in a thread called ^ is completely counter productive. I could swear some here are begging for OT not to fix the issues. Or maybe some are just slightly detached from just how confusing and difficult it can be to make decision on what VI to buy.

From what I have heard of the BB SINE version, this thread should be an OT bloodbath.


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## Tralen (Feb 2, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Which mistakes would those be exactly? The only OT library I feel was a mistake was the woodwind soloists and there have been few postings about the deficiency of those that would have changed my mind. The Berlin Strings purchase was so long ago and that was for the Kontakt version so the point is moot, and I’m mostly pleased with the Sine version. Your comment makes no sense.


I'm not talking about _your_ mistakes, I'm talking about your point about the outbursts not being effective. I'm saying they are effective at warning others to not to commit the same mistakes that one did, not you in particular.

I thought that was obvious.


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## tim727 (Feb 2, 2022)

JTB said:


> This ^ is absolutely worth mentioning. Friendly reminder, this thread is called 'I Am Tired Of All The Legato Issues In SINE'. The entire purpose of this thread was IMO to:
> 
> a) Jolt OT into action.
> b) Warn others about the issues.
> ...


You are right that I should have indicated that. I didn't omit is intentionally. I think I'm so used to trashing SINE and have done so so vocally and so repeatedly that I either subconsciously assumed that everyone remembered me and my stance from the other recent threads or I didn't realized that I hadn't already mentioned it in this one. 

But yes, I honestly hate SINE. I also think that OT has really poor QC (which has manifested itself much more obviously in their SINE parts than in their Kontakt libs) and very questionable customer relations. I also generally speaking ADORE OT products on Kontakt (despite the fact that those too have problems, albeit IMO far fewer than their SINE counterparts).


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## jbuhler (Feb 2, 2022)

Tralen said:


> I'm not talking about _your_ mistakes, I'm talking about your point about the outbursts not being effective. I'm saying they are effective at warning others to not to commit the same mistakes that one did, not you in particular.
> 
> I thought that was obvious.


Sorry. A misread. My bad.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 2, 2022)

JTB said:


> This ^ is absolutely worth mentioning. Friendly reminder, this thread is called 'I Am Tired Of All The Legato Issues In SINE'. The entire purpose of this thread was IMO to:
> 
> a) Jolt OT into action.
> b) Warn others about the issues.
> ...


I might be the odd man out, but I knew what I was getting into.....I've read all the negative threads about SINE since its release and use Layers. I went into it expecting the worst, which was probably a good thing, as Berlin Strings has been really great so far. I honestly wasn't aware of the legato issue noted at the beginning of this thread, which lead me to enquire about a refund (since I've only had it a short time). I didn't get refunded obviously, but I've already delivered a few tracks and it sounds great. So far I'm really pleased with BS, but of course there are bugs to fix and things to improve with SINE. It's not _that_ bad. Not sure how long you've been around the forum, but trust me, this is Disneyland compared to other "bloodbath" threads I've been part of over the years. Spitfire and EastWest have a pretty good history!


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## holywilly (Feb 2, 2022)

The weird thing about SINE is that it reacts differently on different system. I have some mic merge and horns ensemble playable runs issues and my friend does not, and we did not encounter any legato issues mentioned in this thread. 

We are both on Mac, different versions of MacOS, this is purely weird.


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## jbuhler (Feb 2, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> I might be the odd man out, but I knew what I was getting into.....I've read all the negative threads about SINE since its release and use Layers. I went into it expecting the worst, which was probably a good thing, as Berlin Strings has been really great so far. I honestly wasn't aware of the legato issue noted at the beginning of this thread, which lead me to enquire about a refund (since I've only had it a short time). I didn't get refunded obviously, but I've already delivered a few tracks and it sounds great. So far I'm really pleased with BS, but of course there are bugs to fix and things to improve with SINE. It's not _that_ bad. Not sure how long you've been around the forum, but trust me, this is Disneyland compared to other "bloodbath" threads I've been part of over the years. Spitfire and EastWest have a pretty good history!


I very much like BS for Sine. I much prefer it to the Kontakt version, which I've noted I rarely used because it just did not work well with my machines and workflow. I can say this while also saying I would like to see the issues that have been identified in the library addressed and that I would like to see Sine improved! And the Sine improvements are more important to me than any fixes in BS, even the ones that have been posted here, none of which I find rise to the level of egregious. (I hasten to add that ones in Berlin Brass are much worse, and I think many of those do indeed rise to the level of egregious!)

Yes, the ire of the forum fixed on East West, then moved to SF, and has now lit on OT. EW and SF survived it, and SF especially seems to be thriving despite it. As far as I can tell, OT is doing fine as well, especially with the agreement with Berklee. (That agreement, if anything, is likely to make fixing any issues with Berlin Orchestra a high priority, as it represents a very large income stream that Berklee can divert elsewhere, and that in turn should also mean the Mains get fixed along with Berlin Orchestra.). So it's really hard to know what to make of any of this. 

The one commonality is that the ire seems at least partially related to the move from Kontakt and the introduction of new sample players. Which is a bit weird. Because if the question mostly concerned no longer being able to go into the guts of Kontakt and edit the samples, then we should have heard much more complaining when SF, say, started making it impossible to do that in Kontakt. But it is the new sample players that really seem to draw the ire.


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## doctoremmet (Feb 2, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> But it is the new sample players that really seem to draw the ire.


To be even more fair: the apparent flaws in those players that cause REAL issues for their users, when compared to the sampler that is Kontakt.


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## jbuhler (Feb 2, 2022)

doctoremmet said:


> To be even more fair: the apparent flaws in those players that cause REAL issues for their users, when compared to the sampler that is Kontakt.


That's true, and the ire tends to spread from there to other issues. Both companies also introduced their players with very high profile libraries, when in hindsight they might have better started with much lower profile libraries or even an extended period of freebies to get more of the kinks worked out. Get people to really like the player and test it on a large number of different machine configurations rather than rolling out the player and a big library on it at the same time. Likely the reality of economics did not allow that as they were probably using anticipated revenue from the new library to pay the costs of development for the sample players.


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## sheen (Feb 3, 2022)

...these aren't the bad notes you're looking for...
...these aren't the bad notes we're looking for...


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## Hendrik-Schwarzer (Feb 3, 2022)

Hi everyone, 

I wanted to reach out here personally to talk about some of the frustrations which have been highlighted in this thread, and offer an insight into what we as a team are doing to address them.

I think it’s important that I start by saying we, collectively, hear you. Whether it’s direct contact with our support team, chatter on forum threads, or comments on our social media platforms - the team here at Orchestral Tools is always listening to and taking note of what our community is saying. Your feedback, positive or negative, is a crucial influence in our continuous self-assessment of where we, as a company, are doing well and where we will improve. 

The team here at Orchestral Tools has grown and evolved a lot over the past few years, I still remember how we did things back in 2013 during the release of Berlin Woodwinds! However, the overarching drive for quality has never, and will never, change. We’re aware of the feedback we’ve received about certain libraries and SINE, and we’ve been taking proactive steps to address it.

We’ve been making structural changes to the way we do things, shifts to our priorities during development. These include allocating more time, budget, and human resources to quality control and beta-testing for our libraries pre-release as well as allocating resources to continuously update and improve our collections post-release.

The same goes for SINE, for which we have huge plans. It, as a player, is at the heart of my future ambitions for OT. We all use it every day. Which is to say, we’re totally aware of where some of its features need to improve and we’re actively working toward actioning that. We’re very proud of the product we’ve built, but don’t be under any illusions that this is its final form. 

These changes have been ongoing for some time, and we get that the wait can be frustrating for some of our customers. So I wanted to shed some light here on some of the important work that’s been going on in the background here at Orchestral Tools. 

We'll be releasing updates over the coming months - for SINE and for specific libraries. I'll keep you updated on all developments.

Until then,
Hendrik


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 3, 2022)

Thanks Hendrik! Great news, and thanks for the update.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 3, 2022)

So I guess OT does monitor the forum and raising issues was not in vain. Would you look at that!


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## Casiquire (Feb 3, 2022)

I really appreciate the response, but i don't think the tenor of the conversation will change until there's been meaningful action


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 3, 2022)

The update is appreciated @Hendrik-Schwarzer - we look forward to new versions of SINE and the libraries soon.

Can you please comment on why you don’t allow SINE owners to crossgrade to Kontakt versions of the libraries but you do allow for the reverse?


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 3, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I really appreciate the response, but i don't think the tenor of the conversation will change until there's been meaningful action


Well, the CEO/founder of OT has now posted, that's a good thing and has given me confidence in completing my Berlin Strings collection.


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Feb 3, 2022)

Hendrik-Schwarzer said:


> (...) allocating more time, budget, and human resources to quality control and beta-testing for our libraries pre-release as well as allocating resources to continuously update and improve our collections post-release.


This 👍


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 3, 2022)

At the very least, we know that they have heard us. I find the comments about Sine particularly heartening. @jbuhler and I have both made the observation that Sine seems to have been designed by someone who doesn't actually use it. The library panel was cool when I had one library, but with 13, it is a nightmare. At this time, I think that this is the most we could hope for and a very positive sign.


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## DJiLAND (Feb 3, 2022)

Please save the Phoenix Orchestra..


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## daviddln (Feb 3, 2022)

Hendrik-Schwarzer said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> I wanted to reach out here personally to talk about some of the frustrations which have been highlighted in this thread, and offer an insight into what we as a team are doing to address them.
> 
> ...


That's great news! Thank you Hendrik!


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## Evans (Feb 3, 2022)

Hendrik-Schwarzer said:


> The team here at Orchestral Tools has grown and evolved a lot over the past few years, I still remember how we did things back in 2013 during the release of Berlin Woodwinds! However, the overarching drive for quality has never, and will never, change. We’re aware of the feedback we’ve received about certain libraries and SINE, and we’ve been taking proactive steps to address it.


I think one of the frustrations from users is that people know that Orchestral Tools started off quite small, yet it feels like produced some *very *large releases in early years with far fewer patch-killer editing issues like what has been posted here about SINE. That's what I'm reading (I'm a newer OT convert).

Actions speak louder than words, of course, and a tighter cadence of resolution to long-standing issues will feel like the company is really stepping up.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 3, 2022)

@Hendrik-Schwarzer because you seem to be listening right now, I am going to mention my biggest pet peeve about OT libraries. It is the piccolo. This is an instrument that should be able to compete with the trumpet in terms of volume, but in Berlin Woodwinds, we get an MF at best. This instrument really needs another dynamic layer. It is the one instrument that I have to substitute from another library. It could use some serious TLC. Even this reviewer points it out. (Kudos @A.Heppelmann)


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## Zanshin (Feb 3, 2022)

Yay. I am cautiously optimistic.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 3, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> @Hendrik-Schwarzer because you seem to be listening right now, I am going to mention my biggest pet peeve about OT libraries. It is the piccolo. This is an instrument that should be able to compete with the trumpet in terms of volume, but in Berlin Woodwinds, we get an MF at best. This instrument really needs another dynamic layer. It is the one instrument that I have to substitute from another library. It could use some serious TLC. Even this reviewer points it out. (Kudos @A.Heppelmann)



Good video. There are two tings I there that are on my SINE Wishlist..

1) Make the solo/mute buttons are kind of confusing when you're looking at multiple mic's.

2) Con Sordino's please!!! Or at least a sim button in Sine. Could it not be imported from the Kontakt version?


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## Zanshin (Feb 3, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Could it not be imported from the Kontakt version?


The sim in Kontakt is just 3 x 3 band EQs and like -5dB overall. Do you happen to own Kirchhoff-EQ? I made some presets that mimic it.


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## Jose7822 (Feb 3, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> @Hendrik-Schwarzer because you seem to be listening right now, I am going to mention my biggest pet peeve about OT libraries. It is the piccolo. This is an instrument that should be able to compete with the trumpet in terms of volume, but in Berlin Woodwinds, we get an MF at best. This instrument really needs another dynamic layer. It is the one instrument that I have to substitute from another library. It could use some serious TLC. Even this reviewer points it out. (Kudos @A.Heppelmann)




That’s a great video. It’s exactly how many of us feel about OT. Thanks for sharing it!


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 3, 2022)

Jose7822 said:


> That’s a great video. It’s exactly how many of us feel about OT. Thanks for sharing it!


It is a great video, but all of the credit goes to Alex @A.Heppelmann. He is creating some fantastic content on his channel, so check it out and subscribe. I so wish there had been something like his channel when I was a student.


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## jbuhler (Feb 3, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> So I guess OT does monitor the forum and raising issues was not in vain. Would you look at that!


Now I get to play downer and say that I’ll believe there has been a substantive change when I see it. And if there has indeed been a real structural change in the allocation of resources it will be interesting to see at what cost, that is, what they sacrificed to make it.


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## Jose7822 (Feb 3, 2022)

Hendrik-Schwarzer said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> I wanted to reach out here personally to talk about some of the frustrations which have been highlighted in this thread, and offer an insight into what we as a team are doing to address them.
> 
> ...


Hendrik,

Thank you so much for taking the time to chiming in here as I truly value when developers communicate with their customers. Of course, actions speak louder than words, but your comment here goes a long way with establishing trust with us.

If I may make a suggestion, personally I find it off putting when companies give new products releases a MUCH higher priority over bug fixes. There needs to be a balance. I get that new releases make money and bug fixes are the opposite, but the latter is what establishes trust with your customers who will probably buy more products if treated well. Actually, bug fixes might even sell more products than new products if you consider returning customers. Obviously I’m just speculating, but I think there’s some merit there.

Anyway, I love the sound of your libraries and I think you guys are king there. However, there are areas that need improvement and bug fixes is one I believe should be high on the priority list. Looking forward to hearing about these updates. Hopefully they are not too far into the future.

Take care!!


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## jbuhler (Feb 3, 2022)

Jose7822 said:


> If I may make a suggestion, personally I find it off putting when companies give new products releases a MUCH higher priority over bug fixes. There needs to be a balance. I get that new releases make money and bug fixes are the opposite, but the latter is what establishes trust with your customers who will probably buy more products if treated well. Actually, bug fixes might even sell more products than new products if you consider returning customers. Obviously I’m just speculating, but I think there’s some merit there.


I’ll add on to this that I don’t mind somewhat buggy initial releases if there is a real effort put into fixing them in a timely fashion. It is also very discouraging to report a bug to support, have it confirmed, and then having months or years go by with it not being fixed. I mean I’m sure that strategy cuts down on bug reports because it disincentives doing them but it does nothing to resolve the state of the libraries. 

I’m not overly encouraged by Hendrik’s missive here because it is very vague in details and I have long experience with management playing whack-a-mole with tradeoffs that stem from trying to do too much with too few resources.


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## oooooooooooooooooh (Feb 3, 2022)

muziksculp said:


> I would recommend you email OT-Support and inform them of all these issues, and support them with some audio examples, they will not be ignored. I don't know what was reported to them so far. But you surely found a bunch of issues that need to be fixed.


I use many OT products and I like many of them! Their recent Andea is wonderful and I'm finding it to be one of their most consistent releases in some time.

But...I have to offer a respectful counterpoint, @muzik. I went to them with an issue with the Berlin First Chairs in SINE, the legatos were triggering something that sounded more like a series of marcato articulations, just ringing out forever one after the next. They responded by marking up the MIDI file I sent them, telling me that I just didn't know how to keyswitch (ignoring that I told them I used expression maps and that it wasn't going to show up) and sending me MIDI that did not address the problem at all. Before looking at the MIDI and just listening to my audio file, they admitted "That sounds quite weird" (taken straight from the e-mail).

Part of me thinks it's a general quality assurance issue, but honestly? I think they just don't realize what the problems are, despite being told. I actually believe they thought they were sincerely addressing my concern, but they didn't realize what the concern actually _was_.

I think they need to work with people showing them all the issues in real time so they can be shown what's wrong, whether that's in person or over a stream or something. Who knows, maybe it's user error and none of us understand how to use SINE--in which case, we should be shown how to use SINE. It lacks a comprehensive manual and I feel like there are all kinds of things I'm missing. Maybe they feel a lot of it is self-explanatory, but they should still be providing the tools just in case it isn't. It's hard to have objectivity about where confusion lies if you're the one who made the product.

But I am concerned that they've bitten off more than they can chew with regard to launching a new player. I actually haven't really had any issues with my Kontakt libraries (I have Berlin Strings, Winds, and I specifically bought the Kontakt version of Brass in their last sale because I didn't trust SINE), they all work well for me and I haven't really run into some of the issues others have. But SINE? The legatos don't perform for me.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 3, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> The sim in Kontakt is just 3 x 3 band EQs and like -5dB overall. Do you happen to own Kirchhoff-EQ? I made some presets that mimic it.


I don't, but I wonder if I could use the settings in FabFilter Q3?


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## OT_Tobias (Feb 3, 2022)

@oooooooooooooooooh
I remember that email. I'm not in front of the system, but if I recall correctly, we never got a reply to our question for more info. We indeed sent a modified midi, but this is the first I hear of you even using Expression Maps. This would have been a very vital infortmation, but unless I am confusing the tickets, that info was never never mentioned in any email to us.
Please send us a Cubase project that contains the expression map, as that totally changes the MIDI that goes into SINE and might very well mask a real bug.
At no point in our email did we say anything about "now knowing how to keyswitch", I am absolutely sure of that!
Again, please send us a project and I assure you I will look into it personally!


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## Zanshin (Feb 3, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> I don't, but I wonder if I could use the settings in FabFilter Q3?


Yeah you could recreate it in Fabfilter like I did in Kirchhoff-EQ. I don't think there is any special magic mojo in the Kontakt 3 band EQs.


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## muziksculp (Feb 3, 2022)

oooooooooooooooooh said:


> I use many OT products and I like many of them! Their recent Andea is wonderful and I'm finding it to be one of their most consistent releases in some time.
> 
> But...I have to offer a respectful counterpoint, @muzik. I went to them with an issue with the Berlin First Chairs in SINE, the legatos were triggering something that sounded more like a series of marcato articulations, just ringing out forever one after the next. They responded by marking up the MIDI file I sent them, telling me that I just didn't know how to keyswitch (ignoring that I told them I used expression maps and that it wasn't going to show up) and sending me MIDI that did not address the problem at all. Before looking at the MIDI and just listening to my audio file, they admitted "That sounds quite weird" (taken straight from the e-mail).
> 
> ...


I can relate to how you feel about OT's QA, especially with regards to their SINE Libraries, i.e. Berlin Main Orch. which I'm also waiting to see updates to fix many of the reported issues. Hopefully they will do so in the near future.

I really hope they will fix many of these issues, and give them priority #1, rather than putting more of their human resources to work on new products development until these issues are fixed. Maybe it's all wishful thinking, but it is what it is. I also would like to see them have an OT Rep on VI-C to improve the communication link between users, and OT, and speed things up for all of us.

I also agree that they should have user manuals for all of their libraries, and more video tutorials on SINE, and the libraries they develop. Tips, ..etc. I also don't think their Kontakt libraries are perfect, and now they are focused on developing for SINE, no more Kontakt. It would be crucial that they fix, and improve SINE, and the libraries that use it.

Contacting OT Tech-Support is the best method to send them feedback at this time, and if they read our posts here, that might be another in-direct method of communicating with them.


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## Wunderhorn (Feb 3, 2022)

It's tough, because what company is willing to admit that they bit off more than they could chew?

PLAY (for a long time), Spitfire Player, Engine, SINE are all failed experiments in my eye.
It takes lots of resources and expertise to pull this off, obviously a lot more than they anticipated.

These players don't make my life as a composer easier instead they make my life harder because even when they run OK I still have to adjust my workflow to cater to their specific quirks, I still have to baby-sit them and keep up with updates and watch for new issues all of which are of a different nature. Large templates become more complex this way and not simpler.
The only one that seems to have succeeded in producing a decent player is Vienna.

So, what are those proprietary players good for other than to serve as ego masturbation? Yes, there are beautiful libraries being released. And I have a few on SINE and on Spitfire Player, PLAY and Engine and all that crap. But it does have a strong influence on my buying decisions. Until there are actually better solutions, I will ALWAYS buy a Kontakt based library _before_ one that is released for one of the proprietary ones. Always.

Case in point? For string ostinati I have Fluid Shorts, 8Dios Ostinati etc. but I will NOT consider Symphonic Motions which runs on Spitfire Player even though I was interested.


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## sheen (Feb 3, 2022)

...it would have been more credible to have written:


we hear you, and we will revert with a detailed plan to remedy within x number of days
+ 
all new releases on hold until we can fix the most egregious issues


...there is still a small window to post that this is the way forward. 

Vegetables before dessert.


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## jbuhler (Feb 3, 2022)

muziksculp said:


> I really hope they will fix many of these issues, and give them priority #1, rather than putting more of their human resources to work on new products development until these issues are fixed.


Except, you know, they need the revenues from the new products to be able to pay for this as well as keep the lights on. Sample libraries likely have a relatively long revenue tail but I doubt it’s generally enough to cover anything more than a skeleton staff and it still diminishes over time. (Due to the Berklee agreement Berlin Orchestra might prove something of an exception to this.) But sample developers have to find a way to do both, offer a constant supply of new products and update and maintain existing products. That involves inevitable tradeoffs, and will be an acute problem until the back catalog reaches a sufficient size to support a staff to cover the work that needs to be done. 

It’s not that I don’t think Hendrik is sincere in what he says. I do think he’s sincere. Indeed very sincere. I just wonder if OT has the resources yet to do it effectively across its line, and when push comes to shove with competing priorities what will win out? Typically in such cases people revert to old habits. And I can’t say in this case that would be entirely a bad thing because they do make very inspiring libraries. But they also have that agreement with Berklee that will require I think a very high technical standard for Berlin Orchestra that it apparently does not yet have. So resources will almost certainly flow to addressing that and the Mains should benefit from that attention too. Whether other libraries will receive similar upkeep, well, we shall see.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 3, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Now I get to play downer and say that I’ll believe there has been a substantive change when I see it. And if there has indeed been a real structural change in the allocation of resources it will be interesting to see at what cost, that is, what they sacrificed to make it.


Of course - proof is in the pudding. Talk is cheap.


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## davidson (Feb 3, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> 1) Make the solo/mute buttons are kind of confusing when you're looking at multiple mic's.


This. I really can't get my head around how bad the UI is. We've had school children for work experience who would make better UI choices than whoever they've got working there.


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## jbuhler (Feb 3, 2022)

Wunderhorn said:


> It's tough, because what company is willing to admit that they bit off more than they could chew?
> 
> PLAY (for a long time), Spitfire Player, Engine, SINE are all failed experiments in my eye.
> It takes lots of resources and expertise to pull this off, obviously a lot more than they anticipated.
> ...


Here we have a situation where people’s experiences just differ a lot. I’m indifferent about the SF player. The SF libraries work about as we for me in the player as in Kontakt and neither pose significant frictions to my workflow. I would like to see improvements in the player but the issues are minor and the player resolves some small frictions I encounter with SF libraries in Kontakt. So overall it’s a wash. 

Sine, for all its problems—and I think it has many more issues than the SF player—is for me a significant improvement over OT libraries in Kontakt. And there are few libraries that have been ported where I’m still using the Kontakt version. Those tend to be individual patches here and there where I want better feedback on the GUI than what Sine offers rather than anything to do with scripting. But overall I much prefer Sine. 

Those are of course individual preferences and relate specifically to my habits and workflow. There isn’t really a universal or even standard approach to these kinds of things and ultimately the market will decide if one’s preferred method of working is viable or one needs to adapt. (And it is very irritating whenever we confront the market imposing that kind of control.)


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## ummon (Feb 3, 2022)

I always remember what Ableton did many years ago when the app was halted by too many bugs. They suspended all developement towards new features while the whole team joined forces to address all the issues. They were open about their plan and they didn't release any updates for over a year. The rest is a success story.

Somehow I would have hoped a similar message from OT.


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## Tralen (Feb 3, 2022)

Wunderhorn said:


> So, what are those proprietary players good for other than to serve as ego masturbation? Yes, there are beautiful libraries being released. And I have a few on SINE and on Spitfire Player, PLAY and Engine and all that crap. But it does have a strong influence on my buying decisions. Until there are actually better solutions, I will ALWAYS buy a Kontakt based library _before_ one that is released for one of the proprietary ones. Always.


I would argue that having control over the licensing is a big reason for a company to invest in a dedicated player. 

That could be very beneficial to the users. VSL, for instance, used this control over licensing to allow us refunds and resales. I hope others will follow, but so far, I'm disappointed.


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## Wunderhorn (Feb 3, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Here we have a situation where people’s experiences just differ a lot. I’m indifferent about the SF player. The SF libraries work about as we for me in the player as in Kontakt and neither pose significant frictions to my workflow. I would like to see improvements in the player but the issues are minor and the player resolves some small frictions I encounter with SF libraries in Kontakt. So overall it’s a wash.
> 
> Sine, for all its problems—and I think it has many more issues than the SF player—is for me a significant improvement over OT libraries in Kontakt. And there are few libraries that have been ported where I’m still using the Kontakt version. Those tend to be individual patches here and there where I want better feedback on the GUI than what Sine offers rather than anything to do with scripting. But overall I much prefer Sine.
> 
> Those are of course individual preferences and relate specifically to my habits and workflow. There isn’t really a universal or even standard approach to these kinds of things and ultimately the market will decide if one’s preferred method of working is viable or one needs to adapt. (And it is very irritating whenever we confront the market imposing that kind of control.)


Yes, everyone's environment and workflows are becoming only more and more individualized and tailored to one's needs. Even more important that we don't throw in more unnecessary factors that would complicate it even further.

The SF player is different from library to library. This is what I found out from SF support. They aren't on the same version across all products.
As an example, I have the Eric Whitacre choir which (sadly) runs on the SF player. It is a friggin CPU hog (Aside from general issues like not being able to purge RAM and the idiotic waste of space on the GUI that has you having to flip through pages to get to another articulation...). SF support even acknowledged issues, acknowledged that the EWC player version needs an update but a year later nothing has happened.
For me to buy any SF player library ever again it will have to be one with sounds that are absolutely unique and way high on my 'need' list. Otherwise and most likely, I will look elsewhere first!


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## jbuhler (Feb 3, 2022)

Wunderhorn said:


> Yes, everyone's environment and workflows are becoming only more and more individualized and tailored to one's needs. Even more important that we don't throw in more unnecessary factors that would complicate it even further.
> 
> The SF player is different from library to library. This is what I found out from SF support. They aren't on the same version across all products.
> As an example, I have the Eric Whitacre choir which (sadly) runs on the SF player. It is a friggin CPU hog (Aside from general issues like not being able to purge RAM and the idiotic waste of space on the GUI that has you having to flip through pages to get to another articulation...). SF support even acknowledged issues, acknowledged that the EWC player version needs an update but a year later nothing has happened.
> For me to buy any SF player library ever again it will have to be one with sounds that are absolutely unique and way high on my 'need' list. Otherwise and most likely, I will look elsewhere first!


This is all very fair. I personally haven't had any issues with EWC. Symphonic Motions can cause CPU spikes, but any Kontakt library that uses time machine extensively suffers from similar issues, so I've always attributed that CPU hit to sample stretching algorithms. I concur about the desirability of a real purge function, both in the SF Player and in Sine. But I rarely use purge in Kontakt, and Logic doesn't load plugins on unused tracks, so that handles most of my RAM management. So purge for me falls more in the category of nice to have than a necessity. I understand that calculus is quite different for other people. My biggest gripe with the SF player is the browser, but Kontakt's browser is not great either. And that the SF player GUI is not well laid out or very adaptable. But the SF Kontakt libraries have similar issues, and at least I can read text on the SF player GUI, whereas everything in Kontakt is so tiny.

Basically one big difference in our usages is that I have no particular investment in Kontakt or the uniformity that comes from having all my libraries being based on the same plugin. I definitely see how for someone who is more invested in Kontakt would have a completely different opinion on the matter. And it is most frustrating when the market seems to be making us change things that we don't want or believe damages our ability to work. ("Market" here is being used broadly to include things like tensions between companies over Kontakt, since one thing driving a lot of these changes involves companies not liking the terms required by NI to work on Kontakt. And I think many of these issues are not really about money per se—license fees and such—but about control of their own products and development, which reproduce at the level of the developers our own concerns with control of our workflow.)


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## Wunderhorn (Feb 3, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> This is all very fair. I personally haven't had any issues with EWC. Symphonic Motions can cause CPU spikes, but any Kontakt library that uses time machine extensively suffers from similar issues, so I've always attributed that CPU hit to sample stretching algorithms. I concur about the desirability of a real purge function, both in the SF Player and in Sine. But I rarely use purge in Kontakt, and Logic doesn't load plugins on unused tracks, so that handles most of my RAM management. So purge for me falls more in the category of nice to have than a necessity. I understand that calculus is quite different for other people. My biggest gripe with the SF player is the browser, but Kontakt's browser is not great either. And that the SF player GUI is not well laid out or very adaptable. But the SF Kontakt libraries have similar issues, and at least I can read text on the SF player GUI, whereas everything in Kontakt is so tiny.
> 
> Basically one big difference in our usages is that I have no particular investment in Kontakt or the uniformity that comes from having all my libraries being based on the same plugin. I definitely see how for someone who is more invested in Kontakt would have a completely different opinion on the matter. And it is most frustrating when the market seems to be making us change things that we don't want or believe damages our ability to work. ("Market" here is being used broadly to include things like tensions between companies over Kontakt, since one thing driving a lot of these changes involves companies not liking the terms required by NI to work on Kontakt. And I think many of these issues are not really about money per se—license fees and such—but about control of their own products and development, which reproduce at the level of the developers our own concerns with control of our workflow.)


I have no brand loyalty towards Kontakt, it has plenty of its own problems. It is just when you have to pick your battles, then it is best to go where you can kill as many birds possible with one stone. So that's why I prefer Kontakt (until something truly better appears.)

With EWC I might add that it uses a lot of CPU while idling which is something that I haven't seen in Kontakt instruments to that degree and it was one of the issues I raised with SF support.

The purging feature I find important because I like to load my templates completely purged. That way they load fast. And when the whole thing crashes which happens often enough it doesn't take forever to get back on the feet.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 3, 2022)

I have had problems with all of the players at one time or another. Spitfire's can be a hog, and I had a situation last year where it completely filled up my hard drive with logs. It took them months to fix it. I won't even address Play. Sine? I like it mostly. There are many improvements that I would like to see, and I think that they will come in time. I much prefer it to Kontakt for the Berlin Mains. Kontakt has its problems too. I try to avoid using it because Kontakt can't deal with gradual tempo changes. I write a lot of rubato, and when I put in these small variations, my libraries glitch. I have had this problem for years, and they never fix it. There is no perfect player.


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## Casiquire (Feb 3, 2022)

Wunderhorn said:


> It's tough, because what company is willing to admit that they bit off more than they could chew?
> 
> PLAY (for a long time), Spitfire Player, Engine, SINE are all failed experiments in my eye.
> It takes lots of resources and expertise to pull this off, obviously a lot more than they anticipated.
> ...


One enormous advantage to SINE is the proprietary compression. One advantage to all of them is the ability to load more samples and use more lines of code than Kontakt allows (that's why BBCSO features close to a quarter million microphones and an interactive game where mics are just thrown at you from all sides). There are actually a lot of legitimate reasons for going with another option. 

In my opinion though, the best of both worlds would be something open source that allows devs the same level of freedom but giving us stability, reliability, and consistency. Also taking some of the burden off the devs would give us better products since it would give them better focus

Also i wouldn't call kontakt perfect. I'm not even sure I'd go as far as to say it's "better" than Play or my limited experiences with the Spitfire player. I only marginally like it better than SINE


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## Getsumen (Feb 3, 2022)

sheen said:


> ...it would have been more credible to have written:
> 
> 
> we hear you, and we will revert with a detailed plan to remedy within x number of days
> ...


Deadlines are a huge no, especially for bugs and technical issues. Delays and unexpected problems arise and it would be incredibly stupid to promise something you can't keep 

Also the new library team and the SINE / bugfixing team are different people. Reallocating resources to prioritize bugs, fine. Pausing new releases entirely? What's the mixing engineer or sample mapper gonna do to fix sine? Plus you still need income while you fix things


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## tc9000 (Feb 3, 2022)

I'm a big Orchestral Tools fan, I love their stuff - the Arks (mostly on sine sadly), Berlin Strings, Berlin Woodwinds, Berlin Brass (on Kontakt), but my biggest worry about Sine is the *sound*. Some things seem to work on Sine - I like BSS fine. But then other things just never sound right to me on Sine. I have the MIDI for Ben Botkin's The Upward Call, but the Sine version of Ark 2 just doesent nail it somehow. It sounds bumpy and wrong. Could be all sorts of reasons for that, of course... But then I also have the MIDI for Ben Botkin's Seraphim, and the Tallinn male and female choir sound great on Sine - just perfect. Of course, for Seraphim, I'm using the same library as Ben, whereas for The Upward Call, Ben used Kontakt Ark2, while I'm on Sine. I might be able to get the Kontakt sound by adjusting the CC - there's no reason the CC reponse should be identical between Sine and Kontakt I suppose..... And then there is the question of the difference in compression standards...


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## jbuhler (Feb 3, 2022)

tc9000 said:


> I have the MIDI for Ben Botkin's The Upward Call, but the Sine version of Ark 2 just doesent nail it somehow. It sounds bumpy and wrong.


Did you rework the midi? The Kontakt and Sine instruments do not respond to midi in exactly the same way. There are also subtle differences in sound. Generally there is more variability in what a particular user will bring to the library than the differences in sound, but the libraries are not identical, that along with the scripting differences means you will often have to rework the midi to get something like the original performance.


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## Marsen (Feb 3, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> One enormous advantage to SINE is the proprietary compression


Did you had a look at Ark 3?

Seems that Sine Compression fails for libraries, heavy relating on time maschine/time stretched samples.
Kontakt compression size is lower on this one.
I wonder why is that.


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## BasariStudios (Feb 3, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Here are three new audio examples from Miroire, Berlin Orchestra and Berlin Brass. In the last one, I'm just crossfading between dynamic layers. I don't know where this lowest E comes from.


I am sorry but i laughed at how bad they sound.


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## BasariStudios (Feb 3, 2022)

Vik said:


> ome may possibly suggest that with such a policy, their finances will go down the drain and therefore kill further development, but they've been around for 20+ years, have what many consider the best player (Synchron), they allow resale of libraries, and many also consider VSL to have the best quality control. They seem to be able to spend money where it matters the most in the long run: making good libraries and making users happy.


They are the GodMothers and GodFathers of any Sampling
or Library...they will be there loooong after most of these
others are gone. Nothing comes even close to Synchron Player
or their Quality Control.


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## JTB (Feb 3, 2022)

I would say it was an executive decision to release these SINE libraries for the 2021 BF sale. So maybe some "resources" could be allocated to the *business ethics* side of things.
And in the meantime a free cross-grade to the Kontakt version would suffice.


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## sheen (Feb 3, 2022)

JTB said:


> I would say it was an executive decision to release these SINE libraries for the 2021 BF sale. So maybe some "resources" could be allocated to the *business ethics* side of things.
> And in the meantime a free cross-grade to the Kontakt version would suffice.


100% agree, the BF 2021 "deadline" was no problem to meet.....a crossgrade would offer a short term fix to some of the issues....I maintain that they should revert with a plan to remedy, they can add buffers to it...(a given)
....after this, new releases will be viewed in a better light.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 3, 2022)

JTB said:


> And in the meantime a free cross-grade to the Kontakt version would suffice.


I’d pass, I actually prefer using Sine over Kontakt.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 3, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> I’d pass, I actually prefer using Sine over Kontakt.


Nobody will force you to get the Kontakt version then. But for the many of us that prefer Kontakt to SINE, it would be a wonderful option. Especially considering OT has allowed Kontakt owners to also get the SINE version (even those that bought the Kontakt version after the SINE versions were released).


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## jbuhler (Feb 3, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Nobody will force you to get the Kontakt version then. But for the many of us that prefer Kontakt to SINE, it would be a wonderful option. Especially considering OT has allowed Kontakt owners to also get the SINE version (even those that bought the Kontakt version after the SINE versions were released).


It would be a good gesture that to me would actually signify OT had faith that Sine is the superior platform and they will prove it by letting folks revert to Kontakt if they choose. I would stick with Sine myself. I’m sure others would revert. But feeling they weren’t trapped with Sine, folks might also give Sine more of a chance.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 3, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> It would be a good gesture that to me would actually signify OT had faith that Sine is the superior platform and they will prove it by letting folks revert to Kontakt if they choose. I would stick with Sine myself. I’m sure others would revert. But feeling they weren’t trapped with Sine, folks might also give Sine more of a chance.


Indeed - I’d even be happy to pay the same kind of hosting fee they charge Kontakt buyers to also download the Sine versions. But it has now been months since this was brought up to them with no response at all. I have asked again in this thread and I don’t have high hopes they will comment - even though it has been proven they see these requests. And this ultimately is where the nice pleasantries and “believe in us” talk from OT start to ring hollow for me.


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## tim727 (Feb 4, 2022)

sheen said:


> ...it would have been more credible to have written:
> 
> 
> we hear you, and we will revert with a detailed plan to remedy within x number of days
> ...


^ This. Actions speak much louder than words. They should be fixing the glaring issues in their existing libs before pumping out new libs every two weeks.


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## davidson (Feb 4, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> I’d pass, I actually prefer using Sine over Kontakt.


What is it you prefer about sine over kontakt? I'm not being argumentative, it's a genuine question because maybe there's something I'm fundamentally missing in sines workflow or feature set.


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## jbuhler (Feb 4, 2022)

davidson said:


> What is it you prefer about sine over kontakt? I'm not being argumentative, it's a genuine question because maybe there's something I'm fundamentally missing in sines workflow or feature set.


You weren't addressing me, but since I feel similarly I can answer: Capsule is a RAM hog, especially if you prefer not to purge, and it is difficult to set up for one track per instrument keyswitching due to the limitations of how Capsule is scripted. Those are the biggies, and it is especially acute with Berlin Strings, but it affects all the Capsule libraries. Sine is comparatively straightforward, so a lot of the frictions of Capsule disappear in Sine. Sine introduces frictions of its own, which is not great, but they are comparatively minor.


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## holywilly (Feb 4, 2022)

Mic merge plays a major roles in my workflow and therefore I’m preferring SINE over kontakt. Plus, SINE runs on 3 machines simultaneously, and it’s easier for me to just carry the sample drive for mobile and seminars.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 4, 2022)

davidson said:


> What is it you prefer about sine over kontakt? I'm not being argumentative, it's a genuine question because maybe there's something I'm fundamentally missing in sines workflow or feature set.


I really like how I can just drag and drop articulations around into certain channels. I also find the Performance view handy; I’ve never been a keyswitch guy, but it’s so easy set them up and see what’s being played.


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## JTB (Feb 4, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Tested on my end, absolutely brutal....thanks for the heads up. I just bought them, so I’ve requested a refund.
> For the price of these, I’m baffled as to how they can get away with this.





Jeremy Spencer said:


> I just listened to your brass examples...damn! How did that get out the door at OT??





Jeremy Spencer said:


> I’d pass, I actually prefer using Sine over Kontakt.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 4, 2022)

And?

There some bugs, which are confirmed. I prefer using the Sine player over Kontakt. What is your point @JTB ?


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## Casiquire (Feb 4, 2022)

sheen said:


> ...it would have been more credible to have written:
> 
> 
> we hear you, and we will revert with a detailed plan to remedy within x number of days
> ...


Putting new releases on hold wouldn't make sense; most bigger devs have different teams working on new libraries than support, bug fixes, feature improvements, etc. But i agree that an actual plan would've been a good gesture


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## Evans (Feb 4, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> Putting new releases on hold wouldn't make sense; most bigger devs have different teams working on new libraries than support, big fixes, feature improvements, etc. But i agree that an actual plan would've been a good gesture


I'm curious about how some of the bigger devs structure their teams and schedule their work, and how much of development practices they've absorbed from other software verticals.

Even for smaller companies (not 5 people, more like 30-50; though I'm thinking more of the SaaS space that I'm familiar with), it's healthy for there to be a portion of _each _team's work devoted toward bug resolution throughout their sprints (if that's how they work), even if there's another team dedicated to a bug queue (Kanban style).

VI development is like some sort of wild west to me. I'm super interested in how they work, especially at Spitfire's size.


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## Michel Simons (Feb 4, 2022)

Evans said:


> VI development is like some sort of wild west to me. I'm super interested in how they work, especially at Spitfire's size.


I am under the impression that Spitfire also has sprints, but to be honest I cannot remember how I came to think that. I believe it is based on a picture of their office space I once saw.


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## Gensaii (Feb 4, 2022)

davidson said:


> What is it you prefer about sine over kontakt? I'm not being argumentative, it's a genuine question because maybe there's something I'm fundamentally missing in sines workflow or feature set.


I really appreciate the ability to universally adjust the corresponding mics of all instruments loaded in the same instance. For example if I've got the strings in one place and I generally want them to be more close I could have that in mere seconds. Doesn't matter how many instruments I've got loaded. I found myself missing that in Kontakt.

Now for me personally that means I prefer the SINE Player UI not the way it handles samples/whatever that causes the legato issues. That thing does need to get looked at pronto.


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## JTB (Feb 4, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> There some bugs, which are confirmed. I prefer using the Sine player over Kontakt.


But not the SINE library?.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 4, 2022)

JTB said:


> But not the SINE library?.


Berlin Strings? Love them, by far the best sounding strings I’ve used since buying Hollywood Strings when they were released. Are there a few bugs to iron out? Yes, but in my workflow they are not noticeable now that I’ve had more the with the library. From the audio examples posted, sounds like Berlin Brass obviously has more issues with transitions, but it’s the strings I’m after.


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## Casiquire (Feb 4, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> Berlin Strings? Love them, by far the best sounding strings I’ve used since buying Hollywood Strings when they were released. Are there a few bugs to iron out? Yes, but in my workflow they are not noticeable now that I’ve had more the with the library. From the audio examples posted, sounds like Berlin Brass obviously has more issues with transitions, but it’s the strings I’m after.


I'm still using the Kontakt one here, but BB is tops in my opinion. I think Teldex is a little more flattering to brass than strings. In kontakt at least i find them to be comparable as far as transitions, in fact sometimes the brass has the edge over the strings. We'll see if i chose to switch to SINE in the future, but i won't until i feel i need to.


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## Zanshin (Feb 4, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I'm still using the Kontakt one here, but BB is tops in my opinion. I think Teldex is a little more flattering to brass than strings. In kontakt at least i find them to be comparable as far as transitions, in fact sometimes the brass has the edge over the strings. We'll see if i chose to switch to SINE in the future, but i won't until i feel i need to.


Speaking of brass in Teldex. I ended up completing JXL Brass tonight and added the 3 BB trumpets a la carte. I. AM. SICK. But yeah I agree brass sounds good in that room.

What room for is best for strings? Air or Abbey Road? I have to admit I have a pretty large bias towards Teldex and Synchron. Those sound "right" to me for most anything, but I like a dryer sound than most (but not studio desiccated dry, scoring stage dry).

I am with Jeremy, I prefer Sine. But once it's setup and I'm playing I don't care what's under the hood really as long as it working as it should.


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## BradHoyt (Feb 4, 2022)

daviddln said:


> Hi
> Here are some audio examples from Miroire, Berlin Strings, Berlin Brass, Berlin Strings Special Bows and Berlin Orchestra.
> For Berlin Strings, pick the Violas and play the notes E2-G#2-B2 as I did.


I'd be interested in seeing how they run their QA department... I wonder if they write test cases, or have a regression test suite.


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## Casiquire (Feb 4, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> Speaking of brass in Teldex. I ended up completing JXL Brass tonight and added the 3 BB trumpets a la carte. I. AM. SICK. But yeah I agree brass sounds good in that room.
> 
> What room for is best for strings? Air or Abbey Road? I have to admit I have a pretty large bias towards Teldex and Synchron. Those sound "right" to me for most anything, but I like a dryer sound than most (but not studio desiccated dry, scoring stage dry).
> 
> I am with Jeremy, I prefer Sine. But once it's setup and I'm playing I don't care what's under the hood really as long as it working as it should.


I still haven't jumped in on JXL/THB. I might at some point but it'll be a long while. I just don't feel like I'm lacking very much in my current "template" but i do get the impression that it offers a flavor BB does not, plus all those mic mixes!

As for strings I do like Air and Maida Vale. Is the secret higher ceilings? I don't know much about the architecture behind good sound at all but i do feel like that's a common theme in the rooms i like best for strings. Also Jasper has a golden ear for good string rooms. I think Synchron is also more flattering for brass and percussion than strings but they got a great sound out of SSP.


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## jbuhler (Feb 4, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I still haven't jumped in on JXL/THB. I might at some point but it'll be a long while. I just don't feel like I'm lacking very much in my current "template" but i do get the impression that it offers a flavor BB does not, plus all those mic mixes!
> 
> As for strings I do like Air and Maida Vale. Is the secret higher ceilings? I don't know much about the architecture behind good sound at all but i do feel like that's a common theme in the rooms i like best for strings. Also Jasper has a golden ear for good string rooms. I think Synchron is also more flattering for brass and percussion than strings but they got a great sound out of SSP.


I only have the solo trombone from JXL and the first trombone from Sine BB. Beyond the scripting and tuning problems with the BB trombone, I prefer the tone of the JXL trombone for straight symphonic stuff. That really surprised me, but the JXL has a more controlled tone, a bit mellower especially on the soft end, and it's evener through the dynamic range. The BB instrument has quite a lot more articulations though.


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## Casiquire (Feb 4, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> I only have the solo trombone from JXL and the first trombone from Sine BB. Beyond the scripting and tuning problems with the BB trombone, I prefer the tone of the JXL trombone for straight symphonic stuff. That really surprised me, but the JXL has a more controlled tone, a bit mellower especially on the soft end, and even through the the dynamic range. The BB instrument has quite a lot more articulations though.


Mellower on the soft end? That's surprising given BB is the most capable on the soft end compared to any other brass i own. So THB goes both louder and softer? That's really good to know! I'm a sucker for separate instruments though so BB will still be my go to, but I'll probably start expanding over time, starting with the bigger ensembles or different instruments than what BB offers


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## Zanshin (Feb 4, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I still haven't jumped in on JXL/THB. I might at some point but it'll be a long while. I just don't feel like I'm lacking very much in my current "template" but i do get the impression that it offers a flavor BB does not, plus all those mic mixes!


I really hadn't touched the chunk I bought of TH Brass in quite a while (I suppose I should just start using the new name). Last I was playing with it, I felt like it was too harsh and no combo of mics really satisfied me. I think I am better at getting things sounding how I like faster these days, especially since I realized *I am a basic bitch who prefers tree mics*. The AMXL Tree and/or AMXL Surround for hype... or the unprocessed Tree for a more classic sound. All the instruments are super consistent, the 5 layers crossfade very well, easy to turn off one or two top layers (and the crossfades still sound great). The THB trumpets are not as bad as I expected, but I still wanted to get at least one BB trumpet to layer, but fuck it, I bought all three.

Maida Vale, I agree! What a waste in the end though.



jbuhler said:


> I only have the solo trombone from JXL and the first trombone from Sine BB. Beyond the scripting and tuning problems with the BB trombone, I prefer the tone of the JXL trombone for straight symphonic stuff. That really surprised me, but the JXL has a more controlled tone, a bit mellower especially on the soft end, and even through the the dynamic range. The BB instrument has quite a lot more articulations though.


I am finding THB can do low dynamic very well too, same as you. The ensembles are really something too. I remember seeing the section sizes for the first time. I was like no way am I going to use an a12 brass patch - ever. But uhh, man alive, they sound good.


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## jbuhler (Feb 4, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> Mellower on the soft end? That's surprising given BB is the most capable on the soft end compared to any other brass i own. So THB goes both louder and softer? That's really good to know! I'm a sucker for separate instruments though so BB will still be my go to, but I'll probably start expanding over time, starting with the bigger ensembles or different instruments than what BB offers


Not really softer or louder, with the added dynamic layer for BB, and they are very similar on the upper end of the dynamics. The evenness might have to do with the scripting problems from adding the new top layer with BB, so it might not be present in the Kontakt instrument. But the softest layer in THB (pp) has a very soft attack, almost velvety, whereas the softest layer in BB (p) has more of an attack and the brass tone is more present even at the lowest dynamic layer. I'll try to remember to make an audio example when I have the DAW open again. (I've just been checking it in standalone.)


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## Casiquire (Feb 4, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> I really hadn't touched the chunk I bought of TH Brass in quite a while (I suppose I should just start using the new name). Last I was playing with it, I felt like it was too harsh and no combo of mics really satisfied me. I think I am better at getting things sounding how I like faster these days, especially since I realized *I am a basic bitch who prefers tree mics*. The AMXL Tree and/or AMXL Surround for hype... or the unprocessed Tree for a more classic sound. All the instruments are super consistent, the 5 layers crossfade very well, easy to turn off one or two top layers (and the crossfades still sound great). The THB trumpets are not as bad as I expected, but I still wanted to get at least one BB trumpet to layer, but fuck it, I bought all three.
> 
> Maida Vale, I agree! What a waste in the end though.
> 
> ...


Oh no, I'm that high maintenance bitch. I route all my mics through a separate track in Reaper where i can easily adjust all the tree mics together, or all the close mics, etc, across the entire mix. And if I'm in an exploration mood with my libraries (a mood i especially enjoy) i will just toy with that for ages. "When i add more close across the mix, how does that affect the brass? When i add surrounds, does it beef up the strings?"

And yeah i always think about whether to call it JXL or THB for like twenty seconds before posting haha i think I've been trying to say THB more lately just out of respect for what he chooses to call himself, but i sure got used to typing JXL. 

You're all driving it up my list, ugh


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## Jeremy Spencer (Feb 4, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I'm still using the Kontakt one here, but BB is tops in my opinion


When (if) the update comes for Sine, I may go for it.


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## jbuhler (Feb 4, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> I'll try to remember to make an audio example when I have the DAW open again. (I've just been checking it in standalone.)



I found a test example. Here's THB solo trombone first on a pair of chords, then BB trombone 1 with the same thing:

View attachment JXL vs BB.mp3


BB is more pointed. (It also has an intonation wobble.) I'm pretty sure these are the sustains, default mics and the same midi, but I'm not certain.


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## JTB (Feb 4, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> sounds like Berlin Brass obviously has more issues with transitions.


This ^ is why I recommended OT give free cross-grades to the Kontakt version.


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## Casiquire (Feb 4, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> I found a test example. Here's THB solo trombone first on a pair of chords, then BB trombone 1 with the same thing:
> 
> View attachment JXL vs BB.mp3
> 
> ...


Wow that is a big difference. I'm noticing a difference in room too, is the THB more dry in general? Wouldn't hurt to have an almost legacy BWW-style dry set to go along with BB. Thanks a lot for that!


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## jbuhler (Feb 4, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> Wow that is a big difference. I'm noticing a difference in room too, is the THB more dry in general? Wouldn't hurt to have an almost legacy BWW-style dry set to go along with BB. Thanks a lot for that!


I only have the solo trombone in THB and the trombone 1 in BB, so I can't say if that stands up across both libraries. It's the AMXL Tree for THB and the regular Tree for BB. THB is also recorded orthogonal to BB, the wide orientation of Teldex rather than the narrow orientation.


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## Casiquire (Feb 4, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> I only have the solo trombone in THB and the trombone 1 in BB, so I can't say if that stands up across both libraries. It's the AMXL Tree for THB and the regular Tree for BB. THB is also recorded orthogonal to BB, the wide orientation of Teldex rather than the narrow orientation.


Yeah that orientation difference is what piqued my curiosity. I know it won't sound the same. Even my experiences with MIR show a difference in ambience and warmth. That's good to know


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 9, 2022)

So I guess no reply from OT regarding crossgrades to Kontakt...so, they're "listening" to us, just selectively listening.

The whole loading process of SINE libraries needs to be re-thought. It is absolutely painful how slow it is for a whole patch (off of SSDs) and if you touch anything during the loading, it freezes or starts over (including closing the plugin). Only UVI player has worse loading behavior in my experience.


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## Zanshin (Feb 9, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> The whole loading process of SINE libraries needs to be re-thought. It is absolutely painful how slow it is for a whole patch (off of SSDs) and if you touch anything during the loading, it freezes or starts over (including closing the plugin). Only UVI player has worse loading behavior in my experience.



I was about to say my experience was different than yours but after reflection I realized I just have trained myself to not make edits while it's loading LOL.

Loading is pretty fast here on Windows with a decent external SSD (1000 MB/s). For example I can drop a track preset in and start playing pretty quickly including changing key switches. Perhaps the GUI not being open is helping performance? Also track presets are like a mini-project saves I think (at least for Ableton and Cubase), perhaps there is performance gains there because it may load differently?


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 9, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> I was about to say my experience was different than you but after reflection I realized I just have trained myself to not make edits while it's loading LOL.
> 
> Loading is pretty fast here on Windows with a decent external SSD (1000 MB/s). For example I can drop a track preset in and start playing pretty quickly including changing presets. Perhaps the GUI not being open is helping performance? Also track presets are like a mini-project saves I think (at least for Ableton and Cubase), perhaps there is performance gains there because it may load differently?


I think it also depends on how many articulations you are trying to load. I usually just load the pre-made patches because I have expression / articulation maps set for those. Because SINE doesn't have proper purge, it will load everything - but yeah, if you touch it at all while loading (including closing the GUI), it'll extend the loading time for some reason or restart it (based on their little loading progress bar). It makes no sense.


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## Zanshin (Feb 9, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> I think it also depends on how many articulations you are trying to load. I usually just load the pre-made patches because I have expression / articulation maps set for those. Because SINE doesn't have proper purge, it will load everything - but yeah, if you touch it at all while loading (including closing the GUI), it'll extend the loading time for some reason or restart it (based on their little loading progress bar). It makes no sense.


I forget what DAW you worship in, but I think most have some sort of track preset functionality, you should do a test and see if it's any better for you in practice. Drop it in, don't bother loading the GUI, just start working. Don't get me wrong I agree it's frustrating right now.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 9, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> I forget what DAW you worship in, but I think most have some sort of track preset functionality, you should do a test and see if it's any better for you in practice. Drop it in, don't bother loading the GUI, just start working. Don't get me wrong I agree it's frustrating right now.


I use disabled track templates in Cubase / Logic / Studio One. It is similar to track preset in that you don't have to open the GUI to enable the track. The challenge is because SINE takes a long time to load in general (if you have say 10 articulations, like the woodwind, brass, or string patches), if you get impatient and open the GUI, that's a great way to mess it up. I guess I'll just go get a coffee while it loads. This is where Kontakt is sorely missed - especially if you run a purged template.


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## Zanshin (Feb 9, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> I guess I'll just go get a coffee while it loads.


Or check VI-C...


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## G_Erland (Feb 10, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> Oh no, I'm that high maintenance bitch. I route all my mics through a separate track in Reaper where i can easily adjust all the tree mics together, or all the close mics, etc, across the entire mix. And if I'm in an exploration mood with my libraries (a mood i especially enjoy) i will just toy with that for ages. "When i add more close across the mix, how does that affect the brass? When i add surrounds, does it beef up the strings?"
> 
> And yeah i always think about whether to call it JXL or THB for like twenty seconds before posting haha i think I've been trying to say THB more lately just out of respect for what he chooses to call himself, but i sure got used to typing JXL.
> 
> You're all driving it up my list, ugh


So you got all the trees on a bus, and all surrounds on a bus, say?


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## jbuhler (Feb 10, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> I think it also depends on how many articulations you are trying to load. I usually just load the pre-made patches because I have expression / articulation maps set for those. Because SINE doesn't have proper purge, it will load everything - but yeah, if you touch it at all while loading (including closing the GUI), it'll extend the loading time for some reason or restart it (based on their little loading progress bar). It makes no sense.


I find it takes more time than I’d like to load but it no longer crashes or freezes when I do something before it’s done loading. And I haven’t noted that touching anything extends the load time appreciably but maybe I’ve just trained myself to wait. 

I suppose that’s true of OT in general, the part about waiting. Their response time on most things is very deliberate. (Support is generally good and timely for things support can address.) It’s hard to believe they have yet to push a second update for Berlin Brass for instance, given the very real problems it has. We’ve been waiting more than a year for the second update to BSS to address various issues identified after release.


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## Casiquire (Feb 10, 2022)

G_Erland said:


> So you got all the trees on a bus, and all surrounds on a bus, say?


I do whatever i need to do for a particular project, but sometimes yes i have all the trees together and all the surrounds together for the sake of fun and learning the library so that i can easily hear how all the mics interact and affect the individual sections and the overall sound.


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## G_Erland (Feb 10, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I do whatever i need to do for a particular project, but sometimes yes i have all the trees together and all the surrounds together for the sake of fun and learning the library so that i can easily hear how all the mics interact and affect the individual sections and the overall sound.


Smart, i should have thought of that, spending so much time on balancing individual instruments!


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## liquidlino (Feb 11, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> I do whatever i need to do for a particular project, but sometimes yes i have all the trees together and all the surrounds together for the sake of fun and learning the library so that i can easily hear how all the mics interact and affect the individual sections and the overall sound.


You could just link the mic channel sliders together using parameter linking in reaper. Saves all the hassle of routing the mic signals.


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## Casiquire (Feb 11, 2022)

liquidlino said:


> You could just link the mic channel sliders together using parameter linking in reaper. Saves all the hassle of routing the mic signals.


How would that work?


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## liquidlino (Feb 11, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> How would that work?


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## Casiquire (Feb 11, 2022)

liquidlino said:


>



That's a super useful feature i hadn't explored before, thanks! I feel like i still have to do that for each mic for each instance of SINE, and then i don't get mute/solo buttons, but I'm going to use that feature all the time in mixing, can't believe i never saw it before


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## ag75 (Feb 11, 2022)

So I finally downloaded Ark 1-4 and Berlin WW through sine and deleted my Kontakt libraries. Will I regret doing that? Do people really see a loss of usability with the sine player compared to Kontakt?


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## Zanshin (Feb 11, 2022)

ag75 said:


> So I finally downloaded Ark 1-4 and Berlin WW through sine and deleted my Kontakt libraries. Will I regret doing that? Do people really see a loss of usability with the sine player compared to Kontakt?


You don't have access to the BWW legacy instruments any more, they are not in Sine BWW. That's probably the biggest difference.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 11, 2022)

ag75 said:


> So I finally downloaded Ark 1-4 and Berlin WW through sine and deleted my Kontakt libraries. Will I regret doing that? Do people really see a loss of usability with the sine player compared to Kontakt?


I haven't deleted my Kontakt libraries just yet, but I never use them. There is a nice thread addressing this subject here:

https://vi-control.net/community/threads/berlin-brass-on-sine-overview.121169/


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## Casiquire (Feb 11, 2022)

ag75 said:


> So I finally downloaded Ark 1-4 and Berlin WW through sine and deleted my Kontakt libraries. Will I regret doing that? Do people reall y see a loss of usability with the sine player compared to Kontakt?


Personally, i find them about equal in use--kontakt may be a little easier, possibly because I'm so used to the interface, however SINE has that mic remote which i hate to miss. The big reason I'm still using kontakt is just the purge feature. So I'm using SINE for SINE-only libraries, and the percussion which is less resource hungry anyway,


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> I haven't deleted my Kontakt libraries just yet, but I never use them. There is a nice thread addressing this subject here:
> 
> https://vi-control.net/community/threads/berlin-brass-on-sine-overview.121169/


I'm more or less in the same place, but I do still go to the Kontakt instruments very occasionally, if I need to work around a Sine bug, for instance. But even with its many problems—and there are still quite a few—I find the frictions of Sine to be much less intrusive than the frictions of OT's implementation of Kontakt. As some have pointed out, these issues should not really be labeled Kontakt issues, though some involving mics and code limits and such might be, but whatever their cause, OT instruments work much better in Sine for me than in Kontakt.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 11, 2022)

ag75 said:


> So I finally downloaded Ark 1-4 and Berlin WW through sine and deleted my Kontakt libraries. Will I regret doing that? Do people really see a loss of usability with the sine player compared to Kontakt?


I wouldn’t have done that without fully trying the SINE workflow. Also, as mentioned, you lose some content with the woodwinds. Capsule works just fine for me as you can stack instances in the same Kontakt instance and key switch across them - exact same thing you have to do with SINE because OT is still creating patches that are locked to a set of articulations and any other articulations will need to be on their own channel. Benefit of Kontakt is if you want to run a purged template (and why wouldn’t you given the SSD read speeds these days), you can. You can’t do that in SINE so you better have a ton of RAM. Outside of mic merge (which I personally never use), I have yet to find a single thing that SINE does better than Kontakt / Capsule. YMMV of course.


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Capsule works just fine for me as you can stack instances in the same Kontakt instance and key switch across them - exact same thing you have to do with SINE because OT is still creating patches that are locked to a set of articulations and any other articulations will need to be on their own channel.


This depends on the layout of the library. It's true for Berlin Strings, which has a clunky layout in Capsule that is not much improved in Sine. It's not true for Berlin Brass, if trombone 1 is characteristic of the layout. All trombone 1 articulations load into one channel of Sine, whereas there are more than 12 articulations so it will take a second instance of Kontakt. Most of the Arks also have instruments with more than 12 articulations that load into a single channel in Sine.


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## Jett Hitt (Feb 11, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> I'm more or less in the same place, but I do still go to the Kontakt instruments very occasionally, if I need to work around a Sine bug, for instance. But even with its many problems—and there are still quite a few—I find the frictions of Sine to be much less intrusive than the frictions of OT's implementation of Kontakt. As some have pointed out, these issues should not really be labeled Kontakt issues, though some involving mics and code limits and such might be, but whatever their cause, OT instruments work much better in Sine for me than in Kontakt.


Agreed. The one thing I reach to Kontakt for is the Legacy piccolo.



jbuhler said:


> This depends on the layout of the library. It's true for Berlin Strings, which has a clunky layout in Capsule that is not much improved in Sine. It's not true for Berlin Brass, if trombone 1 is characteristic of the layout. All trombone 1 articulations load into one channel of Sine, whereas there are more than 12 articulations so it will take a second instance of Kontakt. Most of the Arks also have instruments with more than 12 articulations that load into a single channel in Sine.



All of the Mains work this way except for BS. For this reason, I find myself reaching for BSS instead.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 11, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> This depends on the layout of the library. It's true for Berlin Strings, which has a clunky layout in Capsule that is not much improved in Sine. It's not true for Berlin Brass, if trombone 1 is characteristic of the layout. All trombone 1 articulations load into one channel of Sine, whereas there are more than 12 articulations so it will take a second instance of Kontakt. Most of the Arks also have instruments with more than 12 articulations that load into a single channel in Sine.


It won’t take a second instance of Kontakt. You can load another instance of _Capsule_ into the same instance of Kontakt and switch based on MIDI channel in your expression maps - same as you have to do with Berlin Strings for example.


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> It won’t take a second instance of Kontakt. You can load another instance of _Capsule_ into the same instance of Kontakt and switch based on MIDI channel in your expression maps - same as you have to do with Berlin Strings for example.


Sorry, yes, that's what I meant, making a multi set to different channels. Just a brain fart on my part. You have to do this with every Capsule instrument that has more than 12 articulations in Kontakt. Mostly you don't have to do this with Sine instruments. (Berlin Strings is an exception. I think Ark 3 is another exception.)


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 11, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Sorry, yes, that's what I meant, making a multi set to different channels. Just a brain fart on my part. You have to do this with every Capsule instrument that has more than 12 articulations in Kontakt. Mostly you don't have to do this with Sine instruments. (Berlin Strings is an exception. I think Ark 3 is another exception.)


Yes - you have to do the same thing with Spitfire SSO as well if you want access to all the arts. It was a great find for me though that you could set this up in one fully purged instance of Kontakt and expression / articulation maps work across all the channels. It takes a bit more time to setup (like minimally more time) but I have access to all articulations plus get the real-time benefit of only loading the articulations I need in that moment (which SINE doesn’t allow for). And I only need to do the setup piece once when setting up the template. The real time benefits come into play every time I write.


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Yes - you have to do the same thing with Spitfire SSO as well if you want access to all the arts. It was a great find for me though that you could set this up in one fully purged instance of Kontakt and expression / articulation maps work across all the channels. It takes a bit more time to setup (like minimally more time) but I have access to all articulations plus get the real-time benefit of only loading the articulations I need in that moment (which SINE doesn’t allow for). And I only need to do the setup piece once when setting up the template. The real time benefits come into play every time I write.


SSO can work by UACC KS, though, which is what I use, so I don't need to worry about midi channels, and the issues they can cause in Logic, at all. UACC KS is one of the things I like about SF in Kontakt that doesn't work so well in the SF Player. For whatever reason I've never liked purge, and so I rely on Logic automatically disabling unused tracks, and while I recognize that not having a functional purge is a real drawback to Sine for many, it does not pose one for me.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Feb 11, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> SSO can work by UACC KS, though, which is what I use, so I don't need to worry about midi channels, and the issues they can cause in Logic, at all. UACC KS is one of the things I like about SF in Kontakt that doesn't work so well in the SF Player. For whatever reason I've never liked purge, and so I rely on Logic automatically disabling unused tracks, and while I recognize that not having a functional purge is a real drawback to Sine for many, it does not pose one for me.


What are the issues that switching across multiple MIDI channels cause in Logic? Asking more to prepare myself as I’m thinking of transitioning to Logic


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## liquidlino (Feb 11, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> That's a super useful feature i hadn't explored before, thanks! I feel like i still have to do that for each mic for each instance of SINE, and then i don't get mute/solo buttons, but I'm going to use that feature all the time in mixing, can't believe i never saw it before


Nice, you can do some really interesting things linking FX parameters, this video from Worrall was how I first learnt of it in Reaper


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> What are the issues that switching across multiple MIDI channels cause in Logic? Asking more to prepare myself as I’m thinking of transitioning to Logic


Getting CCs to propagate correctly is the main issue. There are scripts for doing it and they mostly work but occasionally Logic decides you are using channel 3 so it’s going to throw down modulation only on channel 3 and that doesn’t get sent to your articulation on channel 1. Or you get conflicts because you have modulation on multiple channels. I wouldn’t say it happens a lot but enough to be irritating and something you don’t have to worry about if everything is on the same channel. Oh and the “all channels” setting generally doesn’t work right, or the way I expect it to work, either.


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## coprhead6 (Feb 11, 2022)

I asked support about using multiple SINE instruments on the same midi channel and got this response - FYI


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

coprhead6 said:


> I asked support about using multiple SINE instruments on the same midi channel and got this response - FYI


I'm not quite understanding this, and is this muting behavior detailed anywhere in the Sine manual? And how do you set up the instrument in the first place to have the first instrument end with 30 and the second start with 31. Then how do you send the mute? Resending the value doesn't seem to be how the keyswitch works, so is it a special functionality of setting up CCs? Finally which CC is the instrument responding to?


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## coprhead6 (Feb 11, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> I'm not quite understanding this, and is this muting behavior detailed anywhere in the Sine manual? And how do you set up the instrument in the first place to have the first instrument end with 30 and the second start with 31. Then how do you send the mute? Resending the value doesn't seem to be how the keyswitch works, so is it a special functionality of setting up CCs? Finally which CC is the instrument responding to?


I haven’t tried this yet, but I can answer the setup question. 
You can set custom CC values for each articulation manually after “mapping to CC” instead of “mapping to key switches”. It’s a drop down menu


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

coprhead6 said:


> I haven’t tried this yet, but I can answer the setup question.
> You can set custom CC values for each articulation manually after “mapping to CC” instead of “mapping to key switches”. It’s a drop down menu


So you have to set them by hand. That’s good to know. I’m also curious if you figure out the muting function. I’m very interested in this because it seems to allow combining different instruments and more importantly articulation groups on the same midi channel. This would solve one of the most important problems I have with Sine.


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## coprhead6 (Feb 11, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> So you have to set them by hand. That’s good to know. I’m also curious if you figure out the muting function. I’m very interested in this because it seems to allow combining different instruments and more importantly articulation groups on the same midi channel. This would solve one of the most important problems I have with Sine.



I have been setting up my template with Composer Tools Pro which spurred this desire to load everything on one channel (they don't have any method for articulation switching across channels and it would be a pain in the butt anyway to set up Modulation, etc). 

I haven't run into any instruments on SINE just yet that requires loading multiple "instruments" to get all the articulations I want, but that will change if I pick up Berlin Strings / Special bows or when Berlin Brass Mutes gets released on SINE.


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

coprhead6 said:


> I have been setting up my template with Composer Tools Pro which spurred this desire to load everything on one channel (they don't have any method for articulation switching across channels and it would be a pain in the butt anyway to set up Modulation, etc).
> 
> I haven't run into any instruments on SINE just yet that requires loading multiple "instruments" to get all the articulations I want, but that will change if I pick up Berlin Strings / Special bows or when Berlin Brass Mutes gets released on SINE.


Yes, I’m thinking specifically of Berlin Strings for this trick. When I tried this with keyswitches I couldn’t figure out how to mute the articulation in the groups that were not articulation you want. So that’s the functionality that needs to be sorted out. I mean OT should have a system that does it automatically and it’s a real oversight that they don’t have it as an option. But it would be good to know how to do it.


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## coprhead6 (Feb 11, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Yes, I’m thinking specifically of Berlin Strings for this trick. When I tried this with keyswitches I couldn’t figure out how to mute the articulation in the groups that were not articulation you want. So that’s the functionality that needs to be sorted out. I mean OT should have a system that does it automatically and it’s a real oversight that they don’t have it as an option. But it would be good to know how to do it.


Yep supposedly it will work using this CC muting technique. I just have to spend some time on it. I’m surprised it’s not mentioned anywhere in the manual.


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

coprhead6 said:


> Yep supposedly it will work using this CC muting technique. I just have to spend some time on it. I’m surprised it’s not mentioned anywhere in the manual.


I’ll try messing with it as well. I’d really like the idea of this functionality.


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## Taj Mikel (Feb 11, 2022)

Hi @jbuhler , here is the response that I received from OT Support when trying to set up a similar track in Cubase. I wanted to have BSS and Special Bows within a single instance of SINE, but activated independently via keyswitch as if they were each in a single combined library. I hope it helps. 

"To have two instruments in the same midi channel, changing through keyswitches, you need to have 2 "mute" keyswitches.
Let's continue with your example:

BSS C0-F0
Special Bows G0 - C1

We need to add two mute articulations, which would be F#0 for BSS, and C#1 for Special Bows.
These two mute articulation can be any articulation you like, but set to volume = 0.
So, if you want to play BSS D0, you need to send a D0, and a C#1 to mute Special Bows.
If you want to play A0, you need to send a F#0 to mute BSS, and A0 to activate special bows."


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## Taj Mikel (Feb 11, 2022)

Hi again @jbuhler , this might be unnecessary, but volume can be controlled via the circled area in SINE. I realized the instructions might not be clear on that bit  So you would set up an articulation specifically intended as a "mute", set the volume to 0 for that articulation via the circled area, and then activate it whenever you want that library to be silent versus any other libraries you've set up in the SINE instance.


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

Taj Mikel said:


> Hi @jbuhler , here is the response that I received from OT Support when trying to set up a similar track in Cubase. I wanted to have BSS and Special Bows within a single instance of SINE, but activated independently via keyswitch as if they were each in a single combined library. I hope it helps.
> 
> "To have two instruments in the same midi channel, changing through keyswitches, you need to have 2 "mute" keyswitches.
> Let's continue with your example:
> ...


So you set volume to zero in the little box on the right of the Sine GUI, and then when you change articulations you need to send both the keyswitch you want plus the mute switch for all the other groups. Which if you are working with articulation sets in Logic I think means you can only address three groups at once, the group with the active articulation and two other groups that are muted. Berlin Strings has four groups and if you add special bows to that you have another group, so you’d still need midi channels to work with one instrument per track.

Setting key switches not in the first group is also rather a pain since as far as I can tell you can’t just select the new key switch pitch. Even if you do, it only advances one semitone so you have to do that multiple iterations to get it into position. I don’t know if that’s true for the CC mode.


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

Taj Mikel said:


> Hi again @jbuhler , this might be unnecessary, but volume can be controlled via the circled area in SINE. I realized the instructions might not be clear on that bit  So you would set up an articulation specifically intended as a "mute", set the volume to 0 for that articulation via the circled area, and then activate it whenever you want that library to be silent versus any other libraries you've set up in the SINE instance.


Thanks! Yes, that makes sense.


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## Taj Mikel (Feb 11, 2022)

jbuhler said:


> Setting key switches not in the first group is also rather a pain since as far as I can tell you can’t just select the new key switch pitch. Even if you do, it only advances one semitone so you have to do that multiple iterations to get it into position. I don’t know if that’s true for the CC mode.


I'm not sure if I understand right, but I am able to reconfigure the keyswitches for the second group by manually selecting it (clicking on the keyswitch indicator to the left of the articulation brings up a dropdown to select key/pitch) or by dragging the brown keyswitch area in the performance tab (which changes them all at once).


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

Taj Mikel said:


> I'm not sure if I understand right, but I am able to reconfigure the keyswitches for the second group by manually selecting it (clicking on the keyswitch indicator to the left of the articulation brings up a dropdown to select key/pitch) or by dragging the brown keyswitch area in the performance tab (which changes them all at once).


I try to do this, say take the first articulation in group 2 and move it from C-2 to F-1. When I select F-1, rather than setting the articulation to F-1 it returns C#-2 and all the keyswitches below it fill in chromatically so the second articulation is D-2, the third D#-2, etc. Then if I again try to set it at F-1, it then sets to D-2 and again fills in chromatically. So clearly a bug. I need to test it a bit more and then record the behavior to send to support. I haven’t tried moving the second group by using the keyboard, so I’ll try that.


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## coprhead6 (Feb 11, 2022)

Taj Mikel said:


> Hi again @jbuhler , this might be unnecessary, but volume can be controlled via the circled area in SINE. I realized the instructions might not be clear on that bit  So you would set up an articulation specifically intended as a "mute", set the volume to 0 for that articulation via the circled area, and then activate it whenever you want that library to be silent versus any other libraries you've set up in the SINE instance.


Whoa you saved me tons of time trying to actually figure this out. I totally understand what my support email meant by a “mute” articulation now haha


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

Taj Mikel said:


> I'm not sure if I understand right, but I am able to reconfigure the keyswitches for the second group by manually selecting it (clicking on the keyswitch indicator to the left of the articulation brings up a dropdown to select key/pitch) or by dragging the brown keyswitch area in the performance tab (which changes them all at once).


And thank you very much for this tutorial! I very much appreciate it!


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## Casiquire (Feb 11, 2022)

That's really more of a workaround though, i wish they'd have something native and automatic. Now you have the line getting played twice, but more of a hit on resources. It's good to know about but i still think they should address it with updates


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> That's really more of a workaround though, i wish they'd have something native and automatic. Now you have the line getting played twice, but more of a hit on resources. It's good to know about but i still think they should address it with updates


i don’t know how much of a hit it would be, especially if you are careful about which articulation to use as a mute (use a short or disable all dynamic layers if that’s possible). Then it shouldn’t load any samples, or minimal samples. But yes it’s a kludgy workaround bit it shows it shouldn’t be difficult to script, and it’s an example of less than stellar foresight that they didn’t get this in the initial plan for scripting.


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## coprhead6 (Feb 11, 2022)

Casiquire said:


> That's really more of a workaround though, i wish they'd have something native and automatic. Now you have the line getting played twice, but more of a hit on resources. It's good to know about but i still think they should address it with updates



I totally agree.

If a basic 8dio library like CAGE can use CC switching between multiple instruments on the same channel without this workaround in Kontakt, SINE should be able to.


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## jbuhler (Feb 11, 2022)

Taj Mikel said:


> I'm not sure if I understand right, but I am able to reconfigure the keyswitches for the second group by manually selecting it (clicking on the keyswitch indicator to the left of the articulation brings up a dropdown to select key/pitch) or by dragging the brown keyswitch area in the performance tab (which changes them all at once).


So I'm trying to get this to work with articulation sets and still a bit of weirdness with the keyswitch version. Selecting the starting keyswitch for the second group with the dropdown menu definitely doesn't work, but scooting the brown keyboard along the bottom does. Using Logic articulation sets also works, but you can only address three groups this way, due to the necessity of sending the mute switches. Logic only allows three keyswitches to be sent per articulation. 

You can choose which ever articulation you want to be the muted one, but it will load when muted, so I would recommend using shorts to keep the RAM footprint small.

The solution is quite time consuming to implement for something like Berlin Strings, and because Logic only allows three keyswitches you still can't load everything into the same midi channel. It also seems like it might be prone to error if you are using something besides buttons or pads for selection. For that reason, I think I will stick with midi channels for Berlin Strings, even though they remain something of a pain. For Logic @Dewdman42's Event Chaser is your friend if you need to ensure that your CCs are passed to all midi channels.


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## Cideboy (Feb 11, 2022)

davidson said:


> Orchestral tools have the worst QC from any of the 70+ devs ive bought from bar early keepforest releases. Some presets are fantastic, some are horrendous. I still bought ark 5 though and I’m considering the new violin so my lesson obviously hasnt been learnt 🥴


new violin is insane - get it while on sale


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## Dewdman42 (Feb 12, 2022)

Since you guys are getting in deep with it, here is another LogicPro Scripter script that might help with being able to send more than 3 keyswitches...

https://gitlab.com/dewdman42/art2script/-/wikis/home


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## daviddln (Feb 25, 2022)

I found another issue with the tremolo patch of the Solo Viola from Berlin Strings First Chairs. I sent the audio file to the support team.


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