# East West Hollywood Cello - Had a little play with it



## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 25, 2015)

Had a little raw play with the nu cello from EW.
Legato Slur
http://picosong.com/QDpR

To me the legato transitions are... strange. Good that I got it "for free" in the Composer Cloud subscription.

Please download the file if you can and look at those wave shapes - best example right in the beginning. Funny (actually sad) how you see the hard and loud legatos and the soft fade in of the sustain. Not a fan. Just my custombrain'n'heart-taylored'n'personalisationed opinion. What do you think?

EDIT: 
Here the rest of the leg patches:

LegatoSus Slur
http://picosong.com/QDMB/
Legato Bow Change
http://picosong.com/QDMT
Legato Bow Change Fast
http://picosong.com/QDMb
Legato Bow Change Smooth
http://picosong.com/QDMW

There also a playable runs patch - for obvious usage.


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## prodigalson (Dec 25, 2015)

Don't know the structure of this library but is it like the rest of the hollywood series with a variety of patches for different legato types and articulations? Are you maybe using a certain kind of legato that is supposed to do that? 

No idea just wondering. Are there any other legato patch options?


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 25, 2015)

Here are the rest of the patches.

LegatoSus Slur
http://picosong.com/QDMB/
Legato Bow Change
http://picosong.com/QDMT
Legato Bow Change Fast
http://picosong.com/QDMb
Legato Bow Change Smooth
http://picosong.com/QDMW

There also a playable runs patch - for obvious usage.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Dec 25, 2015)

Tone is nice, but the arrangement is..well..can you control the vibrato? According to your examples here I would think no, but I ask. Thank you.


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## novaburst (Dec 25, 2015)

Yes tone is ok


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## tomaslobosk (Dec 25, 2015)

Another EW library with poor legato scripting :(


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## Hanu_H (Dec 25, 2015)

Seriously is this for real? I think that the old Symphonic Orchestra cello sounds better than this...I really don't like the tone at all and the legato sounds like it's really badly programmed. Of course, I don't have it and can't be sure how the instrument actually works. But if this is how it sounds, I am really suprised...

-Hannes


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Dec 25, 2015)

tomaslobosk said:


> Another EW library with poor legato scripting :(


I don´t think that it is the programming rather than the real bad arrangement and programming what darkest shadow has done. Sorry to say but when I listen to that demos you posted it sounds like you either hate the Cello or you just did that like you were in a rush so bad horrible they sound to me. In my opinion you need to put some love and reasonable time into a vi to create something nice. Here is no passion love, practically nothing put in so how can it sound good? Sorry..it is not the Eastwests cello in my opion.


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## tomaslobosk (Dec 25, 2015)

I think the demo is perfect, it shows how it works out of the box, and it doesn't sound good at all!...


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Dec 25, 2015)

tomaslobosk said:


> I think the demo is perfect, it shows how it works out of the box, and it doesn't sound good at all!...



I haven´t read such a nonsense in a long time.


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## tomaslobosk (Dec 25, 2015)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> I haven´t read such a nonsense in a long time.


Why?, I mean, yeah... the demo is pretty raw, but at least it's dry and I can hear how the transitions were programmed.


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 25, 2015)

Yes, I could write a beautiful melody with it, add more dynamics and put it in context of other instruments. But this is just about the sound. You hear how the recordings and the legato transitions sound like. I can't manipulate the sound of those. The jumpy and unbalanced sound wouldn't be better. Playing something soulful on it would be like a love declaration to someone who doesn't listen to you. The library doesn't respond to what I play. I prefer the free Pocket Blakus Cello! 

Vibrato Control - I haven't found a manual in the download. I tried some CC's - but nothing.


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## tomaslobosk (Dec 25, 2015)

DarkestShadow said:


> But this is just about the sound. You hear how the recordings and the legato transitions sound like. I can't manipulate the sound of those. The jumpy and unbalanced sound wouldn't be better. Playing something soulful on it would be like a love declaration to someone who doesn't listen to you.



+1


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## EastWest Lurker (Dec 25, 2015)

No there is no vibrato control. I asked about that and was told that in the developers opinion with really exposed solo instruments implementing that ability creates more problems than it solves.

For me tone is king, and the tone is IMHO considerably more beautiful than the two I have been using and is much easier to play than one of them. I won't name them here, but people can PM me if they want more details.


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## tomaslobosk (Dec 25, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> No there is no vibrato control. I asked about that and was told that in the developers opinion with really exposed solo instruments implementing that ability creates more problems than it solves.


Absolutely. Sampling, scripting and programming solo instruments is VERY tricky, since realism and control are inversely proportional variables.


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## novaburst (Dec 25, 2015)

I believe doing solo instrument is big problem, 
1. our ears are demanding and ever learning and have perhaps created a level of stranded that we would like to here and use,
developers need to spend more time in forums and here what people are saying.

I am not sure if the developers are going with "they want notice attitude" or they them selves dont have a lot of knowledge of how to sample and scrip.

Is it cost, is it time, who knows but there there are a few out there that have got the solo instrument spot on


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 25, 2015)

Here a little bit EW cello in context. Would actually tweak it a more but this is what I could do in 40 mins. EDIT: Piano melody is gone now - http://picosong.com/QzSq

I made a tiny hi end boost and added some QL Spaces reverb. Also payed attention on the dynamics.
Prepare for heart/hard-attack at 0:11. You may say "that's a sustain sample with harsh attack". No way, I checked everything - It overlaps. There is also a major mod wheel curve upwards. But it didn't quite respond.

EDIT: Free cello comparison doesn't work here i think.


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## erica-grace (Dec 25, 2015)

Hmmmm That darkshadow example in post #1 does not sound too good at all.

For me, libraries are more about what you can do with them than what they sound like right out of the box. No library is going to sound 100% great for everything right out of the box. All libraries need some massaging at least some of the time. I would like to hear an exposed demo of this library in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, and who can get the most out of it. That, coupled with the out of the box demo we have above, will give us a really good idea of what this library can or can not do. Having this one demo is useful, but only to a small degree.

Am going to have a listen to the second demo now.


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## erica-grace (Dec 25, 2015)

Ok, just listened to both demos in the post above mine.

The EW cello absolutely kills the free cello library. I mean, there is no compasrison.

The new EW cello demo is much better than the first - in fact, this one sounds pretty good. But I can't say for sure until I hear a well-done NAKED demo. When you have a piano hitting every note with the cello, it's difficult to hear what the cello is really doing.


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## novaburst (Dec 25, 2015)

DarkestShadow said:


> Here a little bit EW cello in context. Would actually tweak it a more but this is what I could do in 40 mins. http://picosong.com/QzLx/
> 
> I made a tiny hi end boost and added some QL Spaces reverb. Also payed attention on the dynamics.
> Prepare for heart/hard-attack at 0:11. You may say "that's a sustain sample with harsh attack". No way, I checked everything - It overlaps. There is also a major mod wheel curve upwards. But it didn't quite respond.
> ...



Very nice piece I think this will make people think twice about some comments, keep up the good work and thanks for giving your time and talent


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 25, 2015)

erica-grace - Piano melody is gone now - http://picosong.com/QzSq

novaburst - Thanks


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## novaburst (Dec 25, 2015)

erica-grace said:


> Hmmmm That darkshadow example in post #1 does not sound too good at all.
> 
> For me, libraries are more about what you can do with them than what they sound like right out of the box. No library is going to sound 100% great for everything right out of the box. All libraries need some massaging at least some of the time. I would like to hear an exposed demo of this library in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing, and who can get the most out of it. That, coupled with the out of the box demo we have above, will give us a really good idea of what this library can or can not do. Having this one demo is useful, but only to a small degree.
> 
> Am going to have a listen to the second demo now.



Yes agreed libraries will not be 100% and producers do make them sound much better that what they are, but there are some developers that are really gong for it for detail, articulation, voicing , attitude of vibe, and will not settle for 2nd rate 

Some developer want to give us the very best


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Dec 25, 2015)

novaburst said:


> Very nice piece I think this will make people think twice about some comments, keep up the good work and thanks for giving your time and talent


I won´t and need not to revise my comment regarding the first demos which sounded absolute crap. But this new one showed some improvement and also stated clearly that you should spent some work in a vi instead of telling nonsense like "when it doesn´t sound out of the box etc.."


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## novaburst (Dec 25, 2015)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> I won´t and need not to revise my comment regarding the first demos which sounded absolute crap. But this new one showed some improvement and also stated clearly that you should spent some work in a vi instead of telling nonsense like "when it doesn´t sound out of the box etc.."



Man you a hard man to bargain with but point taken


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## Hanu_H (Dec 25, 2015)

Hey Alexander,

I think you are totally wrong with your statements. Did you read the first post at all? He made a quick test with it and posted it here how it sounds out of the box. He didn't say it can't sound better. But even without any CC information on a single velocity layer it should not sound like that. What can you do when instrument sounds like that? There is no vibrato control, so only control you got is dynamics. It's also much more valuable to hear it out of the box than after someone has massaged the line for hours. I don't really care how good you can make some library sound, what I care is how it sounds out of the box so I can hear what I can do with it and how much work it needs to get sounding good.

-Hannes


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 25, 2015)

To me the working on this demo showed me that I can't work with the library. It would ruin my melodies - in fact it ruins my lil piece (which is not the final mix).

1 - Some legato transitions have soooo much attack and don't work at all, 2 - the fade in of the sustain is clearly audible, 3 - it doesn't respond well to my big modwheel curves, 4 - the portamentos at lowest velocity are sometimes there sometimes not (or not clearly aubible), 5 - no playability at faster passages (audio example in the first post) and the basic sound is not my personal taste.

I don't feel inspired to spend more time tweaking the dead body. It won't come alive, to me. Would be interesting to hear some official demos by insanely talented Frankenstein's.


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## OleJoergensen (Dec 25, 2015)

Have you tried adjust the slur leg volume in the Play window- the GUI?.


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## EastWest Lurker (Dec 25, 2015)

DarkestShadow said:


> To me the working on this demo showed me that I can't work with the library. It would ruin my melodies - in fact it ruins my lil piece (which is not the final mix).
> 
> 1 - Some legato transitions have soooo much attack and don't work at all, 2 - the fade in of the sustain is clearly audible, 3 - it doesn't respond well to my big modwheel curves, 4 - the portamentos at lowest velocity are sometimes there sometimes not (or not clearly aubible), 5 - no playability at faster passages (audio example in the first post) and the basic sound is not my personal taste.
> 
> I don't feel inspired to spend more time tweaking the dead body. It won't come alive, to me. Would be interesting to hear some official demos by insanely talented Frankenstein's.



While I have _zero_ problem with people liking what they like and not liking what they do not, I would issue you a little challenge: play the exact same piece with another library you think sounds better "right out of the box" , spending app. the _same_ amount of time, and let us hear the results.


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## tomaslobosk (Dec 25, 2015)

Hanu_H said:


> Hey Alexander,
> 
> I think you are totally wrong with your statements. Did you read the first post at all? He made a quick test with it and posted it here how it sounds out of the box. He didn't say it can't sound better. But even without any CC information on a single velocity layer it should not sound like that. What can you do when instrument sounds like that? There is no vibrato control, so only control you got is dynamics. It's also much more valuable to hear it out of the box than after someone has massaged the line for hours. I don't really care how good you can make some library sound, what I care is how it sounds out of the box so I can hear what I can do with it and how much work it needs to get sounding good.
> 
> -Hannes



Point made.
(As you can't edit anything within Play... I don't know how much improvement you can do to the legato transitions)


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Dec 25, 2015)

Hanu_H said:


> Hey Alexander,
> 
> I think you are totally wrong with your statements. Did you read the first post at all? He made a quick test with it and posted it here how it sounds out of the box. He didn't say it can't sound better. But even without any CC information on a single velocity layer it should not sound like that. What can you do when instrument sounds like that? There is no vibrato control, so only control you got is dynamics. It's also much more valuable to hear it out of the box than after someone has massaged the line for hours. I don't really care how good you can make some library sound, what I care is how it sounds out of the box so I can hear what I can do with it and how much work it needs to get sounding good.
> 
> -Hannes


Yes, I see you have a different opinion on that thing. That is fine. I don´t agree. I have given my reasons why and so the conclusion is: Everybody here has different views for different reasons. When your approach works fine for you, well that is great. Would be boring if everybody agrees with anothers opinion, right? Right.


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## MarcelM (Dec 25, 2015)

well, tina guo cello from cinesamples or emotional cello from best service do sound better to my ears and out of the box!


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 25, 2015)

OleJoergensen - Tried right now. But the slur legatos still sound more like changing keys on a sustain patch. The portamentos are nice (while i still hear how the sustain is faded in, which this is not the sampling standard of today) but I can't have them all the way through.

EastWestLurker - I have only a free cello library which I use for some things. Doesn't work for everything - also not in this case. I'm looking to get a full solo cello library at some point. But here is the melody with EW Hollywood Strings Celli. http://picosong.com/QzKF/ It is not out of the box since my solo demo was prepared to. I made cuts around 390 hz, 729 hz, 160 and boostet around 9000 + some Spaces reverb. Not totally fair. Scripting a solo string library might be harder than scripting a ensemble library but my hi end boost brought out some soloistic elements and details, and it still sounds great. Quality is definitely sunken, to me.

Heroix - According to the demos and walkthroughs they definitely do. I would also include Embertones Blakus Cello. It seems to be hell playable.


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## tomaslobosk (Dec 25, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> While I have _zero_ problem with people liking what they like and not liking what they do not, I would issue you a little challenge: play the exact same piece with another library you think sounds better "right out of the box" , spending app. the _same_ amount of time, and let us hear the results.


Don't get me wrong Jay, as I absolutely love the tone of EW libraries, but there is no point on doing that, Solo Violin has the same issues, the same with HOW...
You are wasting a huge amount of amazing samples just because of bad scripting/programming!


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## EastWest Lurker (Dec 25, 2015)

Just before they released it, we got some updated Gold patches that I had not tried because I had a tooth pulled and I think something went wrong with the basic leg slur patch. Let me find out more, because I just did a test and this is not behaving as I remember it when I first got it.


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## Baron Greuner (Dec 25, 2015)

Since other sample library solo cellos have been mentioned on the thread, I don't think any of it will matter if VirHarmonic bring out a solo cello using the same tech they use in their Bohemian violin.

I was going to get the Emotional cello if there had been a sale, but will wait for the VirHarmonic now to at least see what comes up. The playability of the Bohemian violin combined with the sound is a new step forward.


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## Hanu_H (Dec 25, 2015)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> Yes, I see you have a different opinion on that thing. That is fine. I don´t agree. I have given my reasons why and so the conclusion is: Everybody here has different views for different reasons. When your approach works fine for you, well that is great. Would be boring if everybody agrees with anothers opinion, right? Right.


Sorry Alexander but it's not an opinion. Dressed demos are nice to get your attention, but naked walkthroughs are much better when you want to hear how the library actually sounds and works. That is the simple reason why every developer does them...

-Hannes


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Dec 25, 2015)

Hanu_H said:


> Sorry Alexander but it's not an opinion. Dressed demos are nice to get your attention, but naked walkthroughs are much better when you want to hear how the library actually sounds and works. That is the simple reason why every developer does them...
> 
> -Hannes


This discussion leads to nowhere, as I don´t feel you get my point and by my last comment I was trying to end our conversation here. Anyways Hannes, be well.


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## koolkeys (Dec 25, 2015)

I am debating on subscribing to Composer Cloud, and one reason is the new solo strings that were coming(I'm on the fence, and solo strings would help to tip me over!). But this, to my ears, isn't good at all. I'm hoping it is just a bug that got through. Will be interested to see what Jay finds as he asks about it. At least there is some kind of confirmation that it doesn't sound QUITE right to him either. 

Brent


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## rpaillot (Dec 25, 2015)

Seriously EW, ask Thomas J , pay him good , and let him make a killer solo cello library.
His private cello from around 2005 sounds 10000000x better than this ...


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## marclawsonmusic (Dec 25, 2015)

Hi DarkestShadow, I liked the sound of the choir. Which one did you use?

Best,
Marc


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 25, 2015)

rpalliot - Thomas is insane, indeed. 2005/2006 he made mock-ups using his custom samples that are still some the best (maybe THE best) we will ever hear. By the way, your music is great - heared some of your works in the past. Lovely writing!

marclawsonmusic - I used the choirs from Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark I.


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## Zhao Shen (Dec 25, 2015)

Fingers crossed for CineStrings SOLO. Will Bedford's early sneak peek sounded absolutely gorgeous.


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 25, 2015)

Zhao Shen said:


> Fingers crossed for CineStrings SOLO. Will Bedford's early sneak peek sounded absolutely gorgeous.



OMG yes!!


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## Rex282 (Dec 25, 2015)

Baron Greuner said:


> I was going to get the Emotional cello if there had been a sale, .......



It is on sale at Best Service for 50% off($130)when bundled.

http://www.bestservice.de/en/best_service.html


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## tomaslobosk (Dec 25, 2015)

Zhao Shen said:


> Fingers crossed for CineStrings SOLO. Will Bedford's early sneak peek sounded absolutely gorgeous.


Cinesamples nailed the soloist legato scripting/programming in Tina Guo's library, so be sure, CineStrings SOLO will be the best out there.


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## marclawsonmusic (Dec 25, 2015)

DarkestShadow said:


> marclawsonmusic - I used the choirs from Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark I.



Thanks!


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## Jackles (Dec 25, 2015)

DarkestShadow said:


> Had a little raw play with the nu cello from EW.
> Legato Slur
> http://picosong.com/QDpR
> 
> ...



Wow, at first I really though that was some kind of joke ... So this is the real thing ?
... That the solo cello library that's supposed to be part of the Hollywood Series ?
Really looking forward to hear "official" demos that will show up how good it sounds to make people want to buy it.
So far, what I've heard is not good at all (programming wise). 
But I'm still not sure that's the Hollywood Solo Cello library EW was talking about ... Is it ?


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## prodigalson (Dec 26, 2015)

Rex282 said:


> It is on sale at Best Service for 50% off($130)when bundled.
> 
> http://www.bestservice.de/en/best_service.html



where do you see this? Doesn't look like it to me.


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## Rex282 (Dec 26, 2015)

on this page

http://www.bestservice.de/en/deals.html#2for1_best_service_and_more






2 for 1.Buy Emotional Cello($259) with another library of equal(like Era II) or less value and get both for one price.


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## prodigalson (Dec 26, 2015)

from the same page: 

"* excluded are Emotional Cello, Organum Venezia, identical products, some up- and crossgrades, EDUs and hardware."


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## Rex282 (Dec 26, 2015)

prodigalson said:


> from the same page:
> 
> "* excluded are Emotional Cello, Organum Venezia, identical products, some up- and crossgrades, EDUs and hardware."



You're correct, I apologize I didn't see that.


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## reddognoyz (Dec 26, 2015)

I like the tone as well. It may be the sequencing/performance rather than the vi, but in Darkshadow's examples I often heard two notes playing at once as the legato fades into the sustain. I will withhold judgment of it's usability until I try it in a cue and see how it works for me in a real world situation. I have a few cello VI's and creating a realistic performance is always a chore. The timing of the attacks being a particular drudgery for me. If this VI works efficiently and sounds good in a track then I'll use it. 

I plunked down the $30 a month for the composer cloud and so far it's been working out well for me. I've found a few things in the older, if not the oldest, libraries that made their way into to my template. I own about 75% of the EW catalog but not on my newest slave and this gives me flexability to set up my templates more efficiently.


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## Sid Francis (Dec 26, 2015)

If this is what YOU did with the new cello...I ask myself: what did THIS player do, seemingly also "out of the box" ?


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## Hanu_H (Dec 26, 2015)

Sid Francis said:


> If this is what YOU did with the new cello...I ask myself: what did THIS player do, seemingly also "out of the box" ?



I agree that the legato sometimes sound better, but sometimes not. The overall impression...sounds really synthy and I can accomplish better sound with LASS FC, Spitfire Solo Strings, etc. Vibrato gets really annoying in about 5 seconds and shorts sound lifeless. People were complaining about SM Viola sounding synthy, but this clearly wins that. I don't know why but to me it sounds a bit like Kirk Hunter...

-Hannes


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 26, 2015)

Sid Francis - It can't be out of the box. There is some room added. I recreated a lil part - out of the box. http://picosong.com/QaJt/
My legato transitions seem to sound a bit different. I also find that this test sounds weird at some points and the sound is not very expressive/soulful. But even if you would get the legatos right there would be still the playability problem. It might work for very slow passages but if you go faster... There is a runs patch but eh... It's needs to flow while performing. I don't want to switch patches and I'm not sure if he result would be satisfying.


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 26, 2015)

Here something to compare - That's what I call perfection! Surely it's not "out of the box" but come on... thoze legatoz! If someone wants to recreate this with EW Cello... - would be fun!


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## Mystic (Dec 26, 2015)

Now if Blakus would just finish the update. Wink wink @Blakus. Hear that?


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## tomaslobosk (Dec 26, 2015)

Sid Francis said:


> If this is what YOU did with the new cello...I ask myself: what did THIS player do, seemingly also "out of the box" ?



Ok, this sounds better... not the best legato in the world, but definitely better...



DarkestShadow said:


> My legato transitions seem to sound a bit different.



Yeah, something is wrong here, I mean, your legato transitions sound really bad!


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## X-Bassist (Dec 26, 2015)

DarkestShadow said:


> Sid Francis - It can't be out of the box. There is some room added. I recreated a lil part - out of the box. http://picosong.com/QaJt/
> My legato transitions seem to sound a bit different. I also find that this test sounds weird at some points and the sound is not very expressive/soulful. But even if you would get the legatos right there would be still the playability problem. It might work for very slow passages but if you go faster... There is a runs patch but eh... It's needs to flow while performing. I don't want to switch patches and I'm not sure if he result would be satisfying.



Between the sound and scripting I would jump ship to Emotional cello (audio deluxe has it for $220 in cart) if you can- the only real contender atm imho. Anything else will drive you crazy and still give mediocre results. I'm hoping for great choices from Sample Modeling and Cinesamples someday soon (Tina Guo is nice but no shorts) but until then others just seem synthetic, even if the scripting was fixed. As you said, don't beat a dead horse.


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 26, 2015)

I think i will wait until Cinesamples cello comes out and then decide between Cine's, Blakus and Emotional Cello. All sound amazing!


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## HardyP (Dec 26, 2015)

2 things:
- I think its quite understandable, that we are unsure about ew's Solo capabilities. The mess with the Solo Violin (not even a RTFM possible!) is old, but not forgotten, so there is the Need of some really big countermeasurements in order to convince the community to try them again for Solo libs. 
- this product is just too late. We know that ew's bugfixing record is not the best in the industry, real updates to products are rarely (never?) seen. So how might they reach the state of the art (embertone et al), or even get in sight of Virharmonics new level?


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## HardyP (Dec 26, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> ?..because I had a tooth pulled and I think something went wrong ...


Hope you are doing fine now - really thougt, something went wrong with the pullng, when I read it first...


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## AllanH (Dec 26, 2015)

I'm really surprised that EW would release something with audible artifacts, such as the first demo. I've found their instruments to be incredible well done and I've not seen behavior like this. Maybe, as Jay mused, something went wrong during the release process, or DarketsShaddow install somehow has errors.

I'm bit disappointed to hear that there is no MOD-wheel vibrato as that how HO-Strings work for many patches. I use that often.


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## SoundChris (Dec 26, 2015)

DarkestShadow said:


> I think i will wait until Cinesamples cello comes out and then decide between Cine's, Blakus and Emotional Cello. All sound amazing!



Well there is already a very early demo out on soundcloud showing a first impression of the cinesamples cello (just search for cinestrings solo demo and you will find it). But really: I am probably THE biggest fan of Hollywood Strings / Brass Diamond alive and so i expected something really breathtaking with ultra smooth legato transitions, an effective vibrato controll or at least a vibrato sound that sounds believable. I have got almost all the celli out there from blakus over tina guo legato and a few others. But stil: If this really is what is offered for that much money then i am really surprised (?). Hm i am curious if this now already is the final version or stil a WiP. Lets see how the official demos will be. But really ... right now i am concerned :(


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## Lionel Schmitt (Dec 26, 2015)

SoundChris said:


> Well there is already a very early demo out on soundcloud showing a first impression of the cinesamples cello (just search for cinestrings solo demo and you will find it). But really: I am probably THE biggest fan of Hollywood Strings / Brass Diamond alive and so i expected something really breathtaking with ultra smooth legato transitions, an effective vibrato controll or at least a vibrato sound that sounds believable. I have got almost all the celli out there from blakus over tina guo legato and a few others. But stil: If this really is what is offered for that much money then i am really surprised (?). Hm i am curious if this now already is the final version or stil a WiP. Lets see how the official demos will be. But really ... right now i am concerned :(



Already heard the early sneak peak. It sounds brilliant, very beautiful and I'm looking forward to the release and more demos etc.
Will Bedford wrote in the description about legato inconsistencies and that they will be ironed out in the final release... But it still sounds better than EW's final release haha!

I'm also a big fan of Hollywood Strings and Brass. Especially Hollywood Strings. Maybe they are so good because Thomas Bergersen contributed to them. I'm pretty actually pretty sure.


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## LHall (Dec 27, 2015)

This thread makes me thankful that I bought the Gofriller Cello when it was available. I've heard nothing here that even comes close. Believe I'll wait till SM produces a cello before looking too hard for anything.


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## Jerome Vonhogen (Dec 27, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Just before they released it, we got some updated Gold patches that I had not tried because I had a tooth pulled and I think something went wrong with the basic leg slur patch. Let me find out more, because I just did a test and this is not behaving as I remember it when I first got it.



Both the Gold edition instruments and the Diamond edition instruments have been updated on Christmas Eve. Since I live in Europe, I received the updated instrument sets early in the morning on december 25!

Testers and demo makers are still working on the product the entire weekend. Not sure how a preliminary version got released to the Composer Cloud users. All I know is that the sound is really great, but that the transitions in some of the instrument patches need a closer look, and maybe there is still some cleaning up to do in some of the samples as well. This is all done in combination with the testing of a new Play update, so I can't really comment on any of the examples given in this thread, since I don't know exactly what version/build of the software we're talking about here.

I'd suggest to wait another week before drawing any conclusions.

I hope this helps.

- Jerome Vonhögen


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## bill45 (Dec 27, 2015)

Does HW cello have a non vibrato articulation.


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## Jerome Vonhogen (Dec 27, 2015)

bill45 said:


> Does HW cello have a non vibrato articulation.



Yes, it does. It has all sorts of combinations of vibrato and non-vibrato, legato and non-legato.

I have to go to a concert so I can't elaborate right now, but I'll come back to this thread in a couple of hours.

- Jerome Vonhögen


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## bbunker (Dec 27, 2015)

I had a little play-through in between mince pies the other day. Overall it's fairly disappointing, because the sound is quite good overall, but there's a lot that could use some work.

The transitions are sketchy across the legato board. What I found most frustrating with the legatos is that there isn't any way to blend the Vib and Nonvib samples in the legatos like you can in the Hollywood Strings series. I had assumed (wrongly, apparently) that Hollywood Solo Strings would employ this, if for no other reason than that it would help make it a good "first chair" instrument to blend with Hollywood Strings - seems like a fantastic opportunity that's just been thrown away.

The shorts are troubling - because there isn't consistency within individual articulations or across them. For some reason the lowest octaves best match the character of the articulation name, but the higher octaves are vastly different. The spiccato in the tenor range has an emphasized vibrato and hold that doesn't feel very 'spiccato' at all - more like an emphasized staccato note. The marcatos are very disappointingly short above the first octave - the 'long marcatos' are probably 1/4 the length of the lowest octave. It makes it very difficult to use, not knowing what the result will be. I wish that they'd sampled pizz with vibrato - the pizz that they've sampled is very, very dry (in terms of vibrato, not room, of course) which makes it feel out of place in chamber music where some 'post-pluck vibrato' would be applied.

Setting ADSR is made difficult, too - a lot of the lowest notes have been edited very tightly, so it can be hard to predict what the result is going to be of tweaks to the release times.

The tremolo are a bit frustrating because they're very, very measured. Like a 'special effect' in how measured they are. If it were a VSL library, it'd probably be marked as a 16th-note rep at 124 (I made up the tempo - I didn't feel like tap testing it...) rather than trem. If they'd at least marked the tempo of the measured trem then it would be useful as that, or time-stretched to the DAW tempo...but as it is it's frustrating.

I just don't know how I can use this - when some of the spiccato samples are longer than the 'Marc Long' samples, with these dodgy transtions? Grr. I also don't really understand why the close samples are the ones included in the Gold set, but that's not a dealbreaker. It's just...tough to understand this whole set.


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## AllanH (Dec 27, 2015)

Jerome Vonhogen said:


> Both the Gold edition instruments and the Diamond edition instruments have been updated on Christmas Eve. Since I live in Europe, I received the updated instrument sets early in the morning on december 25!
> - Jerome Vonhögen



Thank you Jerome,
I'm looking forward to hearing your demo.


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## EastWest Lurker (Dec 27, 2015)

Exactly. I am suspicious that the wrong patches were released but have not heard back yet.

EDIT: "Wrong" was the err....wrong choice of words. They released _different_ patches than I originally tried before I had my tooth pulled.These are the producer approved patches, so perhaps wait to listen to company approved demos.


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## Jaap (Dec 27, 2015)

Then lets see what the upcoming weeks will bring. I downloaded it and played around with it and to be honest I just regret the 7gb of space it takes on my hard drive and it doesn't feel at all like the quality I am used from EW. Legato transitions are as mentioned problematic, but also the nv-vb patches have such sonic differences when controlling the vibrato that it annoys the heck out of me. I admit I only played it for 10 minutes, but I was completely done with it and my FC Cello from LASS is more useful.


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## Parsifal666 (Dec 28, 2015)

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I have a different sound system or set of ears, because I don't hear what many people are talking about in regard to EW Solo Cello. I know there are some very informed and excellent musicians here, but I'm baffled at the East West hate (and yes, I understand not all the negativity was due to that, just saying in general). I don't hear anything wrong with what I've heard, certainly no more (or, to be fair, less) flaws than the Blakus or 8dio. There's no vibrato, okay. I'm not convinced a well rounded, varied, consistently high quality vibrato is possible in sampled instruments anyway, no matter how much mucking options and supa dupa mic positions are offered. Certainly not an expressive one (you have to have a live player imo, there's nothing approaching that). So vibrato's not too big a deal for me.

I have Composer Cloud and am sufficiently impressed to download this, despite my way overstuffed computer memory. It sounds like a very useful tool, and given that it's part of the package, might end up being my go to. I don't hear anything that tells me differently, and I've listened to the samples here.


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## Casiquire (Dec 29, 2015)

Parsifal666 said:


> Sometimes I wonder if maybe I have a different sound system or set of ears, because I don't hear what many people are talking about in regard to EW Solo Cello. I know there are some very informed and excellent musicians here, but I'm baffled at the East West hate (and yes, I understand not all the negativity was due to that, just saying in general). I don't hear anything wrong with what I've heard, certainly no more (or, to be fair, less) flaws than the Blakus or 8dio. There's no vibrato, okay. I'm not convinced a well rounded, varied, consistently high quality vibrato is possible in sampled instruments anyway, no matter how much mucking options and supa dupa mic positions are offered. Certainly not an expressive one (you have to have a live player imo, there's nothing approaching that). So vibrato's not too big a deal for me.
> 
> I have Composer Cloud and am sufficiently impressed to download this, despite my way overstuffed computer memory. It sounds like a very useful tool, and given that it's part of the package, might end up being my go to. I don't hear anything that tells me differently, and I've listened to the samples here.



Always trust your own ears. It's astounding how easily the words of others affect our opinions and even our memories. And who knows, maybe there's a particular use for the library that you happen to "get". I say this having never played the library myself, but if it's useful to you don't assume you're the one that's wrong.


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## christerholm (Dec 30, 2015)

It sounds really bad to me. Like the solo violin, which was also a disgrace. I am surprised EW makes such bad solo string libraries when their ensemble libraries sound so good.


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## edwinkuipers (Dec 30, 2015)

Jaap said:


> Then lets see what the upcoming weeks will bring. I downloaded it and played around with it and to be honest I just regret the 7gb of space it takes on my hard drive and it doesn't feel at all like the quality I am used from EW. Legato transitions are as mentioned problematic, but also the nv-vb patches have such sonic differences when controlling the vibrato that it annoys the heck out of me. I admit I only played it for 10 minutes, but I was completely done with it and my FC Cello from LASS is more useful.



Well, according to the EW admin, this is it and its been approved by the producers. I'm baffled to be honest, alot of the patches are pretty much unusable for me. I really do not understand how they can say there is nothing wrong with the release.

Like yourself, I find some of the legato transations very problemetic, the nv-vb patches behave very weird aswell.


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## feck (Dec 30, 2015)

edwinkuipers said:


> I really do not understand how they can say there is nothing wrong with the release.


Because if Doug says it IS so, then it IS so. That's how EW rolls - don't you know that?


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## christerholm (Dec 30, 2015)

Sounds like a crying child 
"Boohoo I am the best, you are stupid, boohoo hooo"


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## Lassi Tani (Dec 31, 2015)

christerholm said:


> Sounds like a crying child
> "Boohoo I am the best, you are stupid, boohoo hooo"



Yes it sounds like they have had problems with the release, but let's not bash the developer.


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## EastWest Lurker (Dec 31, 2015)

sekkosiki said:


> Yes it sounds like they have had problems with the release, but let's not bash the developer.



Let them bash away all they want. It is juvenile IMHO, but they have that right I guess.

As always, the marketplace will decide. I am comfortable with that, as is Doug. Historically, it has worked out pretty well for EW


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## Jerome Vonhogen (Dec 31, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Let them bash away all they want. It is juvenile IMHO, but they have that right I guess.
> 
> As always, the marketplace will decide. I am comfortable with that, as is Doug. Historically, it has worked out pretty well for EW


 

One of the problems with this 'bashing' of East West is that most of the time there is no East West bashing going on, at least not in this thread.

Please, stop creating divisions. Try to unite people instead. Historically, that has worked out pretty well for mankind.

Happy New Year everyone!

- Jerome Vonhögen

P.S. I am a tester for East West, not an employee.


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## EastWest Lurker (Dec 31, 2015)

Jerome, I would characterize comments like those made by christopherholm and feck bashing. But like I said, who cares? Certainly not me. Certainly not anyone at EW.


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## Jerome Vonhogen (Dec 31, 2015)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Jerome, I would characterize comments like those made by christopherholm and feck bashing. But like I said, who cares? Certainly not me. Certainly not anyone at EW.


 

If you really don't care, then why do you keep posting about it? You could have used the opportunity and energy to try to figure out what was going on and post about that instead (like I did).

By the way, East West does care about what people write in this forum, that's exactly why they hired you. I care about it too, and you should care about it as well.

Sorry Jay, I've been around long enough to know that you always have to give room for disagreement and dissent. If you don't, you actually create hatred around you instead of constructive dialogue. This is not the same as being indifferent, though.

We should listen to the feedback of those CC-users who had a first look and took the time to test the new Solo Cello. They know their stuff and have valuable things to say.

If a company would stop listening to customer feedback, which by the way East West would never ever do (!), I could as well stop investing time and energy in beta testing. If you think that would help East West improve their products, then I really think you should reconsider.

- Jerome Vonhögen


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## Baron Greuner (Dec 31, 2015)

Rex282 said:


> It is on sale at Best Service for 50% off($130)when bundled.
> 
> http://www.bestservice.de/en/best_service.html



OK thanks. I just saw this. I would still wait now even though there is a bundled sale but thanks for the heads up.


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## EastWest Lurker (Dec 31, 2015)

I have no problem with respectful disagreement Jerome. I was only supporting
sekkosiki, who chastised bashing, with which I agree. But as I say, the difference is I no longer get upset about it, nor does EW. We have come to expect it.

And as an overarching principle, I am sorry but when in my view people cross a line, I reserve the right to say so.

When you extend an olive branch to those people and get smacked for your trouble enough times, as I have, you learn.


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## prodigalson (Dec 31, 2015)

Baron Greuner said:


> OK thanks. I just saw this. I would still wait now even though there is a bundled sale but thanks for the heads up.



Emotional Cello isn't actually included in the sale anyway so don't lose sleep over it


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## Hanu_H (Dec 31, 2015)

It is really difficult to understand Jay's role here as EW rep. If this is EW's idea of a customer service, they really have a lot to learn from devs like Virharmonic, etc. Always when someone has a problem with EW libraries, in comes Jay to argue with him and it always ends up with Jay saying that this customers opinion is not valid, because he hasn't done as much movies or albums as this guy who endorses this library and the problem never gots fixed. Scary thing is that I have lately got the vibe that this is actually the reason why Jay is hired in th first place. To change the focus out from the flaws of the products into a personal insults. That almost never fixes the problem and leaves the customer even more pissed. That's a really fast way to get many people bashing EW. I also wish this would stop, but it won't before EW takes the high road...

-Hannes


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## EastWest Lurker (Dec 31, 2015)

Not true. When someone points out a problem that a bunch of people are reporting or that I can reproduce, I don't argue, I report it and when I am given an answer I pass it on. A perfect example is the solo cello. You notice I have not criticized anyone for saying they thought that there are problems with the legatos or that they thought it did not sound good, did I ?

But if someone says something that I KNOW is incorrect because I KNOW it is system specific or usage in a way that was not intended, I am not going to pander to them. And if pandering is your idea of what customer service should be, (and yes, I know some here believe that companies should _pretend_ they believe that the customer is always right), well, sorry, that is not me.

And btw folks, when i made my announcement a couple of months ago that I was only going to engage on this forum on EW business and a lot of you, indeed all but a couple who responded, said it was a shame and asked me to reconsider, it is a small group of guys like this that are the reason I will not.


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## Gabby Rundell (Dec 31, 2015)

Sid Francis said:


> If this is what YOU did with the new cello...I ask myself: what did THIS player do, seemingly also "out of the box" ?




Thank u for this wOnderful sOng Sid Francis  exactly wHat i needed tO hear 

haPPy nEW yEAR everyOne !!!!!


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## rottoy (Dec 31, 2015)

Gabby Rundell said:


> Thank u for this wOnderful sOng Sid Francis  exactly wHat i needed tO hear
> 
> haPPy nEW yEAR everyOne !!!!!


What's with the odd capital letters?  Already hitting that champagne?


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## StatKsn (Jan 1, 2016)

I like Embertone's solo instruments. Very smooth legato/porta transitions across the board that can handle slow to very fast, great vibrato control with multiple options, consistently programmed and playable.

Adagio also includes a complete solo cello with two legatos and additional articulations, but it can be tricky to use depends on what you do as legato transitions are not adapting to sample-baked expressions (there is no legato volume knob so you have to cut notes).

The admin over the EW forum claims that those EW Solo Cello tests posted by users are sorta badly done and it is "just as good as the rest of the Hollywood series" but I am honestly doubtful - EW reps said exactly the same when they released HOW?

Users can't mess with the legato programming and those jumpy loudness gaps in Play. Anyway, those are tests and not demos for sure, but if this is indeed a fantastic VI, we should have seen plentiful of user mockups posted from the day one (see Metro-ark I, Albion or Bohemian Violin). I can just fiddle keys with Embertone and get a decent result.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jan 1, 2016)

StatKsn said:


> I
> Users can't mess with the legato programming and those jumpy loudness gaps in Play.



You can however adjust the volume of the legato samples relative to the sustain samples.


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## Jerome Vonhogen (Jan 1, 2016)

StatKsn said:


> The admin over the EW forum claims that those EW Solo Cello tests posted by users are sorta badly done and it is "just as good as the rest of the Hollywood series" but I am honestly doubtful - EW reps said exactly the same when they released HOW?



Well, the sound of EW Solo Cello is definitely as good as HS. However, the Solo Cello doesn't have the same approach as HS when it comes to vibrato depth and dynamics.

In HS it is possible to control vibrato and dynamics separately, while in Solo Cello they are connected in one single patch, controlled (simultaneously) by the mod-wheel.

I don't know why this choice has been made, but I guess it makes playing the cello out of the box a little more convenient. Personally, I prefer having separate layers and separate controls for vibrato and dynamics. Maybe such option could be added in a future update, if it's technically possible of course.

My only struggle at the moment is with the Legato Slur Sustain patch. For some reason, the Slur isn't always triggered when playing legato lines, so that should definitely be checked by the programmers.

To me, the slur is perhaps the most important note transition of any solo (strings) instrument. I can even do without legato, but I could never use a solo strings instrument without a reliable slur option.



EastWest Lurker said:


> You can however adjust the volume of the legato samples relative to the sustain samples.



Jay, I have no idea what you mean, and I have been working with the Solo Cello for a week now. Would you care to explain? What legato instruments are we talking about exactly?

- Jerome Vonhögen


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## Gabby Rundell (Jan 1, 2016)

rottoy said:


> What's with the odd capital letters?  Already hitting that champagne?



 oh nO i dOn't drink :( it haPPened that i lOst my eye due to a lOst nOTE while writing an epic battle sOng  XD anyway>  i'm dOing my hOmework Rottoy the new EW solo instruments bundle is gOing to cOst $699 for nOn clOud users >> i have a very sTRICT budget that i stick tO 

emOtional cello is very gOOd imo > also uvi ircam sOlo instruments are pretty awesOme [if u actually like fUN & odd atmOspheres] > imO <


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## EastWest Lurker (Jan 1, 2016)

Jerome Vonhogen said:


> Jay, I have no idea what you mean, and I have been working with the Solo Cello for a week now. Would you care to explain? What legato instruments are we talking about exactly?
> 
> - Jerome Vonhögen



Look at the pic, you can adjust the levels of the samples that contribute to the Legato Slur patch.


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## Jerome Vonhogen (Jan 1, 2016)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Look at the pic, you can adjust the levels of the samples that contribute to the Legato Slur patch


 

Duh! Thank you very much, Captain Obvious!

Oh look, there's a keyboard at the bottom of the Play interface. Did you see that? Have you seen this before? Those ignorant Composer Cloud users who have reported several issues with EW Solo Cello probably don't even know that you can actually change the notes by pressing one of those funny piano keys on the screen. Such dumbasses, right?

Seriously, literally everyone knows this, Jay. This is not helpful in any way, and it distracts from the main issue. Are you even listening? If you don't want to scrutinize this yourself, then for heaven's sake, let me do the talking in this thread.

As a beta tester, I have been studying this problem for days, and I'm convinced that something is wrong with the Legato Slur Sustain patch, at least on my computer system. There might be a similar problem with some of the other legato patches as well.

With Hollywood Strings, the Play engine performs much better than it does right now with some of the EW Solo Cello instruments. This could very well be a Windows related problem or some unknown peculiarity in the software caused by one of the Play updates, so it is important to keep our eyes open and look for a pattern or some other clue.

Please Jay, start focussing on the problem, and stop complaining about people you don't like. This is about East West customers who need to use the software to make some money to get a return on their investment. Your input in this thread so far has been counter-productive.

This Solo Cello has great potential and could be a wonderful addition to the Hollywood Orchestra series. Let's fix this thing!

- Jerome Vonhögen


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## EastWest Lurker (Jan 1, 2016)

Jerome, I don't need either your sarcasm or your advice about how to do my job, I have been at it for several years now.

I was told in emphatic terms that the released patches work the way the developers intend and I have no influence over them if i disagree with their choices. As a beta tester, your report to them means as much as mine. I find that tweaking that level helps the patch. If you don't, fine.


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## MarcelM (Jan 1, 2016)

it wouldnt hurt to take advice. nobody is perfect, but you folks at eastwest probably think you are.

doing a job for several years doesnt mean anything at all, and the reputation east west has isnt coming out of nowhere.

whatever, we all know "doug" doesnt care and same goes for you it seems.

if i would have known earlier what kind of company east west really is, i wouldnt have bought a single east west product. no matter how good some of them really are.

i hope more and more people will remember and sales maybe drop a bit in the future.


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## feck (Jan 1, 2016)

Aaaannnddd there's the typical EW response. It's not broken because they say so. Customers are either wrong or ignorant.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jan 1, 2016)

Heroix said:


> i
> 
> whatever, we all know "doug" doesnt care and same goes for you it seems.



I prove that I care virtually EVERY day of the year by helping people get the help they need. There are lot of talkers here. I prefer doing to talking.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jan 1, 2016)

feck said:


> Aaaannnddd there's the typical EW response. It's not broken because they say so. Customers are either wrong or ignorant.



Scott, please understand that I have no role in product development. Sometimes I will have my own complaints or opinions and while they are tolerated, generally I am reminded that they were doing this for 20 years before I entered the picture more successfully both financially and critically than practically anyone else and that they, not I, are the experts at this. 

And they are not wrong about that, I have _zero_ experience with developing sample libraries and as you all know, I believe that opinions that are based on little or no experience are not worth much, so I cannot very well turn around and argue that mine is worth much on sample library development. (As a user, I have opinions on all the libraries I use, EW and others, some of which people would agree with and some of which they would disagree with, so my opinion on a library as a user only has as much value as any given forum member assigns to it, and I am fine with that.)

So all I can do is make them aware of people's comments on the various forums, which believe me I do all the time, and then report any responses they give me back to the forums. If it is something that I personally agree with, I say so. If I do not or simply do not know, I don't put my stamp on it, I just report it.

Which is why my title is Online Coordinator and not Consigliere


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## Jerome Vonhogen (Jan 1, 2016)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Jerome, I don't need a lecture from you. I was told in emphatic terms that the released patches work the way the developers intend


 

And I am telling you it probably doesn't!

This is what I'm supposed to do as a tester, and this is what I have been doing since the release of EWQL Symphonic Choirs. I know when something isn't working the way it is intended, and I sometimes even know what exactly is causing the problems. What is the point of denying and ignoring valuable observations by testers and early adopters?

If you think my contribution isn't welcome anymore, then please just say so. I don't have to do this, you know, there are several developers outside the music industry and sampling industry who would love to work with me.

Since the topic of this thread has nothing to do with either you or me, I will no longer argue with you in this thread. I rather use the time and energy to look for an improvement of the product.

I won't stand in your way anymore in this thread, Jay. The thread is yours. Take good care of your customers.

If anyone needs me, just send me a PM and I'll try to get back to you asap.

- Jerome Vonhögen


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## EastWest Lurker (Jan 1, 2016)

Well as I said, Doug emphatically told me that the patches are as the developers intend so you can argue about it with him if you like.

I have no opinion nor any interest in forming an opinion on your value as a beta tester. That is not part of my job.


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## cyoder (Jan 1, 2016)

EastWest Lurker said:


> You can however adjust the volume of the legato samples relative to the sustain samples.





Jerome Vonhogen said:


> Jay, I have no idea what you mean, and I have been working with the Solo Cello for a week now. Would you care to explain? What legato instruments are we talking about exactly?





EastWest Lurker said:


> Look at the pic, you can adjust the levels of the samples that contribute to the Legato Slur patch.





Jerome Vonhogen said:


> Duh! Thank you very much, Captain Obvious!
> 
> Oh look, there's a keyboard at the bottom of the Play interface. Did you see that? Have you seen this before? Those ignorant Composer Cloud users who have reported several issues with EW Solo Cello probably don't even know that you can actually change the notes by pressing one of those funny piano keys on the screen. Such dumbasses, right?
> 
> Seriously, literally everyone knows this, Jay. This is not helpful in any way, and it distracts from the main issue. Are you even listening? If you don't want to scrutinize this yourself, then for heaven's sake, let me do the talking in this thread.


I would just like to point out how strange this interaction is.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jan 1, 2016)

Apparently Jerome disapproves of the way I am doing my job and he is entitled to state that. He is a beta tester and a member of this forum, not an EW employee and therefore doesn't have to answer to me.

But when I post a response state that "EW says" you can trust that it is coming from very high up at EW and is official.

Until or unless they change their minds, of course.


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## prodigalson (Jan 2, 2016)

Just to throw some lighter fluid on this fire, I have to say that as much as I have been annoyed by EW and their attitude in the past the only arrogance and self-righteousness I'm seeing here is coming from Jerome. 

You might disagree with the response regarding the cello from EW but Jay has stated several times that that is the official response of the company and he has no control over it. Attacking him quasi-personally because he's trying to do is job is just shooting the messenger and completely unhelpful.


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## lpuser (Jan 2, 2016)

prodigalson said:


> Attacking him quasi-personally because he's trying to do is job is just shooting the messenger and completely unhelpful.



Absolutely. I appreciate Jay´s help and support a lot - and I also like EW products, however sometimes I wished that they - as a company - would care more.

Errors can and do happen to everyone, so that´s nothing we need to talk about. But error handling is not the strong side of EW, unfortunately. I just came across this because I wanted to rework some songs which I have recorded 2 years ago with EW HW Silver products. Having upgraded to Gold in the meantime and kept everything up-to-date, I wasn't expecting any issues. But ... on the contrary, a few patches simply don't load anymore.

After having tried for weeks (and blamed myself in the first place), I took a shot and asked EW. Yep, they knew the problem and what it causes, but have not yet released a fix. They advised me to replace the respective instruments, however finding "that" instrument in 10+ songs with approx. 100 tracks each is not an easy task. And still bears the question with what it should be replaced? Instead I am still hoping and waiting


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## Jerome Vonhogen (Jan 2, 2016)

prodigalson said:


> Just to throw some lighter fluid on this fire, I have to say that as much as I have been annoyed by EW and their attitude in the past the only arrogance and self-righteousness I'm seeing here is coming from Jerome.


 

Boy, that really hurts. 

I'm very sorry that you feel this way. I thought I was helping those who struggle with the new EW library, but clearly not everyone agrees.

You must know that I already regret posting in this thread. The last thing I want, is to make people feel I'm attacking them. I apologize to everyone who feels that way.

Much of what I have posted in this thread is a result of sheer frustration. I received the final instrument update on the 25th of December early in the morning, and I was told (officially) that the product wouldn't be released until after Christmas. Since there was very little time left for beta testing, I cancelled my visit to my family and spent Christmas Day behind my computer testing EW Solo Cello. Then I discovered this thread and found out that the product had already been released! Imagine how I felt when I had to explain this to my wife, my kids, and my family. My kids will now probably hate the cello for the rest of their lives. Thanks a lot, Santa!

I was able to reproduce a lot of the issues with the Solo Cello that have been reported in this thread, and I thought that those who posted them were fair and honest in their comments. I thought it would be wise to listen to their concerns and complaints. I felt that the posts by Jay were counter-productive, and that the 'early adopters' in this forum who got the cello via their Composer Cloud subscription deserved better.

In the past decade, I have helped East West improve their products with beta testing and I have helped them sell their products as well, by making a couple of demo's in return for temporary Not For Resale licenses, which means that I can't use any of the samples commercially, except for beta testing and the production of product demo's.

Last time I made a demo for East West was three years ago, when I made a QL Solo Violin demo which I thought was pretty good. Sadly, it was never uploaded to the product page of the Sounds-Online website, and I now fear that the same will happen when I send them my EW Cello Solo demo's.

I have always supported East West (even in their darkest times), and I'm willing to continue to do so as long as they need me. However, after posting in this thread, it feels like I am being dragged into a huge pile of negative emotions that eventually will hurt me more than East West.

I have come to the conclusion that for me it's probably best not to interfere anymore with Jay's handling of the situation, since he knows what he is doing and has a different strategy for solving problems than I have. Since he is an East West employee and I am not, I will of course accept and respect this. After all, this is not about me, this is about the music, the composers, and their instruments.

The Solo Cello sounds really great, but there may be a couple of issues with some of the patches. I'm confident though, that these issues are fixable, since they're probably just startup-artifacts, like teething problems .... right, Jay? 

Once these issues have been solved, this will be an excellent virtual cello, both as a perfect complement to the Hollywood Orchestra library, and as a standalone solo instrument.

If it would be helpful to anyone, I could post a couple of quick demo's in this thread. I won't discuss the product anymore, though. I hope you will understand.

Thanks for reading!

- Jerome Vonhögen


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## Baron Greuner (Jan 2, 2016)

Jerome your English is absolutely perfect!


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## HardyP (Jan 2, 2016)

Jerome, to be honest, I was really thinking about writing a mail to Doug, suggesting to hire you for ew support -
because you did exactly the things we customers expect: taking care of the concerns, be honest, *and* being passionate for the company/product.

All the best -
Hartmut


PS: as a personal general side note- setting family to lower priority never pays off in the long-term...


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## EastWest Lurker (Jan 2, 2016)

Fine, Jerome, no problem. But I don't have "a strategy for solving problems."

I report issues when I think I have discovered them, either by myself or hearing it from others, and then what does or does not result from that does or does not result from that.


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## StatKsn (Jan 3, 2016)

Based on what Jay and Jerome have described in this thread, one "hack" comes to mind is to load two legato patches, one with "leg slur" layer only with longer attack time and one with the rest but no leg slur. It might help with those strange legato attacks I hear in user tests (in Kontakt libraries there is a technique to cut a few ms of sample start, so that the legato layer will be triggered with softer tone). But my impression from those demos was that it seems like this library is either unfinished or unpolished.


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## Jerome Vonhogen (Jan 3, 2016)

StatKsn said:


> Based on what Jay and Jerome have described in this thread, one "hack" comes to mind is to load two legato patches, one with "leg slur" layer only with longer attack time and one with the rest but no leg slur. It might help with those strange legato attacks I hear in user tests (in Kontakt libraries there is a technique to cut a few ms of sample start, so that the legato layer will be triggered with softer tone). But my impression from those demos was that it seems like this library is either unfinished or unpolished.




I will start my own East West Solo Cello thread later today, so Jay's view on the matter and my ideas won't collide anymore. Until then, I will try to prevent speculation, regarding the legato slur transitions in EW Solo Cello, from turning into misunderstanding.

The loud attacks heard in the examples of the legato slur patches posted in this thread cannot be caused by the transition samples themselves. In both Legato Slur patches, the first disconnected note of a legato transition is always a separate sustain sample. The legato transition that follows when both notes are played connected (or when they overlap in a sequencer and are played back) is a natural, recorded transition.

When the note is sustained, the second sample is either crossfaded by the Play engine with another sustained note on a separate layer (Leg Slur instrument/patch), or is looped on the same layer (Leg Sus Slur instrument/patch) which sounds much better, if you ask me.

I don't quite understand the choice by the producers to include the Leg Slur patch in the library, because it could easily lead to unintended jumps in the dynamics within a legato phrase, and it's confusing for the user.

My tip would be to use the Leg Sus Slur patch instead of the Leg Sus patch, and to connect the notes as much as possible (even between two separate phrases in your composition) to prevent the first note of a transition from sounding too loud.

If this is not what you want, because you want a distinct gap between individual phrases, you could try an old trick that I used years ago in this kind of situations, just as a workaround:

Insert a muted note (within the range of an octave but as close to the actual note as the harmonies of your music allow), and place it right before the first note of your next legato transition. Then, treat them as a separate legato transition, and the attack of your note won't pop out anymore in terms of dynamics (or at least perceived dynamics).

I used this trick a lot with Kontakt and Nuendo when EWQLSO was still running with Native Instruments' sampler. I don't know if it works with Play and your DAW, but it might be worth a try.

Alternatively, you could mute the Sustain sample inside the Player and then add and crossfade a different sample from a different patch as the first note of your legato transition. You might need to add an extra MIDI track to your sequencer project to do this, and maybe you will have to mixdown first before you can crossfade the samples yourself. I don't know all the sequencers that are supposed to work with Play, so I can't tell you if this would be an effective alternative for everyone.

I hate to say this, but it's in the interest of the user: whatever you do, don't mess with the volume of the legato transition samples like Jay suggested earlier. I'm not criticizing his proposed solution again for my own sake or out of arrogance or something sinister or selfish, I only want to warn people that following his advice will only make things worse, since it's the sustain sample layer that's causing the dynamic inconsistencies, not the legato transitions themselves. Sorry Jay, I just had to tell them.

Don't forget to check the 'Other'-script button in the Player, otherwise you won't have monophonic legato transitions. If your sequencer for some reason doesn't force the VST to playback monophonic legato, then you might have to add a MIDI CC 22 message to your Cello track(s) with a value of at least 64, if I remember correctly. (Just to make sure you don't send 22 Happy Newyear wishcards out to your "Composer Cloud" friends and colleagues as a result of my advice, note that in this context "CC" of course means "Continuous Controller"!  )

- Jerome Vonhögen


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## MarcelM (Jan 3, 2016)

when i read about all those problems my tip would be to use a different library which is more playable and sounds better.


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## Baron Greuner (Jan 3, 2016)

^^^^

I think Jerome is a very intelligent chap obviously and knows what he's talking about, but he's not the Messiah and at times can be a very naughty boy. 

But unless you want a ton of solo cellos on your hard drive then I would give it a about a month or so and see what comes around the corner.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jan 3, 2016)

Jerome has spent a _lot_ more time with HSC than I have at this point, which has been minimal as I was working on a reggae-ish project that did not make use of orchestral instruments, had a tooth pulled, doing EW chores, family stuff, etc. so his advice will be far superior to mine.


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## AllanH (Jan 3, 2016)

EastWest Lurker said:


> Well as I said, Doug emphatically told me that the patches are as the developers intend so you can argue about it with him if you like.



I think that's the key: if it works "as intended" then that's how it's supposed to be. Having run R&D groups for years, one of the largest problems is when expectations do not match the functionality as delivered ("intended"). At this point, there is likely very little the programmers can do, short of a re-implementation. Maybe getting someone like Jerome involved earlier would be a good idea.

HO Strings is just fantastic, so EW clearly have experience in the area.


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## StatKsn (Jan 4, 2016)

Hi Jerome, I thought I was casually suggesting potential workaround I sometimes use, but it was not my intention that speculate on what is "wrong" about the leg slur patch. Thanks for your reply and your point is well taken - I'm sorry if my post sounded that way.


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## Parsifal666 (Jan 5, 2016)

I'm a nobody, but I like EW solo cello enough to use on my next album. I actually own Embertone and never really liked the sound (I know, weird). All this time I just used my GPO Solo Cello 3, but the EW definitely k.o.s that. So, I sure am glad I didn't heed some of the comments here. No disrespect to anyone here, and to be honest I've gotten way more good reccomendations than bad here overall. In terms of the Albion line, this forum was my go to for advice and I found tons of it, mostly extremely useful.



AllanH said:


> HO Strings is just fantastic, so EW clearly have experience in the area.



EW Hollywood _everything_ is my go to, but when matched with Albion the quality skyrockets. Those two go together like red wine and gourmet Italian food imo.


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## EastWest Lurker (Jan 5, 2016)

Parsifal666 said:


> I'm a nobody, but I like EW solo cello enough to use on my next album. I actually own Embertone and never really liked the sound (I know, weird). All this time I just used my GPO Solo Cello 3, but the EW definitely k.o.s that. So, I sure am glad I didn't heed some of the comments here. No disrespect to anyone here, and to be honest I've gotten way more good reccomendations than bad here overall. In terms of the Albion line, this forum was my go to for advice and I found tons of it, mostly extremely useful.
> 
> 
> 
> EW Hollywood _everything_ is my go to, but when matched with Albion the quality skyrockets. Those two go together like red wine and gourmet Italian food imo.



My advice? NEVER, EVER let people on a forum undermining your liking what you like and not liking what you do not. This is not High School and it doesn't matter what "the popular kids" think.


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## Parsifal666 (Jan 5, 2016)

If it works it works. If you can express what you want to express with an instrument, then brand doesn't matter. However, for me East West is a great brand, it consistently delivers for my music. The Play engine is far from perfect (I sometimes wonder if it's even Kontakt level, really, the hanging notes syndrome almost never happens for me in Kontakt), but the sounds are at times sensationally done, to the point where I'm profoundly inspired. Many of the best aspects of the EW libraries come right out of the box with minimal tweaking.

I do augment my EW libraries with Albion, but that's a recent development. I could have more than lived with EW for my orchestral mockups indefinitely. Yeah, I'm a fanboy, take Gypsy violin or the Stormdrums out for a ride and tell me you're not impressed...without being immaturely cantankerous.

Sometimes I get the feeling that EW is to some people like the old, unbeatable standard that everyone pits the underdog against, just to be "different".

No offense or disrespect meant to anyone. That's just how I feel.


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## markleake (Jan 6, 2016)

I'm curious if there are some more examples out yet to listen to. I haven't really seen much in terms of demos written by regular users, and would like to hear some. I know some people have said they are not fans, but I want to stay out of that argument. I just would like to listen to some good examples, now that people have had a chance to play and get to know the instrument.

Thanks.


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## Jerome Vonhogen (Jan 6, 2016)

markleake said:


> I'm curious if there are some more examples out yet to listen to. I haven't really seen much in terms of demos written by regular users, and would like to hear some. (...) I just would like to listen to some good examples, now that people have had a chance to play and get to know the instrument.


 

Although I'm not a 'regular' user, I have recorded a couple of Bach solo demo's in real-time with as little reverb as possible, and without any editing and post-processing (I only muted the keyswitch notes and added some CC 22 script button automation).

I would have already uploaded them to Soundcloud, but since I have never used my Soundcloud account before, it seems to have expired due to inactivity (as an uploader, not as a composer!  ). I'm looking for a quick fix, so I can post the demo's later today.

The EW Solo Cello examples I chose, by the way, are from Bach's 3rd Cello Suite, which is one of my favorite baroque cello pieces.

- Jerome Vonhögen

PS Does anyone know if there is any bootleg or private recording with Jacqueline du Pré playing the 3rd Bach Suite? Her recs of the first two are quite famous, but she must have played the 3rd one as well, right?


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## noises on (Mar 18, 2016)

Parsifal666 said:


> I'm a nobody, but I like EW solo cello enough to use on my next album. I actually own Embertone and never really liked the sound (I know, weird). All this time I just used my GPO Solo Cello 3, but the EW definitely k.o.s that. So, I sure am glad I didn't heed some of the comments here. No disrespect to anyone here, and to be honest I've gotten way more good reccomendations than bad here overall. In terms of the Albion line, this forum was my go to for advice and I found tons of it, mostly extremely useful.
> 
> 
> 
> EW Hollywood _everything_ is my go to, but when matched with Albion the quality skyrockets. Those two go together like red wine and gourmet Italian food imo.


When East West's tone and Embertones scripting merge, we will all be happy. Emotional Cello already embodies this notion. Sadly at the moment they only have this one product.


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## Fleer (Apr 15, 2016)

East West Hollywood Solo Cello and Violin are wonderfully sounding instruments. I would like to congratulate Doug Rogers and his team on achieving such quality. Also, kudos to their support team, Joey Medina in particular.


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## trumpoz (Apr 16, 2016)

I think the tone of both solo libraries is lovely. There seems to be some weirdness with legatos. It may jusy be that they need extra massaging.


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## Ashermusic (Apr 16, 2016)

trumpoz said:


> I think the tone of both solo libraries is lovely. There seems to be some weirdness with legatos. It may jusy be that they need extra massaging.



There WAS some weirdness with the cello legatos. New patches fixed it IMHO. Now the same thing is happening with the violin and greatly improved new patches are coming.


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## Vlzmusic (Apr 17, 2016)

I am uneasy criticizing EW stuff, being fan for many years now, specially when Nick Phoenix is involved, but this particular thing seems misjudged to me.

The older Solo Violin by Phoenix had full length samples for all the intervals (a la VSL style) and despite some playing style imperfections, sound etc. it did have that articulate edge. Now, with the Hollywood series, its back to sustain/crossfade/sustain philosophy, which in my view, simply doesn`t cut for such intimate solo instruments.


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## Erick - BVA (Dec 23, 2017)

EastWest Lurker said:


> My advice? NEVER, EVER let people on a forum undermining your liking what you like and not liking what you do not. This is not High School and it doesn't matter what "the popular kids" think.



I don't particularly like the way either Cello sounds (EW Cello or Embertone's), but I think it's difficult to program solo string sounds in particular in a virtual format and achieve a convincing result. It seems that Virharmonic and a few other companies are on to something. It's less about how the raw samples sound, and more about how it performs, which incidentally translates into how it sounds. All of the little variables add up to a convincing, realistic experience. I'm currently testing out the Hollywood Solo Cello, and am honestly unimpressed. That's not a dis on East West as a whole. Just my opinion, and it has not been influenced by anyone else but my own ears. That won't stop me from using the other great East West products.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 23, 2017)

Sibelius19 said:


> I don't particularly like the way either Cello sounds (EW Cello or Embertone's), but I think it's difficult to program solo string sounds in particular in a virtual format and achieve a convincing result. It seems that Virharmonic and a few other companies are on to something. It's less about how the raw samples sound, and more about how it performs, which incidentally translates into how it sounds. All of the little variables add up to a convincing, realistic experience. I'm currently testing out the Hollywood Solo Cello, and am honestly unimpressed. That's not a dis on East West as a whole. Just my opinion, and it has not been influenced by anyone else but my own ears. That won't stop me from using the other great East West products.




Which is fine. I never, ever have a problem with people liking what they do, not liking what they don't. What I have a problem with is groupthink and fanboyism and its opposite. Which IMHO, goes on way too much here.


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## JPQ (Dec 24, 2017)

No i wait in CC Cello upgrade.


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## zeng (Dec 24, 2017)

With new EW solo instrumentes; When I play a second legato note, previous note's sound exceeds onto the second new sound. So it does not sound like a legato!


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## Casiquire (Dec 25, 2017)

zeng said:


> With new EW solo instrumentes; When I play a second legato note, previous note's sound exceeds onto the second new sound. So it does not sound like a legato!



Yeah I've heard this in many of their products for a while now. It even happens with the super well-loved Gypsy violin sometimes.


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## zeng (Dec 25, 2017)

Casiquire said:


> Yeah I've heard this in many of their products for a while now. It even happens with the super well-loved Gypsy violin sometimes.


Only HW Strings and Brass legatos work flawless, but Woodwinds and Solo instruments have this problem.


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