# Rhea Hosanny Legato Viola from Simple Samples Audio's Artist Series



## wahey73 (Aug 28, 2021)

If you are looking for a wonderful, outstanding Solo Legato Viola then just check out this review presenting the Rhea Hosanny Legato Viola . Enjoy


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## AceAudioHQ (Aug 28, 2021)

I also like it, it has a special tone compared to the rest. The only thing I don't like is that it's a bit slow to stop, the release samples are pretty long. But I paid $26 for it on Audio Plugin Deals last Black Friday so I shouldn't complain!


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## wahey73 (Aug 29, 2021)

AceAudioHQ said:


> I also like it, it has a special tone compared to the rest. The only thing I don't like is that it's a bit slow to stop, the release samples are pretty long. But I paid $26 for it on Audio Plugin Deals last Black Friday so I shouldn't complain!


26$ for this is a steal! Lucky you 😊


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## Iondot (Apr 13, 2022)

I wanted to respond to the review at the top with a review of my own as the heavy processing on the instrument made it difficult to hear some of the serious issues with this product.

Others have written about the fact that many of the notes are out of tune, or dip out of tune. Occasionally this can be charming, but sometimes it is unusable. A bigger issue is that the legato transitions between notes range from quirky to just plain wrong. I emailed customer service with specific examples where the legato literally transitions to the wrong note, asking if this would be patched, and have not received a response. I have, however, received *many* unsolicited automated messages from him despite opting out. This is called spam and it is a deceptive practice to send them when a customer has explicitly unchecked the necessary boxes. I'm not a fan.

To be clear, the issue with the legato transitions is *not* solved by adjusting the Legato Speed knob, as Simple Samples has responded on their review page. Some of these transitions are just misaligned or wrong, and some are quite jarring — especially when there is no actual "round-robin."

The claim on Simple Samples site that there are "Deep-sampled round-robin recordings of every note transition on the instrument" is either false or incorrect. There are *no* round-robin for the note transitions. Each and and every note has its own transition, but there is only one. The term "round-robin" refers to different recorded samples played for the same note or transition. I hope this is a misunderstanding, but with the extremely aggressive use of spam, and the lack of an actual response has left me with concerns that it is part of a pattern of behavior. 

Finally, it's worth noting that this isn't a particularly well recorded sample library, especially in the upper register. The tone becomes quite harsh and unpleasant. Viola's, however, appear to be extremely difficult to record and I knew this before making my purchase. 

At the list price of $129 this is an extremely poor value. Even at the discount price I paid ($34) I still feel like I am stuck with a broken library and no recourse to address it beyond this review. I will be avoiding Simple Sample Audio in future.


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## poly6 (Apr 13, 2022)

Or for free:






Imperfect Viola – pianobook







www.pianobook.co.uk





I'm no expert on violas or stringed instruments in general, and there's no range of articulations or large number of samples but for what it is, it sounds pretty good.


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## wahey73 (Apr 13, 2022)

Iondot said:


> as the heavy processing on the instrument made it difficult to hear some of the serious issues with this product.
> 
> I hope this is a misunderstanding, but with the extremely aggressive use of spam, and the lack of an actual response has left me with concerns that it is part of a pattern of behavior.
> 
> At the list price of $129 this is an extremely poor value.


Sorry to hear about your problems with Simple Samples Audio. Steven is a nice guy but maybe simply too busy, even for me it wasn't always easy to comunicate with him or to follow his chaotic mindset. He even took down Simples Samples Audio for a while, looks like it is back online again.

You are right about the heavy processing, but only in the first half of the demo song. In the video from 6:54 on you only hear the Viola, no external effects. And from 7:57 on I just noodle around with it demonstrating the vibrato and some trills and stuff like that. Didn't have notes drip out of tune, maybe I was just lucky.

Agree about the price, i do mention that in the video when I compare it to the Total Performance Solo Violin (even in this case with some live demonstration) from Spitfire Audio.

And even the RAM it uses is a little high compared to other solo instruments.


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## Ciochi (Apr 14, 2022)

Iondot said:


> I wanted to respond to the review at the top with a review of my own as the heavy processing on the instrument made it difficult to hear some of the serious issues with this product.
> 
> Others have written about the fact that many of the notes are out of tune, or dip out of tune. Occasionally this can be charming, but sometimes it is unusable. A bigger issue is that the legato transitions between notes range from quirky to just plain wrong. I emailed customer service with specific examples where the legato literally transitions to the wrong note, asking if this would be patched, and have not received a response. I have, however, received *many* unsolicited automated messages from him despite opting out. This is called spam and it is a deceptive practice to send them when a customer has explicitly unchecked the necessary boxes. I'm not a fan.
> 
> ...


I don't own the library, I just listened to some demos and It was evident that It was out of tune.


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## Iondot (Apr 14, 2022)

wahey73 said:


> Sorry to hear about your problems with Simple Samples Audio. Steven is a nice guy but maybe simply too busy, even for me it wasn't always easy to comunicate with him or to follow his chaotic mindset. He even took down Simples Samples Audio for a while, looks like it is back online again.
> 
> You are right about the heavy processing, but only in the first half of the demo song. In the video from 6:54 on you only hear the Viola, no external effects. And from 7:57 on I just noodle around with it demonstrating the vibrato and some trills and stuff like that. Didn't have notes drip out of tune, maybe I was just lucky.
> 
> ...


Thanks for responding. There is less processing from 6:54, but I'm still hearing some reverb that I don't get with the same settings. Either way, my comment wasn't meant to be a critique of your very generous video, only to explain that I didn't really hear the issues before having the product in hand.

I think the out-of-tune aspect can be heard in your video, thought there are worse examples — and it's extremely inconsistent. The same is true for the legato transitions. The are wildly inconsistent. Occasionally a transition will be slurred, or have some other distinct characteristic but other than memorizing the random moments these things happen, you can't know which is where. If it were truly random, I might prefer it.

For $35, I'd say it's a quirky and charming instrument, but some of it is just broken.

The worst example I’ve encountered so far Is from B4 to D#4 in the “Extended" playing position. The note slides up to C5 before going down to D#4. It’s really problematic. I'm attaching an example that plays those two notes, first in _1st Position-Full_ (sounds normal), then _Extended-Full_ (touches an errant C5), then _Extended-Progressive_ (Never reaches D#4!), then _1st Position-Progressive (Sounds clean.)_

View attachment Hosanny Viola B4 to D#4.mp3


The legato speed control will speed up or slow down these issues, but not eliminate them. This probably shouldn't have slipped past whatever Q/A process was employed. This product has been out for a couple years and hasn't been patched and, I suspect, won't be patched. If this was a struggling company, maybe I'd understand, but the site makes it clear via endless pop-ups that Steven is selling plenty of copies. (Niko T. in Kangasniemi, Finland, Carl C. in Clarksburg, United States, kawasaki S. in Fukuoka, Japan and more, all bought this product _today_!) 

Either those pop-ups are fake, which is fraudulent, or he wants to simple make his money and be done with his customers. Whether Steven is "nice" or not doesn't really enter into it, but nice people don't spam.

This is sloppy and I think it comes from the somewhat brute force method of hand-programming every, single legato transition. It's impressive, but deeply inefficient. 

For comparison I'm also attaching the same four combinations of position and vibrato from D#4 to A#3.
View attachment Hosanny Viola D#4 to A#3.mp3


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## Iondot (Apr 15, 2022)

As an update, Steven has now reached out to me via my review, and ha let me know that he did not receive any of my e-mails. I'm not sure why this would be, but I'm going to assume some kind of glitch was responsible both for this and the unsolicited messages. I've linked him here and one of us will update if there are further developments.


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## wahey73 (Apr 21, 2022)

Iondot said:


> I've linked him here and one of us will update if there are further developments.


Let's see if there will be any update. Thanks for sharing


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## Iondot (Apr 21, 2022)

wahey73 said:


> Let's see if there will be any update. Thanks for sharing


I heard from him earlier in the week.

He said, "I will consider patching this down the line (not something I can tackle right this moment)."

That's all I have to report. I'll leave folks to draw their own conclusions and make their own decisions.


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## Yogevs (Dec 5, 2022)

Just remembered this and came back to check on what's going on.

Seems like Simple Samples Audio is not available again (get 403 error when trying to access the website). From following Steven's YT channel seems like it's dead for now (as he hasn't mentioned anything about it for a while).

I these kind of cases what happens to people who bought the library and want to redownload? Are they unable to do so now?
Just to make it clear - I haven't bought it but just wondering.


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## Iondot (Dec 6, 2022)

Yogevs said:


> Just remembered this and came back to check on what's going on.
> 
> Seems like Simple Samples Audio is not available again (get 403 error when trying to access the website). From following Steven's YT channel seems like it's dead for now (as he hasn't mentioned anything about it for a while).
> 
> ...


First, the site is up and running, so you may have just hit it during maintenance. Second, the store is flagged by my browser which could mean it is hacked, or could mean the security certificate has lapsed. Either way, entering financial information would be ill-advised at this time. But your question brings up an issue you should be aware of for _any_ digital product. Redownloads are a courtesy and not a guarantee. Be sure to have them backed up well. 

A bigger issue is that most digital products use DRM systems that can become unsupported if any company in the DRM chain tanks, which can cause the products you've paid for to become useless. So, for example, if you have a Spitfire Audio library that is unlocked via Native Access, if either Spitfire or Native Access go under, you may never be able to re-authorize your libraries on a new computer.

As for this specific product, I do own it. While I wasn't counting on the ability to redownload, I am disappointed that it was given no support from day one. Fortunately it wasn't expensive and, I'll be honest, has ended up more usable than I expected. (Though I still have to literally avoid specific note transitions which is a bananas way to compose music.) That said, from the above somewhat shady practice of faking sales notifications to make the products look more successful to the current lack of security, there are a lot of red flags and I personally would not feel comfortable making purchases or even visiting the site at this point.


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## Yogevs (Dec 6, 2022)

Iondot said:


> First, the site is up and running, so you may have just hit it during maintenance. Second, the store is flagged by my browser which could mean it is hacked, or could mean the security certificate has lapsed. Either way, entering financial information would be ill-advised at this time. But your question brings up an issue you should be aware of for _any_ digital product. Redownloads are a courtesy and not a guarantee. Be sure to have them backed up well.
> 
> A bigger issue is that most digital products use DRM systems that can become unsupported if any company in the DRM chain tanks, which can cause the products you've paid for to become useless. So, for example, if you have a Spitfire Audio library that is unlocked via Native Access, if either Spitfire or Native Access go under, you may never be able to re-authorize your libraries on a new computer.
> 
> As for this specific product, I do own it. While I wasn't counting on the ability to redownload, I am disappointed that it was given no support from day one. Fortunately it wasn't expensive and, I'll be honest, has ended up more usable than I expected. (Though I still have to literally avoid specific note transitions which is a bananas way to compose music.) That said, from the above somewhat shady practice of faking sales notifications to make the products look more successful to the current lack of security, there are a lot of red flags and I personally would not feel comfortable making purchases or even visiting the site at this point.


Site still doesn't work for me


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## Iondot (Dec 6, 2022)

Yogevs said:


> Site still doesn't work for me


Based on your image, the site isn't down, but the requested page doesn't exist. Very little practical difference between the two, though, because no one can access products or support. (Not that there was ever any support on offer.) I just wouldn't get a 404 error because I won't click through to the page because the site itself is suspect. 

Everthing discussed here suggests a very poorly run business, if that business even exists.


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