# Vsl new vi's!



## Craig Sharmat (Nov 26, 2005)

Well VSL has announced their new VI's

I did a demo for them but was really quite unaware of their marketing plans. Talk about taking care of your customers.

"Registered users of our original Symphonic Edition and Horizon Series sample libraries will be granted extensive discounts to unlock the Extended Library of the Vienna Instrument. The price of a Collection?s Extended Library depends on how many single instruments a user is unlocking and how many of our sample libraries he or she has registered. For example, a user of the Horizon Series Solo Strings will be able to purchase the complete 38 GB of the Vienna Instrument Solo Strings Extended Library for a handling fee of only EUR30/$35!"


The VI works great! I did a jazz demo with the solo violin to see if it could really do all it says on one track and it can.

http://scoredog.tv/Ain%27t%20She%20Cute.mp3

All sounds VSL, except real guitar (me) and Trilogy bass

Having some experience now with the VI I can answer some questions. Others like the prices etc can be seen on their web site.

I am updating this. I was also apparantly confused with the pricing. There are discussions going on on the VSL forum which can help clarify.


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## Christian Marcussen (Nov 26, 2005)

Does it rock?

I cant wait... can you talk about any extended articulations?


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 26, 2005)

I believe I can, but i only know about the solo vn.

My demo could not have been pulled off without the extended stuff, which is massive, aggressive (lots of real aggressive stuff) tasto's etc.

What we really have here is playable Virtual instruments and sections.

If this much detail is put into the remaining instruments , and it's VSL, why wouldn't that be the case, then the extenions will be huge.

Also this solo Vn appears to be thicker than the original, though I know it has to be using the original stuff too.


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## Christian Marcussen (Nov 26, 2005)

Speaking of prices... the VIP prices seem a little less generous than I orginally thought. But maybe I dont quite understand it...

But it seems everyone has to pay the entire price, regardless of what they own. And THEN the upgrade to th extended stuff is semi cheap... correct?


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## Frederick Russ (Nov 26, 2005)

Cool demo Meister Craig. 

Their discount calculator is currently offline - I wonder if somebody with VSL 1st Edition could get discounts (since they discontinued it - I paid $3100 for it 2 years ago.)


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## Christian Marcussen (Nov 26, 2005)

Well if I understand correctly non of us will get any discounts going from Pro Ed to Cube?


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## Ed (Nov 26, 2005)

Wow VSl VIs!

They should make a solo winds library :( All they'd have to do is repackage it


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## ComposerDude (Nov 26, 2005)

Craig, you never cease to amaze with the breadth of styles - very nice demo.

-Peter


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 26, 2005)

Christian Marcussen said:


> Speaking of prices... the VIP prices seem a little less generous than I orginally thought. But maybe I dont quite understand it...
> 
> But it seems everyone has to pay the entire price, regardless of what they own. And THEN the upgrade to th extended stuff is semi cheap... correct?



I do not think this is correct. If you own the pro edition they practically give you the new VI for free. just a handling and material charge.


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## Christian Marcussen (Nov 26, 2005)

ok... time will tell. Thats not how I read their material. I SO hope your right. To me it sounds like the only special price you get is when you upgrade from the standard cube to the extended. But getting the cube and VI in the first place will cost several thousands regardless of what you own.

And nice demo as always


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## Evan Gamble (Nov 26, 2005)

WHOA so I can get vsl woodwinds to accompany VIpro for only $600?! But why two of each? Would you need both woodwinds 1 and 2?


superb demo btw craig!


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 26, 2005)

Christian, i may be wrong, but i don't think so...you as a VSL owner just hit the jackpot with what you already invested.

Evan woodwinds one is your basic woodwinds

solo 
flute
bassoon
french oboe
clarinet

also sections of three of each though oboe section is probably the other oboe. In a section though that is fine

Woodwinds 2 will have instruments like contrabassoon,bass clarinet, English Horn.....etc

Oh thanks guys on the props for the demo


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## Ed (Nov 26, 2005)

Craig does Woodwinds 1 contain the performance stuff??


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 26, 2005)

yes


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## Ed (Nov 26, 2005)

Craig Sharmat said:


> yes



Cool! The old way of having the performance stuff seperate was so dumb.

Wow, I just watched the videos. Amazing! The Ram management looks very handy... but what if you want to change something but youve already used up all the rest of the RAM? Does it just crash?


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## Simon Ravn (Nov 26, 2005)

Looks very cool indeed. Might be worth getting some woodwinds and maybe some strings like that!


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## Lpp (Nov 26, 2005)

The content of WWII compared to WWI was not so hard to guess, as they have the content of WWI on their site.

But what the... is the difference between Strings I and II ? Contraviolins, Bass Viola and English Cello :twisted: ?


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## Rob Elliott (Nov 26, 2005)

This certainly has possibilities, but it is too bad we can't control that 'nervous' vibrato (it goes from a no vibrato patch to one that is quite fast). I have the solo violin library and avoid it at all costs. Not sure we will ever be able to control such an important 'performance element' such as vibrato with a 'sample based library (it is recorded into the patch).

To my ears sound like the guy they used recording the s. vln library was working on his 5th cup of coffee.  

Having said that, with the extensions and the new interface using VSL will undoubtedly be faster.

Craig - have you had a chance to listen to the new Orch Strings II patches. Anything groundbreaking in there? Or is it just more of the same and a faster interface. This would probably make me upgrade from my PE and horizons titles - but I was so hoping for something less harsh more sweeping epic sound to the new string library (ala what they accomplished with Epic Horns.)


Rob


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 26, 2005)

Just checked out the Speed Control video. Whoa... :shock: :shock: :shock: 

I better start saving up!


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 26, 2005)

LPP .... u my not have noticed but you have a real small...well never mind.

Rob, i have heard none of the orchestral strings, but the solo violin is in another league compared with before. There are patches with differing amounts of vibrato. Still i cannot decide for you if you will be happy with that.


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## Rob Elliott (Nov 26, 2005)

Craig Sharmat said:


> LPP .... u my not have noticed but you have a real small...well never mind.
> 
> Rob, i have heard none of the orchestral strings, but the solo violin is in another league compared with before. There are patches with differing amounts of vibrato. Still i cannot decide for you if you will be happy with that.



Thanks Craig for the quick reply. Upgrading seems to be a no brainer - with all the adds. If you have a lot of VSL titles currently the apparent upgrade pricing is lower than I anticipated - which is always nice. I was just hoping for a 'knock it out of the park' SOUND for the strings - solo and section.

Maybe it was just your very excellent guitar playing on the same track, but the violin just lack that same 'life' to it (evolving vibrato, etc.) No doubt though doing what you did on one track would have been 8 tracks before.

Rob


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## Elfen (Nov 26, 2005)

The new VI has great new features, can't wait to see how the market will react to it. We will sure see some great improvements in the sampling world, tx to VSL. Hope that other developers's jump in the bandwagon quick!


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## Waywyn (Nov 26, 2005)

hey there,

first of all, great demo craig. as i mentioned in another thread, i went to the presentation day here in munich and herb tucmandl was personally introducing the lib, so it was really exciting to see him play and introduce all that new technique. as you can see not all the stuff is finished so far but the solo violin which i heard today was really really nice ...

i think vsl approached a new milestone in terms of sampling-technique and when MIR is released i guess that will be a big jump ahead in sampling-age 

the cooles thing about all that new vsti is that you can create your own presets and control everything with every controller you want.

you could set up performance legato and then fade it into tremolo. the most thing i like today that they recorded "harsh" samples. this is by far the most agressive and most brutal staccatos i've ever heard  i guess there were some string or finger loss involved there :lol:


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## choc0thrax (Nov 26, 2005)

Universal mode looks cool. Wish other libs had the same thing.


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## Joseph Burrell (Nov 26, 2005)

Ups:

Universal Mode looks very promising, provided you are happy with how it plays it back, you could save yourself a lot of midi editing time.

RAM purging feature is a step up from Kontakt's which is awesome. 

Faster than realtime render.

Downs:

Not multi-timbral. So standalone mode is basically useless except for live performances. Even using it in VStack is not really beneficial since in my experience you can't split midi channels through the virtual midi cables across VST instances. It just doesn't work in my experience.

It still seems as if long term VSL users are getting shafted, considering with the current sale I could get the whole shooting match for less than $10,000. And my buddy who started with First Edition and has bought EVERYTHING except the Concert Guitar will have ended up spending over $13,000.

Unknowns:

How will old files convert over since the whole workflow has changed.

I guess it depends on where you're coming from how attractive this is. My friends pretty pissed. I'm just happy its a custom VI and not Kontakt, since that leaves my competition holding out their hands.


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## Waywyn (Nov 26, 2005)

it wont be just available as stand alone. there will also be a vsti mode as i heard today and also i asked if it will be compatible with fxt and there should be no problem ...


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 26, 2005)

I don't think anyone was suggesting that it would only be standalone. The point was made however that standalone mode will be pretty useless, considering it can only host one instrument.

I also forsee a serious limitation to VST mode as well. For a start, VST hosts have limitations to the number of VSTIs they can host at once. Isn't the limit 64 in Cubase SX? And if people are running VSL on multiple machines, and are unable to use the standalone mode (because it's monotimbral), they'll probably want to host it in something simple like V-Stack rather than needing a full licence for Cubase on each machine. Most of those simple VST Hosts can hold even less instances.

And even if it is technically possible to run 100 instances, does anyone think that's really going to be more elegant than running ONE instance of Giga with 100 slots filled?

I must say, making this thing monotimbral is a VERY strange idea. Everybody's used to Giga, with 128 slots, or Kontakt, now with 64 slots. VSL is the biggest library ever made, designed to be loaded up in hige numbers of instruments across huge numbers of PCs. And now they want to make it work through a front end that takes ONE instrument per instance???

I see creating a serious, multi-PC orchestral setup in this way as being a very ungainly, inelegant PITA. Combined with potential dongle problems, it seems an absurd way to present the largest, highest-end sampling solution in the word. Pretty much like coming out with the most advanced Ferrari or Mercedes ever made, and then making it so it can only drive with one wheel on the road at a time.

OK, there may well be ways round this. But for the kind of money VSL charge, one doesn't expect a flaky, half-baked solution with ways round it, one expects something that really makes sense in terms of easy, intuitive setup and workflow. This doesn't.

Maybe this release is a half-way house, and they're building up to a further release that will be multi-timbral. I personally can't see the product being much use until it is. And the workflow and template setup will be so radically different, that it will be a massive further PITA moving from the monotimbral to the multitimbral one.

Am I missing something here? Or have VSL lost the plot?

I'm sticking with Giga and Kontakt. Maybe I'll pick up their cheap deal on Opus 1 to run in it, without any expectation of an upgrade path, and carry on developing my Giga setup with other libraries.


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## Ed (Nov 26, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> And now they want to make it work through a front end that takes ONE instrument per instance???
> .



Im sure they have it figured out, but dont forget in their system you will need far less midi channels becuase it will be unneccesary to load seperate articulations on seperate midi channels,


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 26, 2005)

you may need to approach looking at this from another angle. the matrix can be 144 options deep. this means with 4 Vi's up in a single Vstack you can cover 4 sections. using single legato chordal structures might be more difficult but i am not sure. You could literally put an entire orch on one channel, but it might be hard to keep track of.


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 26, 2005)

OK that's making a bit more sense.

A _bit_.


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## Ed (Nov 26, 2005)

Anyways I only plan on getting the woodwinds, so I dont have to worry about all that.


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## lux (Nov 26, 2005)

mah.....every time i see offering from Vsl I need a map to understand something.


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## Joseph Burrell (Nov 26, 2005)

Craig Sharmat said:


> you may need to approach looking at this from another angle. the matrix can be 144 options deep. this means with 4 Vi's up in a single Vstack you can cover 4 sections. using single legato chordal structures might be more difficult but i am not sure. You could literally put an entire orch on one channel, but it might be hard to keep track of.



But how would that work? Based on the range of the instruments? How would you send seperate midi data to each instrument? I don't see that as a valid option really. 

I'm just working through the specs trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

And, BTW, I wish people wouldn't automatically start bashing what Eric's trying to do with Synful. It is still an evolutionary approach to sampling, VSL non-withstanding. This doesn't detract from his vision whatsoever.


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## Ed (Nov 26, 2005)

lux said:


> mah.....every time i see offering from Vsl I need a map to understand something.



hehe have you seen the videos?


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## Evan Gamble (Nov 26, 2005)

wait you can still use these samples with k2 right?


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## Ed (Nov 26, 2005)

Evan Gamble said:


> wait you can still use these samples with k2 right?


Im pretty sure you cannot.


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## Joseph Burrell (Nov 26, 2005)

No, the new libraries are locked to the new player.


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 26, 2005)

Joseph Burrell said:


> But how would that work? Based on the range of the instruments? How would you send seperate midi data to each instrument? I don't see that as a valid option really.
> 
> I'm just working through the specs trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel. .



It's not a valid option but it was to show how powerful the matrix is. there is no way u would want to work with one channel on a sequencer for more than one instrument anyway. As far as working through it, I have worked with one solo instrument so I have no experience using this with a full orchestra.


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## Joseph Burrell (Nov 26, 2005)

Man, I just thought of something. How in the heck is this going to work with percussion? A player for each percussion instrument? Good lord. :?


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## choc0thrax (Nov 26, 2005)

Just buy Truestrike... 8)


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## Joseph Burrell (Nov 26, 2005)

I would if there was a Kontakt version. No Halion player for me thanks, and I'll skip out on the Giga conversion.


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## Christian Marcussen (Nov 26, 2005)

Joseph Burrell said:


> Man, I just thought of something. How in the heck is this going to work with percussion? A player for each percussion instrument? Good lord. :?



A very valid question. I hope questions like these will be answered over the next few days.

Can someone explain me Multitimbral and monotimbral?


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## Joseph Burrell (Nov 26, 2005)

Well, when I say multi-timbral, I mean the ability to have multiple instruments loaded in a single player accessed via different midi channel assignments, like Kontakt or Gigastudio or Halion or a dozen other VSTi's on the market. 

However, it appears that the Vienna Instrument is limited to one instance per track/midi channel. Meaning that you cannot have violins, violas, cellos, and contrabass from one instance. Each would need its own player.

Which has me really apprehensive about the percussion since, can you imagine how many VI's it would take for just percussion? Seems like a pretty big oversight to me.

I'm just waiting to get banned from the VSL forum for being one of the few people very vocal about my dissapointments with the price and specs so far.


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## Rob Elliott (Nov 26, 2005)

Atmosphere is another example of monotimbral.


Rob


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## Christian Marcussen (Nov 26, 2005)

Right. What I thought it meant, hence my shared concern regarding Percussion. But maybe VSL have a solution. I would think so...

But if not thats very very annoying - Like Atmosphere is (god bless it soul - I love it, but the instance thing drives me nuts. RMX would be great for trilogy and atmosphere)


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## choc0thrax (Nov 26, 2005)

I think Atmosphere is really good but that stupid one instance for each sound thing sucks. I end up with a ton of instances cluttering things up.


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 26, 2005)

Joseph Burrell said:


> Man, I just thought of something. How in the heck is this going to work with percussion? A player for each percussion instrument? Good lord. :?



Joseph,

though I know no product details on percussion, you would think that a company that has created an ingenius VI on so many levels would not make such a huge oversite. give them a chance before jumping to conclusions. They only announced the product line less than a day ago.


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## Joseph Burrell (Nov 26, 2005)

I was only wondering if the lack of multi-timbrality of the player would limit the capabilities of the product. It still isn't clear, and you are correct. I have no problem waiting for it all to come to light. However, after 14 days of waiting for this information, you'd think more of it would be clearly explained via the videos or through the announcement.


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## christianb (Nov 27, 2005)

Joseph Burrell said:


> However, it appears that the Vienna Instrument is limited to one instance per track/midi channel. Meaning that you cannot have violins, violas, cellos, and contrabass from one instance. Each would need its own player.




welcome to my world. 

 
christianb

long time EXS user
Reticent K2 user
Aspiring VSL VI user


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 27, 2005)

Joseph Burrell said:


> Man, I just thought of something. How in the heck is this going to work with percussion? A player for each percussion instrument? Good lord. :?



Bear in mind you can keyswitch different instruments within an instance, you just can't play them simultaneously and independently. So if you're trying to emulate a five-man percussion section say, in which each player moves around four or five different instruments (as might happen in a piece of late Romantic or early Modern symphonic music), you could do that with five instances - one for each player - and the necessary keyswitching.


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## Waywyn (Nov 27, 2005)

maybe to clear some stuff, i just heard on the presentation yesterday by Herb Tucmandl himself 

- there will be vsti and it will work in FXT, so you wouldn't need cubase on slave pcs or any other things like that.

- yesterday there have been a lot of questions about the single output etc. and Tucmandl said that they are still developing stuff and it will be of course available with several outputs.

- for me what i have seen, the matrix stuff rocks, because you could load e.g. the whole 1st strings within one instrument and just switch between all the samples by just hitting keys harder or play faster, switching them by any midi controller you ever want or using your modwheel etc.

so if you start to play legato and play faster run you are already on marcato or faster legato notes without switching anything. then if you go faster you can end up with staccato notes and the matrix just changes it on its own.

the crossfade function was really cool, because you were able to fade between e.g. tremolo or sustain or whatever you want.

so the point of this is, that you really don't need multiple outputs at least for one instance anymore, because you have all programs and articulations of one section in one instrument.

As Tucmandl said, they are already far over the gigasampler limit, so what you could load into one instrument of those VIs you couldnt load into GS.

of course someone can tell much if the day is long, but i think what i saw how the stuff was loading and used, when he talked about the cache managment etc it looked all promising.


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 27, 2005)

also realize that a single vstack can hold 64 instances so it's not like you are limited considering all the power a single VI has.


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## Waywyn (Nov 27, 2005)

Craig Sharmat said:


> also realize that a single vstack can hold 64 instances so it's not like you are limited considering all the power a single VI has.



hehe exactly, but the cool thing is anyway that a complete VI can hold up to 144 matrixes, so if you load all articulations in there you will get difficulties with one pc and one VI anyway 

so even if you load complete strings on one pc with all articulations you need, you are probably done with 4 VIs.


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## Rodney Glenn (Nov 27, 2005)

Ed said:


> Evan Gamble said:
> 
> 
> > wait you can still use these samples with k2 right?
> ...



I'm also wondering about this. What kind of format are the samples in? Can you access them in any way or is it some kind of VSL monolith format version?

Thank's in advance

R


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## Waywyn (Nov 27, 2005)

Rodney_G said:


> Ed said:
> 
> 
> > Evan Gamble said:
> ...



nope, you definitely can't. herb told that yesterday during that presentation. and on the other hand (i kinda understand that) if you would be able to access those samples you wouldn't have any clue what those things are about because there is much code involved, it wouldnt be absolutely necessary to tweak samples 

first i thought about that too, but after the presentation was finished i got rid of that thought rightaway, because you can edit and program so much on your own, you wouldn't need to edit samples or other samplers.

i know a lot of guys are afraid of custom made samplers and VI's but to be honest, if we can believe the vsl guys, the VI they did is much faster and can load up much more than GS ever was able to.

of course i believe that when the stuff is released, so don't get me wrong


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## Marsdy (Nov 27, 2005)

So these samples will only be available as yet another VI format? :roll:


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## Waywyn (Nov 27, 2005)

Marsdy said:


> So these samples will only be available as yet another VI format? :roll:



yes but a well thought out one. you couldnt even do that with K2 what is shown at the moment. well i think you could but not very easy.


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## Rodney Glenn (Nov 27, 2005)

Waywyn said:


> Rodney_G said:
> 
> 
> > Ed said:
> ...



Thank's for the info Waywyn

Hmmm, I dunno what to think about that. Biggest problem as I see it is the inconcistency of the timbre of many samples. Listen to the VI solo instrument demos for example, the timbre jumps all over the place.

I guess this is old news for VSL users, but I just wish they would adress that problem somehow, because it's really annoying and a dead "sample lib" giveaway. Before "locking up" the samples they should make sure they are all consistent. Not being able to access the samples of course also makes it impossible to modify these problems by yourself.

The actual VI concept however is brilliant of course and as far as playability is concerned it's hard to beat. 

R


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## Ed (Nov 27, 2005)

Marsdy said:


> So these samples will only be available as yet another VI format? :roll:


I think its necessary. Its not just a front end.


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## José Herring (Nov 27, 2005)

I have a feeling that it will excel at solo instruments but then be quite cumbersome for section instruments. 

I think though that we'll have to take a wait and see as some of this seems too good to be true. The idea of one midi chanel that switches on the fly seems like it could work but I'm a little weary of the learning curve.

On the other hand if it really does work and saves time I'll spend the money and the time to learn how to use it.

Does anybody know if there are any full realizations on the way with this?

Jose


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 27, 2005)

Jose, I posted a demo early in the thread and it does work as advertized. I woud be happy using the version I did the demo on. You can customize but there is a simple plug and play to it too.


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## José Herring (Nov 27, 2005)

Craig Sharmat said:


> Jose, I posted a demo early in the thread and it does work as advertized. I woud be happy using the version I did the demo on. You can customize but there is a simple plug and play to it too.



Yeah. The nice vl piece. Has potential for sure.

Jose


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 27, 2005)

Rodney_G said:


> Biggest problem as I see it is the inconcistency of the timbre of many samples. Listen to the VI solo instrument demos for example, the timbre jumps all over the place.



Yes, I have my reservations about that. I've noticed it in demos where the user has done something in a hurry and not spent ages tweaking things. I've always presumed it was because there aren't enough velocity layers in some of the VSL instruments, and that this is because they are so huge already with all the legato transition samples, it would just be impractical to make them with four or more velocities as well.

It seems harsh to criticise such an amazing library for something like this, but then at the prices they charge, one really wants to know that it's going to be great in every way. You can forgive a few faults when spending a couple of hundred for a library, not so much when spending this kind of money!

What worries me is what's going to happen when 64 bit computing kicks in, and the current limitations of RAM loading are lifted. Will we then see libraries five times the size of VSL from all the major players, with legato samples for everything AND loads of smoothly geared velocities? If so, then today's libraries are going to look pretty old hat, and that INCLUDES VSL. Now I can deal with that if the price and setup/workflow are right - after all I gotta have something to use NOW, tou can't just keep putting off deciding on sounds because of what might be round the corner. But I'm wary of spending really serious money, and buying into a whole approach to the technology of using their custom VI, at this particular moment in time. I don't mean that just in the way that things are always changing - I mean especially now, because the next change is going to be so far-reaching.

The fact that VSL's discounts for their existing customers have been seen as less than satisfactory doesn't bode well for this either, as that again is something one wants to feel confident about before buying into an approach like this.

I'm gonna keep tinkering away with Giga, Kontakt and humbler, cheaper libraries, and assess the situation again in a year or so.



> I guess this is old news for VSL users, but I just wish they would adress that problem somehow, because it's really annoying and a dead "sample lib" giveaway. Before "locking up" the samples they should make sure they are all consistent. Not being able to access the samples of course also makes it impossible to modify these problems by yourself.



Bingo. That's the problem.


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## choc0thrax (Nov 27, 2005)

Hmmm 5 times the size of VSL...that's quite large. Something like that would probably take mannnyy years to show up though because sampling all that at once would cost a fortune and be a risk. Anyone know how long it took VSL to go from nothing to Symphonic Cube? and then times that by 5.


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## drasticmeasures (Nov 27, 2005)

My bad, the topic is still there.


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 27, 2005)

choc0thrax said:


> Hmmm 5 times the size of VSL...that's quite large. Something like that would probably take mannnyy years to show up though because sampling all that at once would cost a fortune and be a risk. Anyone know how long it took VSL to go from nothing to Symphonic Cube? and then times that by 5.



Fair point.


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## FrozeN (Nov 27, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> I'm gonna keep tinkering away with Giga, Kontakt and humbler, cheaper libraries, and assess the situation again in a year or so.


Same here.... in fact the whole VSL VI thing has become a farce! :lol: (more like Bill Gates trying to monopolize the PC market)

But honestly, I am quite happy about the discounts on the Horizon series products.... guess it's the last chance to stock up some before they, out of a sudden, discontinue all the Giga products! :shock: 

Frankie


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## Ed (Nov 27, 2005)

josejherring said:


> I have a feeling that it will excel at solo instruments but then be quite cumbersome for section instruments.
> 
> I think though that we'll have to take a wait and see as some of this seems too good to be true. The idea of one midi chanel that switches on the fly seems like it could work but I'm a little weary of the learning curve.



I think people will need to make templates if they want to work fast. If theyve already set up all their VIs think how fast things will actually be?

Ed


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 27, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> Rodney_G said:
> 
> 
> > Biggest problem as I see it is the inconcistency of the timbre of many samples. Listen to the VI solo instrument demos for example, the timbre jumps all over the place.
> ...



Ouch there is nothing i doubt i can say that will alter what your decision will be, and personally I wouldn't want that responsibility anyway. VSL is not perfect but it has the most options by far of any other library. Because they own the recording room they are continusly recording so 64 bit or not, I highly doubt anyone will come around for a long long time with the ability to record this much stuff.

as far as the stereo image moving around, it does somtimes, but it is easily fixed by sticking a stereo imager on a track and narrowing the field.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 27, 2005)

There's no way to avoid having the image move around unless you duct tape the player to one spot.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Nov 27, 2005)

Or record from a great distance so the angle is small enough when he or she (or it) moves.


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## Ed (Nov 27, 2005)

Hmm, I think I prefer the duct tape method.


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## choc0thrax (Nov 27, 2005)

What good is duct tape without gasoline and matches.


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 27, 2005)

you guys should join WWF as a tag team.


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## choc0thrax (Nov 27, 2005)

For now I prefer to wrestle with Ed behind closed doors. I'm a little shy.


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## Waywyn (Nov 28, 2005)

concerning the post of ouchthathurts:

simple yes, there will either be libraries which are 5 times bigger than everything and/or the technique will be much more evolving and goes with synth sounds like synful already does.

i think it will be like that like it ever was. i clearly remember when i got edirol orchestra kind when i started and i could just open one instance of it.

also when i experienced that my 450 ghz cpu was just big enough to open one instance of waves rverb. wow, but now? 12? 15? 20?

same with guitar rig. just one and ..arg .. lot of latency.
now? 4 to 5 instances on 256 buffer size with a latency of 3-4 ms.

okay so now just look to the future but much faster because everything evolves much faster in terms of technique then it was in the past.

so look in 5 years probably there will be absolutely no more limit to ram (as we know it), you probably have:

10 GHz CPU's,
each PC could fit 8,10 or 32 GB of RAM
and you would have a storage of maybe 4 1TB (Terabyte - if not more) Harddrives.

as it was in the past the developers will always develop one step further than an average pc can hold. means today the VSL VIs will be released but on a middle class pc (2.5-3 GHz) with 2 GB you could probably open one or two full loaded instances. i mean really packed instances with all solo strings or 4 not-so-much-packed instances for all strings etc.

i am pretty sure it will be like this because you simply have to look back what happened until now. follow the developing and technique line up to the future and you could easy figure out what will happen.

there will be either libs which are big as hell (1TB or bigger) or libs which sound a little more synth like but realistic in terms of articulations. probably there will also be a middle thing made out of6910074a566f3a32d69.jpg


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## dcoscina (Nov 28, 2005)

*too convoluted*

I watched the demo movies and frankly this interface looks more convoluted than it should be. I like some VSL sounds and this V.I. will replace the performance tool, but I thought Kontakt 2 also did away with it via their scripts so why would I want to use a monotimbral virtual instrument when I can load 16 parts in Kontakt?

sorry but I'll stick with EWQLSO Pro thanks.


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## Craig Sharmat (Nov 28, 2005)

the reason you could want it, is you don't need 16 tracks like in kontakt to play one instrument, you only need one track. It really is plug and play...you do practically nothing with the interface unless you want to customize.


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## Waywyn (Nov 28, 2005)

*Re: too convoluted*



dcoscina said:


> I watched the demo movies and frankly this interface looks more convoluted than it should be. I like some VSL sounds and this V.I. will replace the performance tool, but I thought Kontakt 2 also did away with it via their scripts so why would I want to use a monotimbral virtual instrument when I can load 16 parts in Kontakt?
> 
> sorry but I'll stick with EWQLSO Pro thanks.



lol, i almost look like a defender but i wonder why some of you don't get the idea of that VI 
you don't need 16 parts kontakt because you have all articulations in one vst and one stereo track. so why setup 16 tracks for strings, when you can have all (or at least one group per VI) so you set up 5 VIs for all your strings (violin 1+2, viola, cello and bass)

of course you could load 16 channels in K2, but currently i have 2x K2 for all my strings and soon i will have 5 VIs for all my strings but just 5 midi tracks for all articulations because you don't need to load articulations anymore in the old way.

don't get me wrong, you could even stick with GPO if you want, i don't care , but when you watch the videos it is absolutely obvious that you only need one VI for one instrument. so i don't see much of a difference.

it is also obvious that you need more PC or macs to run a complete orchestra, but you also have to do the same with EWQL, SI, SAM or whatever ...

so for me personally i then plan to run 5 VIs for strings on one pc, 5 for woods on another, my brass on another PC and the percussions on my main pc. of course all loaded with the necessary articulations i need.


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## choc0thrax (Nov 28, 2005)

Craig Sharmat said:


> the reason you could want it, is you don't need 16 tracks like in kontakt to play one instrument, you only need one track. It really is plug and play...you do practically nothing with the interface unless you want to customize.



The reason he doesn't want it is because it's not an East West library.


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

And once you set the VIs up, think how fast it will be to work with! Much faster than QLSO I suspect, becuase you wont have to tweak so much. Having said that, once VSl get their reverb thing out then they could integrate some amazing mixing feature so you dont have to spend time on that either.

(reposted to try and catch up to puppets worthless postcount)


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## PaulR (Nov 28, 2005)

*Re: too convoluted*



dcoscina said:


> I watched the demo movies and frankly this interface looks more convoluted than it should be. I like some VSL sounds and this V.I. will replace the performance tool, but I thought Kontakt 2 also did away with it via their scripts so why would I want to use a monotimbral virtual instrument when I can load 16 parts in Kontakt?
> 
> sorry but I'll stick with EWQLSO Pro thanks.



Dave I see your point and of course you stick with whatever you like. The old repetition tool was the biggest problem for most people because of the time and frustration element. This interface seems to get rid of all that. There will be a learning curve naturally - but nothing like what was before I wouldn't think.

Then there is now the issue of Mac nodes and will this work as opposed to not being able to access EX24's (from the nodes).


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

*Re: too convoluted*



dcoscina said:


> so why would I want to use a monotimbral virtual instrument when I can load 16 parts in Kontakt.



Because, as others have said, most of those channels will be taken up with the same section sounds but with all the different articulations. 

Ed


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

choc0thrax said:


> What good is duct tape without gasoline and matches.


You can also make a homemade flame thrower with hair spray and a lighter.


----------



## Waywyn (Nov 28, 2005)

well also i think they did their own VI, was the option to use the intelligent speed whatever recognizer. that the VI is able to recognize fast and slow notes and then change the articulations for that.

i am not K2 expert but i think this feature and also the option to crossfade in between two articulations so flawless was the reason to invent their own VI.

even if it would be able with K2, there would always be another company involved and i can also imagine that VSL wants to work independent.

again, according to herb, there will be a multitimbral option and the VIs will of course be further developed.


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## SamplesSlave (Nov 28, 2005)

nice guys,

might it be possible that dcoscina is just making an honest comment instead of attempting to talk bad about vsl? a bit touchy are we?  

Its interesting you claim that that loading a single articulation per midi channel into kontakt is somehow more convoluted then doing all the crazy stuff that seems to be going into setting up the vsl 'matrix' style stuff.

Now, I could see once you set everything up the right way, and get familiar with what controllers are needed to do what, and tweaking the speed control so it fits the way you work, panning things, setting up reverb templates and all the other initial configuration issues that will have to be dealt with, THEN it *may* be easier to work with depending on how people like to work. But to criticize him for simply pointing this out reeks of homerism and to paraphrase choc0thrax

"The reason you like it this way is because vsl told you too"

Personally I dig the new interface, and I hope the new custom players for ewqlso / sc incorporate some of these ideas, and I love the fact you can choose individual libs to purchase so I can augment my core xp pro setup. 

Remember, in life as well as sample libraries it's OK to choose "and" instead of "or"


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## Evan Gamble (Nov 28, 2005)

any idea how much the reverb will cost? Im guessing at least a million :x


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## Marsdy (Nov 28, 2005)

Evan Gamble said:


> any idea how much the reverb will cost? Im guessing at least a million :x



Well seeing as it's based on the Altiverb engine ported to Windows, I can't see them being able to justify charging significantly more than Altiverb costs. If it includes all the Altriverb IRs it will be a bargain.


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## Waywyn (Nov 28, 2005)

SamplesSlave said:


> nice guys,
> 
> might it be possible that dcoscina is just making an honest comment instead of attempting to talk bad about vsl? a bit touchy are we?



uuuuuuuuhhhhhmmmmmm, no 

but it seems that some guys don't understand the vi right. i personally have an orchestra template. in my opinion there is nothing worse, then setting up each reverb and instruments again. build groups, articulations etc.

so once (of course you sit one or two days by setting up a template) you set up everything, you can just sit down and work.

... and to be honest, most of that matrix vsl stuff is the same like some keyswitch programs which exist already for like a hundred years. the only thing is that you use additional midi controllers for everything.

when i saw that beast presented on that munich show i was just stunned how easy it is to play just a vi instead of loading up tons of kontakts and be in the need of 10 or 20 midi tracks for just 1st violins.

so not only the template will shrink from around 150-200 midi tracks to maybe 30-50. once you understood all the stuff and got into it, it is just simple to compose and play.

don't get me wrong, doscina can stay with whatever he likes and i am personally not upset about who chooses what and why, but i don't like the fact that people judge about something they didn't maybe understand how it fully works. i know it sounds a little mean. there are the videos but they just give you like half of the info as when you are sitting at a presentation getting everything explained to you.

oh... and the reason i like it, is the reason i like it  not who is telling me to. one of my favorite reverb plug ins costs about 30 pounds and everyone (or a lot of people) don't like it, but hell, i don't care and all my music i produce is liked by my clients.

in the end ... if one doesn't like the sound of vsl for instance, everything is crap anyway


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## Rodney Glenn (Nov 28, 2005)

Craig Sharmat said:


> as far as the stereo image moving around, it does somtimes, but it is easily fixed by sticking a stereo imager on a track and narrowing the field.



I'm not too good at these things, I just trust my ears, but I'm gonna take your word for it that this is what is casusing (at least in part) the inconsistency of the samples.

However, to me this is a pretty serious problem as it's extremely obvious, and considering what they charrge I would expect to see this problem fixed (one way or another).

IMO, the VI system itself seems friggin fantastic, but issues like the above prevents it from being absolute 100% top notch. If they lock up the samples...then they should also take care of these problems. I don't think it's too much to ask considering the cost.

R


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## dcoscina (Nov 28, 2005)

*misunderstood*

Guys guys guys, let's clear the air here. I have Kontakt 2 and USE VSL samples. I like their legato instruments a WHOLE LOT! I almost bought Opus 1 last month were it not for the fact that the computer at Saved By Technology couldn't load up all the performance patches for me to properly assess their potential.

I'm very happy with my Gold Pro purchase and don't feel like I have to love one library at the expense of another. As it is, I still prefer VSL's legato to Gold Pro's qlegato, but there are a ton of other articulations that I feel EWQLSO does equally well if not better at than VSL. At the end of the day, everyone uses different tools to get their work done and both developers have made exceptional advances in sampled orchestras.

p.s. I'll still use the VSL legato solo flute and legato horn ensemble from Kontakt 2 in my compositions.


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## SamplesSlave (Nov 28, 2005)

Waywyn,

It kills me to argue with you, cause I love your demos.  Your qlso gold demos are seriously among the best I've heard, but I gotta say here, I think you're missing the point.

dcoscinas statement is :

"I watched the demo movies and frankly this interface looks more convoluted than it should be."

your reply statement is :

"but i don't like the fact that people judge about something they didn't maybe understand how it fully works."


Thats exactly the point! Maybe when dcoscina gets to work with it, or gets a hands on presentation, he'll go "oh, this makes perfect sense". But due to those videos, things currently look convoluted. Again, he's not saying its inferior, just that the videos don't make it look that easy to use  

If you follow other threads on other forums you'll see dcoscina is actually for vsl legato (as am I). The only reason I am pressing this point is because in MOST cases people have axes to grind when it comes to vsl vs qlso, but this guy truly doesn't, he praises aspects of vsl on qlso's own message board  

Thats my only point, yes, there are bad guys out there, but I don't think Dave is one of them.


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## Waywyn (Nov 28, 2005)

hehe, first of all thanks for your comment on the ewqlso gold demos  *bows down* :oops: 


i may be a bit unclear, but i more ment this statement:

"(I like some VSL sounds and this V.I. will replace the performance tool, but I thought Kontakt 2 also did away with it via their scripts) ... so why would I want to use a monotimbral virtual instrument when I can load 16 parts in Kontakt?"

it simply sounded like he got a wrong picture of the VI.
people hear monotimbral and then they think about K2 with 16 channels, but the thing is, d41737.jpg  [email protected]öú±~%D   E ®µWL630351c2 15634459224ba50e020644c.jpg   @ÿú²~.D   Î ¼WL63b004f4   < @öúÑ~3D   è XL4f8af8b4 8875249744b55b722ea7ca.png < @öú´~%D   ¥ u½WL6d2c5a2d 6625685164b55c411f1eaa.gif [email protected]öúµ~0D  3 N¿WL4fe4ff4d 122112080548dd0ca60b78b.jpg < @öú¶~-D  ¥ •¿WL6d2c5a2d 6625685164b55c411f1eaa.gif [email protected]þú·~®C H Ú  ·ÀWL586d03d8     @ÿú¸~¶C   NÊWLcbd4196b   [email protected]þú¹~-D  ð ÀÍWL4490a354     @ÿúº~+D  Ú  ÎWL586d03d8   [email protected]öú»~%D   F ÔWL50f14902 198803797646ea4897e76b8.jpg   @ÿú¼~1D   Á îÜWLd55debc2     @ÿú½~2D   N pãWLc2192d03     @ÿú¾~%D   ~ YéWL57994d0f   [email protected]öú¿~2D   ,  ±ëWL5d2c5cd4 15103122904b2e9af1c686d.jpg [email protected]þúÀ~ŒC  î ê÷WL54f98889   [email protected]þúÁ~[email protected]  î kûWL54f98889   [email protected]þúÂ~*A  î êûWL54f98889   < @öúÃ~ŒC  Z	 œüWL8d4f0f6c 3115349614c1567f8e221d.jpg < @öúÄ~-D  Z	 ”ýWL8d4f0f6c 3115349614c1567f8e221d.


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## Waywyn (Nov 28, 2005)

yeh eric i really hear you and i definitely now what the problem is. to be honest i also don't like keyswitches that much, but in the end if you get used to something it is just easy as 1-2-3 

in the beginning it will of course look very irritating or will be frustrating, but i just hear the result what you can do and when i look back, the first day i purchased my first guitar i was also confused how people can play this lick that fast or grip hundreds of chords in various positions 

so we are all used to something, vstis, kontakts, gigasamplers and if there is something new everyone is sceptic ... me included ... but when i hear the result like everything sounds and see somebody live, working that fast with this VI ... it makes me get rid of the most difficult things to get used to it and have THIS option i never had before.


ps: there is an option in cubase where you can read back the midi commands. i just have to check and i can't remember where i red it (but it was here on VI Control) so if you play something from a certain position it reads back the ks command and you have the sound you chose before with a ks command


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## choc0thrax (Nov 28, 2005)

The thing about Dcoscina is he goes out of his way with his EWQLSO praise wherever he can. He was even advertising an EWQLSO group buy on John Williams fan site. :o Perhaps it's time he married his copy of Gold.


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## SamplesSlave (Nov 28, 2005)

OK, I think we're on the same page.  and I am very excited to see the vsl matrix in action. I hope they release another demo dvd to buy  



Waywyn said:


> yeh eric i really hear you and i definitely now what the problem is. to be honest i also don't like keyswitches that much, but in the end if you get used to something it is just easy as 1-2-3
> 
> in the beginning it will of course look very irritating or will be frustrating, but i just hear the result what you can do and when i look back, the first day i purchased my first guitar i was also confused how people can play this lick that fast or grip hundreds of chords in various positions
> 
> ...


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## SamplesSlave (Nov 28, 2005)

choc0thrax said:


> The thing about Dcoscina is he goes out of his way with his EWQLSO praise wherever he can. He was even advertising an EWQLSO group buy on John Williams fan site. :o Perhaps it's time he married his copy of Gold.



Ahh, thanks for clearing that up. Its clear now that you have no intention of intelligent discussion, seeing as how dcoscina has already stated he likes VSL, and you can search the QL forums and find him praising vsl there as well. 

:? :? :?


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## dcoscina (Nov 28, 2005)

choc0thrax said:


> The thing about Dcoscina is he goes out of his way with his EWQLSO praise wherever he can. He was even advertising an EWQLSO group buy on John Williams fan site. :o Perhaps it's time he married his copy of Gold.



and what are you, some kind of cyber stalker? If you did your homework pal(s), you'd see that I pissed off Doug Rogers when I first got Gold last year by posting 2 versions of a piece for Harp, Flute and Clarinet. One with VSL samples, one with Gold and VSL sounded a lot better. I posted this on SoundsOnline which wasn't proper, especially in the Gold group buy thread.

I think you view my opinions with a certain bias because, as other posters have noted, I have been pretty fair towards VSL. To my knowledge, I have never said their samples suck. I use them. I like their legato performance instruments. and I resent it when someone tried to paint a very different picture from the truth. 

If you're the same shmuck from John williams website, I recall you speculated that I received free products from Doug Rogers/Nick Phoenix. I WISH! I have purchased all of my products from N.I. to East West to MOTU and I have the debts to show it! As for advertising Gold on the John Williams website, many posters there are composers or student musicians who like to know about affordable good sounding libs. GPO and VSL have been discussed on that forum as well. So why don't you jump down Simon Ravn's throat too?

You know, I'm usually pretty apethetic to slanderous shit but buddy, you caught me on the wrong day.

-David


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## choc0thrax (Nov 28, 2005)

I never have any intention for intelligent discussion. I will now put that into my signature so noone is lead to believe otherwise.


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

SamplesSlave said:


> another demo dvd to *buy *



They better not ask money for it this time!!! This much and they still expect you to pay for a tutorial. bad.


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## choc0thrax (Nov 28, 2005)

They should charge extra for the dongle too.


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## Dr.Quest (Nov 28, 2005)

Why do you have Colin O'Malley as your avatar and does he know you are using his picture? Or are you really Colin O'Malley? :?: 
No, that can't be!:shock:
J


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## choc0thrax (Nov 28, 2005)

Talking to me or Ed? We both have Colin in our avatars.


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

choc0thrax said:


> They should charge extra for the dongle too.



They do. It'll cost you your independence.


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

OK it's good to have people here who have seen this thing in the flesh. I have a question.

The automatic articulation switching that adjusts to the speed of your playing: how can it possibly work?

I could see by the demo that in a straightforward situation where your playing gets gradually faster, and it switches accordingly to more staccato samples, then vice versa as you get slower, that could work. But music is rarely as straightforward as that. Surely it can only judge from the LAST few notes what the next one is going to be like, and a great many times it will be wrong.

What if you play four gradually quicker notes, so it thinks you want shorter articulations, then one really long one. Surely when you play the long one, it will be "thinking" that you're getting faster, and will play a staccato? It's only AFTER you've held the note for its full length that it will know to adjust, and by then it's too late, because it had to decide on the articulation as soon as you played the attack.

Also, note-length or playing speed don't exist in any kind of straightforward relationship to articulation. You might get gradually faster but actually want the music to become more legato. Or you might play longer note values, but want them marcato.

So will it guess right a certain percentage of the time, then allow you to go in and edit the articulation changes afterwards? In which case, I'm wondering how much quicker (if at all) this will actually be than just programing them in the first place.

The only way round this I can see is if there's some kind of "lookahead" function that examines the MIDI file in advance and makes intelligent decisions about how to perform it. That would not be any use for live playing, or hearing the articulations as you play your parts in, but it could be very powerful when playing back a sequence. I think Synful has something like this, doesn't it?

But I didn't see any description of anything like that in the VSL stuff.

I'm interested in this because it seems like the one thing it does that can't just be done in Giga 3 anyway. And it's a very exciting CONCEPT, but the more I think about it, I just can't see how it can actually work in practice, enough to cover a sufficient proportion of cases that it doesn't just get in the way by having to be massively edited all the time anyway.

It's quite possible I've got the whole idea mixed up, so someone please enlighten me if that's the case.


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

Dr.Quest said:


> Why do you have Colin O'Malley as your avatar and does he know you are using his picture? Or are you really Colin O'Malley? :?:
> No, that can't be!:shock:
> J



I also have Colin in my avatar, and Aaron too. I like Aaron face in my pic. Aww, look at the cutey Aaron.


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## Waywyn (Nov 28, 2005)

hey ouch,

the cool thing about this new VI is that you can adjust everything you want through all the matrixes.

for instance: if you have a legato patch and you play some faster notes, this script or better, this program would switch to faster samples right?

but the cool thing is that you can apply another matrix with, let's say, smoother and slower notes, etc.

so if you play a certain phrase and on a certain point you DON'T want the notes to be faster etc, you simply apply a modwheel to the smooth legato phrasing and change it on this certain point.

the other cool thing is that you can construct your own matrix patches. so basically you can build or construct anything you like. switch per modwheel from staccato to legato. to speed phrasing from legato to marcato and then to staccatos. or keyswitch certain articulations. everything is open to you


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

Rodney_G said:


> Craig Sharmat said:
> 
> 
> > as far as the stereo image moving around, it does somtimes, but it is easily fixed by sticking a stereo imager on a track and narrowing the field.
> ...



Actually I think Craig might have misconstrued what we were referring to.

What I meant by the unpredictable timbre changes was not, I think, to do with the stero field. It was to do with the change from one tone quality to another when velocity-switching.

This is an old problem with many Giga libraries, especially those that try to create instruments with two velocities - soft and loud. Say the dividing line is at velocity 90. You might be playing a mp phrase, sitting mostly between 60 and 85, but the occasional note or two goes just above 90. Bingo - those particular notes, to quote an old Australian conductor I once played under "stick out like dogs' balls!"

You either have to get to know the samples well and play within the velocity boundaries, or painstakingly edit them afterwards - for example in this case you would go in and bring the offending notes down to velocity 89. In many ways it's better have an instrument with only one velocity (and switching to a louder one by keyswitching or whatever) than one with two. To get any kind of smooth transition through phrases that trigger more than one velocity group, you really need at least four.

Now I'm not sure how much of this there is in VSL, but I HAVE heard an effect very like this in mockups that people have down quickly with it, and on one occasion I asked the guy about it and he said that yes, that is something that tends to happen when trying to use VSL quickly and fluently.

I also once went and looked carefully through their articulation list (when I was considering buying), and was surprised to notice that many of the instruments only had two velocities. So I put 2 and 2 together . . .

I have always presumed that the reason they would present such advanced instruments with only two velocities is that it is a trade-off against the legato samples. The legato samples make the instruments so incredibly huge that it would just be unworkable to double the size of them again with extra velocities.

What WOULD be an interesting thing to know, is whether they actually recorded more velocities. Because if they did, then they could easily overcome this problem when we all get our 64 bit computers with teraflops of RAM in. If not, then they'd need to make the extra recordingas, and try to make sure they match up to the ones already done, which might not be so easy.

Can I just make clear however that I realise I'm making a lot of assumptions here. I'm combining what my ears tell me with what demos have shown to me, with what one VSL user has told me with what I read in the specs of the instruments, and drawing my own conclusion. I could be wrong, and I don't want to offend anybody if I am. If I've said anything technically incorrect about the library, please just correct me.



> However, to me this is a pretty serious problem as it's extremely obvious, and considering what they charrge I would expect to see this problem fixed (one way or another).
> 
> IMO, the VI system itself seems friggin fantastic, but issues like the above prevents it from being absolute 100% top notch. If they lock up the samples...then they should also take care of these problems. I don't think it's too much to ask considering the cost.



Exactly. One can forgive anything if the price is right. But top dollar needs top quality in ALL areas to justify it. And your point about locking up the samples is spot on. with sufficient time and will, one could conceivably overcome a problem like this by creating a new velocity layer and EQing or somehow processing the samples to make this closer to the bordering layer. It would take a while, but once you got the exact treatment right by ear on one sample it might be largely automatable. No such tweaking will be possible, however, in a locked down VI. If they choose not to fix the problem, you're stuck with it. Or if they choose to fix it in an upgrade and charge you through the nose for it, they can.


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

Waywyn said:


> hey ouch,
> 
> the cool thing about this new VI is that you can adjust everything you want through all the matrixes.
> 
> ...



OK I dig that, but with the exception of adjusting to your speed, all that can be done in the Giga editor anyway. You can set up all these things as dimensions and trigger them from velocity, keyswitches, the mod whell or anything.

The only thing Giga can't do is make such decisions based on the speed of you playing, and as I said I'm dubious about how much use that will actually be. I just can't imagine there'll be much music where the relationship is straightforward enough, that this will be any less hassle than just programming it.


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> The only thing Giga can't do is make such decisions based on the speed of you playing, and as I said I'm dubious about how much use that will actually be. t.



No way can giga do what that VI can do, and how can you not see how usefull it will be! have you not seen the vidoes!!


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

Ed said:


> Ouch that hurts said:
> 
> 
> > The only thing Giga can't do is make such decisions based on the speed of you playing, and as I said I'm dubious about how much use that will actually be. t.
> ...



I have looked at the videos, yes, but only once and I probably missed things.

So what else can it do that Giga 3 can't? I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just interested. My overall reaction, once the hype had died down, was that most of it was Giga functionality repackaged. But it's perfectly possible I've missing some things in coming to that conclusion.


----------



## José Herring (Nov 28, 2005)

dcoscina said:


> You know, I'm usually pretty apethetic to slanderous [email protected]#t but buddy, you caught me on the wrong day.
> 
> -David



Aw Dave don't get too flustered. It's choco's way. I equate reading his post to driving by a trafic accident. No matter how much you say you're not going to look you end up taking a glance anyway.

Stay here for a while you'll get use to it.

Jose


----------



## choc0thrax (Nov 28, 2005)

Thanks for quoting that Jose. I actually didn't see his post probably cause it's the last one on the page. Anyways I think it was a Platinum group buy, not gold. I probably said something about you hoping to get free stuff from East West because you go out of your way to praise EW to hell. You don't use the name Dcoscina on JWFan, do you know how I knew it was really you? Your sycophantic drivel is most recognizeable. You seem quite upset though! No hard feelings!


----------



## Marsdy (Nov 28, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> I also once went and looked carefully through their articulation list (when I was considering buying), and was surprised to notice that many of the instruments only had two velocities. So I put 2 and 2 together . . .
> 
> I have always presumed that the reason they would present such advanced instruments with only two velocities is that it is a trade-off against the legato samples. The legato samples make the instruments so incredibly huge that it would just be unworkable to double the size of them again with extra velocities.



If I remember correctly, a lot of the original Giga Legato instruments could only have one velocity layer because it wasn't technically possible to do more. There weren't enough dimensions in GS2. It was possible to have two layers in the EXS24 versions but the memory footprints get too big after that whatever the format.

I don't think it's true to say "many" of the non legato instruments only have one or two layers. Most have more than that. I edited a LOT of VSL stuff and changed the points where the velocity layers switched. (I wonder if I'll be able to do that in this new VI? :roll: ). More often than not there are three or four layers in the main arts. like staccato, detache, sus etc. Sometimes there are two layers on articualtions like crescendo-diminuendo, sforzatissimo and the trills etc. 

The only times I've ever been bothered by a lack of layers was in the Horizon mallets. Other than that, VSL generally has enough layers where they are needed.


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

Marsdy said:


> If I remember correctly, a lot of the original Giga Legato instruments could only have one velocity layer because it wasn't technically possible to do more. There weren't enough dimensions in GS2. It was possible to have two layers in the EXS24 versions but the memory footprints get too big after that whatever the format.
> .


Thats not true anymore I can have more in Giga3. But if you look at the videos, the performance trills and stuff like that speed thing you cannot do in giga, and all that assigning controllers to do stuff, again, you cant do in giga. Okay, maybe you can do *some *of it, but how how friggin hard will it be??!!!! 

Oh, and the VSl Oboe was very annoying in that they didnt sample a mf layer. WHY?


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## choc0thrax (Nov 28, 2005)

You can't do that Universal mode in Giga can you?


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## FrozeN (Nov 28, 2005)

choc0thrax said:


> I never have any intention for intelligent discussion.


Intelligence is overrated. :lol:


----------



## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

Ed said:


> all that assigning controllers to do stuff, again, you cant do in giga. Okay, maybe you can do *some *of it, but how how friggin hard will it be??!!!!



You can do all of it, and it's not hard at all (IMO). I do it in the giga 2.5 editor all the time, to make custom gigs for live playing that put as much as possible under my fingers. Basically any aspect of the sound can be put into a dimension, and have any MIDI controller assigned to it.

My understanding is that the Giga 3 editor is more streamlined and easier to use, as well as more powerful. But I haven't got into using it yet.


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

choc0thrax said:


> You can't do that Universal mode in Giga can you?



What's Universal mode again?


----------



## synergy543 (Nov 28, 2005)

dcoscina said:


> choc0thrax said:
> 
> 
> > The thing about Dcoscina is he goes out of his way with his EWQLSO praise wherever he can. He was even advertising an EWQLSO group buy on John Williams fan site. :o Perhaps it's time he married his copy of Gold.
> ...


Hi Dave,

Glad to see you here. Choco is our official resident "Saint Hobo" and we need him for comic relief from our serious discussions. His old tag line was "ruining your thread since 2002" or something like that. Its really quite unique, I don't think another list has their own resident Hobo. :wink: 

His un-PC comments and blunt observations often lead to interesting revelations as well such as in the Alex W Legato thread (Choco insinuated commercial intentions which turned out to be true). So give Choco some slack. Its all just good fun - and not at your expense - you've already established a respectable reputation that Choco isn't tarnishing. :D

In fact, au contraire! In all honesty, Choco spoke out what I was "thinking" and it lead towards a clarification on your position for me. I thought you were a die-hard EW guy. btw, I use both EW and VSL myself. Its all about the music (and having fun in the process).


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## José Herring (Nov 28, 2005)

Love the Karoke photo FrozeN. Somehow that just seems very appropiate for the direction we're headed these days with composing and music recording.

Jose


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> Ed said:
> 
> 
> > all that assigning controllers to do stuff, again, you cant do in giga. Okay, maybe you can do *some *of it, but how how friggin hard will it be??!!!!
> ...



*No way* can you do it all in 2.5, and in 3 most of the simple stuff is really hard to do like you have to go into a million menus to assign controllers compared to VSLs new VI. And you certianly cant do that speed control thing in 3.0, and Im not talking about something similar I mean actually the same. And in the new VI you can actually SEE what controllers are doing, you cant see that in Giga.


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

Ed said:


> choc0thrax said:
> 
> 
> > You should just watch the video on Universal mode.
> ...



I've invited you three times to point something out to me - you're the one that has almost entirely failed to do so. Don't blame me because you've gotten yourself attached to a position you can't back up.

Choc0thrax had an answer to my question (although as I explained above, I still don't quite get what Universal Mode is, and I don't think that's my fault - there's not much in that video). Try doing the same, or don't blame me because I won't just swallow your assertion blindly.



> And giga also cant to the RAM management thing either,



OK that's something. Thanks.

That and the fact that you can see the controllers working are the only things I've got so far.


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

Ed said:


> Ouch that hurts said:
> 
> 
> > Sorry Ed but you just keep asserting the same thing. I'm going to need specifics - can you think of an actual specific thing you can set it up to do, that can't be done in Giga? ie, attach such and such a controller to such and such a process and make it do such and such . . .
> ...



Great, thanks. That answers the question much more clearly.


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> Great, thanks. That answers the question much more clearly.


Im glad we agree.


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

I just had another look. Velocity crossfading on the fly - that's one. That could be particularly important in terms of overcoming the harsh timbral differences we wer talking about earlier. Looks amazingly flexible.


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## Rodney Glenn (Nov 28, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> Actually I think Craig might have misconstrued what we were referring to.
> 
> What I meant by the unpredictable timbre changes was not, I think, to do with the stero field. It was to do with the change from one tone quality to another when velocity-switching.
> 
> ...



Yeah, it seems like more than just stereo image problems to me as well, because the jumps in timbre are really huge at times.

If they wont invest samples in more velocity layers, perhaps they could investigate the possibility of some kind of morphing technique? It has been done with other products, so it's not like it's Sci-Fi.

Bottom line, personally I don't care much for a fancy interface with super easy control and locked up samples, if it does not sound just as good as any half decent user would be able to make it sound with a little tweaking.

In the end, it's the sound that counts. I can have a zillion articulations at my fingertips, but the end result is choppy, timbre-jumping and synthy sounding then I'd rather put some extra manual work and tweaking into it if that is what it takes.

Until these problem are fixed (because they are serious), I think there might still be a market for the more "traditional" Pro Ed and Horizon libs, because with them you can at least have the chance of doing something about these very obvious and bad sounding problems.

The VI is a truly excellent thing, but the bottom line is that it's still never better than how it actually sounds.

R


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> I just had another look. Velocity crossfading on the fly - that's one. .



:S So you said you have seen the videos, in fact you have seen them many times now, yet only just a second ago you saw that it could do velocity crossfading on the fly? One of the videos is even titled "Velocity Xfade - On The Fly" :!:


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

Mind you, now that I think about it - all you would need to do in Giga is assign a controller to switch between a one-layer version of an instrument, and a multi-layer version of the same instrument. Then switching that controller on and off would be just like activating the velocity crossfade thing in VSL. They've set up the template in advance for each instrument, but really that sort of thing only takes a moment in the Giga editor.


----------



## Rodney Glenn (Nov 28, 2005)

Rodney_G said:


> Ouch that hurts said:
> 
> 
> > Actually I think Craig might have misconstrued what we were referring to.
> ...


----------



## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

Ed said:


> Ouch that hurts said:
> 
> 
> > I just had another look. Velocity crossfading on the fly - that's one. .
> ...



And your point is?

I saw the videoa and thought it was amazing. As the initial reaction wore off, more and more of the things I remembered from them I figured could actually be done pretty easily in Giga. Now is the first time I've gone back to watch them again, and as I explained above I actually find much the same thing in regards to this.

Ed I just don't see what you're on about. You go on and on at me about this, when all you really have to do is answer the question. I've even tried to help by conceding minor points and suggesting things myself.

I'm really not locked into an anti-VSL position here - my original question was posed ina spirit of openness, because I really wanted an answer. Why do have to keep on at me as if it's my fault I haven't got one? Just show me what can't be done in Giga.

I'm sorry it's so frustrating for you that there's almost nothing you can find, but that's really not my fault.


----------



## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

I suppose all these people that complain about VSLs closed format use QLSO in Kontakt yes? Because some people still use Kompakt ON ITS OWN :shock: WHOA, how can they do *that*?!


----------



## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> I'm sorry it's so frustrating for you that there's almost nothing you can find, but that's really not my fault.


What started all this? The fact is the VI is SO much easier to use tha it would be in Giga 3. And I know you can do SOME stuff that it has there but all of the stuff is so much easier to do and makes a whole lot more sence. 

Im no editor, but I would have thought really hardcore kontakt 2 users or even Bruce Richardson would have said something along the lines of what youve said ie, "you can do everything it does in giga and kontakt!". Thing is you even said you could do it all in 2.5! :shock: though im sure you wont stand by that now.

Dont worry, Im sure someone will come out with some hack for you guys that really want it in some other format, just like someone did for Kompakt.

Ed


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## Ouch that hurts (Nov 28, 2005)

Ed said:


> I suppose all these people that complain about VSLs open format use QLSO in Kontakt yes? Because some people still use Kompakt ON ITS OWN :shock: WHOA, how can they do *that*?!



I'm sorry I have no idea what you're on about. Who, for a start, "complains" about VSL's open format?

-----------------------------------------

Anyway, to change the subject, as this is getting stale:

Does anyone know anything about the instrument and articulation lists for each collection? They still only have them up for WWI and Chamber Strings. I read on their forum on Saturday that they were hoping to have them up "in a few days".

I want to know whether I could make a decent system out of Strings I, WWI, Brass I and Percussion, all standard collections only. 'Cause that's the most that I could afford.

It would mean doing without English Horn, Contrabassoon etc. That's all I know so far. As I'm not convinced by the VI anyway, I'd probably be better off grabbing the deal on Opus 1.


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> I'm sorry I have no idea what you're on about. Who, for a start, "complains" about VSL's open format?


What I meant, was that people are complaining about VSL VI NOT being open. Saying things like "gorsh Im not buyin into this! THIS IS MADNESS! HAHAHAHH"... _(words may not have been used exactly as seen here)_

Ed


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> I'd probably be better off grabbing the deal on Opus 1.


In the long run no, it seems they want you to pay the same amount for the standard edition of the VIs no matter what you own! :? I hope thats a mistake.


----------



## Rodney Glenn (Nov 28, 2005)

Ouch that hurts said:


> Does anyone know anything about the instrument and articulation lists for each collection? They still only have them up for WWI and Chamber Strings. I read on their forum on Saturday that they were hoping to have them up "in a few days".
> 
> I want to know whether I could make a decent system out of Strings I, WWI, Brass I and Percussion, all standard collections only. 'Cause that's the most that I could afford.
> 
> It would mean doing without English Horn, Contrabassoon etc. That's all I know so far. As I'm not convinced by the VI anyway, I'd probably be better off grabbing the deal on Opus 1.



I haven't seen any new info on that yet, hopefully it will be up soon.

The Opus deal can probably not get any better, since the Opus package wasn't even included in the summer sale and VSL has stated that this will be their last major sale.

Depends on what the other VI's contain I guess. Nothing to do but to wait for the articualtions list and the discount calculator coming up.

Cheers

R


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## Rodney Glenn (Nov 28, 2005)

Ed said:


> Ouch that hurts said:
> 
> 
> > I'd probably be better off grabbing the deal on Opus 1.
> ...



Well, if I understand it correctly you do pay pretty much the same amount for the the standard VI editions as an existing and new customer. The thing however, is that when upgrading to the Extended an existing customer pays only a handling fee of 30 Euros, whereas a new customer will have to pay roughly the same amount (as he/she paid for the Standard) once more when upgreading to the Extended version. So an existing customer gets the full discount, but not until he/she upgrades to Extended.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think that is basically it.

R


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

Rodney_G said:


> So an existing customer gets the full discount, but not until he/she upgrades to Extended.
> 
> I'm not 100% sure, but I think that is basically it.
> 
> R



Ah, so if you owned say, french oboe to upgrade from that to the extended version would be quite cheap?


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## synergy543 (Nov 28, 2005)

Ed said:


> Ah, so if you owned say, french oboe to upgrade from that to the extended version would be quite cheap?


I don't think there is a French Oboe VI. You'd probably get partial credit towards the Winds VI though. With Chamber Strings or Solo Strings for which there is a VI it would be cost of Standard + minimal upgrade to Extended. At least that's how I understood it. 

Calc will reveal all.


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## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

synergy543 said:


> I don't think there is a French Oboe VI. You'd probably get partial credit towards the Winds VI though. With Chamber Strings or Solo Strings for which there is a VI it would be cost of Standard + minimal upgrade to Extended. At least that's how I understood it. .


There is the french oboe in Woodwinds 1. Look at the articulations.


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## synergy543 (Nov 28, 2005)

Ed said:


> There is the french oboe in Woodwinds 1. Look at the articulations.


Gee, I guess I didn't explain that clearly.....

TAKE 2:
I meant there isn't a French Oboe VI by itself (not that the F.Ob. isn't included as part of the Winds set), so you probably will only be able to get partial credit for the Extended Winds whereas with Horizon Strings or Chamber Strings you'd probably get close to full credit toward the Extended.

I mentioned this because you implied that by owning Fr. Ob the upgrade to Extended might be minimal and I don't think that's true.


----------



## Ed (Nov 28, 2005)

synergy543 said:


> I meant there isn't a French Oboe VI by itself (not that the F.Ob. isn't included as part of the Winds set), so you probably will only be able to get partial credit for the Extended Winds whereas with Horizon Strings or Chamber Strings you'd probably get close to full credit toward the Extended.
> 
> I mentioned this because you implied that by owning Fr. Ob the upgrade to Extended might be minimal and I don't think that's true.



Ah no that is what I meant.


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## dcoscina (Nov 29, 2005)

*universal mode*

After seeing the Universal Mode video, my question is whether one just plops all of the articulations/instruments into this mode and it automatically plays the sample based on the way the person plays the keyboard (kind of like Synful's approach).

If this is the case, it could be a very fast way of playing an expressive line.

I saw the video only once so I might have missed something....


----------



## jc5 (Nov 29, 2005)

Ed said:


> I suppose all these people that complain about VSLs closed format use QLSO in Kontakt yes? Because some people still use Kompakt ON ITS OWN :shock: WHOA, how can they do *that*?!



Well, most of the people that complain about closed format VIs _don't_ use QLSO at all for that very reason. :roll: :wink:


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## Marsdy (Nov 29, 2005)

Hmmm

The VSL discount calculator doesn't seem to be giving me much of a discount :( I get less than half back of what I paid for the 1st Edition Performance Set for example but presumably ALL those samples are included in the Cube :shock: And I already had to pay for a lot of those samples a second time when I bought Opus 1. In other words, I already owned 60% of Opus 1 when I paid full price for it!!! So now I have to pay a third time?

If I buy the Cube shouldn't I get back everything I've paid for so far, minus material costs and shipping? Otherwise I'm paying for samples twice unless samples I already own are replaced with new ones in the Cube.... Ahaaaaa! I get it, they are new samples, they're 24 bit now aren't they? I'm happy now....... effing NOT!!!!!

Plus I'm getting samples in a format I don't want, i.e. another damn plug-in and yet another dongle?

This sucks. Think I'll follow Jose's lead and boycott the Cube.


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## Joseph Burrell (Nov 29, 2005)

Marsdy, now I think you see why I was complaining. I have no hidden agenda as a user of their products, I am entitled to feel shafted. And shafted I feel (well, I feel rather more strongly about it than that, but I forgoe using inappropriate language to express this.)

And again, I can only imagine what it must feel like those who've paid for every product that VSL has released.

:cry:


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## Marsdy (Nov 30, 2005)

It's getting worse. It seems the discount calculator is giving me over ?300 less today for the same products as it did yesterday. VSL don't even understand their own pricing structures let alone me! :twisted: 

I've spent ?2500 ($4300) on VSL products but now the discount amounts to just ?819. I'm only getting a third back of what I paid and have to find a further ?5318 ($9148) to get the full monty. It seems a big chunk of this includes me paying for samples twice. Since I already owned a licences for 60% of Opus 1's samples before I bought it, I'm effectively paying for some samples THREE TIMES! :twisted: :twisted: :roll: :roll: 

Sort yourself out guys and stop treating your loyal customers like crap!

It's getting to the stage where you might as well do your own sample library :wink:


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## cm (Nov 30, 2005)

marsdy, i'd ask you for some more patience.

there are some combination we really didn' t take into consideration especiall those with opus 1 and first edition modules, possibly actually with another singe pro edition module.

to sum up the discounts for each collection and to look if opus or say perfset first would give you more will get little bit tricky.

originally opus added nothing if any first or pro module appears, such a combination seemed to be very unusual for us

be assured, we try to get the most value out of it for our users
christian (VSL)


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## Marsdy (Nov 30, 2005)

cm said:


> marsdy, i'd ask you for some more patience.
> 
> there are some combination we really didn' t take into consideration especiall those with opus 1 and first edition modules, possibly actually with another singe pro edition module.
> 
> ...



Fair enough Christian. 

I admit I've got a real mixed bag of VSL products. However, if I simply owned the complete 1st Edition, I'd be getting less than half of what I paid for it back as a discount if I buy the full Symphonic Cube! Presumably ALL the 1st Edition samples are included in the new VIs?

Nobody likes paying for something twice.


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## jc5 (Nov 30, 2005)

cm said:


> there are some combination we really didn' t take into consideration especiall those with opus 1



I hope there will be some consideration for us poor Opus users, granted we have less invested than Pro Ed users, but the sum is hardly trivial and its been feeling a little chilly thus far... :oops: :wink:


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## Waywyn (Nov 30, 2005)

hm, when i put opus 1 and 2 into the calculator and order e.g. the strings 1 complete then i get a rebate of 150 euro something ...


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## radiospace (Nov 30, 2005)

As I understand it the discount for Opus owners is spread out over the entire collection... which is problematic in that most using Opus instead of the Pro Edition are probably doing so due to financial constraints... the same financial constraints that make purchasing the entire Cube out of the question. Meaning you won't receive full credit for your Opus purchase even while spending exponentially more money to try and "rebuild" it piecemeal with new VI products...

I was thinking about picking up the Opus Bundle this month until that sunk in, now it seems kind of a dead end investment (since I most certainly don't have 10 or 11 thousand dollars to sink into the entire Cube).


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## fitch (Nov 30, 2005)

*such a shame*

really , such a shame ...


surely those at VSL can see the trouble caused by the unfair upgrade pricing..

surely


surely... the amount of ill will would never have risen this high if the deal was at least somewhere near the original offer of VIP back in 2003

all of us full price library owners can't be wrong ..

surely


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## jc5 (Nov 30, 2005)

Yes exactly, the full value of the Opus collection _does_ get discounted, but the way it is distributed makes it of very little help...
The only thing that is really disappointing from the Opus perspective is that there is really little improvement in the upgrade path for us... before the Cube, the _only_ way to upgrade was to move to the full Pro Ed in one go - which even after full VIP is quite the sum.. and prohibitive because it is perfectly true - no one opts for opus rather than the Pro Ed because they 'don't want' the Pro ed..  
As things stand, to get my piece of VIP on each section, one is still looking at over $1000 (dollors _or_ euros :wink: ) to get one _half_ of an orchestral section (practically the price of the bundle itself)...


----------



## Marsdy (Dec 1, 2005)

I can't get anything like full credit for Opus 1 against the full Symphonic Cube. Maybe it would be prudent to reserve judgement until VSL have finished fiddling with the discount calculator. It seems convoluted, confusing, inconsistent and unfair as it stands.


----------



## fitch (Dec 1, 2005)

what's getting me now is the couple of evangelist guys on the VSL forum who insist that VSL are not doing anything wrong..

that they are not selling us the same samples all over again

that they renaged on their VIP pricing promise 


and that THAT upgrade price is seriously off the mark


obviously they are happy with and have so much money that they don't mind being ripped off blind 




grrr


----------



## Craig Sharmat (Dec 1, 2005)

Fitch,

i doubt what i am to write will change your mind, but here are simple facts.

If you read the sample counts available for solo strings and chamber strings (the only ones available) you will see the sample count is nearly doubled with the extended version. If you purchased all of the horizon and VI pro editions leading up to this, it would come to nearly $8,000 U.S. dollars.

the new extended stuff, if consistent with the 2 libraries for which info is given would nearly double all the sample content, change it to 24 bit and give you the new VI for about a rate of somewhere around 35% off of what was paid previously for new 16 bit samples.

Those figures may not make you want to go over and hug your neighbors pitbull, but they are not unreasonable. Of course those who bought other editions, the sitiuation is still being determined.


----------



## Marsdy (Dec 1, 2005)

Is sample count really a good way to measure the value of a library? 

A significant proportion of new samples must be for the likes of the Performance Trills for example. Those programs look effing huge and yet aren't going to get a massive amount of use by most I would guess. For one thing they take up ****loads of RAM. (I know there's a RAM purge feature but at some point you still have to load ALL the samples otherwise the purge button won't do anything!) 

Although you have to admire VSL's comprehensiveness, a lot of samples in the Extended Library are only going to get limited use compared to the bread and butter articulations. I'm not saying these samples have less value but what if you don't need this stuff? Or what if a half terra-byte library is simply over the top for your needs?

If you look at the Woodwinds 1 VI, I bet a lot of people would pass on the new content. However, if you JUST want the new Standard Library, which I assume is what they are calling the "Existing Content", then you ain't going to get a penny of discount! 

If you want the features of the plug-in, you have to pay for a massive amount of content all over again unless I missed something. Or in other words, you are a paying an outrageous amount to use the new plug-in format. This is a shame because the plug-in is major step forward despite my reservations about yet another sample format.


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## FrozeN (Dec 1, 2005)

Marsdy said:


> Is sample count really a good way to measure the value of a library?


So we are back to the good old "Does size matter?" question again...

And IMO, I don't think I will call a lib good just seeing it has loads and loads of samples, that's lame....


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## Craig Sharmat (Dec 1, 2005)

size matters if the samples are good, not if they are not. If you like the sound of VSL and their approach then size does matter as it gives you artistic freedom. If you don't like the sound of a library then one sample is too large.


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## Rodney Glenn (Dec 1, 2005)

What do you guys think of the VIP guarantee. Is it broken now or not?

It clearly uses the term "never" and if you consider the fact that your old product contains the same samples as the VI standard version and you still have to pay full price, where does that leave the "never" mentioned in the guarantee?

I don't think anyone is questioning VSL's right to charge for the VI and the work surrounding it, it's more about how and perhaps more importantly _when_ they charge for it.

R


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## edhamilton (Dec 1, 2005)

There is no way around the fact that the previous VIP promise was not honored.

We are definately paying for the same samples twice. (changing bit depth does not make them new samples).

While I was not in their marketing meeting when they decided to abandon their old policy - it seems clear that the new VIP system is designed to make it "compelling" for us to buy the VI version.

Under the old policy the upgrade path should have offered a sidegrade to the VI standard since its mostly the same samples. A reasonable fee should have been charged for this.

The question then is how many users would opt for the extended version?

Under the new system ALL of us (pro edition owners) have to fully buy in to get the VI.

Sure we get the extended set cheap.
But there is no way around the fact that they are making us cough up all the money upfront.

Probably a very smart pricing decision.
But the simple fact is that we are buying the same samples twice.

It will be interesting to see how many people make the move and if it matches their expectations.
Nick and Doug could really impact that if they announce their version of speed control etc at namm. If they do I bet they offer a better upgrade path.

I for one am hoping for an interesting namm!


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## Doug Rogers (Dec 2, 2005)

edhamilton said:


> Nick and Doug could really impact that if they announce their version of speed control etc at namm. If they do I bet they offer a better upgrade path.
> 
> I for one am hoping for an interesting namm!



Our new software is not just addressing articulation management (it does that too), we are addressing many more issues related to current software, and it is being built on a much more powerful engine that professionals will appreciate. We won't show this at NAMM, the industry is now too competitive, but we are aiming for a mid-2006 release. We will be showing EWQLSO PRO XP at NAMM which is being well received by our customers and the Symphonic Choirs upgrade (with pop-down latin phrases included).

- Doug


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## Craig Sharmat (Dec 2, 2005)

fitch said:


> craig.. sample count might be a fair point too..and i know the VIs will be bloody marvellous... but it's the VIP back tracking that really has me angry.



I am not a retailer so I do not know what VSL has to deal with when it comes to marketing, but I understand your view in this matter.


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## Frederick Russ (Dec 2, 2005)

Its very cool technology - technology that perhaps could be universally implemented in the future (perhaps in a less grandiose way: a universal articulation switching tool that can be applied to the different articulations of sample libraries (SAM, VSL, QLSO and even custom libraries) - perhaps even something as simple as a real-time midi channel switcher that is user defined.) A universal tool, once developed, would be a must-have for composers using samples.

For now we have VSL who showed it could be done. Its a very cool concept when looked at strictly from a technological standpoint (aside from the politics of it.)


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## jc5 (Dec 2, 2005)

I'll make some final statements from an 'Opus perspective', after which I'll probably say no more..

Someone upgrading from Opus is obviously looking to spend a fair amount any way one looks at it, since even the standard edition contains many 'new' samples that are not in the bundle (obviously a different situation from a Pro Ed user). Now if the VIP discounts had been available on the Standard, that would have made it significantly less painful to make the move (one section at a time) to the next level. After that the Extended would be full price, but there is _nothing strange_ about having to pay for a collection of (I assume?) mostly new material. And to me the value of extended is in the new samples (the few examples of which are viewable in the demo videos demonstrate that there is a whole new world of articulations to play with!).
Another thing that surprised me a little, while the two Woodwind and Brass sets are organized conveniently (Brass II has a great deal of appeal to me... if only that standard set included my vip! ahh..), the strings have been broken up... Strings I is not mostly original material, with Strings II containing new articulations - its Violins and violas in one, and cellos and contrabasses in the other... financially speaking, ouch!

The VI interface (while certainly impressive), isn't really an advantage to me... yet again, closed samples and a _dongle_ of all things...
Plus there are unanswered questions about whether it can funciton in a way that fits into my personal (largely Finale based) workflow (and I'm not alone in that concern). The only thing that is a real stand out feature in it to me is the fact that it can load so many more samples into ram thanks to its unique way with compression - now that is impressive, and useful!


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