Is the vibrato a deal breaker on this library? I was thinking of picking it up on their sale
So to answer this ... here's another noodle on the cello, designed to better demonstrate some of the range of nuance the vibrato is capable:
Its just a noodle, controlled only with the mod wheel (and this script that infers vibrato from the path of the mod wheel).
A few points:
1. If you give it a listen or two and you'll hear that there quite a lot of variation in how the vibrato is used. And unlike some of my previous noodle, here I'm starting to get a sense that sometimes less is more, and holding back on the vibrato can give you more subtly, and more variation in the context of the overall arc. When you want the really wide, powerful vibrato, its there. Which is good for moments of particular intensity, or when you really need it to cut through a busy orchestral mix. But early criticism of the vibrato aside, it's entirely possible to hold back and get much more subtle effects.
2. On nearly every note the vibrato switches at least twice, often more. This is quite different from most of the demos where the vibrato is shaped manually with cc21, and these to be used to shape passages, more often rather than individual notes. (I have a whole rant on how much I hate cc21, but that's another story). So while someone sufficiently skilled (ie not me) could craft these kinds of phrasings using multiple fingers on cc1 and cc21, bloody hell that sounds like hard work.
Needless to say, if you plonked this is without attending to the vibrato at all, it would sound really terrible. But again, this poor plonkability is also what gives you such great performability.
3. Vibrato is intimately connected with the idiomatic crafting of the dynamics.
So this:
It's important to note that their vibrato "fader" doesn't really dial in vibrato the way you would for something like dynamics. It's basically an on/off switch
...is absolute true. But I'll add an important nuance in that you have three dynamic layers which, depending on the instrument, have different qualities in their vibrato as well as they timbre. So if you're in a crescendo, and you shift from non-vib to vib on the softest layer, and them proceed to higher layers, you can also craft your progressive legato more that the on/off implementation suggests. Again, if you listen carefully enough to the above, you might be able discern how I'm using the dynamics to get different vibrato effects.
And a further nuance - the softest layer of this library is so quiet by default that I feel you loose much of the benefit of both the beautiful timbres of the softest layers and the softer vibrato on these layers. So the script perform a 'midi compression', bringing up the volume of the lowest layer, and down the upper two. This makes it easier to craft your arcs across all three layers, and consequently it gives you get a more nuance in crafting your vibrato phrasings.
And finally:
4. Impressionistically: noodling in these phrases this *feels* like a performance. Not like midi programming (which is part of why I hate cc21). And not like a virtual performer controlled by a midi keyboard. It takes a bit of practice, since its of course very easy to play something unidiomatic - and I would still welcome any and all critique from actual string players. But unlike my initial experiments in messing about with cc21 (or ignoring vibrato altogether), it's really become a joy to play.