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Thoughts on OT Berlin Strings

It took Play how long to not suck? Spitfire player isn't horrible, but it doesn't yet have the same functionality of Kontakt even in basic usage—not even talking about wavetable synth, etc. Just given that history we shouldn't be surprised if it takes several iterations for OT to get its sample player right. We already know what OT's priorities are when forced to choose between comprehensiveness and conservation of computing resources. Their new player may allow them to defer that choice longer but I really don't see that changing when confronting a situation that requires a real trade off between competing priorities.

I also haven't seen anything from OT about its sample player since it was announced. Maybe you have privileged information, maybe OT will defy the odds of software development and deliver exactly what they promised and more. But I very much doubt it. Best guess is people will be disappointed in missing features/strange feature implementation in the player and at how expensive the individual instruments turn out to be when purchased outside the library. In any case everything now is just speculation, and my skepticism will hopefully be proved wrong.
would absolutely love insider info, I just assume its goals would be third priority, whereas I felt like SF built a player to stop paying NI and also make piracy harder. OT are more or less mock up oriented. plus they seem to be eyeing that piecemeal purchasing strategy, so it i don't think it's not without some monetary motivation.

as it stands, OT has the best sampling without the best scripting, even if it's not bad - kontakt is kind of hurting it.
 
as it stands, OT has the best sampling without the best scripting, even if it's not bad - kontakt is kind of hurting it.
I agree with this and am sincerely hoping they will be able to solve the issues because I do like the sound of Berlin Strings and would like to use them more often. They have just proved difficult to work with if I want any other instruments loaded. (I haven't tried them since upgrading to 64GB, but I had to do a lot of freezing at 32GB, and that was just with the main BS library.) I also think sample players are harder to develop than it seems, so I have doubts OT will get it right on their first attempt. As I've said, I hope OT does manage to get it right immediately, but I don't think the odds are high, seeing how other companies have struggled.
 
I do find it surprising that OT doesn't offer (non-measured) string trills beyond HT/WT in their strings expansions. I guess you'd use the Symphonic Sphere, but the player count and setup isn't the same. Not a big deal, just a minor thing to note.
 
By the way, I'm curious if anyone knows. Was the development for Spitfire's player or for EWQL's Play done by in-house devs that are on their team long term, or were those players more like limited time contract work?

Is OT going to be doing this with an in-house dev team? It seemed like it from some videos I saw. That makes me more optimistic about its chances of success, like VSL's software. Even if they get off to a rocky start, with a dedicated in-house team, the long term prospects of this kind of sample player seem very positive.
 
Well it is kind of a wait and see, I do not have any OT library's, this demo looks to be ground breaking.

Well for me, I think the biggest factor is them having experience(and using the libraries themselves) and creating a sampler with the purpose of the exact business they run. They work with A list composers who use their stuff in their templates, they know the samples have everything they need to sound amazing - while also having scripting as well as resource limitations due to kontakt.

And then look at spitfire libraries, which despite a decent orchestral run, the bulk of their success stems from (and I don't mean this in an insulting way) gimmicky keyboard patches. Their instruments aren't really designed to be virtual representations of instruments, but rather laid out like nice sounding keyboard patches. SSO was a bit of a departure from that, but it's simply not how they use it, how they market it, and how they feel. It's a large catalogue of cool keyboard textures and their sampler is probably designed around that artsy evo stuff more than it is perfecting an exposed solo flute.

Hoping this sampler is a solution for OT rather than a hinderance.
 
Well it is kind of a wait and see, I do not have any OT library's, this demo looks to be ground breaking.
If they can pull it off. I don't doubt that they'll get there eventually if they remain committed to it, and I like the ambition. But software development often takes much longer than anticipated and the lackluster record of companies making alternatives to Kontakt makes me think the task is far more complicated than it seems.
 
If they can pull it off. I don't doubt that they'll get there eventually if they remain committed to it, and I like the ambition. But software development often takes much longer than anticipated and the lackluster record of companies making alternatives to Kontakt makes me think the task is far more complicated than it seems.


To be fair, I highly doubt any significant advancements will occur that suddenly make the samples from the berlin series outdated. Some extra samples would be nice in certain instruments, but all in all - it's all meticulously sampled material, that can be repackaged a billion times and still sound phenomenal.

Same goes for a lot of these big name sample libraries... I'm pretty sure cinesamples and the SSO stuff could be completely overhauled and stay relevant for decades.

VSL has trucked for quite some time despite not having the most appealing sound.

and honestly EW's HWO is actually pretty darn good still.

Great instruments in great rooms with great mics will always sound great
 
Hoping this sampler is a solution for OT rather than a hinderance.
Also, do they have sufficient income from their libraries to support this kind of software development over time?

To be fair, I highly doubt any significant advancements will occur that suddenly make the samples from the berlin series outdated. Some extra samples would be nice in certain instruments, but all in all - it's all meticulously sampled material, that can be repackaged a billion times and still sound phenomenal.

Same goes for a lot of these big name sample libraries... I'm pretty sure cinesamples and the SSO stuff could be completely overhauled and stay relevant for decades.

VSL has trucked for quite some time despite not having the most appealing sound.

and honestly EW's HWO is actually pretty darn good still.

Great instruments in great rooms with great mics will always sound great
agreed about the samples. I'm referring specifically to the time and cost of software development for a sample player.
 
If Berlin Strings (and other OT libraries) are migrating across to the new player, perhaps someone from @OrchestralTools could answer if the new player uses less RAM than Capsule/Kontakt?

I'm sure they must have done testing and so would know the figures.

What's the RAM usage loading up the basic multi patch (plus legato) of each section for V1 V2 Vi Celli and Basses?
 
My understanding though I could be wrong, is the library's will be broken up and the purchase of just bits or part of a library would be available, so for strings perhaps just a legato patch, or sustain patch,

In this respect you can get lower ram use by purchasing parts of the library instead of the whole library.

VSL does something similar, you can go for a half section Violins and viola with limited articulation, or a full section,

As for the performance of the player it does seem to be offering some never seen before development the question is will this new improvement be ram and cpu hungry
 
My understanding though I could be wrong, is the library's will be broken up and the purchase of just bits or part of a library would be available, so for strings perhaps just a legato patch, or sustain patch,

In this respect you can get lower ram use by purchasing parts of the library instead of the whole library.

VSL does something similar, you can go for a half section Violins and viola with limited articulation, or a full section,

As for the performance of the player it does seem to be offering some never seen before development the question is will this new improvement be ram and cpu hungry

That's not really how "lower RAM usage" works :) Of course if you load less stuff, you would use less RAM !

The question is more like "how much RAM a fully purged cello section would take" ? That is actually the worst part of OT with Kontakt today. This is something they really need to fix with the new player.
 
They are very RAM hungry. I had to be judicious when I worked with them on a 32GB machine. I also find Berlin Strings to be very fussy to work with in terms of programming. They sound great, though, at the end. But because BS are RAM hungry and fussy I tend to work with SCS supplemented with SSS as my default strings.
I have completely opposite experience. Working with SINE is a breeze. Very fast and intuitive workflow, I can set articulation sets I usually use fast and easily, consistency across articulations is second to none, dynamic range best I have ever heard, mic positions sound excellent, mono compatibility excellent, gorgeous emotional sound and fantastic playability. Loading instruments is slow, that is a fact, but memory footprint is very similar to other libraries I have (Spitfire SO, EWSO Diamond, 8Dio). CPU load insanely low.
 
I have completely opposite experience. Working with SINE is a breeze. Very fast and intuitive workflow, I can set articulation sets I usually use fast and easily, consistency across articulations is second to none, dynamic range best I have ever heard, mic positions sound excellent, mono compatibility excellent, gorgeous emotional sound and fantastic playability. Loading instruments is slow, that is a fact, but memory footprint is very similar to other libraries I have (Spitfire SO, EWSO Diamond, 8Dio). CPU load insanely low.
This thread is from 2019. They were talking about the Kontakt versions of these libraries before Sine available
 
I have completely opposite experience. Working with SINE is a breeze. Very fast and intuitive workflow, I can set articulation sets I usually use fast and easily, consistency across articulations is second to none, dynamic range best I have ever heard, mic positions sound excellent, mono compatibility excellent, gorgeous emotional sound and fantastic playability. Loading instruments is slow, that is a fact, but memory footprint is very similar to other libraries I have (Spitfire SO, EWSO Diamond, 8Dio). CPU load insanely low.
If only BS was available on Sine when I write that back in 2019! I mean really what’s the point of quoting something about my experience with BS on Kontakt as though I’m talking about Sine? Especially when everything I’ve written about BS is that I find it much better on Sine?

Not that Sine is perfect. Not even close. Starting with the fact that it still crashes too often for too many people. Its purge function doesn’t work. It puts too much functionality in the little tabbed box on the lower right, polymap is nonsensical from every workflow perspective I’ve tried. You can’t midi assign the mics. The library tab is a disaster once you get more than about a half dozen libraries. The list goes on and on. But even with all those issues I prefer the Sine version of OT libraries to Kontakt ones. (But I also have not had persistent issues with Sine crashing. If I had those kinds of problems I would undoubtedly have a different view on this.)
 
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Not that Sine is perfect. Not even close. Starting with the fact that it still crashes too often for too many people. Its purge function doesn’t work. It puts too much functionality in the little tabbed box on the lower right, polymap is nonsensical from every workflow perspective I’ve tried. You can’t midi assign the mics. The library tab is a disaster once you get more than about a half dozen libraries. The list goes on and on. But even with all those issues I prefer the Sine version of OT libraries to Kontakt ones. (But I also have not had persistent issues with Sine crashing. If I had those kinds of problems I would undoubtedly brave a different view on this.)
This is the *perfect* summary of the situation let's just sticky it lol
 
If they can pull it off. I don't doubt that they'll get there eventually if they remain committed to it, and I like the ambition. But software development often takes much longer than anticipated and the lackluster record of companies making alternatives to Kontakt makes me think the task is far more complicated than it seems.
Well this was kind of prophetic.
 
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