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Orchestral Tools Completion Days -30%

Yes. As much as I love that kind of thing, though, I find that whenever I get a new one, I end up shying away from it after a while in favor of more vanilla libraries that I can create my own textures with. Perhaps this one is versatile and flexible enough for that to not happen.
 
I absolutely love the Berlin First Chairs. It's a bit like Berlin Brass : each player does things a bit differently so you have to know the library very well to take the best advantage of it - especially for the Violins 1 & 2, which are very different. But once you know them, they are a fantastic tool to add precision and attitude to the string section.

Rewatched this, and now I can't get the thought of those first chair shorts out of my head!
 
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Most of what I hear from the Berlin Strings First Chairs library demos and the walkthrough is shorts. Examples of longs are mostly cello and bass.

Which leads me to wonder if I should think of this more as a niche short strings library with a distinct natural sound, along with good longs on the cello and bass. And for violins and viola I might want to mix a different library in for expressive longs?

I also see people pointing out that the library isn't always consistent across instruments. But for me it might be a worthwhile trade-off to get that natural sound, and I could use a different library (this being a commercial thread) when I want more consistent results with less character.

Any thoughts from FC users?
 
I wasn't going to buy anything. I had picked up SSS at Christmas and really, it has worked pretty well for me. I still like the BWW, but I usually end up with SSW. That said, they don't have an Eb Clarinet. And it sounds really good. :inlove:

Darn that GAS.....:mad:
 
Most of what I hear from the Berlin Strings First Chairs library demos and the walkthrough is shorts. Examples of longs are mostly cello and bass.

Which leads me to wonder if I should think of this more as a niche short strings library with a distinct natural sound, along with good longs on the cello and bass. And for violins and viola I might want to mix a different library in for expressive longs?

I also see people pointing out that the library isn't always consistent across instruments. But for me it might be a worthwhile trade-off to get that natural sound, and I could use a different library (this being a commercial thread) when I want more consistent results with less character.

Any thoughts from FC users?
My track is definitely not as good as the demos (especially love the one from Sascha Knorr), but maybe this still helps:



Using only OTs First Chairs 2.0 plus a little Reverb to glue it together and a touch of EQ here and there, the rest is the natural sound of FC (which I really like). If the panning feels to extreme, it's the standard setting from the close mics (no additional panning, though you can always adjust it inside Capsule or use different mics).
I think the focus on Bass is due to the fact, that there was no Bass sampled in FC 1.0; though I think that especially the Cello and Bass are the shining point in the new version (my subjective opinion of course) and the shorts are also a lot of fun to play around with.

If you want to use them as pure Solo instruments though, the high instruments might be a little limited as you can't (afaik) control the level of vibrato...(probably the only downside of a otherwise great library)

Hope this helps:)

Edit: Just listened through Headphones and the panning doesn't seem to really work in a quintett context imo, so I just added the tree mics to another version, for comparison (gives it a little more depth imo:)):

 
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Most of what I hear from the Berlin Strings First Chairs library demos and the walkthrough is shorts. Examples of longs are mostly cello and bass.

Which leads me to wonder if I should think of this more as a niche short strings library with a distinct natural sound, along with good longs on the cello and bass. And for violins and viola I might want to mix a different library in for expressive longs?

I also see people pointing out that the library isn't always consistent across instruments. But for me it might be a worthwhile trade-off to get that natural sound, and I could use a different library (this being a commercial thread) when I want more consistent results with less character.

Any thoughts from FC users?

The way I see it, the longs are very cool as well - I've made a piece for an upcoming library album where the viola plays alone for a few bars, and really like the result - but the shorts really have that extra wonderful character. Another fellow VI-C member said they were "crunchy" and that's spot on.
The trems are fantastic as well, and so are the trills and pizzs. Only the marcatos don't find much love in my template.
 
The way I see it, the longs are very cool as well - I've made a piece for an upcoming library album where the viola plays alone for a few bars, and really like the result - but the shorts really have that extra wonderful character. Another fellow VI-C member said they were "crunchy" and that's spot on.
The trems are fantastic as well, and so are the trills and pizzs. Only the marcatos don't find much love in my template.
Thanks @fretti & @whitewasteland -- The Berlin FCs certainly are tempting me. Commented here (to move out of the commercial thread).
 
i don't have a full harp.

notes from the field:

Berlin First Chairs slams Cubase (i'm new to Cubase, so there may be something i'm missing).

to Presonus' credit with Studio One Pro 4.5 - they really did a great job with CPU management.

Berlin First Chairs barely registers on the meter in S1 Pro 4.5.

Gorgeous library!

so,

Harp.

Aren't the first chairs noisy? I hear tons of hiss after they stop in their walk-throughs...but that was from 2016...hopefully they've changed that?
 
Aren't the first chairs noisy? I hear tons of hiss after they stop in their walk-throughs...but that was from 2016...hopefully they've changed that?
LOL! Thanks for the laugh! I read that first sentence and the first thing that popped into my mind was recordings of squeaky chairs overpowering any music. And I realize that wasn't what you meant, but my brain went there.
 
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