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Solo Violin Comparison of 7 Violins

amadeus1

Senior Member
Hi Guys,

I just did a comparison of 7 Solo Violins including, the new Stradivarius, Orchestral Tools Tableau and First Chairs 2.0, VSL's Synchronized Solo Violin, Vienna Instrument Pro Solo Violin, Joshua Bells and Spitfire's Solo Violin.

There is a free download of the midi melody and chord voicings to compare with your solo violin in the description.



I compared and reviewed the legato or sustain patch for each of the violins as well as their "playability".

See who were the winners and losers.


Best,
Bill
 
Thanks Bill - that was helpful. Here is the VIrharmonic Bohemian Violin:
 

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  • Bohemian Violin sound test.mp3
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Thank you for this, I've been looking for some good comparisons particularly between the Joshua Bell and the Stradivari. Stradivari holds up surprisingly well.
 
The Orchestral Tools First Chairs series is awesome but the Joshua Bell violin is extremely flexible and playable !
 
Bill, thanks for doing this video. Why did you choose to not use any cc1 movement on any of the examples? This is not how you would, nor should, use these sample libraries. And the results, predicatbly, all sound unmusical and static to me. Was there a particular reasoning behind that decision? If so, it isn't an obvious one to me, as I must say that for me personally, it reduces the usefulness of this comparison considerably.
 
@muk I agree, slightly odd decision. Like comparing piano libs all set to velocity 127?

It did I guess, show how good some are considering these omissions from the 'performance'. OT sounded more like a harpsichord. And JB whilst ok higher, sounded like it was getting swatted with a brick lower down.

Thanks for the video & comparison.
 
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The only one that sounds consistently real to me is Emotional Violin (it's the vibrato), although all sound fine in certain applications and have their own character. My second choice by a slim thread is the Bell violin. I want all of 'em. Most do have a considerable learning curve as they are true instruments in their own right. That makes it very hard to choose one over all others. You have to practice a good bit with these creatures, and I don't think it hurts one bit to have had some happy experience playing the real deal.
 
Thanks for this. It was interesting how an old library like VSL actually sounded better than a lot of the others. But as Muk mentioned, maybe they need more cc1 movement. I do think VSL needs a little reverb though.
 
Thanks for this. It was interesting how an old library like VSL actually sounded better than a lot of the others. But as Muk mentioned, maybe they need more cc1 movement. I do think VSL needs a little reverb though.

The VSL one's are crazy good and feature rich. The original one is a tad cumbersome with the patches/player, so I personally welcomed the new Synchron version. Although I have since warmed back to the original... weird.
Do you have them?
 
The VSL one's are crazy good and feature rich. The original one is a tad cumbersome with the patches/player, so I personally welcomed the new Synchron version. Although I have since warmed back to the original... weird.
Do you have them?
I too really like the VSL solo strings, although it's their viola that really grabs me. I love the sound of that thing with a slightly dark reverb and a bit of saturation -- old yet very much alive (like me).
 
The VSL one's are crazy good and feature rich. The original one is a tad cumbersome with the patches/player, so I personally welcomed the new Synchron version. Although I have since warmed back to the original... weird.
Do you have them?
Only the SE ones. If I buy more, I feel like I need to buy the insurance. And I already pay for the iLok insurance.

I do own too many libraries/plugins......
 
Hi Guys,

I just did a comparison of 7 Solo Violins including, the new Stradivarius, Orchestral Tools Tableau and First Chairs 2.0, VSL's Synchronized Solo Violin, Vienna Instrument Pro Solo Violin, Joshua Bells and Spitfire's Solo Violin.

There is a free download of the midi melody and chord voicings to compare with your solo violin in the description.



I compared and reviewed the legato or sustain patch for each of the violins as well as their "playability".

See who were the winners and losers.


Best,
Bill


Hi, thanks for this video but it needs to be redone for JB violin. You weren't triggering the legatos in the JB violin so this is not a fair representation of JB violin at all.
 
None of these beats the tone of Emotional Violin to my ears, not even the sacred Joshua Bell violin, But hey, maybe that’s just me.
 
Bill, thanks for doing this video. Why did you choose to not use any cc1 movement on any of the examples? This is not how you would, nor should, use these sample libraries. And the results, predicatbly, all sound unmusical and static to me. Was there a particular reasoning behind that decision? If so, it isn't an obvious one to me, as I must say that for me personally, it reduces the usefulness of this comparison considerably.
I didn't alter cc1 since they all behaved differently depending on the manufacturer and the player engine.
 
Hi, thanks for this video but it needs to be redone for JB violin. You weren't triggering the legatos in the JB violin so this is not a fair representation of JB violin at all.
They can all be improved with a lot of tweaking, just a general comparison.
 
@muk I agree, slightly odd decision. Like comparing piano libs all set to velocity 127?

It did I guess, show how good some are considering these omissions from the 'performance'. OT sounded more like a harpsichord. And JB whilst ok higher, sounded like it was getting swatted with a brick lower down.

Thanks for the video & comparison.
I was disappointed in the OT tableau especially. They need to update its playability for sure. They're a very good company, I was surprised. The JB is very sensitive to live playing, needs to be tweaked a lot to avoid the swatting brick effect :)
 
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