- Joshua Bell has *much* better tone that NI - largely because it doesn't do phase alignment and it has real (recorded) vibrato. But this also means that you have much more limited dynamics on the JB. (Though maybe also because of Joshua's performance, and the acoustic of the studio etc).
Conversely because of the phase alignment the NI lets you craft the dynamics of your arcs to a much greater degree. JB has 4 dynamics layers an long and short recorded de/crescendos, so it's not that you don't have wonderful dynamics in the timbre. But in general, once you play a note at a given dynamic, you can change the volume a bit, but you can't change the timbre until you play a new note (or rebow).
- NI uses simulated vibrato. It's kind of ok, but it doesn't sound remotely as good as the JB. The JB actually has a recorded non-vibrato and progressive vibrato. The JB also has simulated vibrato, so if you need the flexibly of the simulated vibrato it's there, and it's as good as the NI vibrato. But the recorded JB vibrato is vastly, vastly better. It depends how much fake vibrato bothers you.
So the big difference between these two is that NI gives you a lot more expressive flexibility via phase alignment and simulated vibrato, but at significant cost to the tone. JB preserves the pristine tone of Joshua's performance at all costs, which comes at a certain cost of flexibility in the dynamics (though it actually has more flexibility in the vibrato )
- In contrast, the Bohemian records *all* dynamics and vibrato. So you have only a little control over the arcs of the vibrato and dynamics, but it always sounds pristine. Especially for languorous slow evolving dynamic/progressive vibrato arcs, this is unbeatable. But this approach makes it very hard to, for instance, coordinate with other instruments in that you have almost no control over the speed of the progressive vibrato, or the shape of the dynamic arcs. That said, if you're able to write the rest of your composition around the (pre-recorded) shape of these arcs, there really wonderful and expressive-sounding arcs.
So basically, all 3 three instruments are best in class, but they make significantly different design choices that trade off sound quality vs. expressiveness and flexibility.
- If you're looking for something that makes design decision sitting between these extremes, I find Spitfire Solo Strings hits a certain sweet spot between uncompromising tone quality and as much expressiveness as possible without sacrificing tone quality (at the expense of other limitations):
So the short version here, is that after a lot of experimenting, and via a "performance vibrato" script that I've developed, I think I've finally managed to get my head around the vibrato in Spitfire solo strings. And found a way to make it much more playable 'out-of-the-box'. Here's my first...
vi-control.net