Help me choose, or I will die
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Vladimir Bulaev
Senior Member
Note that for CSSS it uses the classic legato patch!
For such a composition, it is better to use only the advanced mode with a slow legato transition that will give more convincing performance.
Vladimir Bulaev
Senior Member
You're right. In my works, I also use legato lines in 80-90% of cases. My music is mostly romantic and lyrical in nature. CSSS has an incredibly realistic legato. When I try something else like Spitfire or OT don't give me that and I go back to CSSS. Personally, for my style of music, this is my favorite instrument. It has much of the romanticism that was captured by the musicians. They are expressive and sing very well on all dynamic ranges. Also without vibrato, they have a true legato, which unfortunately CSS does not have. For me, the choice is obvious, it's CSSS! And for you? What kind of music do you write, or are you going to write?
jbuhler
Senior Member
I have both SSoS and Berlin First Chairs. The Berlin, like CSS, is really designed as first chairs and as such has a more limited set of articulations and nothing like the total performance patches of the SF virtuoso violin and cello.
SupremeFist
Senior Member
I mainly write slow, lyrical lines, but the CSSS vib is too much for me. Also realised Cinesamples isn't for me because the legato is only bow-change. Currently weighing up Chris Hein vs xsample — which do you prefer @doctoremmet ?
doctoremmet
Senior Member
Not the answer you want; but both have their strenghts... Hein offers a lot of variation in tone (14 instruments in the bundle) and more articulations... Hans Josef somehow always manages to impress me the most with instruments that have a certain sound I apparently like the best. So for ME Xsample wins. I have to say though that Embertone may take the crown here. ISS + JB is a set of samples I would not want to miss.... so yeah. I think you may want to check the Xsample website in a week or so, there may or may not be a mid april sale
jbuhler
Senior Member
I think Xsample Solo Strings struggle with lyricism, and the virtues of these libraries lies in the short notes and large number of extended techniques. As far as I’m aware the legato is programmed. It’s remarkably good and allows you to dial in portamento at pretty much any rate you want, but i think anyone concerned with the difference between bow change and fingered legato will be disappointed. xsample instruments also have fairly steep learning curves.
SupremeFist
Senior Member
Ha! JB doesn't work for me in this context (as discussed in another thread), but maybe I should take a closer look at ISS...Not the answer you want; but both have their strenghts... Hein offers a lot of variation in tone (14 instruments in the bundle) and more articulations... Hans Josef somehow always manages to impress me the most with instruments that have a certain sound I apparently like the best. So for ME Xsample wins. I have to say though that Embertone may take the crown here. ISS + JB is a set of samples I would not want to miss.... so yeah. I think you may want to check the Xsample website in a week or so, there may or may not be a mid april sale
SupremeFist
Senior Member
OK that is good to know. I have Neo strings which have an excellent range of extended techniques already but not all the instruments work as I'd wish for my kind of legato lines, so with xsample I might end up duplicating stuff...
The thing here is the frustrating inbuilt delay is actually how real string instruments work. This is also CSSS' single deviation from laser focus on optimization for plonkability. The upside is that it makes you think, at least a little bit, about crafting strings lines idiomatically. Rather than pandering entirely to piano players.
Which is perhaps the hardest, most frustrating - and most interesting and exciting thing about learning to write for solo strings with samples.
CSSS is great at what it's great at precisely because of this plonkabilty. It has a beautiful progressive vibrato baked right into it. And this is a beautiful arc, but not one you have much control over. Deviate from the musicality of this arc and ... things go badly.
If you're looking for credible idiomatic string writing, then one approach is to pick a library that bakes the performance in (CSSS, Bohemian, Tina Guo, etc) and ruthlessly restrict your writing to very precisely colouring within the lines of that idiom. You can get very nice sound + some plonkability in this. Provided of course that what you need to write fits within these predetermined lines.
Or you can go to the modelled/ programmable end of the spectrum - (SWAM, Chris Hein etc). In which case the frustration of the CSSS delay will pale in comparison of the effort of programming the idiomatic. Also, the modelling techiques imo give you this expressivity only at significant cost to the sound. (Note that CH, though virtuosic in expressiveness, are recorded bone dry, and I think in mono)
Emotional Violin/Cello/Viola are somewhere in the middle (though also very, very dry). You don't get great control over dynamics or vibrato, but you have a *lot* of idiomatic performances available. Crafting lines with EV and all the key switches is fun, and an education in idiomatic violin performance in itself. "Idiomatic lego" is how I think of it. But I think that all the crossfading and whatever else it requires comes at a cost to the sonority. Or at least in requiring it to be recorded bone dry. Which is ok for a virtuosic soloist, but I'm not sure how it would translate to an quartet.
Spitfire Solo Strings hits another sweet spot, which I think of as "as much expressiveness as possible with damaging the sonority" (aka the spitfire policy of "No samples were harmed in the programming of this library"). I personally love the expressivity that this yields. And you have enough control to create ensembles with that chamber intimacy of "the players watching each other elbows" which you'll never get with the Joshua Bell or Bohemian. Also, the real spatiality that you get from the wet recording in AIR let them sit together distinguishably embodied in a real space also gives an intimacy that you'll never simulate on a dry library.
This the refusal to sacrifice sonority comes at a cost to expressiveness. Attempt to mock up a Beethoven quartet with SsS at your own peril. Sacconi, which I don't have, is probably better for more classical quarters.
Many of the same comments for the OT first chairs, which I've only just started playing with. The dynamics, and especially the (almost non-existent) vibrato control aren't remotely as good as SsS. But it has it's own sweet spots, and they're also amazing good, completely unique. In particular the ability to craft arcs using long and short portatos, some lovely & pristinely classical harshness on attacks, and the soft dynamics of the cello is to die for. The wet, in situ recording is another big plus in my book (similar to CSSS and SsS). Absence of vibrato control is a major limitation for quartet writing, and attempting to mock up a Beethoven quartet is (I predict) going to leave you wanting to slam your head in a door as much as with Spitfire Solo Strings. But there are sweet spots for quartet writing here also, I feel, even if I'm not completely sure what they are yet.
Anyway, if the frustration of the delay in CSSS is a deal breaker for working with sampled solo strings ... I don't think your going to enjoy working with any sampled solo strings, ever. Seriously, might as well just go ahead and jump straight to slamming your head in a door without all the expense and inconvenience of messing around with sample libraries that will inevitably drive you to this eventually anyway.
I'd also seriously look into hiring real musicians (seriously - ping someone like Nicolaj , I think he still does this sort of recording @thesteelydane )
jbuhler
Senior Member
Do take a look at the articulation list for the xsample instruments. It is very extensive. But if you are looking for legato instruments, I don’t think this the library. The learning curve is steep though, so it’s more than possible that my inability to get the library to sing is user error.
SupremeFist
Senior Member
It shouldn't be that hard, should it? But yeah all I really want is singing legato lines with convincing control over dynamics within notes. *bangs head against keyboard*
doctoremmet
Senior Member
Spitfire or Virharmonic would be my safest bet for that... but don’t mind me. Instead read everything @ism has to say on the matter...
Edit: I do agree Xsample may not be my first choice but it isn’t completely non-lyrical either. Chris Hein isn’t half bad for that type of stuff either though.
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jbuhler
Senior Member
I want convincing control over vibrato for solo strings as well, for reasons @ism mentions. The difficulty with both dynamics and vibrato are those crossfades for solo instruments, since it is so easy to hear the crossfades as the entrance of a second instrument. Some sort of modeling will almost certainly be needed to pull it off. But I dislike the tone of modeled instruments and of phase aligned sampled instruments that are currently available. So the tradeoffs are always significant.
Glass half full version - solo strings are *immensely* complex phenomenon from the underlying physics to the luthier-ing to the decades it takes to learn the technique, to the fact that not even everyone who can learn the technique can master the delicacy of artistic expression that goes into ever gesture and idiom of playing even a single note, to the centuries of genius accumulated in the repertoire and the collective knowledge of idiom.
So it's like the dog playing chess. If you think about it, the mind benignly amazing thing isn't that sampling solo strings sometimes makes you want to slam your head in a door, it's that sometime they don't.
SupremeFist
Senior Member
Trust me, I have/do!
jbuhler
Senior Member
Yes, I agree, and it is lyrical enough for writing. But I remember a couple of instances of working insanely hard to get the first violin to sing a passage, finally trying the SF first desk violin and immediately improving the whole thing by a wide margin and with little effort.
SupremeFist
Senior Member
Yeah modelling isn't there yet. But in terms of the phase-aligned ones the tone of Chris Hein to me sounds significantly better than the tone of eg Cremona...
Second that
endless options, all playing techniques present and completely configurable (and dry too).
dzilizzi
Senior Member
See, this is where I think if you could make the different strings libraries sound similar enough, you could switch between libraries to get what you need, phrase by phrase. I am making a template and I really wonder if this is possible. Maybe some EQ matching? I know there are professionals that know how to make different libraries sound like they are in the same space. But I think this might be a step farther than this is possible?
And in a mix? It might not matter if there is a mix of libraries. Just a thought. I am unfortunately, not good enough yet (and don't have the time) to figure this out.
And in a mix? It might not matter if there is a mix of libraries. Just a thought. I am unfortunately, not good enough yet (and don't have the time) to figure this out.
