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 )
Which is cool, I look forward to hearing more of your compositions with it.
