Maybe, but you know, after all it's Mozart, so I went more for bouncing spiccati rather than heavy attacks here, trying to make it sound spirited, and natural, not too hyped (same with vibrato, articulation, timbre, ensemble size, etc.). Anything but dogmatic, though definitely a bit in the direction of a historical performance. In any case, you might be right about sounding sterile of course (it's just a deliberate, stylistic choice here, not a library issue). CC21 & CC22 wouldn't make such a big difference here though, imo (CC21 controls the bow noise during the bowing, not affecting the attack particularly, and the kind of sonic artifacts CC22 brings about to the sound doesn't help with bite either; both CCs change the timbre considerably during the sustain, but have little to no effect on the attacks, at least to my ears). But it's certainly possible to get more bite with a little more bow contact on the strings (i.e. slightly longer note durations) and higher CC11/vel values, though the quality of the sound could be easily lost (on-string staccato lacks the resonance of the vibrating strings that off-string spiccato produces, and SM strings mimic that behaviour quite convincingly). CC28 could help for sure with the "realism" of fast passages in solo performances, but in ensembles I find the built-in detuning does the job by itself. In any case, for sure you could play with these things if you find it too "clean" for your taste (this, in fact, is what I love about this kind of libraries, that you can do almost whatever you want with them)
Small/medium ensembles (except for the bassi), layered with soloists (to give it more clarity and presence... and as a test for possible phasing issues, I must confess). I find layering also helps to shrink the perceived size of the ensemble (which I was also after). I also wanted to check if the same midi data produces the same results for soloists and ensembles: it does, and I really like that. Layering could bring some issues though, depending on the musical context and/or if you're not careful enough with IRs, etc.
No, just expression and vibrato intensity (vibrato rate is fixed because, at such fast tempi, modulating the rate doesn't make much sense). Every other controller which contributes to the sound/performance was also fixed from start to end.
You can say that again: same CC11 value, same note duration... just increase the velocity by 1 in certain ranges and the quality of the sound can change dramatically from a very resonant spiccato to a quite dry staccato. I wish this kind of things were clearly specified in the manual. It takes some trial and error to figure out how the instruments behave. It's clear that, even if they respond extremely well to continuous changes, there're kind of "quantum" leaps in the continuum which somehow resembles the velocity layers of traditional libraries.
I find that legato and "longs" are a pleasure to work with, but detaché and "shorts" are kind of a pain right now for me, precisely for that reason (measured tremoli is something I'm still struggling with, for example). Well, let's see it as a challenge. One thing is clear, though: this is not, say, Jasper Blunk's Oceania, with which you can do only one thing, but you can do it right away extremely well. On the contrary, there's so much to learn to make this library do exactly what you want it to.
I could have written that myself, eli0s. No doubt CSS(S) has a wonderful sound right out of the box, and a scripting that does wonders with it. I love it. But as good as it is, it's quite limited in certain musical contexts. I would say, SM strings are, to some extent, quite the opposite: takes time to master, but the flexibility it offers is unparalleled. To quote Saxer here:
I resonated a lot with that, and I think what he said about SCS could also be said about CSS (or any other "traditional", good string library). I also see them (CSS and SM) working sinergetically to some extent. Can't confirm that yet, though.
Glad you liked it!
In a sense, trying to perform a piece of music organically out of different pre-recorded articulations is like trying to recreate a human being out of different body parts: if you work hard enough, know what you're doing, and, above all, avoid writing things that the library can't manage, you can get "the most beautiful Frankenstein" one could possibly dream of. Of course, absolutely nothing wrong with it, quite on the contrary, but the moment you want the monster to stretch... then it hurts.
Pure synthesis allows much more flexibility at the cost of timbral beauty, and elegance. It's like a constant struggle between sound & performance. I guess when it comes to VIs, in the search for "realism", we tend to focus much more on the sound ... but you give me the Lady Blunt Stradivarius and I will show you how "unreal" it can sound in the wrong hands. For me personally it's the other way around, but to sound neutral here, let's say performance is at least as important as timbre for musical expression and beauty.
Although sample based, SM works clearly differently from traditional libraries, allowing much more flexibility. I hope its hybrid approach could someday bridge the gap, and bring to the table the best of these two aspects. That's why I find libraries such as SM or Aaron's Infinite Series much more interesting to follow. But then I listen to Andy Blaney's BBC orchestral demo, and I relax from any dogmatism. Let every developer provide us with the best products they can come up with, and let'us suffer not being millionaires
I must be a little masochistic, cause I really enjoy each new release, even if I can't afford to purchase it.
I'm glad I got these strings. From the things I tried so far I could see me using it in 3 different contexts:
1) As a NotePerformer "on steroids" (strings only) for the DAW. An example of this is the Sakamoto track I uploaded earlier in this thread. Load the midi file, blow your BC, and enjoy.
2) As a layering lib to enrich the sound of other strings or hide their flaws.
3) As a main library that provides better performance in more complex musical contexts (this Mozart divertimento could be an example)
Next I think I'll try something more lyrical. I'll post it if I can make it sound decent.