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Wow - Chris Hein Ensemble Strings Looks Great

I actually don't like this library or it's approach all that much, I just think the price is fair for what it is, and what has clearly gone into it.
I'm not sure I understand this straw man argument you're engaging in. I never said the price wasn't fair. I said I can get Agitato and Adagietto for less and that CH's price is too rich for my blood. Where exactly did I say anything about what's fair? Are you arguing simply to be contrary?
 
I'm not sure I understand this straw man argument you're engaging in. I never said the price wasn't fair. I said I can get Agitato and Adagietto for less and that CH's price is too rich for my blood. Where exactly did I say anything about what's fair? Are you arguing simply to be contrary?

I ALMOST am yes, because in this, and all your previous postings, you never acknowledge the cost of producing a library, only that it takes "hours". My initial issue with your complaint was that you didn't seem to consider CH had to pay musicians, engineers and studio rent, remember? And when you say that's not a "problem" you will encounter personally, I only pointed out that to produce a library of this quality DOES include paying musicians, and hopefully paying them well.
 
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I ALMOST am yes, because in this, and all your previous postings, you never acknowledge the cost of producing a library, only that it takes "hours". My initial issue with your complaint was that you didn't seem to consider CH had to pay musicians, engineers and studio rent, remember? It's not like he pockets all 400 for himself, you know....
It isn't my responsibility to consider what CH pays for these things. My responsibility as a consumer is to react to the product and either buy or not buy. I'm choosing not to buy because it's too expensive for me. I didn't say it was too expensive for you or for anyone else. People have to make their own decision what they can afford to spend their money on. So, basically, you're simply here because you've been upset by some past post of mine and you've decided to troll this thread. Whatever, dude. If you're becoming a developer, you'd better get used to the idea that customers are finicky and can only spend so much of their hard-earned money. Some will fall over themselves to buy whatever you're selling. Others will be more prudent. It's part of life. Nothing to get upset about. Enjoy your life, and good luck with your future endeavor.
 
To my mind and experience as a player, as well as a recording musician, the sound of a room is an integral part of the sound of an instrument, especially so with strings, even more so with brass, but for reasons I don't understand much less so with woodwinds. I love CH woodwinds, I think the solo strings are great considering they are dry, but I have yet to hear a reverb unit, hardware or software, that can make a truly believable impression of a real hall - not to mention what playing in a real hall does to us players' imagination and the colours we produce, even if we're recording samples note by note. I love the control you get with well scripted dry libraries, and I have a lot of them, but if I really want to make a mockup sound as believable as possible, nothing beats a well recorded wet library in a great hall - there's no contest (except for woodwinds for some reason).

I totally agree with you. Yes, the Sound of the Room is an Integral part of the sound of the Instrument, That's why imho. very dry recordings of bowed stringed instruments don't sound that great without any reverb, adding Reverb makes them sound much better, but still not as realistic and beautiful sounding compared to a bowed string instrument/s played in a rich acoustic hall. I also know exactly what you mean about what a great sounding acoustic hall can do to players, it is a very rewarding experience compared to playing in a dry room/studio.

I still think there is a balancing act between keeping the samples relatively dry, to better edit, and manage legato transitions, plus the ability to have the bow sound more present, (edgy sounding) compared to a more medium or large hall that produces a more smooth/lush string sound. I feel that this library will be very useful, and it already sounds good from the demos, and provides us with more options, and colors to work with.
 
It isn't my responsibility to consider what CH pays for these things. My responsibility as a consumer is to react to the product and either buy or not buy. I'm choosing not to buy because it's too expensive for me. I didn't say it was too expensive for you or for anyone else. People have to make their own decision what they can afford to spend their money on. So, basically, you're simply here because you've been upset by some past post of mine and you've decided to troll this thread. Whatever, dude. If you're becoming a developer, you'd better get used to the idea that customers are finicky and can only spend so much of their hard-earned money. Some will fall over themselves to buy whatever you're selling. Others will be more prudent. It's part of life. Nothing to get upset about. Enjoy your life, and good luck with your future endeavor.

Apart from the fact that I'm not trolling, I simply pointed out that CH had to spend a lot more than just his time on this, and then felt provoked by your next comment, I agree with all of that. Peace out.

Edit: I'd like to amend that. I DO think you have a responsibility as a consumer to either buy or not buy a product based on MORE than just economic self interest. If a product was produced with exploited or underpaid labour, as is the case with many things these days (although thankfully almost certainly not sample libraries), then your responsibility extends far beyond your selfish economic interests. I hope we can agree on that.
 
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IMHO the price is in the budget segment compared to the competitors - same as CSS which was considered impossibly cheap for its quality when it came out a few years ago, and much cheaper than Berlin Strings (€840), Spitfire (€799), LASS ($799.00) and Vienna Synchron Strings (€ 595 for standard version).

With CHES you get two section sizes and lots and lots of articulations, but 2nd violins are sorely missing compared to all the other libraries, maybe that can be remedied later, but who knows?

Sure there are many cheaper and older options which still sound as good as ever, Agitato and HS for instance, and eventually this library too will fall in price, but compared to most new offerings with the same content I this think it's very reasonably priced, cheap even. Is Adagiato+Adagietto a better buy for you robgb? Well, that depends, because if you have six string libraries, you most likely already have everything you "need". Then what sound would you like to add? One option is recorded in a huge church (thus extremely lush) and one is extremely dry and therefore extremely customizable so they are very different offerings.

That beeing said - I think CHES too sounds extremely lush and very realistic, maybe even more so than any of the libraries recorded in real halls, so i will buy it and try if it is as good as I hoped.
 
Is it safe to presume that the Ensemble Strings use the the same samples as the solo strings, but "re-assembled"? But since the extra samples in Solo String Extended were offered "free", we can hardly expect the Ensemble price to follow the same logic..

And I imagine the 2nd violin section could be scripted as an update?
 
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Is it safe to presume that the Ensemble Strings use the the same samples as the solo strings, but "re-assembled"? But since the extra samples in Solo String Extended were offered "free", we can hardly expect the Ensemble price to follow the same logic..

And I imagine the 2nd violin section could be scripted as an update?

No, for one thing the ensembles contain many more players per section
 
Well I was going to buy SCS for small strings, should I still buy SCS as my main chamber string library or do you think this would work in place?
 
No, for one thing the ensembles contain many more players per section
On the contrary, I believe that one of the videos shows that the library is made just like that: combining the different solo samples, with RRs, with different “body” settings of course, detuned and moved around in timing to create a believable section. In that way 4 violins with a huge amount of different settings and a huge sample pool can become a 16 piece (or something) violin section.
 
I totally agree with you. Yes, the Sound of the Room is an Integral part of the sound of the Instrument, That's why imho. very dry recordings of bowed stringed instruments don't sound that great without any reverb, adding Reverb makes them sound much better, but still not as realistic and beautiful sounding compared to a bowed string instrument/s played in a rich acoustic hall. I also know exactly what you mean about what a great sounding acoustic hall can do to players, it is a very rewarding experience compared to playing in a dry room/studio.

I still think there is a balancing act between keeping the samples relatively dry, to better edit, and manage legato transitions, plus the ability to have the bow sound more present, (edgy sounding) compared to a more medium or large hall that produces a more smooth/lush string sound. I feel that this library will be very useful, and it already sounds good from the demos, and provides us with more options, and colors to work with.

There’s a nice rawness and intimacy to close and dry recordings for sure, and it certainly has many useful musical applications, also in media music. I do it all the time for my own stuff. It’s just difficult, if not impossible, to take a close and dry recording and make it sound like a good player in a good hall with artificial reverbs, no matter how good your reverbs. Good halls are instruments in themselves, and must be recorded as such. You can achieve a half decent impression of it with good mixing skills, but it will never sound as good as the real thing. Then again, a recording will never sounds as good as being there in person, so it’s more a question of achieving “good enough” rather than perfectly real. I personally think wet libraries get closer, and with much less work so I can spend my time on writing music instead, but I understand the allure of dry libraries, and have quite a few of them. I just never try to blend them, because it immediately reveals why recordings in good rooms sound better than reverbs.

All that said, the libraries I create for myself are completely dry, but I’m not trying to imitate real orchestral instruments, I’m trying to create virtual instruments from real sources, that can do things not possible or practical in the real world - and for that, recording dry is great.
 
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IMHO the price is in the budget segment compared to the competitors - same as CSS which was considered impossibly cheap for its quality when it came out a few years ago, and much cheaper than Berlin Strings (€840), Spitfire (€799), LASS ($799.00) and Vienna Synchron Strings (€ 595 for standard version).
I completely agree with you there (and made mention of Spitfire, which I believe vastly overcharges), but in a time when complete orchestras are available for $300 to $500, $400 for a strings library is too high for me to justify buying. Again, this is my own thing.
 
On the contrary, I believe that one of the videos shows that the library is made just like that: combining the different solo samples, with RRs, with different “body” settings of course, detuned and moved around in timing to create a believable section. In that way 4 violins with a huge amount of different settings and a huge sample pool can become a 16 piece (or something) violin section.
With time and patience, this is something all of us could do with an existing solo library. In fact, I believe someone here on VI did it using Jasper Blunk's free violin library.
 
On the contrary, I believe that one of the videos shows that the library is made just like that: combining the different solo samples, with RRs, with different “body” settings of course, detuned and moved around in timing to create a believable section. In that way 4 violins with a huge amount of different settings and a huge sample pool can become a 16 piece (or something) violin section.

That doesn't contradict my point at all. I'm aware that's how the library was recorded, but I think it's a safe assumption that it was made with more samples than are included with the solo strings. There are even more samples in the Ensemble strings than in the Solo strings. The question I was answering was whether Ensemble strings were just the existing Solo strings reassembled. They are not, they're more than that.
 
Well I was going to buy SCS for small strings, should I still buy SCS as my main chamber string library or do you think this would work in place?
Hi Random. It will depend on a few things, like what other libraries you already have, whether you want a string library that is quite dry and may need some work to add reverb and make the sound be realistic, and also the size of the library (number of players). SCS is one of the best libraries out there for what it does, and is well know/well proven. It is a chamber sized section that you can get to sound bigger with not too much effort, but it won't completly give you the symphonic sized sound. It is recorded in a large hall, so has a fairly wet (wonderful) sound. It has a lot of articulations, some which are uniquely Spitfire. There are other good options on the market for chamber strings also - I suspect the CH library this thread is about wouldn't compete with SCS or those others so well, but that is just my personal opinion after listening to the demo. Like I say, it depends on your needs. I don't know if that helps?
 
I read the clickbait heading and listened to some of it. Not crazy about what I've heard so far (hard to put into words but "mechanical" comes to mind), but certainly not bad. Will follow with interest.
 
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