8dio Adagio Violins Redux - $48

[Guy Rowland]

https://8dio.com/instrument/adagio-violins/

Starting with the Violins, this newly reworked volume brings you the latest improvements in programming and workflow previously found only in our critically acclaimed Century Series. The update includes the familiar and easy to use Century interface, remastered articulations, a powerful articulation matrix, integrated mixing capabilities, and for advanced real-time processing, our Chaos Effects.

With the new advanced Articulation browser, you can create your very own matrix of custom playing styles to suit your compositional needs. You can easily balance each articulation and assign each style its own dedicated Key-switch or Midi CC. Whether you are building a template and need to separate the long and short articulations; building performance based patches out of the dozens of playing styles; or creating a custom set of patches needed for your specific arrangement, Adagio gives you the power to shape this iconic sound to your workflow.

Say goodbye to Multis. With the update to Adagio, you will find various remastered layered Legato articulations made from 11 independent styles of lyrical Legato.

These Legatos have been completely reworked and redesigned to make expressive string writing completely effortless. The new legatos now adapt to the way you play, a softer velocity will trigger a more passionate set of Legato transitions, whereas playing more intensely triggers Legatos with a stronger transition.

The Adagio series was recorded in a beautiful church environment and contains three main groups of master violinists; Full Ensemble Violins (11 Players), Small Ensemble or Chamber Violins (3 Players) and a Solo Virtuoso Violinist (1 Player). Each section was sampled to capture the raw emotions and true expression within each string ensemble. Every articulation has been extensively sampled, including a total of 11 individual legato techniques, each with up to three times round robin, and a wealth of dynamic short notes including multiple styles of Spiccato. Each articulation is sampled with movement and character; the natural expression in each sample makes for a truly authentic playing experience that will be instantly noticeable in your next production.

Heigh ho it's 8dio. Will confess I rather liked much of the walkthrough though. Any comments from existing owners? Does this sound like they've addressed some of the issues with the library to you?

[wst3]

I am a fan of Adagio, and found Anthology to be lacking, so I still use Adagio when I want that 8Dio sound. I had toyed around with Century, but never got around to investing in it.

It is, of course, impossible to tell just how much they've addressed, and if they removed any of the good parts. For $50 I'm going to take a chance.

One of my biggest complaints was the inconsistent and cumbersome articulation management - and that appears to have been addressed, in spades.

It also appears most of my favorite articulations are still there.

I don't know of they fixed the wandering image problem, but I will be optimistic - and truthfully it was seldom an issue for me.

If they did make a marked improvement it will be difficult to wait for the remaining installments.

[Lawrence]

I’m curious Bill-why wasn’t it a problem for you? I bought the 8Dio viola, and despite a pretty nice tone, I was pretty startled by the wandering stereo image.

[Piet De Ridder]

(...) For $50 I'm going to take a chance. (...)

Bill, didn't you receive an email from 8dio containing a code which reduces that $48 for registered customers down to $28?
(Translated to euros, that's about €25, which is what I just paid a few minutes ago.)

_

[Guy Rowland]

Piet, not for the first time I'm in your hands, eagerly awaiting your feedback.

$48 for what I heard in the walkthrough does seem like a stupidly easy buy. Of course the trick is having to remind yourself that if you go down this road, then think about multiplying that by 4 for the 4 sections (with presumably no 2nd violins). At which point, I start thinking about waiting for Afflatus or Venice as perhaps a wiser thing to do. But then back I go, thinking that I could just think of $48 as a demo for the whole range, and if I don't get on with it I've taken very little hit. Plus it wouldn't be impossible to blend with other libraries for the other section I'm sure, with Adagio taking a prominent top line or something.

(Tangent - I do kinda wish Strezov would think about breaking Afflatus down into different modular sections. Not by instrument but by style.)

[woodrose]

(Tangent - I do kinda wish Strezov would think about breaking Afflatus down into different modular sections. Not by instrument but by style.)

Seconded. I would grab those Minimalist Strings in a heartbeat.

[Lawrence]

I really like some of the ensembles in the walkthrough. The solo violin sounds like a section-swimmy reverb maybe?

Funny, I didn't get that coupon, but I got the 10% off offer for being on the mailing list. Not sure if I already am or not-I do get (some of?) the mails.

[FriFlo]

Once all the sections are released I will certainly upgrade for 10$ each (which is the price for Anthology buyers as I read on the other "forum"). Not that I find those pricings understandable ... someone who paid somewhere around two thousand for these libraries years go and waited for all these years for them to fix some of the mistakes should certainly be entitled for a free update! But I bought this library for a couple bucks during a sale two years ago and I will certainly not complain. I haven't used much of it till today due to its problematic patch design and editing problems. There is a lot of both light and shadow in the library, but for this price it is easily worth it, even if they did not fix a lot ...

[wst3]

(...) For $50 I'm going to take a chance. (...)

Bill, didn't you receive an email from 8dio containing a code which reduces that $48 for registered customers down to $28?
(Translated to euros, that's about €25, which is what I just paid a few minutes ago.)

_

Not yet, but I will bug support because at that price - or even better $8 which I read elsewhere - it really is a no-brainer. If it is no better than the original Adagio I'm only out a little time and a couple cups of coffee. If they have addressed the original weaknesses, even some of them, then I may be better off. The redesign of the articulation management alone is enough to pique my curiousity!

[Piet De Ridder]

Strange update. Can’t recall ever coming across an update that is significantly smaller — there seems to be 10gig less samples in v2 than there is in its predecessor — and can do less than the previous version.

All the different legato patches from v1.5 and earlier have gone and in their place have come two new legato patches, simply called I and II (the first one, a portamento-oriented legato, the second one, a more standard one).

Also gone, as far as I can tell, are the Louré patches and a few spiccato variations. Pity.

There’s also a drastic cut in the Dynamic bowings. Which I find a particular shame, cause it’s precisely those bowings which I always found one of Adagio’s most appealing assets. Where 1.5 had twelve different dynamic bowings, the new version only has two: Arc Control and Arc Long. The manual doesn’t say anything about why ‘Arc Control’ is called ‘Arc Control’. I thought that, perhaps, by using a specific #CC, other dynamic bowings would become available, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. As it is, Arc Control simply appears to be a shorter version of Arc Long. It has to be added though that the ‘Speed’ control on the GUI works quite well to adjust the length of these Arc’s.

What used to be called ‘Divisi’ is now called ‘Chamber’ (a quick comparison reveals a subtle difference in sound, but it’s cleary the same samples)

The ‘jumping around in the stereo image’ is as bad as ever — 8dio clearly isn’t bothered by this — but, while potentially annoying, this is an issue that can be addressed with good stereo tools.

What is new, is a slicker interface (very similar to Century’s) and 8dio’s unavoidable Effects Rack (something I never used) plus an added convolution reverb well-stocked with presets. To my mind, there are quite a few things missing from the GUI: you can’t set the dynamic range, you don’t have any modulation control (say, velocity to control the attack of the shorts), you don’t have any control over the ADSR either, …
If the patches were locked, I would have considered this a major shortcoming, but luckily, all the patches show the Kontakt wrench in their left-top corner, which means that you can dive in and edit whatever you like.

For people who own version 1.5, I really see no reason to update, to be honest. Unless you find the GUI of 1.5 and earlier an unbearable eye-sore. All the weaknesses of the earlier version have remained — apart from the stereo jumping, I also have had always a bit of a problem with the spatial inconsistency among different articulations in 8dio libraries (not just the strings) — and anything you can do with v2, you can also do with v1.5, whereas the opposite isn’t the case.

If however you’re in the market for a pretty good sounding violinsection — and not just the full section, but also a reduced ‘chamber’ section and a solo instrument — these Adagio Violins, especially at the current price of $48, amount to a pretty attractive deal, I would say. Not my favourite stringssound (sometimes a little bit harsh and edgy, I find), but certainly good and capable of A LOT more than you could rightfully expect from a $48 library.

I’ll post a few examples later without the rather pronounced reverb that is present in the walkthrough.

_

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks so much for the update Piet, looking forward to the examples.

I read somewhere that they claim that 6 original legato types are represented in the 2 new ones, depending on speed of playing or velocity or something - does that seem plausible?

[Piet De Ridder]

6 seems a bit much to me, but yeah, there's a definite difference on the type of legato depending on how hard you play. Legato I, for example, is clearly portamento up until a certain velocity, and above that it becomes a normal legato. Dynamics affecting the legato-type seems much subtler though in Legato II ...
But I haven't spend enough time with both these patches to discern everything that might be changing depending on the speed and the velocity of the playing, so yes, maybe they're correct with what they're saying about all original legato patches having been integrated in these two new ones.

_

[JoelS]

I just played around with the new Adagio Violins for a bit. I also have the old ones, and most of what's in between (except the Anthology and... uh... Ad- A.. some other 'A' based cut down version).

8Dio really has a bewildering array of string section products. Fortunately or unfortunately (I'm not sure) I like most of them, for one reason or another. One thing I never liked was the old Adagio interface, so spending $28 to get the current GUI was a reasonable incentive.

One of my old gripes was that the shorts patch had no way to unload the ones you don't want, so I'd actually gone and deleted instrument groups in the editor to get low-RAM versions of each single articulation. The new GUI solves that issue, but it's really kind of subpar compared to what OT's Capsule or Spitfire's offers in terms of setting up instruments how you'd like them to play. Maybe a 'NEW New Adagio Century New Strings Part 3' will offer a more competitive and comprehensive GUI sometime next... decade. Who knows.

Another issue I had with original-flavor Adagio was that having all the various legato types was nice in theory, but in practice a mess. I really, really like the new 'Legato I' instrument. It plays very smoothly even through quick passages if you bump the speed knob up to a little past half... and you can CC assign that to go back to the more dramatic slides if you want. It does seem like they cherry picked from the best of the old legato styles to make this new version. Softer velocities yield more pronounced slides.

To top it off, I tried blending the new Legato I stacked with the d'amour V1 & 2 from Afflatus and really liked that sound a lot.

It is weird that they cut out a bunch of short articulations. This new set offers Feathered and Tapped Spiccato, Staccato and Marcato. I spent some time comparing them to the old articulations. The Marcatos sound exactly the same to me, which is fine because I like them a lot (and they aren't reliant on the Speed wheel like Century's, which are unusable to me). I compared the new & old Feathered articulations, and the new one sounds a lot more like the old On-Bow Spiccato than the old Feathered. Also, the new one has more consistent attacks, and is less roomy sounding. This is not a bad thing, as it's a nice focused short string sound. It's just different. The new Staccatos sounded more tight to me as well, less room on them. I like both versions of the Adagio shorts a lot more than I like Century's, so that's a plus.

Ditching all the old arcs and fiddly dynamic articulations definitely streamlines things, but as tricky as they were to use, sometimes they were just perfect for a moment. Less options isn't a great thing. Maybe most users didn't care about them? Someone ought to write an AI that could interpret a performance to string all those sorts of dynamic acrs into place automatically.

With practically everything 8Dio does, I find that stacking articulations in a mix-and-match way from their multitude of product lines ends up in a sound that I like.

I continue to have the old Adagio 1.6 on my drive, and will keep it there. This new iteration was still well worth the $28 upgrade for me.

[Guy Rowland]

(Just to give a big thanks to Joel and continued thanks to Piet)

[Piet De Ridder]

Here’s a fairly dry presentation of the Adagio Vlns Ensemble. I want to add immediately though that these strings can be made to sound better (warmer, smoother, gentlier …) than they do here. This is the pure, untreated, un-EQ’ed, unprocessed sound, straight out of Kontakt, straight to the MasterOut. It’s a blend of a bit more Close than Room Mic.

The example starts with a few Arc Control chords, then a few excursions with the two Legato patches (exploring the entire dynamic range of both, without encountering many different legato-types, I must say), then back to a couple of Arc Long chords, followed by the short articulations (Spiccato, Staccato, Marcato and Pizzicato).

The last bit (the Shorts) shows the great spatial inconsistency I mentioned earlier, best. Switch from a Spiccato or a Pizzicato, to a Marcato or a Staccato, and you’re in a com-ple-te-ly different space. (You can also hear it, though less pronounced, when you switch from the Arc’s to the legatos.)

The marcatos, it seems to me, give the most truthful representation of what type of ambience this library was originally recorded in. All the other patches have been ‘dried’ artificially by trimming the tails.
I never understood this approach, because you’re bound to run in serious spatial conflicts anyhow, as the marcatos illustrate. Why not record in a much drier-sounding space to begin with, if you’re going to cut away the ambience from most of the samples anyway? The Claire woodwinds exhibit the same annoying problem, and it’s near impossible to solve, unlike the stereo problem. Talking of which: as you can hear, that all too familiar 8dio Stereo Dance is in full swing throughout most of the example.

I had better memories of these Adagio Violins, I must say, but that’s probably because, on most of the occasions when I used them, it was for their dynamic bowings. Never got seriously aroused by any of the other sounds. And this version 2 certainly isn’t going to change that.

If anyone wants to hear the sound of the Chamber section or the Sordinos, let me know.

_

[wst3]

Those arcs are the reason I use Adagio - although I'd dearly love a little more flexibility. And your demo does show them off nicely.

The good news - not sure why, but the stereo dance was almost inaudible on my laptop. Odd!

I recall liking some of the short articulations, have they gutted them severely? I wasn't at all keen on the shorts you demonstrated.

Makes it sound like for $28 or even $8 it might not be the bargain I was looking for<G>

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks hugely Piet. I do hear the stereo dance in the shorts, but didn't notice much in the longs.

Overall it sounds like a good buy for $48, but I'm going to pass. I'm not sure really its going to give me much I haven't got elsewhere in some way shape or form, with less tics. I'd rather wait for a library that can give me something to get a bit more excited about rather than a "well, its a fairly cheap 12th flawed option for what i already have".

[Lawrence]

Thanks Piet.

The stereo inconsistency bothers me less in the ensemble than it does in solo instruments, where it sounds weird to me.

I do like the general tone, and those (portatos? marcatos?) are pretty dynamic. Hmm.

[Mike Marino]

I thought I read elsewhere that they also tied in some of the samples from Agitato. I could be wrong though. Agitato's legato did have a very portamento feel to it, particularly at lower velocities.

[Linos]

On my system the jumping around in the stereo field is quite pronounced. It is something that can be fixed. And 8dio should have done so instead of leaving it to every user. In my opinion their quality control is beyond hope, and it makes their libraries a waste of time and money for me. Even the ones they are practically giving away. This series of updates was a chance for them to turn things around. To consolidate the confusing range of libraries they offer (Adagio, Agitato, Anthology, Century and whatnot). And most of all to iron out the most severe inconsistencies, incomprehensible oversights, and horrible glitches that practically all their libraries are riddled with. Chance wasted.

My experience with using their libraries has always been a frustrating one. They feel a bit like a trojan horse to me: dressed up nicely, but empty inside. Working with them I am spending one third of my time actually working on the mockup, and two thirds trying to solve problems. I never get into a steady workflow. There is always something (often pretty basic thing) that doesn't work as it should, or is not possible with what's available in the library. So I have given up completely on 8dio.

The tone of these Adagio strings is quite nice, though they do sound a bit steely to me. To my ears they don't sound so unique that I wouldn't rather reach for another library first. The Light & Sound Chamber Strings for example. But given the price, it might be a good deal for some.

[Stakk]

Thanks for the report, Piet and Joel.

To me the upgrade seems only adding to the confusion. They already had a rework/streamlined edition of the whole Adagio series that is Anthology. And Adagietto before that. The upgrade seems to be falling in between the original Adagio and Anthology, but also omits several important aspects of the original library like Anthology did. ???

What is the logic behind having both Adagio (the update) and Anthology at the same time? Adagio was supposed to be retired now! It appears they wanted to squeeze every penny out of Adagio recordings.

While I liked the original Adagio for what it is, because I understand that the library was likely to be largely created and tested within the context of hybrid tracks - the harsh and edgy sound is exactly what you want in that context - I would also like to warn that Adagio is definitely not for orchestral mock-up for the already-mentioned inconsistent spatial image issue. It would not work.

Anthology was the last straw for me and upon that release I unsubscribed from their V8P mailing list - 8Dio originally touted that Adagio is the strings library of their dream. But when they re-re-released Adagio as Antholgy, which was basically a simplified Adagio but without the soul - they once again touted Anthology the strings library of their dream. Now, they can't keep the promise of retiring Adagio and started re-re-re-releasing Adagio. Should I upgrade and re-re-re-learn the workflow? *eyes rolling*

[JoelS]

'Workflow' is actually what makes me happy about this new Adagio violin release.

I really like having a single patch like the new 'Legato I' that allows me to play expressive lines shaped by just the mod wheel and velocity. That kind of programming allows me to work fast and effortlessly. I've made a lot of custom patch setups in OT's Capsule with their instruments to accomplish the same thing. Capsule is better for me than 8Dio's GUI because it lets you velocity switch between articulations, which is a huge workflow enhancement once you set it all up the first time. I mostly hate keyswitches, so I applaud any setup that sounds good while avoiding them.

Weirdly, perhaps, I may go backwards with another string library in that context. I used to blend Adagio violin legatos with Spitfire's Sable violin to get a sound I really liked. I upgraded to the Spitfire Chamber Strings from Sable a while back and I swear the sound is not quite the same with SCS. Their 'performance' patch is a marvel of programming, but I think it lost a quality in the sound that I appreciated. Until recently I didn't have enough hard drive space to have SCS and Sable around concurrently, but I do now so I'm re-installing Sable to test whether I am imagining things or not.

Marketing has gone off the rails with sample libraries, so I try not to listen to any of that and just judge whether the sounds the thing makes are worth the dollars they are asking. And if the price isn't at some absurd discount, wait six months and it will be. Especially with 8Dio. They're painting themselves into a corner with as aggressively as they're discounting, but it must work for them. Somehow.

[givemenoughrope]

If anyone wants to hear the sound of the Chamber section or the Sordinos, let me know.

_

I wouldn't mind hearing the same example (or close to it) with those.

I have all of Adagio/Agitato but remember being confused/underwhelmed by Anthology and tossing it aside within a day. But maybe the Arc Control there and the one in this update are worthwhile to have just for better consistency of timing/control....?

[Piet De Ridder]

It'll be something different, Rope, cause I no longer have that document open and I didn't save it either.

I must admit, until this v2 came along, I hadn't looked at, or worked with Adagio in quite a while (I have the Vlns and Vlas). Nor at Agitato (Vlns, Vlas and Cellos). And the reason is Century which, though impossible for me to praise unreservedly, not only contains everything that 8dio is bad at, but also everything it is good at. And 8dio on a good day — and they happen — is a developer that can produce very, very useful stuff. Enough of which I find in Century to always reach for that library whenever I have a feeling that 8dio strings, and especially their dynamic bowings, might be the solution to a problem I happen to be struggling with.

If Adagio and Agitato were to suddenly disappear from HD, I wouldn't care a jot. I probably wouldn't even notice it until a thread like these came along. If the same thing happened to the Century set however, that would bother me.

_

[givemenoughrope]

I've been meaning to think about possibly looking to Century maybe. I'm not sure why I haven't. I guess I was put off by feeling like Adagio/Agitato users were a sort of beta testers for CS and then received nothing in the way of a discount.