VSL : Synchron Duality Strings (Sordino) Released !

[Muziksculp]

VSL : Synchron Duality Strings (Sordino) Released !

https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Duality_String ... oduct_Info

[Guy Rowland]

Holy cow they have glissandos! Only octave, 5th and major 2nd, fast and slow, but that's a lot better than most. Tons of articulations.

Really nice sound, quite a lot of detail in there. It's a much better breakdown of standard vs full than Spitfire, just mics and mixes set them apart. Overall I'm more tempted than with Spitfire... I don't thiiink I'm seriously considering, but it's a good option. We're spoiled.

EDIT - I misread the content - this is the whole string section, I thought it was just 1st violins! Ah, am now definitely tempted.

PS - good effort on the Contact theme on the website demos. Love that score. It's calling me...

[Guy Rowland]

Surprised by the lack of interest here so far. I was within a hair's breath of ordering yesterday and I genuinely thought I was done with string libraries.

The original duality was perhaps overshadowed by its gimmick of 2 spaces. I probably didn't give that its due, but the buttery tone of these sordinos pushes the duality concept into a nice extra rather than a raison d'etre.

Seriously, listen to that Contact demo (and Guy Bacos' original which is a broader showcase of what it can do).

[Linos]

The demos sound ok to very good to me. With the exception of the Tchaikowsky demo. That one sound insufferably bad to me. Despite that I am not really interested. The reason is that I rarely need sordino strings. And for the times I do, I have Sonokinetic's Sordino Strings that I got for free during one of their Christmas promos. It's less extensive than Duality Sordino Strings, that's true. For the little I use sordinos, it does everything I need. If you compare Sonokinetic's demos with Duality con Sordino, I don't find them lacking behind much. That makes Duality a hard sell for me. If you reaaally need those glissandi con sordino, then I guess you have few other options.

[Piet De Ridder]

Yes, some of it sounds very good.

But … I have drawn what might well turn out to be a final line under my VSL purchases. I have … let me see … close to 2 terrabyte of data in my VSL Content folder and I hardly use any of it, ever. Occasionally an old woodwind (weirdly, the ones I use most frequently date from VSL’s Horizon era), or a few flourishes with the Synchron harp, and in one or two pieces a subtle sprinkling of Dimension Strings … but that’s it.
Too much VSL material I've bought turned out to be something of a disappointment. I'm not saying it's bad stuff, not at all, simply saying it doesn't agree with me.

But yeah, these Duality Sordinos seem capable of great-sounding moments. And, as Linos already mentioned, in the case of the Tchaikovsky mock-up, also of much less appealing ones. (Mildly ironic that the author of that demo is the same person who once admonished me — in a VI-C thread about the Synchron pianos — for relying on my own music to test and evaluate sample libraries, saying that only classical pieces can tell the whole story about a library.)

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[Ashermusic]

Yes, some of it sounds very good.

But … I have drawn what might well turn out to be a final line under my VSL purchases. I have … let me see … close to 2 terrabyte of data in my VSL Content folder and I hardly use any of it, ever. Occasionally an old woodwind (weirdly, the ones I use most frequently date from VSL’s Horizon era), or a few flourishes with the Synchron harp, and in one or two pieces a subtle sprinkling of Dimension Strings … but that’s it.
Too much VSL material I've bought turned out to be something of a disappointment. I'm not saying it's bad stuff, not at all, simply saying it doesn't agree with me.

But yeah, these Duality Sordinos seem capable of great-sounding moments. And, as Linos already mentioned, in the case of the Tchaikovsky mock-up, also of much less appealing ones. (Mildly ironic that the author of that demo is the same person who once admonished me — in a VI-C thread about the Synchron pianos — for relying on my own music to test and evaluate sample libraries, saying that only classical pieces can tell the whole story about a library.)

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Interesting, Piet because that mirrors my experience with VSL stuff, nothing wrong with it, but I seem to never send up using them.

And unless one is specifically tasked (in my case paid) with recreating a Classical piece I can't imagine anything I care about less as criteria when choosing libraries for my own music.

[Guy Rowland]

I don't know why they do those classical demos, they never seem to work. I'll confess I didn't listen to that one.

Maybe I've timed it well. I haven't bought any VSL for years, not since getting the Woodwinds full SE (likely the same ones as your Horizon, Piet). I've skipped everything Synchron until now, this is the first stuff I've heard (including the regular Duality) that really screamed Must Have. It's ultra-gorgeous to my ears, and that controllable detail stops it being syrupy.

[Muziksculp]

I listened to the audio demos of Duality Strings (Sordino) on the VSL website.

They sound pretty good, but none of them impressed my ears, actually the best demo of these new Duality Sordino Strings (imho.) is the one playing in the background while Paul is narrating, the video, which I posted in the opening post above.

Here it is again, I very much like the way the Duality Strings Sord. sound here (If we can only Mute Paul's voice while the music is playing ) :





Somehow I like that one the best. I really don't hear that quality and definition in the audio demos they posted. Not sure why, but I will not be judging them so fast. I also find it odd they skipped a full detailed walkthrough video for this library, which imho. was not a very bright idea.

[Guy Rowland]

I only just remembered a big strike against VSL - only one authorisation. It's a pretty major PITA.

I do of course still have those LASS sordinos, and they are very nice.

Feel myself pulling back from the brink. I'd buy them if it were two authorisations, but it's a problem I don't need to have only one.

[Muziksculp]

[GR Baumann]

I bought, back then, very early into the VSL libs., and spent uncountable hours with the undoubtedly excellent samples, no idea how all this is today, but to me personally it turned out to be a disappointment, and I sold it quickly before it was to late.

It just killed creative flow for me every time I used it. FinallyI thought, all right, you are expecting too much, just make it simple, and played Ravel's G Major; 2nd , the Adagio assai into Cubase , then arranged VSL afterwards. Nothing I tried did the job for me even close enough. That was it for me. Undoubtedly, there are many much more talented people around who would get more out of VSL.

I don't know why they do those classical demos

Sales, that's all... kinda LOOK MA...NO HANDS! .)

[Lawrence]

Georg-have you owned any libraries that did a better job with the same pieces?

[Luciano Storti]

Hm, CONTACT mockup is very nice (tangentially, how has Silvestri not won an Academy Award? Am I in an alternate reality?). The sound is just lovely and detailed enough. Wish I used the VSL stuff I have more, so that I could justify adding these to my toolbox. But as it is, somehow, despite the clear quality of their catalog, nothing I install ever sees any REGULAR use. And I can't really put into words why.

[Lawrence]

I use VSL woodwinds constantly.

[Guy Rowland]

It is interesting to see a few variations of "I never use VSL in practice so I won't buy this even though it sounds very good!" I, like Larry, do regularly use those magical woods, and I always loved the cornet that came with the original VE Pro orchestra freebie thing, but that's about it for me thus far.

Paul Kopl at VSL has reminded me that VSL do have a 14 day money back policy, so that's now nudged me back into the Maybe column.

[GR Baumann]

Georg-have you owned any libraries that did a better job with the same pieces?

Larry, no I did not, that being said, when the cube hit the planet, to my memory, there was no serious competition to it. Others did not have that humongous amount of samples, and let me also say, most certainly there are people who would have got much more out of this than I did, no doubts, better skills, more experience, better everything in matters of "compositional deep fakes".

If memory serves, at the beginning they were available for Giga and EXS24. The stuff was not available via the internet, but DVDs instead.

With their move to the synchron stage, a new chapter arrived, and the variety expanded greatly, from mic positions to choice of mics, stereo, surround, and Auro´3D, many don't know this format anymore, as Atmos was the winner, mind-blowing.

All that in itself posed a challenge to a user, because of what became somewhat known as "product in-transparency", it was all too confusing at times, well, to me it was anyways.

Today I think, that AI will bring enormous changes to all that rather sooner than later. Developers need to think outside of the box concerning ideas about using AI, and have near future plans for that.

[GR Baumann]

Zappppp....flash back. https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/vs ... o-editions

[Guy Rowland]

Well damn that 14 day money back trial.

It downloaded in record time - under half an hour for 120gb or something. This is the first time I've used the Synchron Player in anger. Everything works out of the box easily (took me a moment to realise I need to double-click if something won't switch or load), and there seems to be excellent control options. Although the website has the installed size as nearly double the download size, this only means DURING installation, on disk it's 120gb. Also - this is great - you can choose which mics to initially install, so on a laptop you can shrink that if needed.

The first and most obvious thing to say is that there is no illusion here, it does sound that gorgeous out of the box. It is clearly different to anything else I have sonically. It's definitely a heartstrings library; Poco vibrato is for quietly affecting stuff, while the Molto pushes it to the max. The Espressivo and Swell options are great to have, as are the attack options.

It plays well to me, the different legatos are all good options, though perhaps the agile legato still has that slight keyboardy feel (depending on the part, I think slurred sounds better for quick stuff). I have the feeling there's always somewhere to go (except austere and sterlie, perhaps), it's surely a good library to really craft a performance. The short options sound lovely too, with a special mention for Detache soft which is heart-melting. I had overlooked that there's a useful runs section too, in legato and detache options.

At first I was a touch disappointed by the glissandos, in that even the slow ones were too fast for my liking. However, you can manually adjust the speed under the hood, and this worked extremely well for me. Only at crazy stretching does it sound odd. I could easily dial in to the kind of woozy level I like, and it sounded seamless. (This control is handy with the runs too of course).

My grand plan is that tomorrow I'm going to work properly with it on a piece. As it stands though, I fear I won't be getting my money back.

[Lawrence]

Can you include an agile passage or two, Guy? Also, did you pay €395?

[Guy Rowland]

Can you include an agile passage or two, Guy? Also, did you pay €395?

Sure - the main thing I want to do won't be shareable, but I can do something else as well. Feel free to send midi, in fact, I can play around with the different options.

And yes - you only get the 14 day thing if you order through VSL.

[Luciano Storti]

Can you include an agile passage or two, Guy? Also, did you pay €395?

Sure - the main thing I want to do won't be shareable, but I can do something else as well. Feel free to send midi, in fact, I can play around with the different options.

And yes - you only get the 14 day thing if you order through VSL.

There's a sordino strings piece I wrote a while back that I'd love to send you the MIDI for. It uses CSS with the faked sordino at the moment and I've been also meaning to try it with LASS' sordino, which I didn't have until v3. Might be an interesting comparison?

[Guy Rowland]

Go for it Luke, PM me the midi or post a link here and I'll give it a whirl

[Guy Rowland]

Life has rather got in the way and I haven't had time to really start work on the piece I wanted to, but I've quick;y done a limited-use short test of the the fast legato options. It's irritating fast triplet figures followed by an irritating legato line that switches between very short and long notes. Mix is out-of-the-box classic.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4ti3rgum ... 4yglp&dl=0

There's 2 versions. The first is auto legato that switches between regular and agile automatically. The second is slurred legato.

I think in real life you'd use shorts for the triplets, but just wanted to see how it handled it. Overall my feeling is that for close intervals I like the slurred, but it starts getting a bit wild with bigger intervals, when repeated anyway. The auto scripting does a pretty good job, even though it does occasionally feel a little keyboardy.

Hopefully over the next week I'll have some time to really work with it and post something less artificial.

[Lawrence]

Thanks for doing that, Guy. For my money, both versions become washy by the second or third ostinato repetition. Are you only using the built in room sound or also some external reverb?

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks for doing that, Guy. For my money, both versions become washy by the second or third ostinato repetition. Are you only using the built in room sound or also some external reverb?

That's a mix of main hall, mid and B dark. I honestly can't remember if there's internal reverb on it too, I suspect not, I think it's just the room sound. It's the default "classic" mix preset.

Obviously it doesn't sound washy when using shorts, which is what I'd usually do for Ostinatos, so this is a bit artificial as I said. It's just a stress test to see what repetitive fast playing does to the legatos.