VSL : Synchron Duality Strings (Sordino) Released !

[Ashermusic]

Guy, as you know HS legato patches use cc11, so in my version I recorded cc11 and cc7, no cc1.

CC1 is vibrato, no? So adding 7 (or 11 - same thing imo) to the modwheel tends to work pretty well for me - as the playing gets louder it has more vibrato intensity. It has more flexibility to have it as two separate CCs of course, but most libraries combine the two effectively so it's just the way of working I'm used to with (almost) everything else. In place of 7 or 11 I just ride the audio volume - they're all exactly the same effect to me.

All correct. I didn’t feel it needed added vibrato much .

[Guy Rowland]

I should put this in another thread, but I just enquired on the off-chance how much a 2nd license would be for HOOPUS via the online chat at Soundsonline. Within 60 seconds I had a second free license in my iLok account

!!!

They say a 2nd license is now available on request for anyone with HOOPUS or Fantasy Orchestra. They're looking at rolling it out for other products, but no decision yet.

Feeling quite warm and fuzzy about East West, which is an unfamiliar feeling...

[Mikeybabes]

I had that too. Emailed them for a price on 2nd licence for HOOPUS and Spaces II.

I had a quick quick reply saying that they had deposited it in my iLok account.

I don't know why, but every time I have contacted East West support, I have always had low expectations, and every single time they have been superb.

I have pretty much stopped buying samples these days, as I have everything I need, but I'm tempted to get the Fantasy Orchestra just to mix things up a bit. I'll wait for BF and see what turns up.

[Lawrence]

It took some years before Play finally got stabilized. Since then, the few times that I’ve needed tech help from them, the response has been superb.

[Guy Rowland]

Well the tests continue, this time comparing the HOOPUS 14 and 18 violin patches, and separating main playing intensity (normally CC1 but not here where it is CC11) from vibrato (here CC1). The way the CCs are set up still messes with my head, but that's just a case of finding the combination of quick controls and automation in OPUS that makes sense to me and I'm a slow learner.

More tricky is that I find there are some big jumps in intensity on a smooth CC track, especially around the 1/3rd level, and so riding what would be CC1 on any other library is constantly frustrating. It takes multiple pick ups to get something smooth for me. At least I usually get there eventually.

Unlike SDS, there's no attack controls I can find, but adjusting the CCs carefully means I can get some variation. The vibrato is just two position, like SDS but thankfully with both libraries its pretty seamless to switch from one to the other.

The 14V patch has three legato options - bow change, slur and port. I honestly couldn't tell much difference between the first two, I did think slur might have been a bit more, well, slurred, but it seemed to vary on a note by note basis and I didn't notice much of an obvious bow direction change with the other. 18V drops the bow change anyway. Portamento felt like a huge jump with no control over the speed that I could find, but again it varied wildly from note to note so some transitions worked where many others didn't (in the end I only used it on the penultimate note of the V1 lead). SDS is a clear winner here, there's a delineated gradation on transitions and there's more finesse as a result. But that said, the transitions between the notes are very good in HOOPUS, and it feels properly joined up.

All round SDS I found much much better to work with. But what about the results? I think there's a little more finesse in these versions, but they sound fairly similar to each other (18V slightly less intense vibrato perhaps) and not a million miles from the previous version I posted:

HOOPUS 14V
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/lfmlvs9w ... 23vti&dl=0

HOOPUS 18V
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/lfmlvs9w ... 23vti&dl=0

There's a bump I couldn't quite eliminate on the 3rd note of 18v. And once more for easy comparison, the SDS sords (with that extra bit at the end)

SDS SORDINOS
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/spz959h8 ... vb9g6&dl=0

So I'm still pretty conflicted. HOOPUS may be hard bloody work, but it can get really good results. It's great that they now have 2nd licenses, but the entire string section is 400gb, far too much for even my fairly generous 2TB Macbook air. Looks like I can delete other mics though, giving around a 60gb install for just the mains - that's about the same as a 3 mic position install of SDS.

Is the sheer effort and that slight lack of finesse worth a few hundred bucks? Still don't know, but will have to decide pretty quick.

[Guy Rowland]

I feel like I've wrestled with a gorilla, having spent the entire afternoon adding regular and sordino custom keyswitched versions of HOOPUS to the template. A low-level literal headache didn't help, nor did losing half an hour to a VE Pro crash (the autosaved version crashed too), and another half an hour because I'm a total idiot and blatted over a delicately set up instrument before saving. ADD and do not double-click a new instrument you imbecile, Rowland.

But this is the price I pay for having it (hopefully) easy to use from here on. All the CCs now behave sensibly to me, and I decided to keep vibrato and expression separate to make the most of the library. I learned that in fact there are 3 levels of vibrato for the main library, it's only 2 for the 18 violins.

I'd honestly not tried the soft / sordino settings before, and I think it makes the library shine more than the regular settings. It has that really rich and warm sound I love.

And that means I'm 86% sure I'll be returning SDS Sordinos, wonderful though they are. The difference is not quite large enough to justify the cost, and now I've been through the pain of getting better versions of the HOOPUS instruments into the template (my first efforts several years ago were ok but quite limiting) I'll be using them less grumpily form here on.

Again, thanks Jay for the pointer, much appreciated.

[Ashermusic]

Glad to have been helpful, Guy.

[Lawrence]

Is it just strings that you’re changing Guy?

I’d love to get a list of your chosen patches because my extreme laziness and general distress about EW patch naming have kept me from swapping out HOOPUS and instead letting Play versions remain in my template, and that’s a project that I plan to take on albeit grudgingly and with much grumbling and cursing.

[Guy Rowland]

Is it just strings that you’re changing Guy?

I’d love to get a list of your chosen patches because my extreme laziness and general distress about EW patch naming have kept me from swapping out HOOPUS and instead letting Play versions remain in my template, and that’s a project that I plan to take on albeit grudgingly and with much grumbling and cursing.

Oh gawd I hear you, but at least HOOPUS rationalised it a bit.

I made my decision-making easier by loading up the master keyswitch patches, then rearranging and disabling the artics I didn't want. So if it wasn't in there, I didn't use it and that's that. One real PITA though is that for the main library (not the 18v), they don't have most useful legato patch, the combination slurred / port one, only some bloody awful version with a spiccato at the front of it or some such unusable nonsense. So I have to keyswitch for port now, not on key velocity. Hardly the end of the world - I have the 3 basic legato types all keyed next to each other (and on some of the instruments there was a much clearer difference between bowed and slurred incidentally).

My whole workflow is based round a busted old Mk1 Korg Nanokey, that lives on top of the main keyboard and set to octave -1 (should have started on -2 but far too late to change that now). Within the octave it has all the main articulations where I expect them, as far as possible, so I don't have to keep looking at UIs, I just stab and hopefully it works. I do make a note of everything in Cubase's track notepad for the extra bits and pieces.

[Lawrence]

Very sensible. Do you (can you?) unload the arts you don’t want to save RAM?

OT-I’ve always loved the mod wheel controlled French Horns shorts patch-because of the long portato option, I can often get a whole horn part out of it (non legato, but still.) The short shorts are nicely punchy.

[Guy Rowland]

I forgot to say - at the moment just looking at the strings, I think they're the most essential part of the library for me.

Very sensible. Do you (can you?) unload the arts you don’t want to save RAM?

Each articulation has a radio on/off. Not sure if that can be automated. I do run it purged so that helps, but I guess the sheer number of articulations I threw at it today (prob around 15-20 per instrument) adds up. The 6 instruments loaded into one instance of Opus takes around 5-6gb I think, all purged.

Once I'd done it, I copied that instance and made the sordino versions. I know you can automate the controls, but I've found too much of that sort of thing and it becomes a PITA in practice. I like to just enable and go.

[Luciano Storti]

Well done, Guy! I think the HOOPUS versions have come a long way and are really starting to sound good. Worth wrestling with for sure (SDS still has the sweeter sound, but close enough for Rock 'n' Roll, as they say).

Another option, perhaps not as good but maybe worth a try, could be to do some EQ matching with Sordinos you like from a real recording. Q3 can obviously do this, but I think Ceilings of Sound may be even better for that application if you have it. It's something I've been wanting to try for Pacific Strings. When time permits.

By the way, the piece is lovely and I particularly enjoy the phrase between 0:37 - 0:42: it's an unexpected way to go for that cadential moment and surprises me every time.

[Guy Rowland]

Interesting idea on the EQ matching, though I'm not sure I own a real time version. I wonder if there would be an EQ on EQ effect though, as HS's Sordino is itself a simulation?

Thanks for the kind words, and totally agree on the assessment of the two libraries. I feel mean giving SDS back - it is so lovely - but did I mention I've spent £1.5k on keeping the bloody car on the road?

[Luciano Storti]

Interesting idea on the EQ matching, though I'm not sure I own a real time version. I wonder if there would be an EQ on EQ effect though, as HS's Sordino is itself a simulation?

Thanks for the kind words, and totally agree on the assessment of the two libraries. I feel mean giving SDS back - it is so lovely - but did I mention I've spent £1.5k on keeping the bloody car on the road?

Oh I meant one or the other, definitely not EQ on top of the simulation. But possibly worth a try on the regular samples to assess differences in tone, depending on where you capture the curve from.

Don't get me started on keeping cars on the road - it's QUITE a familiar story, let's say you got away well in comparison to my wife's car, though I suspect that isn't comforting in any way!