Hollywood Strings 2

[Linos]

Eastwest Sounds have announced 'Hollywood Strings 2', due April 25th.



Intro price is 399$, regular 499$.

It's recorded in the smaller Eastwest Studio 2, with a close and intimate sound. More information here:

https://www.soundsonline.com/orchestral ... -strings-2

The trailer sounds impressive.

[Lawrence]

I found this surprising. I thought EW was basically done with orch sampling. Maybe the (many) offers from Spitfire and OT convinced them that there were new markets for alternative products.

[Luciano Storti]

I was excited there for a moment... is it just me or does it sound rather flat and sterile? The shorts seem to lack bite, the thematic line feels quite disjointed at times and the Celli don't appear to "sing" at all. I did like the mordents though, sounded great to me, which makes me wonder if it was sequenced or if there's a dedicated patch for it.

[Guy Rowland]

It's a bit curious, isn't it? So often people criticise libraries for having too much baked in vibrato, and yet here when seemingly everything is pure nv until the last 15s... it sounds awfully flat. The trouble is that that piece sounds like it should have a good amount of expression. Perhaps a different kind of composition might suit the samples better.

That caption that says "imagine the emotion" - gets a laugh every time.

Well let's see. The shorts sound promising.

I thought EW was basically done with orch sampling.

They say a lot of things at East West, huh?

[Ashermusic]

Since I have Composer Cloud, I will get it when it's released and see how I like it.

[Daryl]

That caption that says "imagine the emotion" - gets a laugh every time.

From those demos, imagination is all we have. Perfectly horrid sounding strings, to my ears.

[GR Baumann]

Curious, what's the Mac switch got to do with it Piet?

[Piet De Ridder]

Nothing really. It's just that I cleaned house, rather thoroughly, when switching and anything that hadn't seen much use during the months/years leading up to the switch, didn't get transferred to the new Mac.

(For those not understanding where this comes from: I deleted an earlier post in which I mentioned that all things EastWest got left behind when I switched Macs 2 years ago. George appears to have read that post during the few minutes it was online.)

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[GR Baumann]

[Guy Rowland]

First walkthrough

[GR Baumann]

Coming in at around 160 GB. So, what is your opinion on the showcased? I mean, you folks have a ton of strings libraries and can compare that to Loegria (if that is a fair comparison, I don't know) and other more intimate strings.

I think to remember that he never uses the internal Hoopus intsrument reverb, hence his personal routing and setup will have a strong impact on what you hear there of course. I just feel that needs to be said.

[Guy Rowland]

Sounds good to me. It's another string library.

[Yasin Yavuz]

It sounds ok to me but I think he is using an unnatural reverb to mask the raw sound. If the purpose of library is being intimate, you should demonstrate it as such.

[Linos]

The violas sound beautiful to me. The violins, on the other hand, sound harsh and very bright. It's got that harsh, close-mic'd string quality that's so prevalent in VSL Dimension Strings.
While I liked the sound of the teaser track, the new tracks and the walkthrough showed me enough to know it's not a library for me. I could never get rid of the close mic effect in Dimension Strings. I'm sure you can't get rid of it here either. Much too bright and harsh for me.

[Guy Rowland]

The violas sound beautiful to me. The violins, on the other hand, sound harsh and very bright.

I don't hear it that dramatically tbh. But I did think those 2nd, 3rd and 4th notes in particular of the violas at 7.25 sound like sample restarts not legato transitions to me.

[Linos]

The violas sound beautiful to me. The violins, on the other hand, sound harsh and very bright.

I don't hear it that dramatically tbh. But I did think those 2nd, 3rd and 4th notes in particular of the violas at 7.25 sound like sample restarts not legato transitions to me.

The harshness or a beauty of the violas? I agree about the legato transitions you pointed out. They don't sound like real legato. But that doesn't bother me too much. What I can't stand is the excessive amount of air and top end that the library has. It's most noticeable in the tracks 'Man in the Mask' and 'Dark Romance'.

If you can't hear it, compare it to this:



That's how well recorded chamber strings sound to me. Hollywood Strings 2 are far from that. They sound much closer and, to my ears, almost grotesquely top-heavy. Maybe the demos just rely too much on the close mics for my taste.

The way I hear it, Hollywood Strings 2 is a specialty library. Used on their own, they sound as if you are sitting in the middle of the players in a relatively small room. That's not a sound signature I have any use for. I suppose they can be used as a layering tool to add texture and bite to strings that are too lush.

[Guy Rowland]

Sorry, I meant the difference between the sections Linos. But doubtless my old ears are, um smoothing things out for me.

It's a shame the walkthough doesn't go through each mic position individually at any point (unless I missed it).

[GR Baumann]

Thanks, as I have no comparison other than live experience (long ago!), I was wondering how others perceive that "weird sound“. I think you described that very well Linus. I love what I heard about the bass harmonics, which is a very niche sound of course.

That being said, I don't mind a certain "bite" like the first few notes here for example, but not a constant scratchy and rasping sound and apparently that was baked in that other library that you said, and will be the same here, and Guy is right, they should have showcased the announced mic positions.

Used on their own, they sound as if you are sitting in the middle of the players in a relatively small room. That's not a sound signature

That was what I perceived as the weird part. I wonder whether any other string library has that initial particular sound, I would be somewhat astonished.

[Guy Rowland]

Just a thought on clip-on mics used for the close:

This is actually used a ton in life, but not in conventional orchestral studio recording. Any amplified live performance is likely gonna use clip-ons. So there might be a specialist use for this library if you want that sound for whatever reason.

Hopefully there will come a more detailed walkthrough which can really let us hear what all the individual mic positions are doing.

[Tanuj Tiku]

Surprisingly vintage sounding. Like a cross between the old LASS and VSL libraries. The original announcement video sounds quite bad but the walk through is better. In many places it doesn't even sound like strings anymore!

I doubt it will be useful as a stand-alone. A detail and colour obsessed programmer will find some use in certain situations but it's a hard sell. From a sales point of view, it will probably find some fans in trailer music who need very edgy and unrealistic sounding chamber strings for certain trailers and probably satisfy some of their cloud ecosystem members.

A surprisingly weak addition in 2024.

[GR Baumann]

umm... ?

[Lawrence]

“Disconnected Strings” from EW.

[Guy Rowland]

“Disconnected Strings” from EW.

I seem to have not pressed SUBMIT, but I said much the same. The tone is a little unflattering and the dynamics feel flat, but you think that those might be tweakable. But yikes, there's not much like a phrase is there? I'd heard another demo where the legato transitions were pretty rough.

[Ashermusic]

I am playing it this morning and I think it has a rather lovely sound, but I don't think it's MY sound. I rarely want a chamber sized orchestra and when I do, it's more likely for pop stuff with sordini, like the Scene d"Amore in Afflatus Chapter 2. Usually I am going with the lushness of the original HS, or CSS.

And now, when I don't need a boatful of articulations and want to avoid key switching, just control it by my playing, KH Concert Strings Adaptive.

So while I think this will be a really welcome library for many, probably not going to use it a lot personally.

[Linos]

It's pretty obvious that the samples in the Audio Tech Talk video are not used well. So I don't attach any importance to the fact that the examples sound bad.

This, however, is another matter:



Oh my God, how bright those strings sound. What an unbalanced sound. It's a trend that for epic music everything has to be bright to cut through the mix. The VSL Synchron libraries suffer from this. It may be modern now, but I just don't like it. Nor do I think it will age well. That's why I don't own a single Synchron library. Great concept, unbalanced sound signature in my opinion. Also the 8dio Centery series. And now Hollywood Strings 2 has gone completely over the top. It sounds like steel to me. Totally unappealing in my opinion.