Berlin Solo Strings - Orchestral Tools

[Linos]

Orchestral Tools releases Berlin Solo Strings:

https://www.orchestraltools.com/berlin-solo-strings

Intro price is €299 until January 5. After that it goes to the regular price of €399.

I hope this one is more carefully planned and executed than their Berlin Strings First Chairs library.

[Lawrence]

Does anyone love the sound of these demos? I really wanted to like them but they either sound too edgy or too diffused for me.

I’d pay $300 in a heartbeat for a good quartet.

[Linos]

I hear the edginess too. The climax of the trailer is so shrill it hurts my ears. The same happens in Claire Wickes' demo. I will wait for user demos and walkthroughs

[wst3]

I'm curious to learn if the edginess was intentional, a stylistic choice. And can it be easily tamed?

[Linos]

If the walkthrough is any indication, I don't think so. Listen to the Decca Tree and A/B mics:



They are very, very bright. That's not how a string quartet is supposed to sound. If even the more ambient mics are this bright, I am not sure you can get a pleasant sound of this.

The samples in Berlin Strings First Chairs sound much better to me.

[Tanuj Tiku]

I think the tone is in the ball park and it may be useful as a writing tool if it is easy to use. Some of the short, long and repeating interval legato sounds good in the demos.

I haven't seen the walk through but it may be a good investment if a project needs it. The occasional harshness should be easy to tame with an EQ.

Needless to say this is not going to replace any real string players!

[Lawrence]

I think the tone is in the ball park and it may be useful as a writing tool if it is easy to use. Some of the short, long and repeating interval legato sounds good in the demos.

I haven't seen the walk through but it may be a good investment if a project needs it. The occasional harshness should be easy to tame with an EQ.

Needless to say this is not going to replace any real string players!

I’m curious, Tanuj-what sounded good to you? The demos? The trailer?

I’ve been actively seeking a library for string quartet and small ensemble simulations. I was hopeful listening to this but didn’t think it sounded good.

[Tanuj Tiku]

I think the tone is in the ball park and it may be useful as a writing tool if it is easy to use. Some of the short, long and repeating interval legato sounds good in the demos.

I haven't seen the walk through but it may be a good investment if a project needs it. The occasional harshness should be easy to tame with an EQ.

Needless to say this is not going to replace any real string players!

I’m curious, Tanuj-what sounded good to you? The demos? The trailer?

I’ve been actively seeking a library for string quartet and small ensemble simulations. I was hopeful listening to this but didn’t think it sounded good.

Hi Larry, hope you are well!

My first disclaimer is that obviously it just cannot sound like a real quarter because it just can't. All libraries currently fail where they critically need to succeed and it is in the phrasing and musicality. I have also just returned to the studio after a short medical leave so may be my ears need to adjust!. I am serious, I could be totally wrong.

Having said that, if one needed a library to demo something up or pass it up as a string quartet (assuming it is not too difficult to program) then this will be useful because overall I found the following things useful (I just listened to the audio demos on their website):

1. There is a rich tone in lower parts of the sound in quieter dynamics on some demos - This is useful to make quartets sound wholesome as they do in real life.

2. Some passages with strident marcatos have believable vibrato - very common playing style in many quartets for media works (again assuming this fits with what you are composing, it should work well).

3. The repeated interval legato sounds quite decent in one of the demos which is again very useful in string quartet compositions.

4. On first glance, some of the long articulations sound more natural than other libraries.

What is problematic is that it sounds like a mock up and has a bright tone in the higher dynamics that will need to be tamed when appropriate. In a couple of demos it is very offending to the ear! No doubt about that. Parisian Caprice has over done it for example, especially with a really air-bright tambourine.

I rarely use the very top extreme dynamics in true orchestral programming from almost any library - unless I have to because of directorial needs. Never really sounds good.

If you can rule out ease of programming, assign the air frequencies to mastering on the demos then it may be a useful library. But if you already have a couple of decent ones, this is probably not going to change a huge amount.

Please remember I am deducing all of this from the demos and I have not seen the walk through.

[Lawrence]

Thanks Tanuj! I hope your health has improved?

I haven’t listened to the walk-through either. Frankly, I wasn’t motivated to after hearing the demos. I am going to check it out, though. I know you have good ears and good sensibilities, so I’ll listen again.

I have CSSS which I tried to love and for a little while sort of did, but it really has fatal flaws. That drive me nuts. I think I prefer VSL SE solo strings!

Looking for a string quartet is frustrating. It feels like a search for the holy Grail, forever out of reach. Cheers.

[Tanuj Tiku]

Thanks Tanuj! I hope your health has improved?

I haven’t listened to the walk-through either. Frankly, I wasn’t motivated to after hearing the demos. I am going to check it out, though. I know you have good ears and good sensibilities, so I’ll listen again.

I have CSSS which I tried to love and for a little while sort of did, but it really has fatal flaws. That drive me nuts. I think I prefer VSL SE solo strings!

Looking for a string quartet is frustrating. It feels like a search for the holy Grail, forever out of reach. Cheers.

I agree with you about the holy grail so to speak. I am doubtful we will ever get there in the current technological sphere of sampling. Even with AI, there will always be holes but this is also a matter of some composers and audiences getting used to a certain sound.

For example, many people now consider trailer music sampled orchestra as orchestral music and that sort of sound cannot be achieved with live recordings. I occasionally even find it pointless when directors push on it. I am facing such challenges on a film I am working on right now.

I regularly hear bad string quartet samples in even top TV shows and it pains me because it would not have cost a lot of money to do it live. They are probably used to that sound and don't find it worthwhile.

I have given up on sampling taking us somewhere and actually don't want it to replace the orchestra. What I wish is that the world moves back to more recordings, generating jobs, access and fulfillment.

I would be happy if the Trumps of the world created more jobs by using their same MAGA logic in the world of music. More orchestras, financially accessible, more education and employment. Samples can focus on things that we cannot do live and help us design a blueprint like an architectural design and then build the damn thing.

About 500 meters from my studio, there is a large scoring stage that does not record large ensembles often and our local orchestras are long gone.

Imagine if musicians were busy every single day playing and it was a bustling economy!

Sorry for the tangent!

[Linos]

Has anyone bought Berlin Solo Strings? User demos are slow to come in and I'd like to hear how far the edginess can be tamed. Listening again to the mic positions in the walkthrough I posted above, I don't know why some interest lingers. It must be because good solo string samples are hard to come by. Impossible, actually. And on paper, this library should be it.

[mickeyl]

Tanuj, thanks a lot for these words, I wholeheartedly agree!

[My name is Nobody]

……on paper, this library should be it.

With OT’s experience that is a statement that could be valid. However, to me it’s mainly the overall sound that has a feeling of samples rather than musicians. The repetitive vibrato seems to be the main reason why this sounds like samples.

I will dust off my forgotten Bohemian violin and cello, and see how they hold up. On paper these also have it.

Listening to VH version of R.K.’s Scheherezade demo it seems to do fairly well…

[Piet De Ridder]

Has anyone bought Berlin Solo Strings? (...)

Thought about it, but decided not to. A library for SINE — which I keep finding among the most momentum-torpedoeing sample playback software I have ever worked with — has to be really quite special if I am to buy it, and these solo strings, while certainly not bad, just aren’t special enough. (Both the Wallfish and the Vasks were though. To the point of making working with SINE almost bearable.)
If the recorded sound of these solo strings were a bit more to my liking, if the library also had included a bass and if there had a been a few more medium short articulations, I probably would have been in.

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[Linos]

Sine is also a negative factor for me. It's clumsy, it forces you into a certain workflow, it lacks certain features. Other features are implemented in a way that makes them basically useless (think polymaps, for example). For me, Sine is a mess.

However, Berlin Symphonic Strings sit in my template and the player rarely causes a bout of frustration. Their newer libraries seem to work better for me than the Sine ports. And for a great-sounding solo string library, I would gladly accept the limitations of Sine. But it's probably not this one.

I am now checking out the Peteris Vasks and Benjamin Wallfisch strings. I know that you, Piet, have moved towards specialised libraries that do a particular style extremely well. So these two libraries are probably not for me, as I prefer to work with workhorse orchestral libraries. However, if they get a recommendation from you, they are well worth checking out.

[Ashermusic]

Tanuj makes a good point. People become so conditioned to sampled sound that it becomes sought after and the real thing somehow becomes less desirable, and not only for financial reasons. They simply become conditioned to that sound.

[Piet De Ridder]

I'm moving this to the Gear section if no one minds, because this has stopped being a 'news flash' quite a few posts ago.

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