The Sound Board

As a pianist I seem to be oddly tolerant regarding piano samples. Much more so than with solo strings. I bought the Garritan CFX, and have been happy with it since. I own Noire too, but mostly prefer the Garritan. Somehow it just works for my playing style and for the music I produce. I would be int...

Piet posted a nice write-up on Vi-C. My takeaway from it is that, if you don't expect this to be the definite sampled piano for each and all situations, it has a nice sound quality that can be useful sometimes. He writes that it can do more than the specs suggest. I too like the sound of this piano ...

Spitfire Audio has released 'BBC Symphony Orchestra Piano': https://www.spitfireaudio.com/bbc-symphony-orchestra-piano Key features ~35GB 15 signal options – including two bespoke mixes 4 Round Robins 6 dynamic layers Reverb, tightness, hammers & pedal volume control Velocity curves The Core ver...

Thank you all for you input. The timbre of these instruments are indeed what's holding me back. The musicality possible with these seems to be exceptional. The fact that I am raising an eyebrow at the musical interpretation of a few passages in the demo is proof of that. The eagerness to demonstrate...

How would these instruments perform in an orchestral setting? The audio demos are all bone dry. The walkthrough goes over the virtual spatialization options, but shows no examples in the context of an orchestra. Would be nice to hear a few examples. I am very interested. As an aside - I love that th...

Yes, the brass has intonation problems. For the Wagner tubes, it may be difficult to correct because the instruments in the ensemble have intonation problems with each other. You can hear it clearly from 8:49 onwards. The worst offenders are the alphorns (the correct spelling is 'alphorn', not 'alpe...

'Dolce' has been released at an intro price of 349$: https://www.audioimperia.com/products/dolce https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXrHbYx2G6g The walkthrough video did not convince me that I need this library in my toolbox. The pizzicati sound really nice. Otherwise, what I hear leaves me cold. All b...

Audio Imperia have posted some examples of short articulations on Instagram. If you don't have an account on Instagram, you might be able to listen to them here:

https://imginn.com/stories/audioimperia/

Not much information is available yet. The library is said to be 80Gb in total. The trailer alone doesn't tell me much. Strangely enough, I hear very few details. The trailer sounds big and cinematic. The strings are pushed back into the room and quite far away for a chamber setting. I would associa...

INTRODUCING - DOLCE: Romantic Chamber Strings AVAILABLE April 21st | https://www.audioimperia.com/ $499 | $349 intro pricing (until June 3rd) 22 Piece Chamber String Orchestra - 7 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 Made for Kontakt Player Capturing the sweetness and softness of a Chamber Strings section has long been ...

For legato lines with a rich, dark, woody sound, Appassionata Strings are ideal. They are playable, reasonably easy to program and mix, and they sound great. I don't have any other library with that sound signature, so I do use them from time to time. Obviously, the lack of articulations make it a s...

Yes, I see that can be an issue. Should be easy to fix for Orchestral Tools. My beef with them is that they rarely do, even with obvious problems, or features that are commonly wished for. That leads to less than ideal semi-solutions when working with their libraries. At least for my workflow. The w...

The Sine ports proceed. I just wish Orchestral Tools would bring Sine up to scratch along the way. Four years after its release, there could be a purge function. Especially since it seems to be such a common wish from users. Also, automating mics is still not possible. For me personally, Sine is unu...

The culprit is probably cc11. I have found that when cc11 is set to zero, volume and dynamic layer respond to key velocity. The more you raise cc11, the less that is the case.

Bizarre.

Ah yes, different references. I thought of classical recordings from the 60ies and 70ies, which can have the same noisefloor and sometimes a similar sound as well.

Thanks Jay! Pacific Strings have a vintage sound quality. The noise adds to it, and the somewhat claustrophobic narrowness. 'Sticky' is a good word to describe it, fully agree with Piet here. It's definitely not an all-purpose strings library, but one for a very specific sound. The exaggerated trans...

If anybody is interested in a comparison with Cinematic Studio Strings, I made a mockup of the John Dunbar theme with them a few years ago:

Temme posted on Vi-C that you still can buy the Con Moto Basses for 69$ and then get the discount on Pacific Strings. You'd also get the Pacific Solo Strings on top for free when they are released. What i have heard from the library so far sounds rather nice. Especially the lower dynamics seem to ha...

Ladies and gentlemen, we are slacking. Performance Samples has released 'Pacific - Ensemble Strings'. Infos on the libraray below: https://www.performancesamples.com/pacific-ensemblestrings/ Pacific – Ensemble Strings is a symphonic string library featuring 16 violins, 12 violas, 10 cellos, 8 basses...

As far as I understood the sampler will always be free for the users. I don't know what the plans are for developers. That samples aren't lockable might be something that not all agree to. But for the users it's great. There is also a system in place to allow refunds. For the other questions I don't...

Paul Stapley from Light & Sound has been working on a new sampler and audio engine. I have been beta testing, and it has all the features a sample user might wish for, including access to the samples and scripts. I am posting Paul's announcement text below: "Hey all, I'm super excited to fi...

Thank you Guy. I'll send an e-mail and ask.

Guy, do you know if your trick of buying the upgrade now and not activating it until a new version is released works when I am on 12 Pro already? The upgrade from 11 Pro does show up for me when I am logged in to the store. The question is, will I be able to redeem it for Cubase 13?

Can anybody compare to the Garritan CFX? I am not in my studio until next week and can't listen to the demos properly. I am quite happy with the Garritan. Would this one be a definite improvement?