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The VSL Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is available.

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Piet De Ridder
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The VSL Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is available.

Post by Piet De Ridder »

From the mail: "We’re happy to inform you that the long-awaited Vienna Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is now available for download! Please note that the complete sample content had to be converted in order to use it within the new player, so we ask you to download the new library files from MyVSL (have a look at the orange indications). (...) Please note that the individual instrument sections will be added to the Library Download files over the course of the next days. We are starting with the 1st Violins Standard Library and will be monitoring the download traffic closely for best download performance."

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heisenberg
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Re: The VSL Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is available.

Post by heisenberg »

I've been using the Synchron Player with FX Strings I for a few weeks. In that context, frankly I have been blown away by it in terms of the design and usability of it. I don't have Synchron Strings so it may be a different story when you are trying to nail down a specific sound and you are not looking for happy accidents to occur in a library like FX Strings.

One thing that really took me with the design of the player besides the use of colour was how things revealed themselves over time. There are a myriad of tools within the UI that are done up (designed) to control the "release of information" so you are not overwhelmed by choice. I think they succeeded in a large way.

I am using it with Nuendo via VEPro so it is difficult to ascertain if it uses a lot of CPU. My distinct impression is that it does not. I believe it is the opposite.

Be interested to hear other comments on both the aesthetics of use along with technical observations.
Andrew Stone

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kpc
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Re: The VSL Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is available.

Post by kpc »

So is this only for the Synchron series instruments or usable for any of the VSL instruments?
- kayle

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Linos
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Re: The VSL Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is available.

Post by Linos »

Synchron Series only. I think Paul said that it is possible that they will make older libraries compatible in the future, but it isn't certain. And as they need to change the samples somehow (format?) I think that wold take a good while to do. So most probably not in the near future.

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kpc
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Re: The VSL Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is available.

Post by kpc »

Ok, thanks Linos. I don’t have a lot invested with VSL, but when the start doing winds, I’ll take another look
- kayle

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heisenberg
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Re: The VSL Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is available.

Post by heisenberg »

In the event people missed the FX Strings I walkthrough, you might want to have a look/listen. It shows the new player in action and then there is the Library!

Andrew Stone

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Piet De Ridder
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Re: The VSL Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is available.

Post by Piet De Ridder »

Haven't spent much time with it yet, but so far, it's working really-really well. Nice!

_

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Muziksculp
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Re: The VSL Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is available.

Post by Muziksculp »

Hi,

It would be very interesting, and helpful to read some feedback on your thoughts about Synchron Strings 1 with the new Synchron Player. i.e. Workflow improvements, Legato quality, Short articulations, Sustains, any issues, features you would like to see added, ..etc.

Thanks,
Muziksculp

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Piet De Ridder
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Re: The VSL Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is available.

Post by Piet De Ridder »

Well, I would never buy the Synchron Strings again, Sculp. Jamais plus. Nor recommend them. Too many bad-sounding samples in important places, for starters, I find. The high-velocity layers of the longs and legatos, for example, come, as far as I’m concerned anyway, into the category ‘kirkhunterishly painful’.
The sustain samples, as a group, is, for me, the biggest let-down of the Synchron stringssamples: a static, tiresome, dead sound that suggests hardly any progress has been made in sampling strings between the (in my view, awful) Appassionatas and these Synchrons.

The shorts are better, but here too are one or two notes assembled with samples which in my opinion should never have been allowed into an supposedly high-quality strings library. Still, I can see myself doing something with these shorts. One day. Maybe.

The soft articulations, on the other hand, sound mostly quite good to me. There’s nothing here that you can’t get from several other libraries as well, but only a deaf person or someone with an incurable VSL-allergy would fail the recognize the usefulness and appeal of things like the Flautando’s and Long PP’s. By themselves, obviously not enough reason to consider purchasing this library, but at least some sort of consolation for those that have.
Also pretty good (and surprisingly playable, after some edits): the dynamic articulations (sforzando’s and such); trills & trems (*) and, up to a point, the pizzicati. So that’s something too.

(*) Several notes of the Tremolo-patch, when played softly, have release samples which are much too loud. Something which, I feel, should be quick and easy to adjust, but ‘professional’ software these days is such that you have to wait for an update to have these little flaws corrected.

The legatos of the Synchron Strings, when still in the Vienna Instruments format, have been causing much grumbling, snorting and even derisive laughter, and it was hoped that the Synchron Player would raise the quality of the legatos significantly, but I have to say that it is still not the Synchron Strings’ most impressive feature. Despite the many legato variants, it all sounds rather generic and undistinguished. Unmusical, one might even say. And if you’ve heard the slurred legato once, you never want to hear it again. (Although ‘blurring’ it — there’s a parameter for that — helps to make it bearable.)

The Player itself is a fairly good and well-thought-out piece of software, I have to say. (I’m not ready though to send the person who did the graphic design a congratulary bouquet of flowers any time soon, but that’s a personal taste thing.)
Me, I never clicked with VSL’s combination of keyswitches and modwheel settings to navigate to the desired articulation — a very tedious, off-putting and distracting system, I find, that requires constant attention and way too much checking — but if you’re used to it, I think you’ll agree that that system is better implemented in the Synchron Player than it is the Vienna Instruments software.
Parameter-wise, all of what you need is there (though some of it takes some searching) and midi-control is greatly improved as well, compared to earlier VSL-software. Well done there.

Lots of possibilities with the various Mic-perspectives of course, which is also good.

All in all, the thing I find most disappointing, given the promise of Synchron’s maiden release, is that underneath the fancy skin of the Synchron Player sits what I can only describe as an average, old-fashioned, uneven and mediocre sounding strings library. I did spend several hours with the ViennaInstruments version and have now spent quite some time with the Synchron Player version — only the 1st Violins are converted at the time of writing though —, and never did I experience a single moment of tingling excitement that inspires you to want to write music for these sounds. Never. So, alI I can say: yet another strings library. Not the worst, but certainly not the best either.

_

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Muziksculp
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Re: The VSL Synchron Player for Synchron Strings is available.

Post by Muziksculp »

@Piet De Ridder,

Thanks for the helpful, and interesting feedback.

Hmm... I really don't understand how VSL failed so badly with such an important library that could have been a major step forward, rather than backwards. Strings being a crucial section of an orchestra, I feel this is crippling to their entire Synchron Line of libraries. I'm also curious to know if VSL are really seriously happy with the results of Synchron Strings 1, given the size of the library, and the amount of time it took to release the new Synchron Player, and the full library.

I'm now thinking twice if I should even bother installing Synchron Strings (Full version), which is going to consume quite a bit of SSD space. :thinking: :(

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