Yes, Synchron Player is also where you set the reverb and mic positions for the individual solo instrument or ensemble.
There is no MIR involved: all the reverb and positioning is made through microphones and their mix. The Mix Presets set the correct mix levels, delay, send to artificial reverb where needed, to correctly position the instrument.
Reverberate, on Dorico’s Master channel, is a final ‘glue’ reverb applied to the whole mix. An artificial reverb is also applied in Synchron Player to some of the instruments and mics, also as a glue between the natural reverb and the close mics.
This should be the same for all the multi-microphone libraries, including BBCSO and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra (this latter, however, shouldn’t include artificial reverb on individual instruments).
Thanks for the tips. I like a simple approach to Dorico Playback template and I don’t know and haven’t come across OT’s official Dorico playback template. Also I found sometimes sample library companies work so hard to make samples and cater them to DAW users because they spend time to use automation to recall the samples to amalgamate with other layers for that instrument at certain points in the composition in a music production which is a different mindset compared to notation that you have one line for your let’s say Violin 1 and you need to have a flawless playback template to address everything within that Violin 1 track. Companies that spend time to develop things for proper playback in notation programs are not many. Of course Wallander is the best in this are but without real samples. I am wondering if VSL is the next one to cater notation software.
Yes it is. Aside from Xsample libraries and a couple things by Straight Ahead Samples, I don’t know of any other vendors that provide official Dorico expression maps for their libraries like VSL does.
Adding further to what @mducharme says above, VSL also accommodates Sibelius users. You can find specific sections of the VSL website labelled not only “Dorico integration” but also “Sibelius integration” and together, these suggest a considered effort to accommodate music notation users.
(I understand that expression maps for BBCSO are available on the Spitfire website but I think these maps were prepared by “our” John Barron who does the monthly Discover Dorico sessions on YouTube.)
Yeah that’s correct I believe - he similarly made the Berlin Berklee map. I found some of the things he did in that map didn’t always work too well and had to make some adjustments when I was working with them (before I started moving to VSL).
@arya44 , I just noticed that VSL is currently offering a free trial of Synchron Prime so you could try it out for 30 days for free, that is, without an initial financial commitment.
Hi Mike. Thanks for mentioning. I already downloaded the free trial a few days ago and trying to find ways that I can make it work to play the pieces in Dorico a bit better. Although right off the bat, it sounded good. There are some tweaks I have to do, like it picks legato in some phrases but certain parts that have a large slur for the whole phrase suddenly doesn’t sound quite legato. I noticed there are variables for legato blur and attack, release so I’m trying to use those to make the playback smoother however depending on note duration it requires different amount of legato blur and attack/release. So a legato feel for what that works for longer notes (whole, half, or even ), for repetitive 1/8 or 1/16 may not have a good representation. I guess some of these need to be addressed with additional markings added to the score to give more specific direction to Synchron Prime. I think that is one aspect of Note Performer that does somethings automatically so in a way it can make the score writer a bit lazy taking advantage of those automatic intelligent aspects of a software and not noticing that some additional elements in the score are required to give proper direction.
I used to use the VSL Special Edition libraries, though after a time I found options which were musically much more involving. I did also try out Prime but didn’t get too excited by what the NotePerformer Performance Engine did with it – unlike with Cinematic Studio or the BBC SO. I agree that the great advantage of VSL is relative consistency and – if you accept the maps VSL have created (personally I don’t particularly like what they done though they can be useful as a starting point) – not much work is necessarily required. How useful they are musically depends on what you write – for me VSL still tends to be a bit cool and sterile though maybe not as much as they used to be. I still find both sets of solo strings as good as anything on the market overall.
Given a straight choice between the BBCSO and VSL Prime, I’d have said BBCSO until May, especially the Core version which I use. Now that NotePerformer have withdrawn their NPPE, it gets more difficult as that library is more difficult to programme manually (although John Barron’s maps are fine as far as they go and I used them to get me going). BBC Pro has a ridiculous excess of microphones (though you can if necessary delete unused ones to save disk space and system resources) .
To be honest, from Spitfire, I’d be tempted to go for the full Spitfire Symphony Orchestra which gives you far more for your money than Prime and is frequently on sale with big discounts. I did so and it’s become my favourite orchestra with a whole range of astonishingly beautiful instruments. Perhaps only a rich legato is somewhat missing in the strings. It’s frustrating that the NPPE can no longer be bought but I’m reasonably happy with my own maps (had a bit of help at the beginning in one or two cases from other Doricians!) This library runs absolutely fine with 64Gb and a midrange system
Thanks for your input dko22. I would be fine investment wise with Spitfire and I have been more like a DAW composer than a notation composer for many years which if I would stay in that path, but I’m trying to have a more methodical boundaries of notation software for a more serious composition approach and that’s where I found the shortcomings of libraries in the way things are played back. May be your own playback template has overcome this shortcoming, which if it is, it would be a good of both worlds for playability in Dorico while having plenty of playback techniques and articulations per dollar investment. If that is the case, then I would be curious to know how it works out for you.
Hi Mike. Are you ok to check a few bars of a score and let me know how one would adjust things to play more naturally in VSL Prime? I used DoricOverture (Dorico factory demo) first page as a sample comparison and Note Performer plays the long notes as long and after it starts the faster shorter note jumps clearly changes to short notes that sounds suitable to that, but with VSL Synchron Prime using VSL template created by VSL, it seems it sticks to the long notes even though after a couple of measures much shorter notes are being used in a fast pace and the attacks sound too long for fast pace so it’s even hard to hear the notes because it switches to other notes before reaching the full volume for each note. I just like to know if manual tweaking is so necessary for every step of the work if I switch from Note Performer to VSL Synchron Prime. If you PM me your email, I can send you the Dorico file and the audio exports from both Note Performer and VSL Prime. Thanks a lot.
Synchron Prime does not include the agile legatos that the full VSL libraries have, which are able to do very fast legato (ex. playing runs real-time).
However, you can customize the expression map to trigger a short articulation when the note durations are shorter. The only potential issue with doing this is that in some cases it might trigger the short articulation in a spot where it is too short for the context and the longs would work better. So if you do this, you might want a manual override to trigger the longs that you could apply if the automatic short notes doesn’t work too well in a particular situation.
Synchron Prime does have marcato longs too that have a very strong attack if you need to use those for fast notes. Or you could layer articulations. There are a lot of options if you’re open to a bit of map editing.
Thank you for the clarification. So instead of Synchron Prime, if I buy the Special Edition bundle, would this issue be resolved automatically (fast legato included)?
It is 779 euro with academic discount. It is about double the price of Synchron Prime but I rather have something that is more complete so I don’t have to make up for lack of articulations and I don’t have to work hard to make it sound right.
No. VSL makes two series of libraries - Studio series (which were mostly libraries originally made from around 2000-2013) which are dry libraries mostly recorded in their old “Silent Stage” with one mic position, and the Synchron series (which were made from 2018 onwards) recorded in the Synchron Stage (a nice scoring hall) with a standard multiple mic setup.
The Special Editions are lite versions of all of the Studio series libraries (including some really rare instruments). Synchron Prime is a lite version of a bunch of the main Synchron libraries.
The VSL Studio series has for the most part never impressed me all that much. I only really got into VSL with the Synchron series of libraries. Even though the Studio series has a good built in reverb that does a great job of simulating the Synchron stage, it doesn’t sound nearly as realistic to my ears as the Synchron libraries do. Even with a great simulated room, I don’t find it nearly as convincing. Adding a few of these instruments into a Synchron orchestra can work nicely, but an orchestra made up entirely of the dry instruments with a fake room created around them does not work so well in my opinion.
Some people do love the dry libraries and aren’t bothered by the sound and like the flexibility that a totally dry library has in terms of being able to place it where you want. But I would only suggest the Studio series or Special Editions if you’re one of those people.
(The exception is some of the Studio pianos, which are for the most part new and multi-mic recordings, but are lumped in the studio series because they are recorded in a smaller room like the old studio series was)
VSL’s back to school sale that they often have where they have Prime on sale usually doubles the academic discount too.
Unless you know you like the dry library sound of the old Studio series, I suggest starting with Prime and augmenting the string library later with something like Duality Strings (regular) which has excellent agile legato. There is a lite version of Duality Strings on sale now called Duality Essentials with upgrade pricing to Duality regular. Duality Essentials can be thought of as an add-on for Prime that adds a lite version of VSL’s Duality Strings library to it, which is VSL’s best string library and one of the best string libraries on the market now.
(Quote from @arya44): Hi Mike. Are you ok to check a few bars of a score and let me know how one would adjust things to play more naturally in VSL Prime?
Hi @arya44, apologies but I am unable to help while away on vacation but in any case am not the best person to provide the kind of detail guidance you are looking for (although I wish I was)! Hopefully another user with more comprehensive expression map experience will be willing to help.
Hi Hans, does XSample have Dorico playback template?
Does the articulations include fast legato? Is there a place that show the list of all included articulations for the bundle that has best Dorico compatibility for playback?
I have been very happy with my Synchron Prime library but your post led me to first trial and then buy Duality Essentials and I’m glad I did. An upgrade to the regular version may be in order some day but for now the Essentials library is a big improvement and I am so glad you mentioned it in your post!
I hope this post is relevant to the thread, even though the comparison is with CSSS rather than BBCSO Pro.
I was eager to trial Duality Strings as an alternative to CSSS with NPPE, but my first impressions are less than favourable.
While I appreciate the precise timing that Duality Strings offers, its usability out of the box seems limited due to the drastic dynamic differences between the legato and staccato samples.
To demonstrate the issue, here’s a short comparison extract, first with Duality Strings, then with CSSS with NPPE:
And whilst there’s little point in pining for the return of NPPE, it remains a real pity that the engines had to be discontinued, especially given the additional musical expressiveness that Wallander’s playback engine was able to draw directly from the notated page.
