I am happily using Note Performer for my string quartets and it does a mighty fine job in general. But I find it a bit artificial for the string sounds in very slow passages. Hence I was looking at Halion bundled with Dorico. After exploring a bit I used the Solo Violin samples etc, but I have to say the quartet ends up sounding like a harmonium. It’s pretty terrible - I feel that can’t be right.
Consequently I either need to know what sort of stupidities I may be doing and what to look out for, or what a really good solo string quartet instrument library is to use with Dorico. I am after a very realistic quartet sound.
If you’re curious, I did a few demos of the beginning of the Ravel quartet for a composer last December. These are just notation as written, no MIDI or tempo editing at all, as he wanted to hear what a mockup for proofreading might sound like without any additional work (meaning costs, LOL). I think I maybe used a bit of UAD Capitol Chambers reverb on some of them.
Halion
Noteperformer
VSL SYNCHON-ized SE
He liked the VSL version so that’s what I used for his quartets.
there is plenty of discussion across the net as to which is the best solo string library for quartet writing. For pure beauty of sound it has to be CSS solo strings legato but in certain kinds of passages (like repeating ostinato in many cases), it’s not that easy to programme. VSL Solo strings (not the SE as featured above which only covers the basics) is probably the safest overall bet and had a far larger range of patches which means you can get just about any effect you want. There are other contenders – Berlin is favoured among some for instance though I don’t have it. For a genuinely realistic sound, you’ll need to spend a little money though.
Halion is terrible and NotePerformer only works passably well with fast, well articulated music. It’s a much stronger candidate for a full orchestra mockup.