VSL Strings libraries are on sale! I am comparing Synchron Strings Pro and Studio Dimension Strings to check which one to buy. I am looking for strings libraries that sound expressive, with a great range of dynamics and having fine controls without the need of tweaking every note. I don’t mind spending time on the first-time setup such as creating expression maps. I will only use them in Dorico and not in DAW.
I read many posts. People generally say Studio Dimension Strings has many fine controls (such as divisi, no vibrato, play on G string) but is too dry and hard to be used in Dorico. Strings Pro is more “organic” but lack of controls. People also say both libraries are in sunset that VSL is not going to develop these product lines further. I also read this that Dimension Strings’ power is limited by the Synchron Player.
May I ask if anybody have experience with these libraries in Dorico? How does they sound and how does they make you happy/unhappy? Is Studio Dimension Strings usable and can be fully utilized in Dorico?
Luckily you can download trial versions of Synchron Prime Strings I (a single mic of Synchron Strings Pro), Synchron Prime Strings II ( a single mic of Sychron Strings Elite) and Synchron Duality Strings Essentials (a single mic of the full Duality version) and compare them before making a purchase decision.
The various Duality Strings libraries are the most recently developed by VSL and, at least in my opinion (based on several months experience with all three of the libraries noted above) the various Synchron Duality Strings libraries are the best of VSL’s string offerings.
Upon reading your advice, I downloaded Synchron Prime Strings I to have a taste of Strings Pro. Hmm… I prefer the Strings sounds in Studio SE 1 much more than Prime Strings I. I hope it is because Synchron Prime Strings I is a trimmed down version, otherwise I would lose my faith in VSL’s quality.
Did you use the playback templates available in VSL’s Dorico Wizard? You might also trial Duality Strings Essentials—nothing will be lost if you don’t like it.
Duality Strings I think is their best string library ever, certainly the most comprehensive.
I don’t generally like their dry studio libraries as much.
Dimension Strings is one of their libraries that I doubt I would use. I bought Dimension Brass to get the mutes but I rarely use it. It’s just too hard to get those unusual dry recordings to sound natural.
I think a strong point of Dim Strings are the different desks and single players VSL has extracted from their overall recording. If you need this e.g for mockups of classical pieces having complicated divisi like e.g Stravinski Sacre du Printemps or Mahler Symphonies it is a very good library.
This very difficult to establish with any Synchron String library.
Dim Strings also has a con sordino version which unfortunately never made it into Strings Pro as they abandoned the product development on it and started with Duality Strings instead which does have a CS version.
The weak point of Dim Strings is that it is either dry or Synchronized to reflect the SY Stage reverb but only stereo. You can of course change this using MIR but that is a significant investment.
The strong point of the full version Synchron libraries are the multiple microphone samples which allows you to create an immersive experience as Dolby Atmos (but only upto 5.1.4 as the side microphone samples to make it 7.1.4 are not recorded).
Articulation wise the Dim Strings libraries as bundle are very complete. Despite the multiple packages Duality strings has some inconsistencies where articulations like trills or tremolo are available for regular bow position but not for e.g Sul Pont.
MIR does not fix Dimension Strings to me. MIR is a great plugin and I use it all the time, but the Studio Dimension Strings already come with a MIR-based IR that just doesn’t give you the ability to move them around.
To me the reason why I have not bought Dimension Strings is simple - it sounds very metallic and harsh in the demos, and I hear that bad tone in every single demo that I’ve ever heard anybody make with the product. Not just the VSL official demos but user demos. Because I’ve never heard a single person successfully get rid of the bad metallic sound, I suspect it isn’t possible.
I also feel like string sections more than anything else have enough depth and width and players in them that they aren’t adequately captured with a single stereo pair in the studio series. No matter what I do, it frequently feels like I’m listening to a 2D cardboard cutout of a violins section in a nice 3D room. This is less of a problem with single instruments. But I generally greatly prefer the Synchron version of almost anything to the Studio version of that library.
It might be possible to do a binaural export if you had all your instruments hosted in Vienna Ensemble Pro and you did the surround mixing in there with some kind of binaural plugin on the VE Pro output to return a stereo feed back to Dorico. I haven’t tried that though.
It is certainly not possible to export a true multichannel version at the moment.
In Cubase you have to create the project as an Atmos project to begin with, then you can’t even export a simple stereo downmix without creating a special downmix by adding some plugins, because exporting will just export the multichannel encoded audio. Its a fair bit of work, and it is something most people just composing music don’t bother with. I tried it once and decided it was too much and went back to stereo.
It makes everything more complicated - all of your plugins suddenly have to be multichannel and many popular plugins are not (ex. iZotope Ozone).
Even people doing music for film are usually just asked for a stereo downmix unless it is a big theatrical release.
It is esoteric from the more traditional standpoint, definitely.
The areas where it is more necessary from the start is for pieces that use electronics where the spatialization is an important aspect. For instance, you might have sounds moving around the room in certain orbits etc.. It is quite common to use multichannel audio in such works. That’s the only area I can think of where there might be some benefit to Dorico getting that capability in the long run, since such pieces can also include live instruments that are notated in a more traditional way. I have written pieces like this myself, my doctoral thesis piece included this.
@mducharme independent from the sound quality which is indeed not comparable with the later SY string libraries, if you use a single dim Strings bass (as basses are missing in SY Solo strings) for a given passage, and use the MIR unprocessed mixer preset and put MIR on your channel in VEP you can very well place it in the room chosen and produce a decent result in Dorico.
I have used that for the first few bars of the 3rd movement of the 1st Mahler Symphony (the Frere Jacques theme). In Dorico in stereo and using the midi exported from Dorico to produce an immersive experience in Cubase using MIR. I route the MIR output to Fiedler DAC to get the Atmos configuration of my studio and export binaural and ADM BWF wav file.
The same for e.g the second part of sacre du printemps where you need a dvisi with separate desks, A two part and three oart divisi still works with a full section from Duality Strings or Strings Pro with volume reduction but more complicated divisi are difficult to set up like that.
With the Synchron library microphones it is possible to create an Atmos version in Cubase or another DAW without MIR using the close microphones and eventually the tree as objects and the room microphones in their respective Atmos speaker positions (surround, high and high surround)
