Experiences with Hollywood Strings

For background, I have all the Vienna Special Editions which cover Orchestral, Chamber, and Solo Strings (with winds and percussion and a limited set of articulations for Appassionata strings).  I have Vienna Dimension Strings which so far includes violins and cellos.  Lat year I bought EastWest Hollywood Strings Diamond Edition.
 
I've used Hollywood on some projects recently, and wonder if I am doing something wrong because it is really hard to use.
 
With Vienna, I load a matrix (example: Orchestral Violins) and use keyswitches and controllers to select the articulation.
 
With Hollywood, I have to load each articulation (e.g., sustain, trill, staccato) and assign each to a separate MIDI channel.  This is awkward since I may load staccato, then decide maybe staccatissimo or staccato on bow or ****cato would be better.  I have to load them one at a time and try them.  Similarly for the sustain/legatos, some use velocity and some don't; some use mod wheel for vib and some don't; some use mod wheel for vibrato and volume; etc.
 
Hollywood does a keyswitch patch, but it has a limited number of articulations (basically up bow, down bow, round robin, trill, and tremelo).  Pretty good for some generic things, but it is a really memory hog if all you want for legato is round robins.
 
The product can sound really good but the time required to set it up and the memory and CPU loqd are tough.
 
Am I doing this wrong?
 
Vienna is simple to use, by the way.
 

Thanks for replying.  Hollywood does sound great, and I agree that the extra mic positions in retrospect were probably not worth the cost.  The close mics sound cool sometimes but I seldom use them.  If I used Hollywood everyday, I am sure I would get to know which patches to pull up without all the painful loading and unloading.
 
I am quite surprised, however, that you think Vienna does not sound good.  In particular, Dimension Strings are incredible—but a completely different sound than Hollywood since the DS concept is small sections with each player recorded individually.  I just completed a pop record with DS violins and they sound great: but they have a small, 1960s, To-Sir-With-Love sound that is cool for the track in question.
 
Basically, when Hollywood is good, it's great.  A writer I produce just sent me a text to say he had tears in his eyes after listening to the orchestration I added to his track using Hollywood.  The strings start with low chords and no vibrato to create a lonely sound, and then they gradually build.
 
To me, Hollywood is lush (including some tuning imperfections that bother me because I am OCD!).  Vienna is more pristine which makes it a bit colder but more accurate sounding.  Hollywood is also too big a sound for some things.  For example, I would score a film with Hollywood but if I were producing the Beatles, I would use Vienna for Eleanor Rigby.
 
I will continue to use both, and if you have any tips you ever want to share, please pass them on.  I will do the same.

Hey, Jeremy.  I have the Vienna Pro Player (paid) and the free version of Vienna Ensemble.  I don't have Vienna Ensemble Pro and am ashamed to admit I don't even know the purpose of Ensemble.  I think it somehow manages various instances of Vienna, but I am not really clear about that.
 
Keeping in mind that while I am classically trained and love symphonic music, my use of orchestra is chiefly as sweetening in rock, folk, and country pop that I write.  One rock group I produce does pretty epic rock opera stuff that I orchestrate for them.  Given that, here are my thoughts on Vienna:
• The matrix system is, for me, much easier to use than Hollywood's model.  I especially appreciate the consistency.  If I switch from orchestral to chamber to solo, etc. there is no confusion about how to get a particular articulation, and, in most cases, I don't even have to edit the keyswitches.  (We are talking about strings, but the same applies to winds.  I can change from Triple Horn to Vienna Horn, or from Oboe D'Amour to French Oboe without even editing the sequence.)
•  Vienna is much easier on memory and CPU, although if you load all the articulations of Dimension Strings in multiple instances, you will naturally see some significant memory use.  (I run in 64-bit with 12 GBs RAM.)
•  Vienna Orchestral Strings sound exactly like an orchestra to me.  I find the chamber strings a little austere and don't use them often, but there is nothing wrong with them.  The main failure I have had with Vienna is getting a string quartet to sound right using the Solo Strings; but that may be my fault as an arranger.
• The tuning anomalies in Hollywood really bother me sometimes because they are very apparent.  It annoys me to hear the same sour note every time I press a key that is critical to the song.  With Dimension Strings, you can keep the parts perfect or select a degree of humanization.  I know people will say that errors are realistic.  My answer is that errors are the reason God put erase and undo buttons on recorders.
• Some people fault VSL for not having 2nd Violins.  I am mixed on that.  I don't find Hollywood's second violins to sound different enough from 1st violins to matter; however, that does avoid the issue of phasing if the parts cross the same note or play a unison line.  The question is whether that is enough of an issue to warrant all the extra memory for loading second violins.  I go back and forth on that issue.  I can cheat with Vienna by using Orchestral Violins for 1st violins and Dimension Strings for 2nd violins.  I have also used chamber strings as 2nd violins.  In a recent record, I used Orchestral Violins for both 1st and 2nd, but then pasted in a single line using Chamber as 2nds when the parts were in unison.
 
Maybe I am lazy, but Hollywood is a lot of work.  I am a songwriter and am usually anxious to get the parts down, not spend hours trying to go through patches.  For this reason, the VSL matrix works better for me.
 
No disrespect to Hollywood, though.  It is a great product that I have put on records and will continue to use.
 
Sorry for the long post but this is the most interesting topic on the forum to me.

konradh
Hey, Jeremy.  I have the Vienna Pro Player (paid) and the free version of Vienna Ensemble.  I don't have Vienna Ensemble Pro and am ashamed to admit I don't even know the purpose of Ensemble.  I think it somehow manages various instances of Vienna, but I am not really clear about that.
 
 

Vienna Ensemble is a great way to set up a slave machine. This way, your main computer uses the CPU power exclusively for the DAW. The slave(s) contain your VI's. This way, VEPro utilizes the slaves processor and RAM for the VI's, leaving your master computer dedicated to the DAW. Brilliant, really. The best part is, you simply connect via an ethernet cable (Gigabit ports) and you can use PC or Mac, and even mix tehm up (ie; Mac master, PC slave). Since streamlining my main PC though, I don't really have the need for a slave. I installed SSD's on my i7 and upgraded the RAM to 32GB...it is rock solid!!
 
 
 

Dimension Strings is excellent. I can't wait until they finish the entire library.
 
What is it about the trill performances that's lacking?
 
Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com - SONAR X2 Power! - http://garrigus.com/?SonarX2Power
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Ah ha... yeah, I see what you mean now. I still need to spend a lot more time with the product, but I can definitely see your point about it being easier with prerecorded trills. Although, I do like the flexibility they provide with the sequenced trills. And still can't wait till they finish the entire library. Probably won't be for many months though.
 
Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com - SONAR X2 Power! - http://garrigus.com/?SonarX2Power
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://newtechreview.com/?NewTechReview

Wow! The Vienna Dimension Strings sound great! I'm definitely going to look into those.
 
You can hear one of my latest tracks at http://jeremyspencer.ca/Music_Samples.html 
It's about half way down the music samples page, titled "I Saw an Angel", which was
a cue from a recent show I did in Vancouver. I used Hollywood Strings Gold, plus the
Steinway from EastWest Goliath.

Hey Jeremy...
"I saw an Angel" is lovely, very emotional tune - It reminds very much of Dave Grusin style.
And Bill, the Vienna Stgs do sound very nice. "No one's coming home"...another nice tune.
Garry

Jeremy, Looking back now, I think the Dimension Strings bundle is the best deal if you don't mind waiting a bit on the violas and basses.  Here is my thinking:
 
1.  You will get all the articulations you are ever likely to need (but see my footnote on trills).
2.  To me, DS sounds as full as orchestral.  It is a smaller section, but not noticeably so.
3.  Since the strings are sampled individually, you can select how many players you want, so you can create a chamber groups.
4.  You already have (and have mastered) Hollywood, so you don't need the cinematic orchestra.
5.  You have the option of spreading the players in the stereo field, if you like.  For example, if you are only using the 8 violins, you can position them in different positions. 
 
With DS you will have solo players, chamber, and standard orchestra covered, as well as a good sized group for pop music.
 
BIG CAVEAT: You really need to buy the Vienna Pro Player—about $150, I think—to take advantage of DS fully.  You cannot use all players in a single group with the free player.  That sort of made me mad because I didn't know that until after the purchase, but buying DS early was a good deal and the Pro Player has a lot of excellent features.  With the free player, to use all 8 players (or six in the case of cellos), you would have to have two instances and copy the MIDI.
 
I find the VSL matrix system extremely easy to use.  (I stick to their standard matrices so I don't have to remember which keyswitch and controller does what, but you can create you own.)
 
Note on trills:  The other VSL libraries, like Hollywood, have half and whole step trills.  Dimension chose just to give you individual note samples that were created from trills.  With the scripting that is built into their player, you can create half, whole, minor third, and major third trills.  Good news: Lots of flexibility.  Bad news: lots more work just to get a trill.  I wish we had the recorded trills in addition to what is provided in DS, but this is no big deal—especially not for a string arranger and programmer like you.