Hi all,
 
I recently got some VSL libraries. Have not yet had time to install and get going. I see that AudioDeluxe has VIP 2 on sale. The specs sound as though the free version of Vienna Instruments pales in comparison. Enough features to make your head spin etc. Certainly sounds great. Having said that, I'd be keen to hear from those who've used it re ...

-- learning curve / ease of use -- I'm not expecting to build Rome in a day, but don't want to feel as if I'm in grad school. 

-- stability: I've got a W& PC with an i7 2.66 cpu and 16 gb of RAM. Will be using Sonar Platinum. Anyone have experience using VIP 2 with it? 

-- my keyboard has only 61 keys. Simply can't afford 88 at the moment. Problematic?

Grateful for any advice...

I can't tell you how it works with Platinum.  It works great with X1.  The main reason I bought it was that I have Vienna Dimension Strings and you can't use the entire section (e.g., all 8 violins) at once without the Pro Version.  I use the Humanize feature along with Dimension Strings to get some extremely believable results.  (Check the first song on my website, for example.  Just two small sections of violins, but they work pretty well.: themightykonrad.com )
 
VIP does have a lot of features, some of which I don't use.  The only "hard" thing at first was finding where to turn the reverb on--I just kept overlooking it but it was really not that hidden.

Cheers!

How many keys does your keyboard have?