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

Scott and Jeremy, I have a soundcloud page where I post works-in-progress so I can evaluate them on different devices.  They are not finished mixes and may not even have the final vocals; however, you can hear the differences in Hollywood, Vienna Orchestral, and Vienna Dimension Strings.
 
I worte the first two below.  The last one is by a band I produce called The Forgeries.
 
• 15 Minutes of Fame:  Vienna Dimension Strings (Violins Only)
• All I Missed:  Vienna Orchestral (1st and 2nd Violins, Violas, Cellos.  The strings start subtly in the bridge and are full in the last verse.)
• No One's Coming Home (Subtle Hollywood Strings.  Someone else recorded the piano using an unknown plug-in.  I will replace it later with Ivory II.  The staccato strings need to be mixed louder.)
 
soundcloud.com/bill-hartmann
 
Again, these are not ready for publication, but fellow producers can listen in.  Several of the songs are odd and funny because they are part of a musical comedy I wrote called Trailer of Love.

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.

Superb!

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

Hey, thanks for the Dave Grusin comparison...I am honoured!
 
Checked out all the Vienna string demos over at VSL, can't decide what to get!
 

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.
 

Jeremy, See above but another thing. On the soundcloud site, the comedy ghost story song called Bambicide uses SE+ violins and violas but whenever the 1st and 2nd violins are playing in unison, I use SE+ chamber strings for second violins to avoid comb filtering. I thought that might interest you. If I had had DS at the time, I might have used that in the track, but it sounds OK as is. I had a version using Hollywood but VSL made it easier to XFade from trill to legato. There are also other VSL sounds on this track.