jsaras
I know that for me, the ability to do true divisi writing with LASS, real sordinos and even legato sordinos has been nothing short of a godsend. Also the short articulations are much more realistic and don't sound synthy.
VSL brass never could get aggressive enough for my purposes, and no matter what reverb I used it never had the nice "bloom" of brass that was recorded on a sound stage (Cinebrass was recorded at Sony).
In Vienna's defense they have updated their sample players, which I like much better than Kontakt, and they've tried to compensate for dry-recorded samples using convolution mixing. I appreciate that they're not trying to sell me another set of samples.However, it seems that dry samples for orchestral work is a dead end as no other sample developer is going that route. In particular the sound of ensemble combinations recorded together in a room cannot be adequately simulated by putting dry sounds through a reverb.
Many of the new libraries are ridiculously large and and you really have to spend a lot of time programming controllers to get the most out of them because they don't play well from a keyboard..which often makes me say, "screw it, I'm just going to use VSL".
J
What was the problem writing divisi for VSL orchestral, chamber or solo strings? The sometimes overtone clash that produced a kind of harmonic distortion that bothered your ear? It's often true with a divisi one must consider all sorts of things. Sometimes we think a library is enabling us to get a still better sound, and I admit to a large degree this is true. I think when one is working under deadline, even if very efficiently, a overall pleasing sound that works very quickly, not quite "out of the box", but still, if too much work is involved in getting the right sound, a library might be considered inferior to one that requires a bit more work. I realize VSL is 44.1 24-bit so that 96khz-24bit would be a step up. Maybe. That would be one reason to consider a new library. Since my strong scoring interest is mainly in animation, I think the latitude of sampled instruments and synthesized instruments is a bit wider than in live-action. The endless quest for the best possible sound is wonderful but defining "best" and "good" is different for different purposes.
As far as dry samples, VSL are not exactly dry. There is a very small amount of ambience. But again, this judgment depends upon many factors, for example, is it better to add reverb to a dry sound then to start with a sound that has it's space pre-defined? Again, it comes back to taste and necessity.
Either one can be used to create a recording that has intention, gesture, expression, nuance and integrated complexity. For me its as much about balance as it is about sound. It's about the harmony and the harmonic progressions--where music contains much of its power and tenderness. Sometimes the best sound is to stay out of the way of the ideas and the spirit behind the idea.
When I've gotten a new library in the past, I spend the first 2 weeks or so just programming controllers, getting to know the sounds and their parameters and creating templates. Its a big commitment. Maybe its possible for some to master their tools by always getting new tools, but for me it seems the opposite.
Jerry