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I just think running it through a notation program, even one that has DAW-like capabilities like Dorico, is introducing new complexities that makes figuring out what's going on with the instrument harder. Good to hear that you are making progress! My advice is to take a short passage and play...

I don't have either CSS or CS2 and I'm not at all an expert mixer, so take everything with several grains of salt. If I recall correctly, CS2 is the larger ensemble, and already close to symphonic in size. The first thing I would do is work to maximize the impression of size; adding reverb...

This is true, and APFS is now recommended for all SSDs, as I understand it, but back in the day, APFS on external drives(SSDs not NVMes) was known to cause problems for some sample libraries. I don't recall the details, but all of my SSDs bought before 2022 are still formatted in the old MAC OS...

It depends on how you mix and the math of mixing and stacking samples is not the math of adding players to a room.

The problem with these sorts of solutions, which is what I use when I have to do it, is that Logic insists on recording the automation with the midi channel of the selected articulation in the articulation set. Though Logic will show and allow you to write automation to “any channel” there seems...

First thing I’d do is work in a DAW rather than Dorico until you figure out the basics of the instrument. There’s too much you can’t easily control in the notation program especially if you are trying to track down changes from staccato to legato or vice versa as well as better controlling the...

Yes, along different groupings. You can assign them to the same midi channel but the keyswitches will still be a problem because playing a keyswitch outside the group won’t silence the keyswitch in the group.

Yes, you can do that but it’s not so simple because Capsule doesn’t allow you to add just any articulation to any instance so you have to build intricate multis. And in Sine some of the articulations you’d want part of the basic set are located in different parts of the instrument that really...

Some of it has to do with the sheer number of articulations available, and some of it has to do with the limitations of Capsule (only 12 slots, as I recall) and the limitations of Sine, both of which require using multiple midi channels to load all the articulations on a single track. Logic...

One track per instrument. It maybe works fine with a one articulation per track workflow. Mostly you have to use more than one midi channel and that makes it hard to get the CCs to work correctly in Logic. There are workarounds of sorts, but they all create frictions. There are other things...

Great sounds in Uist to be sure. Its organization completely sucks, though, so good luck finding what you are looking for. I really with someone at SF would have the good sense to revisit this library and make it usable.

Berlin Strings has a great sound, and it's perhaps my favorite sounding string library. It's very fussy to program, and not especially conducive to a one track per instrument workflows in either Kontakt or Sine. So I mostly don't use it. (I do use BSS, Special Bows, and Berlin Con Sordinos...

I no longer routinely back up samples from the big companies that are easily downloaded again. For smaller firms I fear might go out of business I have a couple of large spinning drives I use for backups. Everything else gets backed up at least twice, once to time machine and once to dropbox...

Except you don't get the redundancy of having a second section recorded separately, which can be most convenient when your firsts surface some issue.

As others note, the opportunity to purchase just showed up when I went to check out with Silver in the cart.

You can sometimes use your mouse on them. But really I think they serve as visual feedback and I dislike instruments and programs that make use of CCs mapped to controllers that offer no visual feedback.

I don't know what goes into an nki exactly, but it seems a strange thing to get upset about a modified version being shared, since it's not clear what anyone could do with it if they didn't already own the library. Whereas with the samples, it's quite clear what someone could do with them...

Wait for Kontakt full to go on sale. I seem to recall it regularly goes on sale at 50% during the summer. In the meantime as folks note, you can fake it reasonably well with idiomatic lines and judicious use of reverb.

I’m pretty sure SIPs is an instrument script not a multiscript so you need to insert it in an open slot in the instrument. ETA: if so it likely means you need full Kontakt.

I thought they weren’t ported because Sine didn’t have some bit of functionality required for the glissandi patches.

There are issues I dislike about the mixed example. But it's not phasiness that I hear. It's the baked in sound of CSS, since the irritation occurs for me in the example with CSS alone as well. And the layering does not get rid of it. (The layered version is perhaps worse because it's louder.)

Sort of. You will be faking one thing (blending of two recordings, which won't necessarily fatten the sound, but will often rather blur it) instead of another (real strings move with continuity between dynamics). So if you keep the dynamic layers pure without mixing they will also sound fake...

Go to some orchestra concerts (they aren’t generally that expensive). Note the difference in detail you hear between when the strings play loud versus when they play soft. I’m generally not an advocate of comparing samples to live playing but will generally point to recordings instead. But...

I quite enjoyed this. The various bits you’ve presented suggests it will be a very effective piece. Most interested to hear how the performance goes!

I don't know about courses, but you can certainly take composition lessons one on one, and you'll get that sort of individual instruction.

I've played around with Synth V some (I have it as well as Kevin), but I haven't had time yet to learn it well, and it seemed like it required quite extensive work to go from the basic render to something that is usable. But maybe I just haven't used it enough yet to get past the learning curve.

On the other side, it may be that a music editor, director, videographer, etc. only needs the music to fulfill the description and have no reason to care about the taking credit for the composition.

Get Silver (free) and Genesis (for $149 along with LADD and LASS Lite for $99) will be offered when you check out.

Going nudist, I see! Not sure VI-C can take that. (Sorry, I don't normally pick on mistypes, but I found this one funny.)

It's pretty routinely offered at 70% off these days—I think it's actual regular price is 50% off even when they aren't running a promotion—and I seem to recall that JRR Shop offers a further discount with either Forum or Group codes. But I do seem to recall that it was offered more or less at...

I thought you had a film sound track to edit. Clearly somehow you are operating with more than 24 hours to your days!

Stacking beyond a certain point does little other than affect the general character of mixed sound, as details tend to blur out in the mix. That can be effective in certain circumstances if that's the sound you want. That said, while I will often use a half dozen or more string libraries in a...

Sure, though that’s true of real players too. Sometimes it matters, often it doesn’t, occasionally the mismatch makes for a good musical effect. You seem bound and determined to find absolute, hard and fast rules for this, and that’s not how any of this generally works. Or it may well work for...

I don’t think NP4 is designed to render an awesome mock-up. It’s designed to reveal problems, especially balance problems, in the orchestration.

I tend to agree. I think you likely need a certain number of instruments recorded in the space to ground it—or at least that facilitates the effect—but once you have that it’s not hard to mix other libraries to it. We’re now pretty used to hearing this mishmash of recorded spaces, and I suppose...

I know Dolce calls itself a chamber library but honestly nothing about it sounds chamber to me. I don’t really have an opinion on the other two except I know I decided NSS wasn’t worth buying at some ridiculously low recent offer. On the other hand I quite like OT’s PVS, and SF’s LCO, the Light...

I think if you see the download links it’s already in your account. Though it’s hard to say for certain because the website itself is a bit of a mess.

Getting the free library came with a number of $99 offers, at least in my case. They weren’t things I wanted so I gave it a pass, but the offers themselves were decent.

I tried the OWC Express 4M2. The good news: the fan is very quiet. The bad news, I'm only getting around 700 per drive on that, which is really no faster than my Thunderbay SATA drives. The enclosure promises speeds up to 2800, and 4x700=2800, I suppose. Just wondering for those of you who have...

Small String Gestures.

So how do I know what the current version of String Murmurations is (I seem to be on 1.0.1)? I looked on the site and don't see anything about the current version, just a download button. I don't recall getting any emails about updates, and I just looked through my inbox. I do have the two...

You can definitely work up a full orchestral piece quickly with things like Albion One, and then use solo instruments to bring detail where needed. I also think they are helpful starting out for someone who has quite a lot of training in orchestration but not much experience in mixing because...

Especially since they don't offer trials. Their instruments also have relatively steep learning curves. (The latter may explain why they don't send out NFRs, but it does mean that they should other be making or hiring out more tutorial videos.)

This one looks like it will be £10 after this intro period.

Yeah, their server is still not working properly. Evidently you can get around it by signing into the site and then loading the demon drop link. It might still time out with a gateway error, but after a few reloads I managed to get it to load. I haven't to say, though, this is right up there...

On the whole they seem to have more artifacts than Synth V. Are they easier to use?

I doubt you’ll find Berklee Berlin limiting while you learn. And it’s very cheap so it’s not much of a monetary investment. The difficulty with Berlin, whether the Berklee or the Mains, is that they can be quite fussy, especially the strings,and not terribly consistent from instrument to...

I love these posts and I find them incredibly effective marketing for someone like me who’s rather jaded by traditional marketing, though I enjoy analyzing it. I know these posts mostly aren’t aiming to be marketing but behind the scenes tales, but I’m also very drawn to such stories. All I’m...

I have both Arva and Genesis and prefer Genesis by quite a lot.

I’m right there with you. I’m unlikely to pick anything up at current sales price since tbh the current sales price seems pretty much permanent.

I don't have all of these (no Tyrell or Diva or uhe effects), but do have the others, and am not having any issues currently (Sonoma is up to date), though Native Access required some serious attention a couple of weeks ago and I've not yet ventured beyond Kontakt 7.8.1. Kontakt has sporadic...

Strezov runs these sorts of sales on and off and they rarely portend the release of a new library in the class. In any event for solo singers, I would welcome a new library, and it would almost certainly complement this set of singers rather than replace them. I'd also say that Strezov would be...

Yes, it's even more irritating than most ad music, which is already mostly irritating. I thought the theory of advertising was that it mostly served as a barrier to entry to other firms, especially in mature industries. Reducing the cost of ads lowers that barrier to entry, so I'm not sure that...

So your site isn't clear about whether our name is already on the mailing list. Which tab on our account do we look under? I checked them all but didn't see an obvious place to look.

I use Logic, and a fairly similar set up. I don't think it's a Logic issue either, since I haven't had this issue.

These are for overlays allowing you to load various patches into the same kontakt instance and having the physical keyswitches trigger properly. If you are using UACC they aren't necessary. SF patches don't allow you to assign articulations to slots.

I can usually get a decent idea of workflow from user walkthroughs, especially if it's done by someone I've watched a lot (it's one place that user walkthroughs are preferable to the official ones). But it's true that there are often still workflow surprises.

So far I’ve had good luck with it on all my brass (SSB, THB, BB). Lots of different mute presets. I haven’t tried the string presets.

Yes, Apple’s Pages works fine too—so far it reads and writes docx files without issue—which is what I’m using on my new machine along with Scrivener. I’ll check out Libre Office as well if I run into problems.

It can get complicated because most instruments are set up with a volume ramp on CC1 along with crossfades between layers so the layers match. There is then a span of crossfade that blurs any two adjacent dynamic layers. Some dislike this mixed sound and so some instruments opt to have a...

Well, it’s been this way forever so you get used to it.

Over time it will prove completely inadequate, as will any library. As a starter library it will not wear out that quickly. Still, since price isn’t a problem for you, I’d say choose the sound of the orchestra that best matches your sensibility and then buy that orchestra as your first. I...

I did in fact notice how far opinion shifted on SSO once SF cut the price... It went from "this library totally sucks" almost to "still the best thing ever." And the new performance patches are not that much of an improvement...

Compared to what? I mean if you want to spend money, buy the full Berlin set, or SSO, or BBCSO, or one of the VSL sets. You'll still find many things to complain about, and you'll still need to buy lots more libraries before you feel close to "set." But really the Berklee Berlin is more than...

So much time, so little left to buy... Seriously 9/10 of the ads I get from the company are for products I already own.

No, not the document, the memory claimed by word in the activity monitor. As soon as it hits 4GB, the program crashes. The problem has a bad memory leak in track changes. So once I start using that, I always know the program will be crashing, it's just a question of how much time I have...

Do you have a favorite? Amazon searches don't seem that helpful...

No reason to change at this point except that Word 2008 crashes any time the program exceeded 4GB of memory and it has a bad memory leak with track changes…

I stick it back behind a cabinet and that does the trick.

For $100 it’s a nice library! It’s basically derived from OT’s Berlin Series. The latter is currently on sale at NI for an attractive price and the Sine version comes free with that if you request it and the Berklee library also comes free with that. Of course even on sale it’s not cheap. But...

Nor have I. I also don’t use Cinematic Studio libraries. You can infer from that that I value things other than consistency in virtual instruments. I quite like the SF Solo Strings, though I agree that the Total Performance patches (both cello and violin) are not stellar. I'm also not fond of...

On the other hand, I'm still using Word 2008 without problem on two of my machines...

I recently got a large spinning drive for back up. The one thing I'll say about them is that they are quite loud now that everything else is so quiet, so you need a place you can place the drive to muffle the sound.

I can see being frustrated by the inconsistencies with SSO and SCS. It can be truly maddening. But I can't see how Berlin really resolves them. For my uses, Berlin (which I have) is even more inconsistent than is SSO/SCS, and fussier besides (especially Berlin Strings) and if I wanted...

I can't disagree with any of this advice, except to say that I've never had particular difficulty mixing SSO instruments with other libraries (especially OT libraries recorded in Teldex) with the proviso that you have to mix to SSO. You are never going to make that library dry. And the same can...

Which breath controller do you use? TEC?

I've often thought there should be players that do car mixes with this sort of compression. For that matter even playing it on the stereo at home when someone is mowing or leaf blowing in the neighborhood... I often have to do quick compressed remixes for film screenings in class, because the...

I'd love to see a few of these just to see how you've set up the Logic sampler for this kind of use.

Also an excellent price! It seems like the only thing currently comparable in terms of price and depth of articulations is Hollywood Orchestra, even cheaper on sale. I still think it peculiar how SF managed to undercut its own Studio Orchestra and BBCSO lines with this new pricing on SSO. And...

I’m still trying to figure out the optimal settings for my Studio Ultra. I’ve reset Kontakt. But still have to get to the various other players like Spitfire and Sine and reduce their preload buffers.

I keep trying to change to a different browser and keep not getting it done. Chrome isn’t even my default browser on my new machine and I still end up using it for various reasons, none of them especially good or convincing. But the point was more that it’s not just Apple that’s stopped...

Libraries don’t really age that way. Those libraries are still many folks’ bread and butter. Some recent libraries to consider: the new SF AR Strings (violin 1 and cello are available), OT’s Vasks Strings, OT’s Wallfisch Strings, Acoustic Samples’ VWinds, VSL’s Duality Strings.

You’d be better asking for what people use most or see as their most essential libraries and even then it will very much depend on the sort of music they write.

This depends very much on what you decide you need to prioritize. No library does everything well, and you’ll find advocates and detractors for every library out there. ETA: if money really is no object and you want your bases covered, buying everything available and commissioning your own...

Strauss revised Berlioz not Rimsky-Korsakov.

I’ve now started thinking his best to replace my laptop (mid-2012 i7 15” MBP). I long ago transitioned from the laptop for music, first to an 2015 i7 iMac, then a 2020 i9 iMac and now a Studio M2 Ultra. So the laptop will not be for music production except incidentally for classroom...

Every time I upgrade systems, I have to fix Handbrake because Apple makes it harder and harder to find and reinstall the libdvdcss files where they need to go. I wasn't able to get it to work on Catalina on my iMac. I haven't tried installing it on the new Mac Studio running Sonoma. I keep...

I've been a Mac person all my life (bought my first mac in 1986), so no argument from me there. My sense is that PCs are a little more backward compatible, but, yes, they also run into end of life issues before the machine itself gives out. (It's been a long time since I had a Mac, iPhone, or...

They are fine until you need to update the system to run software that requires a system that the old machine can't run. Kontakt is already this way for several of my machines that are still otherwise in use. Chrome has also reached the end of update life on several of my machines.

There are many ways of using virtual instruments that don't involve replacing live players in final production. There are many things samples and synths can do that real instruments can't. In any case, it doesn't change the fact that you can hardly complain when AI comes for your job if you are...

Fun. Tells me I should stick with K7.8.1, since it has been solid for me.

Yes, if you created the preset today, then it would be the nki of the current version. Why it would work from the preset and not changing in K7 is indeed most peculiar.

When you load the Logic preset I’m pretty sure you are loading an older nki saved with the preset. If that’s right, that would explain the difference in behavior. Why it would work in standalone but not in Logic is confusing. Hopefully someone else will have an idea on that.

Do you know what happens with older nkis when updates fix the actual samples? I’ve wondered about that situation.

I also have little interest in AI composition or ChatGPT or MidJourney, though I’ve played around with all of them to test capabilities, and I can see using AI music composition for a limited amount tasks (e.g. generating aleatoric effects). It also seems AI vastly improves singing words so to...

You don’t. But many do. There’s a whole segment of the industry devoted to production in the area. And many who work with loops and presets produce very good music and they produce music that is not easily made otherwise. (Yes many use loops, presets and such to produce schlock, but that happens...

Any time you are replacing labor with the machine there is an issue of ethics. But you can hardly complain about composing being replaced by AI if you are willing to replace other creative labor with AI. You’d rather not hire the flautist for your music? Fine. Maybe the director of the film...

Not even from flautists? I mean I share the desire to have VIs that are less terrible. But I worry whenever VIs can replace real players. Because if they can they inevitably will. We know they already do. And if we are fine with VIs replacing real players then where do we have standing when...

I quite like Pigments to program with. It’s the only soft synth I’ve made any progress designing my own patches on. I find it has lots of visual reinforcement without being overrun with eye candy. It also has a reasonably deep set of third party presets you can learn from. I like Zebra HZ for...

Passing CCs properly to midi channels in Logic for one thing. I can propagate the CCs fine but Logic is weird about how it records CCs, which then causes problems if you change articulations. You’ll say that’s a Logic problem and you aren’t wrong, but it still makes it a pain and I’m not...