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Synchron Strings in 2020

It's sad really.

Synchron Strings FX I is a stunning library and the player is also fantastic.

Personally it's sad to me to see where VSL is heading - their detailed sampling was unrivalled (just watch the video and keep in mind even patches within that had variations ie. dynamics crescendo OR decrescendo).

Personally I would rather 3 quality mic positions and a buttload more articulations than 36 mic options taking up 2 terabytes NOW FEATURING ACROSS THE STREET MICS..like seriously.

(this criticism certainly isn't limited to VSL)
 

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I was hoping to get the SYNCHRON-ized Chamber and Appassionata Strings during the recent sale, but my money was returned as the vendor had made a mistake in the pricing, and as that was several days after my purchase, the sale had just expired by then. So I am unfortunately not able to compare those to Synchron Strings I to see whether this library can fairly adequately fulfill the needs of the Chamber Strings library, or even possibly Appassionata with some clever doubling here and there.

It's probably too late now, but I placed an order for (IIRC) Synchronized Dimension Strings during a sale a while back, on the last day of the sale. Unfortunately, for some security reason my payment card was declined, but the website failed to tell me this. Anyway, a couple of days later and no serial number I contacted the vender (Best Service) and they told me they had no record of the order, probably as it had failed.

However, they got in touch with VSL, who decided in this case they could honour the sale price - which I thought was pretty cool of them. It's never a mistake to ask, I find most of the developers are really top people.

(except possibly that @Mike Greene guy..... you need to be careful of him...... :))

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However, they got in touch with VSL, who decided in this case they could honour the sale price - which I thought was pretty cool of them
My guy at Sweetwater did the same thing...they will honor a sale price if you get in touch with them and explain you're a little late...at least my vendor did.
 
I don't want to go into details here, but I was simultaneously helping VSL with details of a bug report, and the rep switched to someone else mid-stream, so the request to have the sale ticket reissued fell through the cracks, and then the "s" hit the fan for me on so many fronts simultaneously that I felt it was best to let go of the situation and hope for another sale down the road, as I'm now too busy job-shopping to even have time to thoroughly evaluate my real need and timeline for SYNCHRON-ized Chamber (or even Appassionato) anyway -- though at the sale price, it was a low-risk upgrade.
 
It's sad really.

Synchron Strings FX I is a stunning library and the player is also fantastic.

Personally it's sad to me to see where VSL is heading - their detailed sampling was unrivalled (just watch the video and keep in mind even patches within that had variations ie. dynamics crescendo OR decrescendo).

Personally I would rather 3 quality mic positions and a buttload more articulations than 36 mic options taking up 2 terabytes NOW FEATURING ACROSS THE STREET MICS..like seriously.

(this criticism certainly isn't limited to VSL)

In fact it doesn't apply to VSL Synchron at all.

I think VSL is doing next-level stuff with Synchron, esp the dynamics and crossfading tech. I don't get the bloated rap. The library is large due to recording many performances (i.e. players playing notes), the source of realism in sampling. More performances is exactly how I want to take advantage of increasingly cheap SSD/NVMe space and memory. Meanwhile we have 8000+ post fawning threads here about a 500GB library that is 5% performances and 95% mic positions.

1 mic pair of SyS is 73 GB of performances, just strings.
1 mic pair of 'most talked about lib' is just 24 GB of performances, for a whole orchestra, only 8 GB of which is strings.

That's 9 times as many performances. That's the opposite of bloat. That's hard playing and sampling work, editing effort and value. Mic positions are bloat. SyS is not bloated with mic positions, you get exactly "3 quality mic positions" - tree/mid/close, plus a mix with the standard versions (4 x 73 ~= its 290 GB size) and you can cleanly opt out of the extra mic's cost and disk space without losing any instruments or performances. It's exactly the right way to offer more mics for those who need them without punishing those who don't in an effort to get them to upgrade.

VSL is still doing deep sampling. This is the broadest set of legatos, vibs and dynamics they have ever done. I think the deep dynamics with great crossfading is way better and more expressive than the old 2/3/4 second recorded cre/dim and the hassle of triggering them and getting them to line up length and level-wise.

Yes, it doesn't have upbeat repetitions, glissandi etc yet. I'm pretty sure they are aware of what they haven't yet done and if they deliver it with the same depth as what they've already done this will be the most deeply sampled library ever done by anyone include VSL. Nothing they've said has indicated they think these strings are complete.

Add in the synchron player's great UI, increasing feature set, esp humanization and real-time time stretching for any slot... VSL's second very sophisticated, independently developed player (that works!) while others are struggling with their primitive first outings. I dunno, VSL seems to be held to a different standard around here. But they have my money, and they'll get more :)
 
The library is large due to recording many performances (i.e. players playing notes), the source of realism in sampling.

But herein lies the problem.

It doesn't sound more realistic than other libraries. In fact it is worse than much of the competition.

It is considered bloat when the extra size and resources it uses makes hardly any discernible difference.
 
But herein lies the problem.

It doesn't sound more realistic than other libraries. In fact it is worse than much of the competition.

It is considered bloat when the extra size and resources it uses makes hardly any discernible difference.

Discerning is in the ear of the discerner, I guess. Use something else.
 
Discerning is in the ear of the discerner, I guess. Use something else.

I already do use something else :P. The library has long since been moved to an external back up drive.

The overwhelming consensus when this was released was that it was a disappointment. The cantible patches are OK, but don't make a that big a difference in my opinion.
 
I already do use something else :P. The library has long since been moved to an external back up drive.

The overwhelming consensus when this was released was that it was a disappointment. The cantible patches are OK, but don't make a that big a difference in my opinion.

I agree, unfortunately.

A zillion performances and dynamic layers don't matter to me if the end product still sounds fake or synthy.

So I use smaller, cheaper libraries that (IMO) sound much better.
 
imho. VSL Synchron Strings in 2020 is still not popular, and VSL is wasting time with the Synchronized concept.

Where is VSL's real Synchron Line of libraries in 2020, (not synchronized libraries) ?

There should have been real Synchron library releases by 2020 i.e. Synchron Strings II, Synchron Brass I, Synchron Brass II, Synchron Woodwinds I, Synchron Woodwinds II, ...etc.

Why did they not continue releasing their real Synchron Orchestral libraries (not the fake ones) ?
 
imho. VSL Synchron Strings in 2020 is still not popular, and VSL is wasting time with the Synchronized concept.

Where is VSL's real Synchron Line of libraries in 2020, (not synchronized libraries) ?

There should have been real Synchron library releases by 2020 i.e. Synchron Strings II, Synchron Brass I, Synchron Brass II, Synchron Woodwinds I, Synchron Woodwinds II, ...etc.

Why did they not continue releasing their real Synchron Orchestral libraries (not the fake ones) ?

Personally i think they should have gone back and redone and rethought Synchron Strings.

The player is good, and some of the concepts are interesting, but ultimately its a lot of money for something that just isnt that great. They need to re-record it and make it great. At the very least re-record the longs and legatos and get some real expression out of the players.
 
@muziksculp hmm, what about the BBO libraries, Synchron Pianos, Synchron Percussion I? Are these not real Synchron Libraries?
I know you want more and we will deliver. Sometimes good things need a little time, and of course we have read all feedback and do our best to deliver the best.
Stay tuned!

Here is what would have made sense to me, and made me super satisfied :

1. Re-develop Synchron Strings I
2. Continue Developing your Synchron Orchestra. Synchron Strings II, Brass I, Brass II, WW I, WWII, ...etc. ...etc. Until you have a REAL Synchron Orchestra.

Sadly, this was not what happened. You don't have a cohesive, and REAL Synchron Orchestral Library, that's why I decided to buy Spitfire's BBCSO Pro library. and not any of the BBO, or Synchronized VSL libraries ;)
 
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