Best controllable string vibrato?

[sabin333]

Hi. I'm looking for a new string library. I'd like something that is expressive. In your experience what library has the best vibrato control?

Cinesamples Cine Strings:
http://youtu.be/KgRpTKuYS0E?t=8m44s

8dio Adaggio:
http://youtu.be/AKhJUEbQzhk?t=4m14s

Cinematic Strings 2:
http://youtu.be/fF2eQKx8JtA?t=3m49s

VSL Dimension Strings:
http://youtu.be/f-Jnq0nqxzQ?t=7m20s

Spitfire Sable:
http://youtu.be/bQDpuK4nobI?t=17m53s

Embertone Friedlander Violin:
http://youtu.be/X0pfc0itOSM

LA Scoring Strings:
[couldn't find a video]

Also, there might be better videos or examples out there, so if anyone else knows of videos with other libraries demonstrating this ability, PM me or reply and I'll add them here for everyone else's benefit.

Please write in with your experiences!

[jancivil]

Of those three, the most control must be the Embertone Friedlander. But it's a pretty fakey sound for me.
VSL is just the vibrato of the person they record in the session, it is what it is for that sample. Some are purportedly non-vibrato, a couple of things I've used pretty much are and in the same library here's a patch with more a different quality or dialed-back vibrato than 'non'-. It's going to depend on the library. But no, there is no control over speed of it at all, no way to, it's straight samples, no modeling. You can load two patches in adjacent slots and crossfade the slots and get some control this way, loading different 'characters'. They like the velocity xfade too, but that isn't directly involved with vibrato, it's about getting timbral changes from their layering, typically it's just three or four layers. But you can have a -no vib- patch crossfade into a vibrato patch through loading two slots a certain way. And you can tweak those cells, cut into the sample and soften that etc. AFAIK that slot crossfade is unique. O.T. Berlin copied it in their interface [Artic Performer] and abandoned it with their strings in favor of using two tracks for the effect, they said. I think it was buggy and they got tired of support tickets.
VSL, I do CC2 to bring in the second slot very simply.

Cinestrings, I worked one afternoon with it; their M.O. is velocity crossfade via CC1. Their interface is very overdone IMO, velocity zones in a confusing graphic; velocity switching isn't for me & at the end of the day CC1 dynamics is very Garritan Personal Orchestra cheese workflow to me. All of this tweakazoid round robin options and dials which made me bail ultimately, there's too much variation at the expense of knowing what's going to sound next. I would rather simply know from a keyswitch than expect I'm going to hit a certain zone of velocity for an articulation, and the articulation set is incredibly thin. But no, it's just samples. I remember there is a CC assign to bring in a more attack sample but it was weak sauce. I ended up using older things I have (I like the sound of more).* I'm a control freak. Some people may like to mess around with all of this, but I don't need randomness to sound human like that. All afternoon and I never got a take, and I'm no noob.
The upside of their interface is they give you the same thing as VSL far as cutting into the sample to get a sharper attack. That seems to have been adopted by a number of devs.
Some people may love their interface. I would rather have dynamic samples and strong attack in the samples, *I found if I had to sculpt the sample I may as well work with the audio in audio editing.
I end up turning off repetitions with VSL frequently, too.

IMO the sound of VSL and the control of everything (except vibrato) is So.Very.Far.Beyond the rest I would have a hard time putting the money into Cinestrings and I don't care for Embertone's sound, that synthetic vibrato a total deal-killer here so it's very YMMV.

There is something else I looked at online that did something about vibrato speed I think, but I can't recall it. Maybe something 8Dio.

[sabin333]

Thank you for the thorough response jancivil. What version of VSL are you talking about? Dimension Strings? Apassionata? An earlier VSL type?

[jancivil]

The engine for it, Vienna Instruments, provides slots for that slots xfade. The start offset* and start offset attack modes are a property of VI Pro, not the free player that comes with any library purchase.

As far as the 'non-' vibrato not being so much non-, yeah, that's an older giga lib as per strings, although my alto flute which is current has that 'feature'.
Appassionata I do not have, but the samples list has no entry for non-vibrato, just 'normal' and 'strong, progressive'. I have the cut-down Appassionata strs which come free with VE Pro. the sus patches have a nondescript vibrato which is not unlike non-vibrato in a couple of the giga libs from ten yrs ago, actually.

* this is a single dial in CineSamples, 'sample start'; which in the VSL has modes, 'first', 'repetitions', 'legato', 'all'; and an 'offset attack' which softens any bumpiness if you cut so far into the sample you get artefacts. CineSamples provides a CC to switch between vibrato and non-. The most confusing thing to me is in the 'keyswitch' mapping, there is still a 'shorts' split by a given velocity, I mean in addition to switching to a short articulation.
We got CineWinds Pro anyway as a lot of it sounds just fantastic. I was not really wowed by the character of CineStrings, although it sounds good in a generic way, clean and crisp, and is going to blend ok with a lot of things... but their interface is not my cuppa.

[Echoes in the Attic]

The engine for it, Vienna Instruments, provides slots for that slots xfade. The start offset* and start offset attack modes are a property of VI Pro, not the free player that comes with any library purchase.

As far as the 'non-' vibrato not being so much non-, yeah, that's an older giga lib as per strings, although my alto flute which is current has that 'feature'.
Appassionata I do not have, but the samples list has no entry for non-vibrato, just 'normal' and 'strong, progressive'. I have the cut-down Appassionata strs which come free with VE Pro. the sus patches have a nondescript vibrato which is not unlike non-vibrato in a couple of the giga libs from ten yrs ago, actually.

* this is a single dial in CineSamples, 'sample start'; which in the VSL has modes, 'first', 'repetitions', 'legato', 'all'; and an 'offset attack' which softens any bumpiness if you cut so far into the sample you get artefacts. CineSamples provides a CC to switch between vibrato and non-. The most confusing thing to me is in the 'keyswitch' mapping, there is still a 'shorts' split by a given velocity, I mean in addition to switching to a short articulation.
We got CineWinds Pro anyway as a lot of it sounds just fantastic. I was not really wowed by the character of CineStrings, although it sounds good in a generic way, clean and crisp, and is going to blend ok with a lot of things... but their interface is not my cuppa.

Cinestrings actually crossfades between no-vibrato and two different types of vibrato, a more gentle one and a more aggressive.

As for the keyswitch mapping, I don't understand what's confusing about it. It's probably the simplest setup I've seen for that many options. You have the choice to switch articulations by velocity, or by simply assigning a note value. Keyswitches are standard so this option is no different from other libraries. Or, you can also assign different articulations to different zones of a mici cc. Couldn't be easier to use in a way that suits you.

As for the original question, I find most are pretty similar for string section libraries like Spitfire Sable, mural, or Cinestrings. Spitfire does it well, I'm not sure how it works exactly, but like Cinestrings there is intensity but not speed. I've never seen speed for string section. For the embertone cello and violin, speed is there as well since it's modelled and important for solo strings. But the ember tone products also have a section function which is pretty nifty, allowing up to 8 players.

[sabin333]

I thought I would share the wealth... here's how the different libraries sound when they are modifying vibrato on the fly. I'd really like to hear what other people think about these different vibrato control attempts?

Cinesamples Cine Strings:
http://youtu.be/KgRpTKuYS0E?t=8m44s

8dio Adaggio:
http://youtu.be/AKhJUEbQzhk?t=4m14s

Cinematic Strings 2:
http://youtu.be/fF2eQKx8JtA?t=3m49s

VSL Dimension Strings:
http://youtu.be/f-Jnq0nqxzQ?t=7m20s

Embertone Friedlander Violin:
http://youtu.be/X0pfc0itOSM

LA Scoring Strings:
[couldn't find a video]

Also, there might be better videos or examples out there, so if anyone else knows of videos with other libraries demonstrating this ability, PM me or reply and I'll add them here for everyone else's benefit.

[jancivil]

there is still a 'shorts' split by a given velocity, I mean in addition to switching to a short articulation.

As for the keyswitch mapping, I don't understand what's confusing about it. It's probably the simplest setup I've seen for that many options. You have the choice to switch articulations by velocity, or by simply assigning a note value. Keyswitches are standard so this option is no different from other libraries.

I don't know what's hard to understand about what I said. It would be SIMPLER to not have a split defined by velocity in the same interface. It makes no sense.



With Vienna Instruments Pro there are quite a few more options and features without confusing basic things.

[jancivil]

But the ember tone products also have a section function which is pretty nifty, allowing up to 8 players.

Making a section out of soloists is a terrible idea if you want something to resemble reality. The psychoacoustics is wrong, put simple. Additionally, the sampling of a soloist ought to be different than the sampling of an ensemble player as the behaviors are different.

So VSL has made Dimension Strings and Dimension Brass, which records people playing in ensemble in a way that you can recombine them as individuals, eat your cake and have it too, they are ENSEMBLE PLAYERS recorded in that environment and the acoustic relationship is preserved.

[sabin333]

I thought I would share the wealth... here's how the different libraries sound when they are modifying vibrato on the fly. I'd really like to hear what other people think about these different vibrato control attempts?

Cinesamples Cine Strings:
http://youtu.be/KgRpTKuYS0E?t=8m44s

8dio Adaggio:
http://youtu.be/AKhJUEbQzhk?t=4m14s

Cinematic Strings 2:
http://youtu.be/fF2eQKx8JtA?t=3m49s

VSL Dimension Strings:
http://youtu.be/f-Jnq0nqxzQ?t=7m20s

Spitfire Sable:
http://youtu.be/bQDpuK4nobI?t=17m53s

Embertone Friedlander Violin:
http://youtu.be/X0pfc0itOSM

LA Scoring Strings:
[couldn't find a video]

Also, there might be better videos or examples out there, so if anyone else knows of videos with other libraries demonstrating this ability, PM me or reply and I'll add them here for everyone else's benefit.

I'm quoting myself because I would like to keep the topic focused on which product has the best controllable vibrato.

[sabin333]

No other thoughts?

I would have thought that being able to expressively change vibrato would have been an important feature for all you composers!

[Touch The Universe]

Also curious about this. Anything that has maybe different vibrato samples recorded linked to AT or velocity? I know omnisphere does this with velocity to glide types for velocity, would be cool if some library did this for strings too. You could always do it manually creating a pseudo vibrato string with a separate vibrato vst effect. Wouldn't a kontakt string library with adjustable vibrato be doing the same thing?

[sabin333]

Hi mysticvibes, all of the links I provided above have examples of their vibrato shift. Embertone is the only one that synthesizes the vibrato shift. The rest have different vibrato sounds that it crossfades. So which ones do you like the best?

[benjamind]

SampleModeling solo strings...if and when they come out, of course.

Garritan solo Strad and solo Gofriller, many years ago did exactly that...

...so in the meantime all we have are sample libraries...still, nothing has changed

[sabin333]

I updated the thread with examples from Spitfire Sable. Please keep the feedback coming!

P.S. benjamind, I would go nuts for some SampleModeling solo strings!

[chroma]

one more that does the synthesized vibrato: kirk hunter spotlight strings...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scd7BZiEyUQ, about 3:20 or so

i don't know how it compares to the others (not really qualified to judge honestly ... just another option, since i'm curious... i like the idea, and it's pretty cheap (all 50% off right now too iirc), but i don't have kontakt 5 yet.