And the happy news is this: You get a great sound right out of the box without having to work hard to make it happen.

String Ensemble Size
Let’s start from an orchestration perspective, ensemble size:

12 1st Violins
8 2nd Violins
7 Violas
7 Cellos
6 Basses

This size fits into what’s typically called the “standard” orchestra string section, but it’s recorded in such a way that it has the sound of a much bigger ensemble.

Patch Load Design
Don’t mistake simple for simplistic. CS2.0’s elegant patch load design often hides what’s going on under the hood, which is why it’s so easy to use!

For example, you’re not overwhelmed with articulation choices. Instead, you load five patches one per track: V1, V2, Violas, Ces, and Basses. Once you’ve loaded these five patches, you just loaded your string section – on five tracks!

Under the Matrix tab, you see that each patch has eight bowings, each selectable by keyswitch. Keyswitches are consistently placed for each string section, even the basses, which (as in a traditional score), are positioned an octave higher than they sound.

The benefit is learn once.

Be aware than when you load a patch, you’re loading all eight bowings which is about 1.2GB for Violins 1 and slightly less for the other patches. So if you’re not using a particular bowing, you can literally turn it off, and that purges the samples for that bowing.

Overall, patches take up around 400-500mb per patch if you only load up the Mix mic position.

The included bowings, in order, are: arco, tremolo, half step trill, whole step trill, run mode, staccato, marcato, and pizzicato. Here I have one minor critique. I would have ordered the bowings in their most frequent use, which would be arco, staccato, marcato, pizz, then the remainder of the bowings. Happily, part of the design is that you can re-order the list with a couple of clicks.

Arco - already set to legato (monophonic). To turn legato OFF, click the legato button at page bottom. The arco contains a staccato overlay which is triggered by velocity when playing velocity above 60.

Staccato - You can choose between staccato (longer) and staccatisimo (shorter) bowings, and under the hood, (the Advanced tab), you’re given sliders to control length. The sliders are also available for pizzicato.

Marcato - This is a sustained marcato so that when you strike the keyboard, you get an accented note but the pitch sustains.

Playing Position – This is another tool that keeps the track count down. I don’t know which string position these reflect, but you have a choice of Low vs High. The Low means all the pitches available are recorded in the lower string positions. This provides a very rich sound. High means all the pitches are recorded in the higher string positions which creates more intensity the higher you write.

Vibrato Control
Yes, there is vibrato control!

This can either be handled by velocity (playing above 60 increases vibrato) or with CC2 breath controller, which you can also draw in. I prefer to draw it in as too much vibrato creates an unnatural string sound in vertical harmony.

Velocity Crossfade – On the mod wheel. Volume is controlled by CC11.

Patch Loading Summary
On the surface, it appears as if you’re only getting eight bowings per patch. But that’s not true. By the time you factor in Low/High Positions, Vibrato, Staccato/Staccatisimo, Legato/non-Legato, and note length options under the Advanced tab, you have many more. Additionally, you have close, stage and room mics, each of which has the same number of bowing choices per patch.

Hall Reverb
To the right you see a knob for hall reverb. Per Mr. Wallbank, this is the standard algorhythmic reverb that comes with Kontakt which he felt had a nice neutral sound for quick work. Mr. Wallbank tried to match the sound and feel of the hall as much as possible with it and suggested turning the dial to around 4.5dB. While it’s a good sounding reverb, I chose to turn it off so I can pick from others in my collection that can be used on the whole mix.

Mic Mixer
The mic mixer enables you to adjust the volume per mic, which is handy when blending with other libraries. Your choices are close, stage and room.

My Tests
Cinematic Strings 2.0 is now the third string library to imply it has the Hollywood sound. I put that to the test by writing a short 1 minute piece, slow tempo, with voicings similar to that of Jerry Goldsmith.

I test this way because you can get away with murder in a demo that’s got the chugga-chugga thing happening in the middle register, cellos-basses in octaves in the lower register doing a different rhythmic line, and then writing a long languid violin line in the upper register. Add percussion and some brass, a dash of EQ and 2 tablespoons of reverb, and voila! A cue is born! Adjust tempo to taste.

But when you start adding vertical harmony, that’s where the story is written, at least as I see it.

My piece is written in Dorian mode, and I voiced the low strings (Basses, Cellos and Violas) in triads starting with the open voicing of Root-Fifth-Third. To stress the string samples, I wrote long sustains. I set the strings in Low position which increased the depth and warmth of the section. I turned off all reverb and applied no EQ. So this is as out-of-the-box as you can get!

Once the volume levels were set to achieve a sectional sound, and velocity was edited to be less than 60 (to insure light vibrato), what I found was that I had achieved, with no significant effort or time outlay of my own, a finished sound, which is also what Daniel James said in his YouTube video about Cinematic Strings.

Now an inner line. Well, no chugga-chugga. Instead I used ba-du ba-du ba-du ba-du by placing Vienna Instruments Harp 1 in the middle register playing an alternating eighth note pattern.

I put Vienna Flute 1 on the melody, then at the end of the phrase, I shifted the melody to Violins 1 and 2 playing in unison.

I felt that the Vienna Flute and Harp worked well with CS2.0 because all three have what I would describe as a similar “round” sound. So they blend well.

To spatially position, I used Spat with reverb off (sorry, Jose!) to position the Flute and Harp. I positioned the harp to the far left where it’s often positioned in a scoring session. And since I was just working with one (1) flute, I positioned in the center, but pushed back behind the strings.

Using Spat took me all of 2 minutes to spatially position the two instruments.

Next I added reverb.

Here I tried several but came away liking the Medium Vocal Hall from Ircam’s Verb which I set at 40% wet/dry.

At this point, I had achieved a great sound. It took me longer because I was learning the library at the same time. But once I finish with the MIDI editing and adding a touch of EQ, I have a commercially salable work.

And I must say, hearing that R-5-3 voicing sounded a lot like the strings as I remember them sounding at Warner or Sony/MGM. So for this piece, and my experience, yes, this is the Hollywood Sound.

Mr. Tchaikovsky
OK. I admit it. I’m the only reviewer who thinks about Tchaikovsky when doing string library reviews. And that’s because I’d like to write beyond chugga-chugga! But in this case, I tested CS2.0 with a passage in the upper register employing 6 vertical chord tones.

Violins 1 - Melody
Violins 2 - 2-part (double stops)

Cellos - Melody
Violas - 2-part (double stops)

The following popular string libraries are not divisi: CS2, HS Gold, LASS Lite and Miroslav. This means that to play more than 5 pitches in a vertical harmony stack, you have to either ignore string scoring principles and do what you want, or use double stops for the inner harmony. When you approach this passage with double stops, this means that you don’t need divisi, you can use V2 or Violas ensembles with two insertions each.

Since the pitches played by V2 and Violas can be performed as double stops, this yields triad over triad in octaves – which is a big sound). So to produce this with CS2.0:

Violins 1 – Legato On
Violins 2a – Legato OFF (individual track)
Violins 2b – Legato OFF (individual track)

Cellos – Legato On
Violas a – Legato OFF (individual track)
Violas b – Legato OFF (individual track)

Here, as with any library with controllable vibrato, the vibrato has to be at a minimum in medium to heavy vertical harmony, otherwise the cumulative effect is an unnatural “buzzy” sound in the strings.

CS2.0 pulled this passage off, admirably. I didn’t hear any synthiness with CS2.0 as some have reported. Not always, but often synthiness is due to not writing sample strings as you would for live.

Inner Octaves

The tempo is Andante Sostenuto, or a slow walk. This little baby is a stress tester. Violins 1 and Violas are in octaves and are sustained. Violas are on their bottom open C. Enter the Cellos then the Basses leading to diminished chords with the bottom pitch separated by nearly two octaves. Though from the 1800s, this is still a very contemporary sound.

CS2.0 executes it beautifully – right out of the box with a professional sound.

Critiques
As some have observed with personal comments, there is some noise in the samples. With the basses, for long sustains, I think the loops should be rechecked, and I found that with several other libraries, not just CS2.0!

I would like to see the online Quick Start Guide copied into a Pages document and released as a PDF. CS2.0 is easy to learn and use, but you do need the Quick Start Guide to learn your way around and it’s just more convenient learning it from a document you can print out vs. going back and forth online.

I would like to see CS2.0 add one more group by creating unison violins (V1 + V2) as this has been for decades one of the top combinations for dramatic film scoring. This can be programmed as it was for the ensemble patches in LASS and MV2.0. So no new recordings are required.

I also think that it would be worthwhile to consider adding, as a future update, some ensemble patches for all strings arco, staccato and pizz at minimum. Again, no new trips to the recording studio required.

Some seem to be bothered that the spiccato bowing is missing. I’m not. First of all, since spiccato is achieved by bouncing the bow off the strings, you do have a tempo limitation to it. Additionally, no matter how well spiccato is performed the composer still needs to bring some piano chops to the keyboard by pulling the fingers off the keys, not dissimilar in how you approach pizzicato.

Spiccato didn’t become “happening” until Mendelssohn. So we have several hundred years of practice without it. But if you feel you must have spiccato, and you don’t have a library that has spiccato, then consider Symphobia 1.

The Company Demos
I point you to this one demo to start. I admire what the developer, Alex Wallbank, did. He told the whole world flat out that he added EQ and a separate reverb.

This is honesty!

However, Mr. Wallbank went a step further. He explained how he applied EQ to get the results he did and then he put up what the settings were!

Can you think of any company demo where it was explained how the demo was actually produced, down to the EQ settings?

The never ending question on the forums is: How’d ya do that?

And the never ending answer is: silence, otherwise known in marketing circles as, “no speaka da English.” (Note: this is a universal sentence so please supply your own accent.)

But now the answer is published for Cinematic Strings.

Conclusion
As several of us have found writing about Cinematic Strings 2.0, you get great sounding results without an engineer, or having to become one. You get a polished dramatic sound that covers the wide genre of the Hollywood sound. The developer has told you how to EQ it to achieve his same results. It’s simple to learn and restful to use. Like every string library on the market, it has its quirks, but nothing detracts from the final end result of what you can achieve.

You can buy it as a download and the price is very, very reasonable. And if your currency is the Euro or British Pound Sterling, since CS2.0 is priced in USD, it’s a steal.

For all the rest of us, it’s a killer value.

Go for it!

Disclaimer: Alexander Publishing is not a dealer for CS2.0. Alexander Publishing is a dealer for Spat and Project SAM.

One of the most difficult problems in mixing orchestral mock-ups, knowing how to spatially place instruments quickly and easily, has now been simplified with Ircam SPAT, a 32Bit downloadable audio plug-in that works with any library. Says the Ircam web site about SPAT, “SPAT is the most advanced and sophisticated tool for room acoustics simulation and localisation.”

In short, you can place instruments (live or sampled), vocalists, foley, et al, and design the space you want them heard in. Or, you can turn off the reverb portion and use your favorite reverb.

To do this, there are two broad parts to SPAT.

The first part is an easy to learn tool that enables you place a sound anywhere stage left to right, and closer/farther away from the conductor. This aspect of SPAT enables you to spatially position libraries recorded in different rooms and different mic positions in such way that they line up to work more like a single section, or a whole orchestra.

The second part is a reduced version of Ircam’s Verb, which is an algorithmic room acoustics and reverberation processor, which, as I mentioned, you can turn off. It’s not necessary to use this aspect of SPAT, but if you do, you must follow this thinking about SPAT as explained to me by Piet de Ridder, a fellow composer/user of SPAT who has the habit of achieving excellent mixes of his work:

The key to (understanding) SPAT is, I believe, not to approach it as you would any other reverb software. SPAT works entirely differently: it doesn’t treat reverberation as something separate which you ‘add’ to a dry sound, but it always considers the combination ‘source signal’ plus ‘room response’ as one single phenomenon. It is, in my opinion, really essential that one is fully aware of this when starting to work with SPAT. SPAT is not another piece of reverb software (and it shouldn’t be approached as such), it’s a very complex simulator of what happens to sound in a certain user-definable space.

You can setup SPAT for stereo all the way up to 7.1 surround sound, and even three channel theater (LCR) viewing. In fact, once installed SPAT reads your system and does a preliminary speaker setup for you.

Installation
Installation only takes a few minutes. You’ll need an iLok key and to have your reg deposited to your iLok account. Once completed, download SPAT and follow the install instructions. It really just takes a few minutes.

Since it’s 32Bit, Logic users should remember to first reset Logic for 32Bit and then open Logic. Once Logic sees it in 32Bit you can go back and reset Logic again for 64Bit. For the post-community, no probs in ProTools.

The PDF manual comes with four-color screen captures (see beloe for download). It’s difficult reading in either Preview or Adobe Reader because the print is so small, and made more difficult to read if you print it out as a black and white document. So while it will definitely eat up the ink in your cartridges, the color print out is really optimum. Another option is to send the manual to your iPad.

Spatial Placement
For this first review, I’m sticking to what I see for many as a top problem/solution benefit of SPAT for composers doing their own MIDI mock-ups and mixes, which is spatial placement. For this review, I tested using SPAT to place the new Miroslav Vitous String Ensembles 2.01 into a seating arrangement of Violins 1, Violas, Cellos, Violins 2 and Basses.

As a starting test, I inserted SPAT into VE Pro 4. The screen capture below shows that VE Pro recognizes the Ircam Tools.

This now gives composers several practical options with VE Pro or optionally, within the sequencer:

1. You can insert an articulation and SPAT on a single track with the reverb on.

2. You can insert an articulation and SPAT on a single track for spatial placement with the reverb off, allowing you to add reverb either as a send or within your sequencing program.

3. You can insert a section’s worth of articulations in a single instance of VE Pro and use SPAT to spatially place an entire section either in VE Pro or in the sequencing program.

Since I now know that VE Pro recognizes Ircam Tools, I could continue my project right here. However, for this article, I’m doing it inside of Logic 9.1.6 just for simplicity and ease of screen capture.

So my next step is to insert Violins 1 into a single track along with SPAT. Below is a screen capture of SPAT in the “daylight” setting. To see the interface click the picture.

In the middle you see the outline of the top of a head direct in front of which are a pair of speakers. For me, I think of the head as being the conductor. Behind the speakers are the numbers 1 and 2 in yellow circles. The number 1 is highlighted in yellow. Coming out of the blueish circle you see Left, Right, Front, and Back. The numbers 1 and 2 mean this is a stereo source and 1 is the left channel while 2 is the right channel. Using either the mouse (by dragging) or controls in SPAT, you can position 1 and 2, here Violins 1, where you want them along with a custom stereo width!

1. You can set clearly separated sections so that each section has its own space.

2. You can slightly overlap sections so that there’s a little “bleeding” from one section to the next.

Below the chart you see the word, RADIATION. Below that you see you see Distance, Azimuth, and Yaw. Here’s my simplified explanation:

Azimuth = Stage Left to Right

Distance = Closer to the conductor or Away from the conductor.

You can set the stereo width manually, or you can do the following:

1. Click Reverb then Setup.

2. Click the vertical rectangle in the StereoPairs column, so that it turns yellow. This connects channels 1 and 2. Below that you’ll see a set of numbers labeled 60. This refers to the distance between the two sound sources. So now you have the option of setting stereo width manually or here.

3. Now use the Azimuth slider to position Violins 1.

4. When I play the keyboard, SPAT confirms that Violins 1 are positioned to the left. Look to the right of the screen capture.

5. Next, use Distance to position Violins closer to or away from the conductor. Again, closer to is more detail, away from is less detail.

What You Can Now Do
Borrowing from Russell Crowe in Gladiator, this is how you can begin making different libraries work, “as one.”

You can also think of creating templates from a much different perspective, that of how a recorded ensemble sounds. You could find an album where you particularly like its sound and spatial placement of the orchestra. With SPAT you could work to emulate the positioning. With Distance, you’re moving closer to or away from the conductor/listener. So if you pick a close mic setting that’s too close, you can push it back. At the same time, if you’ve picked a sample library’s mic setting that’s further behind the conductor, you can bring that closer to the conductor or push it back even further.

Testing With LASS
My next experiment was in testing a library recorded “in place” to see how SPAT worked with it. Here I used LASS 1.5 Violins 1 Leg L.

Even though LASS is recorded “in place” I was still able to use SPAT to reposition it. Here my main test was moving it closer to and farther away from the conductor keeping to its pre-recorded pan positioning. So yes, SPAT works with libraries already pre-recorded in an orchestral seating position, which is also good news for engineers, too! So this can help position two different libraries recorded in two different places so that they work as a single section.

Next I had a real “aha” moment with SPAT. LASS has had a reputation as being “edgy” and not as warm as people would like owing to its detuning. Look back at the first screen shot to the left side and you’ll see a section labeled Perceptual Factors. Underneath that is a fader called Source Warmth. Bringing up that fader really warmed LASS by removing some of its edginess.

Reverb On and Off
That you can turn SPAT’S reverb on and off to me is a good thing because to manage system resources better, using SPAT on dozens on tracks with the reverb on would really slow down even the heartiest CPU in a system loaded with RAM.

Also, there are those who prefer working with hardware units from Briscasti, Lexicon, or TC Works and prefer that approach to sound shaping.

That said, as a composer/mixer, I did a quick test of SPAT’S reverb with both Miroslav and LASS. Though not an engineer by any stretch of the word, I have gone through the task of testing individual libraries with different reverbs to see how they bring out a library’s sound. Some reverbs definitely flatter and work better with some libraries than others.

Testing SPAT’s default verb with MV SE 2.0, really brought out the MV strings quite a bit. To my ears, SPAT brought out the lushness and gave MV more airiness and “breathing” room aurally.

I then tested two of LASS’s IRs created by Ernest Cholakis using Logic’s Space Designer, one for the Early Reflections and one for the Tail. Then I disengaged them and turned SPAT’s default reverb back on to compare.

Ernest Cholakis doesn’t just create cool IRs, he creates transformations of sound. By using SPAT to warm up LASS and then adding in Ernest’s IRs, I think you might be hard pressed in recognizing this library as LASS. BTW, I mean this as a total compliment.

What this means to the composer who must mix is that you can create your own signature orchestral sound with SPAT that complements your signature scoring sound.

Let us put aside academic fal-de-rah. Because of the new technology, we composers are not just entrepreneurs, we are also a new wave of orchestral recording artists, and therefore must approach our careers accordingly.

Reflections
It’s now the morning after. I’ve got my coffee. It’s a beautiful bright sunny breezy day out there.

So sitting alone with my thoughts, though I’ve barely scratched the surface of SPAT, how do I really feel about it and is it worth the bucks?

The first thing I have to consider, and I think you have to consider, is that SPAT isn’t freeware. So it ain’t cheap! This is a very serious sonic transformation tool on its own. Had I had this review/tutorial to start me off, I would have been productive at this level within 45-minutes.

So the good news is that you don’t have to be master mixer to get a lot out of SPAT. You just need good solid easy to understand instruction to get you going and maximize your time.

Second, it works with Vienna Ensemble Pro. This needs more experimentation for spatially placing an entire section and using SPAT’s reverb in a manner economical for your CPU.

Third, it works with every library, synth sounds, vocalists, foley, the whole magilla.

Fourth, it can be combined with any convolution or reverb, hardware or virtual.

Fifth, at day’s end, it’s an audio plugin that just works with every library. I insert it in the appropriate track or VE Pro instance, and it works.

I like that.

Admittedly, turning off SPAT’s verb does defeat part of the program’s purpose, but that is also another strength adding to its flexibility and not making me feel locked in to a system. This for me is another incentive to buy.

Given its MAP pricing, I would absolutely consider spending the extra $200 and getting the Ircam Tools Bundle where you get SPAT, the full version of Verb, and Trax. To put this into a buying context, getting the Ircam Tools bundle is like getting an Adobe bundle. But given the power of the full version of Verb alone, even if you never touch Trax, the extra two bills is worth the price.

That said, SPAT is not for every writer, especially if you’re primarily working with just one library where everything is pre-panned for you.

But if you’re like me, and you’re using multiple libraries where you have to spatially place instruments, then SPAT’s worth considering because of the speed with which you can get things done and the results thereof. If, for example, you’ve had difficulty fitting Sample Modeling brass into a mix, you won’t with SPAT.

Now, one other delicious application: singers and soloists.

Let’s suppose you write backing tracks for a singer, or create a work for a soloist, regardless of the style. Once the vocal track is recorded, you can now place the voice and “the virtual orchestra” together so that they blend as one. In fact, it doesn’t have to be a singer. It could be a spoken word presentation like Peter and The Wolf or dialog.

In closing, I’ve read very carefully those posts where composers talk about how they achieved spatial placement in their mixes. Some EQ this, and use a reverb for that, while using Aunt Millie’s pancake mix for something else.

With SPAT, you can just place it!

Conclusion
For this starting review, I’ve only touched on three faders. Even so, just knowing these three can make a tremendous difference in your mixing time and overall sound. And yes, you’ll have to experiment. But with SPAT, what you put into it, yields great dividends. Check it out and see if it’s right for you.

The SPAT Manual
Spat User Manual

Albion
is the newest orchestral brainchild from Spitfire Audio, headquartered in Great Britain. It follows the path of Symphobia 1, Hollywoodwinds, and Symphobia 2 by being a problem/solution orchestral module that does not compete directly with full fledged orchestral libraries from EastWest, SONiVOX, or the Vienna Symphonic Library.

Following the advice of Sun Tzu given in The Art of War, it attacks from the side, and at this point, based on the orchestration decisions made before recording, has no direct competitor. It is, in fact, overtly difficult to compare it directly with Symphobia 2, its nearest “direct” competitor.

The “attack” is both subtle and skilful since Albion has recorded things not recorded by the other larger orchestral libraries, namely, advanced orchestration combinations that are time consuming and difficult as dogs to get right in a MIDI mock-up.

This, then, sets Albion apart from their direct and indirect competitors. And, it could also form the framework of a future product strategy which, like VSL’s Vienna Special Edition, treats Albion like a core module, and builds around it with subsequent releases.

Spitfire may not have thought that far ahead, but that is certainly Albion’s long term sales potential.

By advanced combinations, I’m talking about those I’ve documented in Professional Orchestration 2A and 2B. It’s these types of combinations that make up the entire Albion orchestral sound.

Albion was recorded in Air Lyndhurst studios in the UK. And everything was recorded direct to analog tape and from there, edited.

The result is a warm, slightly dark, luxurious sound.

Note:
All of the combinations were recorded as combinations. None of the instruments, nor sections, were recorded independently and then programmed.

Orchestra Size
The following setup came from Spitfire’s Paul Thomson.

Violins 1 = 11
Violins 2 = 9
Violas = 7
Cellos = 6
Basses = 4

French Horns = 4
Trumpets = 3
Tenor Trombones = 2
Bass Trombone = 1
Tuba = 1

Flutes = 2 (one doubling piccolo)
Oboe = 1
Clarinet = 1
Bassoons = 2
Bass Clarinet = 1
Contrabassoon = 1

String Combinations
High String Unisons: Vls 1 + Vls 2 + Vlas (27 strings)
High String Octaves: Vls 1 – Vls 2 (20 violins)
Low String Unisons: Cellos + Basses (10 strings)
Low String Octaves: Cellos – Basses (10 strings)

High String Unisons: Vls 1 + Vls 2 + Vlas – This is a big dramatic Hollywood sound. Adding the violas to the unison, especially in the upper register, makes for a creamy string sound.

High String Octaves: Vls 1 – Vls 2 – This is a big sound that’s been used for hundreds of years. Can be hard to achieve “realistically” in a MIDI mock-up depending on the library used. Here, being recorded makes all the difference.

Low String Unisons: Cellos + Basses – An excellent color combination adding strength and punch to a bass line. Mahler made good use of it in Adagietto from Symphony #5.

Low String Octaves: Cellos – Basses – Used thousands of times. But again, being recorded makes it much easier to use than trying to recreate it in a MIDI mock-up.

High Woodwind Combinations
The Woodwind High Combinations are all unison. They have a more flutey quality with the combination of 2 flutes (or 1 flute + 1 piccolo) + clarinet + oboe. The oboe adds just a tinge of darkness.

Low Woodwind Combinations
While unmarked, it is a unison. Use of the Bass Clarinet rounds out the color from the more double reed sound.

Brass High and Low Combinations
All of the brass combinations are in octaves.

3 trumpets – 4 French horns
2 tenor trombones – 1 bass trombone + 1 tuba

SHORTS
All of the sections have “short” articulations and the Ostinatum allows for repeated note patterns.

BEGINNNG WRITING CONSIDERATIONS
You can write unison lines in the Hi Strings, Low Strings, Hi Woodwinds and Low Woodwinds. The Brass, Hi and Low, are all in octaves. Because of the ensemble size, in the low Strings, you can write open three-part harmony with bass-cello-cello. You can also do two cello parts to one bass part.

All of these considerations I’ve given you are based on orchestration principles. You can completely ignore these and do what you want! And of course, I haven’t written about all the great effects and percussion available within Albion.

What you need to be aware of is that you have very elegant scoring colors, very elegantly recorded.

BLENDING ALBION AND OTHER STRING LIBRARIES
Given the size of the Albion Strings (11.9.7.6.4) there are two libraries size-wise that you can use with Albion. The first is released, the second is about to be released.

The first string library to work with Albion is LASS. And here you’ll work with the C and B groups. The second library, not being released until early Q4 is the newly redesigned Miroslav Vitous Composer’s Dream. I have an early pre-review version and it has a chamber/small studio group of strings about the same size as Albion’s.

With Albion, you’ll need at first to work with its mic position selections to get it to “match space” with either of these libraries.

TRUE LEGATO
The phrase “true legato” has the same definition as that of Vienna or LASS. It does not mean that lines have to be performed at a slower tempo. Albion true legatos are beautiful liquid and free flowing.

BUYING RECOMMENDATION
Because of its orchestration design, Albion is a potent addition to any composer’s palette providing combinations and colors, again, not easily achieved in a MIDI mock-up without a lot of work. In this sense, separate from gorgeous colors, Albion is a real time saver, and therefore worth the money.

I do think that the folks at Spitfire Audio should seriously consider releasing a series of modules starting with the standard Violins 1, Violins 2, etc., and a recording of the unison Violins 1 + Violins 2, as this is one of the big string combinations used in Hollywood scores.

The sound achieved is quite excellent. And unique. The string section size is that of a small studio orchestra while other libraries on the market are Mahler-sized starting with 16 Violins 1.

And so at some point, if a follow-up module was made available with basic strings, solo flute, and oboe, that would be ideal. Equally great would be having recorded versions of the big sound combinations of Violins 1 – Violins 2 – Violas in octaves, along with Violins 1 – Violins 2 – Violas – Cellos in octaves. Both of these are big combinations used in film and concert work, but very difficult to work out and edit effectively in a MIDI mock-up. Whereas when recorded, they work fantastically, as the recorded combinations across the sections in Albion so ably demonstrate.

At this point in my exploration of Albion, I have only have two negatives.

The first is the exchange rate of the US dollar vs. the British Pound Sterling. In the UK, the price of 349GBP is a TOTAL no brainer price. Don’t even think about it. Just get it. By comparison in the U.S., it’s $551.98. And at that price point, there’s some competition. So I would encourage those composers “across the pond” to spend some time with the Albion demos to hear what’s achievable with it.

This leads to my second critique – the demos. Specifically, the demo page on the Spitfire Audio web site. Sometimes one can be too clever with tongue-in-cheek and as a result, lose clarity. Only the first four demos are clearly labeled as Albion. What are the other demos? Are prospective customers to assume these are Albion? Give a Yank a break, Mate! Label ‘em better!

Conclusion
With its advanced orchestration colors and combinations, I can summarize Albion in a single word – exquisite.

But I had another reason. You can upgrade to the Diamond Edition. This means you can get your feet wet on the system you have and really learn this library, then after upgrading, your major learning focus will be on mastering the Legato Bow Change and the various mic positions.

Finally. I’m reviewing this at a time when PLAY 3.0 is about to be released. So in fairness, I’m not making any comments about the player until 3.0 is released. Besides, there’s plenty to learn before that.

INVESTMENT AND INNOVATION
Before jumping into the overview, in fairness, I’m starting in the same place I did with L.A. Scoring Strings – innovation.

When we in America think about innovation, we often think about the small entrepreneur doing ground breaking work in his or her garage or bedroom, fighting the good fight, and then making it big. We Americans love this story. By comparison, at the ground level, we don’t often match innovation with the bigger companies unless we love them, like Apple.

One of the things that can happen when a company gets bigger, and they have the nice offices, or two, is that risk becomes more risky because they fear losing what they’ve already achieved.

That could have been said about EastWest, who’s clearly not operating out of their garage!

They have offices in Los Angeles, New York and Europe. In Los Angeles, they own their own recording studio. An envious position to be in, for sure. They manage shipping centers in the U.S. and Europe. When you see a commercial for UPS talking about logistics, that’s EastWest. Except they ship with FedEx. Not only are they the OEM, they’re also sub-distributors for several companies. They have a very strong presence on Facebook and have been aggressively learning to capitalize on social media. Judging by the comments on Facebook, it looks like they’re doing pretty good, too.

The above paragraph brings a single word to mind – coast. Another phrase, play it cool. Or, be safe.

So why risk? Why innovate? Why take a chance in a crappy global economy especially when you already have one of the best selling orchestral libraries in the world that’s still selling?

All fair questions.

And then, there’s one more factor. It’s no secret that the company has been hit with a lot of forum criticism over its PLAY player. That alone was enough to delay and defer investing in any major new library. Thus, the easy way out was to wait.

So what did EastWest do?

They risked and moved forward.

No one has told me the behind the scenes story. But I’ve been there enough times in my own entrepreneurial journey to know that the vision to go forward and a knife twisting in your gut to encourage non-action are often traveling companions. One has to win. There cannot be two masters. Every sample library developer that’s still around or about to make the plunge knows this.

What has been missed by many is that EastWest’s decision to go forward was a gutsy move in a time where playing it safe would have appeared to be the wiser decision.

But who ever said that entrepreneurs are wise?

In simple words, the goal was to have, “the most detailed collection of string orchestra instruments ever assembled.” And Doug Rogers plunked down the cash to make it happen. In short, they went for it.

The money didn’t just cover the recording time. PLAY itself had to be vastly updated to handle the vision presented by Nick Phoenix and Thomas J. Bergersen. So that meant extra programming costs. And more beta testing. And then over time, discovering just what type of computing power was really needed.

Every decision was a risk. Then the programing of PLAY took longer than expected. Then the programming of the library took longer than expected. So that delayed the launch by several months, until finally they said something I’ve heard about a few Thanksgiving dinners, “It’ll be ready when it’s ready.”

And that announcement represented yet another round of risk. With more investment!

Christmas 2009 and NAMM 2010 came and went. But April came, and it was released. A “mere” one million samples and over 3000 patches for Diamond alone. There had once been a plan to have a Diamond and a Gold package. But that was changed to Diamond only, then back to Diamond and Gold. What I have read, and I don’t recall where I read it, is that within a few weeks of its release, EastWest had made back its investment.

Risk -> reward.

The general conversation about Hollywood Strings frequently uses this short phrase, game changing. But why is it game changing? I think that specific reasons come faster when you look at Hollywood Strings from an orchestration perspective. So let’s do that.

STRING ORCHESTRA SIZE
Hollywood Strings is one of the few libraries that has recorded this large a string section. All of the sections are independently recorded including Violins 2, which used a second group of players to sound different.

While many will look at this as a big film orchestra, outside filmland, this is a post-Romantic sized section, meaning that it’svery close to that used by Debussy, Holst, Mahler, Ravel, Wagner, and slightly bigger than what Berlioz asked for – 57 strings

Violins 1 – 16
Violins 2 – 14
Violas – 10
Cellos – 10
Basses – 7

Consequently, the end sonic result should be a big beautiful massive sound, depending on how you write. It has been the trend over the past few years to play Baroque works with a string ensemble maybe a third this size. In his letters to his father, Leopold, Mozart wrote with joy and excitement about hearing his symphonies played with a much larger ensemble. Hearing A Little Night Music or portions of the Requiem mocked up with HS would be a treat, and not at all “historically” inaccurate.

I mention this because Hollywood Strings should not be considered for film/TV/game work only. If you’re someone who wants to compose outside those genre, then don’t pull back from Hollywood Strings because of its name. This library has vocabulary as you’re about to see.

Additionally, a live string section this size can handle woodwinds and brass in 3s and still be in balance. Mahler proved it, and sometimes he wrote for six to eight horns! When compared to the soon to be released Hollywood Brass, you find that the size of Hollywood Brass also follows the Mahler-model.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE BOW
The beginnings. Stating the obvious. Strings are bowed instruments. This means that with rare exception, all of the sounds produced on the violin come as a direct result of the bow. How many string bowings are there? Well, the American String Teachers Association publishes an entire book of them. So there’s far more actual bowings than what are usually available in string libraries. I mention this to point out that Hollywood Strings has recorded an enviable list of bowings that once you learn how to play them from the keyboard, gives you a good portion of that envious language from live performance, the language of the bow.

More bowings = more composer expression.

In the chart below, I’ve organized the bowings as listed on the Hollywood Strings home page, in the way string players often speak about them: on the string, off the string (the spiccato family), special effects, tremolo, and pizzicato.

The Hollywood Strings PDF manual, which you can download, gives you their definitions of all the bowings.

As I wrote at the top, the phrase game changing has been applied mostly to the sound, not to the bowings. I suggest that game changing might also be applied to Hollywood Strings bow choices, too.

Legato
There are two types of legato played in a string section. The first are those pitches played under a single bow. The second is by connected detache bowings which is a back and forth or push/pull motion.

Hollywood Strings Diamond gives you both types, Gold gives you one. One is called Legato and the other Bow Change Legato. The one available in Diamond is called bow change legato, and from what I’ve heard, that sounds to me the detache definition of legato I just gave you. See Nick Phoenix’s Legato Tutorial #1 for demonstration.

Not a criticism, but I wish that EastWest had considered placing this feature with at least Violins 1 in Gold to demonstrate the musical reasons for updating to Diamond beyond getting the multiple mic positions.

If you’re not sure the difference between the two bowings and why it’s exciting to have them, watch this brief video of Herbert von Karajan conducting a portion of Brahms Symphony #4 and you’ll see many of the bowings in action found in Hollywood Strings.

Sul G, Sul D, Sul A, etc.
Hollywood Strings has a feature described on the web site as, “Up- and down-bowed sustains, all at 4 finger positions, at least one full octave on each string.”

What this description does not clearly indicate is that the composer can create his own Sul G, Sul D, etc., with all four members of the string section.

For example, let’s consider the pitch D above middle C where middle C is C3. That D is the open D string on the Violins. The G string can also play that pitch. Though it’s in the First Position, some composers specifically mark that they want that D on the G string vs the open D. The score is marked Sul G. Please see the graphic on our Strings Position Booklet page that illustrates this. The color change is also visible per string on the Spectrotone Chart, which was created by four time Academy Award nominee for best score, and one of the founders of the Santa Monica Symphony, Arthur Lange.

Again, stating the obvious, this is the same pitch whether it’s played on the Open D or the covered G string. But they don’t sound the same. And that’s the whole point! The difference is intensity. The further down the neck towards the bridge the performer plays on a single string, the more intense the sound becomes.

Point: until the release of Hollywood Strings, unless a library had recorded pitches up an individual string, this capability has simply not been available before.

Separate Upbows and Downbows
EastWest is not the first to have this feature, but they do have it. The bowing has to be heard to be appreciated. Watch the opening of Beethoven Symphony #7, Second Movement to see repeated upbows in action and how they sound. Other recorded versions of this symphony place the upbows in different locations. The benefit of the feature to the composer is again, more vocabulary, and more musical expression. This is followed by short excerpts from Beethoven’s Ninth also conducted by von Karajan.

Examples of Spiccato and Staccato Mixed
Regarding the actual performance of spiccato and staccato, as seen in the video, I spoke to violinist Hannes Frischat at Strings On Demand who explained, “While in violin school, books and slow motion explanations spiccato leaves the string and staccato does not, in reality the distinction is not really as easy. Fast spiccato often stays on the string while very short staccato can leave the string.”

Col Legno
Col Legno is found in the opening of Mars from The Planets. To protect the bow, some of which cost $2000 and up, players often turn the bow to the side as performed here.

Measured Tremolo
Hollywood Strings is the first library to offer accurate measured tremolo because it syncs to tempo. This is another innovation not talked about too much.

BOWINGS: THE FIRST GAME CHANGER
I’m really surprised that more “fuss” (in a good sense) about the bowings in Hollywood Strings hasn’t been made. Those who know their bowings and always wanted the tools to score electronically this way, now can. Those who don’t know the bowings, have a library with which to grow. These bowing choices also give you another way to consider setting up your string template.

LEARNING HOLLYWOOD STRINGS
I think there’s a genuine need to have some game changing instruction for this library. The starting videos created by Nick Phoenix are very good. But I’d like to see more videos given the bowing potential Hollywood Strings gives you.

In fairness, I can say the exact same thing about two other libraries. So I’m not “picking on” EastWest.

CONCLUSION
When you look at Hollywood Strings from an orchestration perspective, it’s evident that this library, Diamond or Gold, is genuinely game changing not just at the “sounds great” level, but also at the starting point, the compositional/orchestration level, the language of the bow.

Now to learn it.

See www.cinesamples.com for products and demos.

PA: First off, how and when did you guys meet?

Cinesamples: “This one time at band camp”….  No seriously, that is where we first met.  A fancy band camp called USDAN on Long Island.  At the time we had both managed to get jobs accompanying musical theatre productions for children.  This must have been around the summer of 2000, just after getting out of high school.  It was really quite a nice job for two college students and we pretty much enjoyed ourselves heartily (well, except for the musical theatre part).  We did spend a great deal of time at lunch discussing the more interesting points of film music, mostly relating to obsessive John Williams observations.

PA: Briefly, what musical training do you both have, and if you studied privately with someone, who?

Cinesamples: For not knowing each other as children we share remarkably similar, musical, pasts.  We were both were trained as classical pianists from Julliard trained pianists who lived locally.  We both grew up playing a healthy diet of Beethoven and Billy Joel (the local hero).  In school Patti played cello (and continues to do so) and Barry played clarinet/bass clarinet.  In college we both started paying attention to composition – continuing studies at the USC Film Scoring Program under Brian King.

PA: Both of you have excellent professional composing credits. And I know from your web sites, that Mike B. is a concert pianist. With all these professional writing and performing opportunities in front of you, why did you each decide to join the growing ranks of composers who produce sample libraries?

Cinesamples: It’s actually quite a simple answer, we were looking for a way to do realistic harp glissandi on a project.  After searching all around for a solution we couldn’t find a really comprehensive answer so we decided to create CineHarp.  After using it by ourselves for a while we decided to make it public.  For most of our libraries this has been the same principle, record something that we need and can’t buy or something we really want.

PA: You’re the first sample development team to live on two coasts. With 3000 miles between you both, what’s your collaboration procedure?

Cinesamples: Instant messenger! — well until Barry moves back out to Los Angeles.  And lots of crazy phone calls.

PA: How did you meet Tim Starnes and what is his ongoing role with Cinesamples?

Cinesamples: Around the time we attending USC we both lived in this studio apartment building off of Hoover near downtown Los Angeles.  Despite the occasional drive by shooting, it was a charming place and our good friend Patrick Kirst (now on the USC Faculty) lived there also. Patrick was good friends with Tim from their undergrad studies and we met that way.

Tim is our audio quality control expert.  He also mixes and engineers most of the libraries.

PA: Are you recording most of your libraries in New York City?

Cinesamples: Yes and no.  For our larger ensemble works we like to go to Seattle – Bastyr is such a lovely place to record and the gear and crew there is first rate.

[Editor's Note: Bastyr is a European-styled chapel built in 1958 by Ralph Lund. It's five stories high, 140 feet long, and has 36 stained glass windows. The original score soundtracks About Schmidt and Die Hard With a Vengeance were recorded there. Click the Bastyr link above for more details on how recording takes place there.]

For our percussion projects we like to record at Manhattan Center Studios since that’s where we originally recorded Drums of War and it seems to make sense to keep that all in the same hall.  Both studios are fantastic and contain an incredible mic cabinet which we love to take advantage of.

Recently we had the honor to do the final sessions at the legendary Clinton Studios in Manhattan.  We were made aware of an opportunity to sample the actual piano used in Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations before it disappeared.  It was an amazing and emotional experience; we even managed to get the original microphones from the Davis sessions.

PA: Many of the independent composer/developers have opted to sell direct. Why did you make the decision to assign sales to a national distributor?

Cinesamples: We have established a mutually beneficial relationship with Big Fish Audio.  Tom Meadow and his staff have twenty years of experience in the market and the work they do allows us time to make new libraries and pursue composing gigs. It really works out for both parties involved.

PA: For a while, you provided libraries in both Kontakt and EXS24 (Logic) formats. Now it appears starting with Hollywoodwinds that your focus is on Kontakt exclusively. What prompted that decision?

Cinesamples: Well, it basically comes down to the scripting and DFD power of Kontakt.  A script heavy library (as most of ours now tend to be) simply cannot exist in any other form at this point.  For example, the time syncing scales in Hollywoodwinds are impossible in EXS24 format.  Also our customers prefer Kontakt to other samplers at a rate of 25 to 1 according to a poll we ran.

PA: Of all your libraries to date, Hollywoodwinds is the most unusual compared to the “standard” woodwlnd libraries currently on the market. How did you decide on the instrumentation?

Cinesamples: The instrumentation is rather standard, woodwinds in three’s. [Editor's Note: Woodwinds in three's were first used by Wagner, continued with by Mahler. In film scoring, John Williams often uses this section size.] It’s the usage of the section that is indeed different.  Whenever practicable, we like to record sections together because it is much more musical for the players in that manner.  If you, for example, have a “clubo” (clarinet, flute, oboe) unison they will naturally balance each other on the stage in a way that is impossible to get by recording them separately.  This was the entire principle for HWW and for all the ensemble patches we do.  So on HWW what you hear is what was we heard on the stage, we didn’t “stack” at all in post. It’s all natural.

We also knew that we needed to concentrate on capturing the piercing qualities of the piccolo and flutes in an ensemble patch – something which we were sorely missing from other libraries.  They are the only part of the WW ensemble you hear during a fully orchestration action scene and needed the attention.

PA: In your own music, how do you personally use Hollywoodwinds?

Cinesamples: Mainly we use the three keyboard patches while we are writing, mostly the tutti patch. We also have all the different tunings for each scale loaded in our template now that Kontakt 4.1 is out and memory is less of an issue.  Also we like to keep the atonal/tonal rips handy.  The other patches we go to when needed.

PA: What made you decide to release this library commercially, rather than keeping it to yourselves as part of your own competitive sonic arsenal?

Cinesamples: We like to share! By the way we love the way it works in collaboration with CineHarp and the way it will work with our future string libraries (which exist only in our minds).

PA: VOXOS. With Symphony of Voices, Symphonic Choirs, the many vocal libraries from other companies, and the newly released Vienna Choirs, Tonehammer Requiem and the recently announced Quantum Leap Choir – why VOXOS? With all these libraries in the field and coming, why add to it? What’s different about what you’re doing – especially since! All of your competitors are also composer/developers like yourselves?

Cinesamples: After VSL Choirs we were the first to announce a new choir library (before TH and EW) – we have just really taken our time in the programming phase.  The reason is simple: to make a choir library this large and complex takes a great amount of time and we didn’t want to rush in with an unfinished product.  For example, in our “phrase builder section”  there are over 100 different recorded samples per pitch. Multiply that by the full range and you can see how large the library gets and how long it took to record.   The key to the library is the concept and programming.  All the programming was well thought out and tested before we recorded a note, the concept and programming is uniform.

We think the VOXOS GUI (graphic user interface) will distinguish itself as being the finest solution possible within the Kontakt Engine which is the preferred sampler of most composers. Our Legato section also features SATB and fully legato soloists in cinematic style. For example the Soprano is based upon a Morricone model, the alto after Lisa Gerrard and the boy soprano was ever done in a cinematic style.  We decided to go cinematic rather then operatic.

PA: Let’s talk about syllables. In the YouTube video on your site you see a grid in the Kontakt player that contains 30 syllables. First, how did you decide on these syllables?

Cinesamples: Having 30 syllables (it may be up to 40 by release or in a future update) allows the composer massive flexibility in composing “lyrics” that sound different from one another.  I mean lets face it, in a typical trailer cue the human ear is not going to be distinguishing lyrics so easily. However, having 30 sounds based on five vowels allows you to make a very realistic sounding lyric, with only a few clicks and one pass on the keyboard. Having actually recorded all of these live on every pitch pays massive dividends on the short articulations.  Artificial synthesis hits a brick wall on shorts, having 3-5 micro cuts on a sound lasting a quarter second is going to sound fake.

The 30 words in the matrix are all from Latin and all take place in the Mozart Requiem which was the foundation for the lyrics.  We tried to find a way to balance the words so the user could really make some familiar words when needed “Dominus, Kyrie, Sanctus etc..” and also made up words which might better represent a made up language, which has its appropriate moments too.

PA: Right now there are literally thousands of choral composers, and tens of thousands church music directors, not counting companies that publish choral music. From the perspective of musical genre, can VOXOS with its legato program also do Palestrina? a Bach chorale? a traditional 4-part hymn?

Cinesamples: The full SATB  legato is extremely powerful  and something we spent a great deal of time recording and tweaking.  It seems SATB is the only way to go to achieve the Bach type choral writing properly.  For example, if the the sopranos had a melody line beginning in the alto range and jumping up to the pure soprano range how will that sound convincing without SATB?  You can witness in the YouTube videos, especially video #2, the power of keeping the voices separate and the convincing results they allow you to achieve.  Aside from the full SATB Sectional legato you get the boys legato and the three soloists.  That’s eight legato sections within VOXOS.

PA: What was your thinking about including a children’s choir?

Cinesamples: James Horner. No, really, we just knew we had to have it. It’s a modern piece of the orchestra nowadays and we were sure our clients would expect us to include it.  The boys were very charming to work with.  The solo boy is just one of the most emotional sounds a composer can present in a cue – perfect for those epic moments where less is more.  It’s a joy to play the solo boy legato patch, We were lucky to get a brilliant young man at the prime of boy voice.

PA: In the first video, you stated that you were adding to the library every day. At this point do you see you have a final design in place?

Cinesamples: Yes everything is recorded, chopped  and pretty much finished.   The entire library will be completely done and handed over to Native Instruments relatively soon. We like to spend time tweaking each legato sample and getting it just perfect so we don’t have update headaches and unhappy customers.  Regarding a final file size we don’t have one yet – but yes it will be over 30 GB.

PA: Finally, what Kontakt version will it be in Voxos ships?

Cinesamples: VOXOS will ship (or be downloaded) with the Kontakt 4 player.  The Kontakt 4 player is the only way we could have made such a powerful GUI and such user friendly scripting.  K 4.1 is an masterful achievement from NI. It should be the main sampler for most professionals by now.

PA: Fellows, thanks for your time. We’ll check back when VOXOS is released!

VOXOS DEMONSTRATION VIDEO WITH MIKE PATTI

PA - Originally you had a “monster” system spec for LASS to be spread over two computers for best results. So staying with your original spec for the moment, given that i7s are much cheaper now than last summer, would you still suggest LASS being spread over two computers? And if so, what would their specs be?

ANDREW - There are many users who use LASS on one machine without issues (I’ve been accused of being overly cautious with my ‘recommended’ system requirements — especially considering some of today’s faster computers. 4- and 8-core machines). When I started developing LASS, Quad and 8-core machines were scarce, but now it seems everyone has them. So if you have a decent 4- or 8-core machine with a good 7200RPM drive, you should be good to go. But even for those who have lesser computers, you can use the full mixes or you can even use LASS to the fullest by rendering MIDI tracks. However, as a safety dead-line precaution, I only recommend two computers for those “prime-time” professionals who would use LASS to the fullest with deep divisi writing on all string sections simultaneously and playback everything in real-time with no glitches at the lowest latencies.

PA -SSD drives have recently come into the forefront for newer libraries. I checked out Best Buy and found an Intel X25-M Mainstream 80GB Internal SATA Solid State Hard Drive for under $230. Since LASS is 40GB on a complete install, would you consider an 80GB SSD hard drive sufficient?

ANDREW -More than sufficient!!! An 80GB SSD would be beyond our recommended specs… but it never hurts to have the “latest/greatest” drives if you can justify the cost.

PA -Looking ahead, you have a 1.5 update coming, the muted strings collection, and you’ve also announced a LASS 2.0 at some date in the future. Looking into the Developer Crystal Ball, how big are you guessing these libraries might be?

ANDREW - Well, the upcoming 1.5 update will include a new ground-breaking performance feature allowing real-time capabilities that that have not yet been achieved with sampled strings. We should have videos posted about this in the next week or so. This is a script-based update and will not increase the sample footprint of LASS. And this will be a free upgrade to all LASS owners.

LASS Legato Sordinos will have a substantial footprint, I’m guessing 8-16Gigs. This depends on whether we include 16-bit and some other criteria. LASS 2 will also be quite a few Gigs… but it shouldn’t be over 40 GIgs. At least we’re going to try to keep it, “lean and mean”.

PA -With Kontakt 4 64-bit now out as a public beta for registered K4 users, in your view is a 7200RPM SATA drive sufficient provided the user’s system has enough RAM?

ANDREW - Absolutely. That’s what I use. That’s what almost people I know use, or FireWire drives, too.

PA -With an i7 Quad Core, do you see a value in spreading LASS across several drives within the same system?

ANDREW - That depends on your writing style and work methodology. I was given some good general Hard Disk advice by someone who said when putting your sample libraries on a drive, do not fill up your hard drive. Rather, use a large capacity drive (500+ Gigs at last 7200RPM and 16 meg cache) and only fill it up to 50% or maybe 66% capacity. This does two things:

1) Forces the files to be written to the outside portions of the HD platter providing faster data transfer.

2) Eliminates (or greatly reduces) fragmentation.

Also, distributing the libraries on different drives also increases performance. Also, Stevenson (from our forum) gave this advice:

“another tip with regards to drive efficiency is to partition the drive. the top most partition is the segment that is on the outside of the platter. therefore partition the drive and keep your samples on the first partition but you can use the other partition for backing up, or non-performance dependent data, thus not wasting the drive space but also preserving the performance.”

PA - What customer reports have you received back on running LASS on the same system as the Vienna Ensemble Pro?

ANDREW - Initially, VE Pro had issues running some heavily scripted libraries… but I must say that the Vienna people did a great job of fixing these issues and now it seems LASS runs great on VE Pro.

PA - For the person wanting to put LASS on a separate system, do they need a Vienna Ensemble Pro or can they use LASS with just MIDIoverLAN and an audio card?

ANDREW - I use MIDIOverLAN along with RME 9652 cards (on my PCs ) an the RME RayDAT card on my Mac. Others might use a hardware MIDI box if they have it lying around. Also, A lot of people are using Plogue Bidule to host their VIs since it’s so flexible and efficient. Others use VE Pro.

PA -At one point, you had written on the VI-Control forum your plan to provide alternate EQ settings to transform LASS into mimicking the string sound of other composers in a selected group of films. Is this still in the works?

ANDREW - Well, in keeping with my approach to a, “Living Library”, everything is always in the works. Currently, I set up a thread on our forum for people to contribute EQs. EQ is such a personal thing. Quite a few people use LASS without the preset EQs… they prefer it, “au naturale.”

PA - Since Kontakt only has a 3-band EQ, have you considered releasing alternative settings for 5-band EQs that come with many of the sequencing programs?

ANDREW - No, not really… since there has not been the demand for it.

PA - As a working composer with many film/TV credits on IMDB, would you consider sharing what some of the other string libraries are you use to supplement LASS?

ANDREW -Well, I’m a big believer in, “you can never have too many good sounds.” So, have something from everyone lying around on my drives ready to use in a pinch, but I use mostly LASS, a some custom libraries, Sonic Implants, and QLSO has some nice aleatoric rises.

PA - A number of months ago you announced the release of LASS Lite and First Chair solo strings. Is that still in the works for 2010?

ANDREW - Actually, they are finished. The reason they have not been released yet is they will be downloadable and we are putting te finishing touches on our new download delivery system. We’ve never done this before, and the infrastructure for this is more daunting than we though because we are doing it all in-house. We’ aren’t using a “service” to do it for us. This way, we’ll have more control in the future. The god news is that we are very ver very near completion of this downloadable infrastructure… and all future downloadable releases will be able to be released without delay.

PA - Any hot news we can publish first?

ANDREW - Well, I guess it’s OK if I tip my hand a bit. We are about to release LASS 1.5, and that release will feature Auto Arranger (AA)… a new scripted option which (among many other things) will be able to do auto divisi in real-time. No longer will you have to play 2, 3 or 4 passes of divisi strings to get chordal legato, port or glissando passages. You can now do it in 1 take in real time. It will also allow you to split up two-hand performances into violins, violas, cellos and basses in real time. Or with your right hand, you could play some nice chords and voice leading, and AA would voice the violas down an octave (for example) and make them divisi…. AND have them retain Real Legato perfromances. It will be easier to explain on a video… but it’s pretty cool… and Gabor (the programmer) worked very hard on it!!

PA - Andrew, thanks for your time.

ANDREW - You’re welcome.

BACKGROUND
As a musician, Miroslav Vitous is best known for his founding of the jazz group, Weather Report. For three years, Mr. Vitous was jazz department head at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. In music production, he’s best known for his orchestral sample library originally priced at $3500 on five (5) CDs. A while back, IK Multimedia licensed this library and re-released it as the Miroslav Philharmonik.

Reduced in price, the original library is available through ILIO Entertainments in several formats, most of which have been discontinued, but several of which can be imported into Kontakt.

Mr. Vitous’ initial entry into orchestral sampling paved the way for other developers particularly with the quality of sound.

Consequently, the announcement that Mr. Vitous was releasing a new string ensemble library created a great deal of excitement in the professional community. Unfortunately, weak demos, which were withdrawn, and other issues have kept the new library from achieving a healthy buzz.

For the record, the critiques I’m making I made a week ago and were forwarded to Mr. Vitous.

1. PRICE
Pricing at US$1399 for a single DVD with 6.5GB of material for the Miroslav Vitous String Ensemble is not competitive within the current marketplace. Currently, you can get the single disk from Big Fish Audio for $999.99 intro.

2. NO LOOPED STRINGS
In the first library, Mr. Vitous had both looped and unlooped strings in the palette. Not so this time with the Long programs. I tested several violin programs for lengths by recording a 30-second 4-part string pad. At 70BPM, Unlooped Longs are about a half note in length. Consequently, you have to retrigger, edit, etc.

Click the link above to hear the two new demos posted at Big Fish. Without looped Longs, or genuinely long Longs (!), a composer is restricted to using this library for medium to brisk tempos, or to cherry-pick the staccatos, pizzicatos, and other short bowings.

I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am to write this. The library has a great sound. A lot of money went into producing it. A lot money has gone into distributing it. To ship without looped Longs is just unimaginable to me in this current marketplace.

Unfortunately, the price and the unlooped Longs are the two deal killers for this library today.

3. DOCUMENTATION
Starting on page 16 of the manual is the Content listing all the articulations.

Going through the articulation list shows the high caliber of thinking that’s gone into this library. Unfortunately, Mr. Vitous, or whoever wrote the manual, didn’t bother to clue us in.

To put this into a perspective, Mr. Vitous recorded a large string ensemble of:

24 Violins
14 Violas
12 Cellos
9 Basses

He then recorded a chamber ensemble (his term) consisting of:

14 Violins
8 Violas
5 Cellos
4 Basses

Stating the obvious, no Violins 2. Now, consider some of these terms which are undefined:

Harmony Movements Fast
Harmony Movements Slow
Harmony Movements Lead
Harmony Movements Second Voice
Harmony Movements 2nd Voice Fast
Harmony Movements Slow Dvorak (?)
Harmony Mel. Leads
Det. Melody Lead Kontrapoint
Lead Parsifal Full

Clearly, Mr. Vitous has come up with a very inventive approach – but he doesn’t explain it either verbally or with demos. For example, does Harmony Movements Lead and 2nd Voice mean that the programs have been so edited that Lead is like Violins 1 and 2nd Voice like Violins 2?

Clarity is easily achievable with a new PDF that goes through and explains the concepts and gives suggested approaches.

3. BUILT-IN CRESCENDOS
This is a feature that drove us nuts with the first MV library. I’ve played through enough to know that a lot of programs don’t have it, but it should be marked which ones do. Again, downloadable PDF.

CONCLUSION
Make no mistake, this library does sound good. All honor and kudos for that! But as I see it, there are three deal killers that can be corrected within a few weeks to turn this library into a sales winner.

1. Loop the Longs. Best Service, Big Fish, and some of the other distributors all have download capabilities. No further disk burning required. But this is an absolute. I don’t know any working professional, given the tighter deadline structures we’re under today, who has the time to retrigger/edit, etc.

2. Price – $1399 list for one (1) DVD vs. spending $100 more and doing the pre-order special for Hollywood Strings Diamond? Or spending $300 less and getting LASS? Value to justify this price has yet to be established. The price needs to be lowered – drastically – to make it competitive and a justifiable business purchase.

3. The Documentation – Discovery should be aural. Features should be explained so that you know how to listen and what to listen for when testing the samples. Two-three days of work and you’ve got a new downloadable document that explains the thinking behind the design.

Deal with these three issues and watch the sales take off.

A lot of music retailers would really like to see that happen.

Disclaimer: Alexander Publishing is a Big Fish Audio dealer.

Hollywood Strings is the first string sample library to be recorded in a Los Angeles recording studio, specifically EastWest Studio 1, which prior to being purchased by EastWest, has boasted many a string ensemble being recorded within its walls with Frank Sinatra and others. So the studio HS was recorded in already has a longterm demonstrated track record for achieving a quality string sound.

Consequently, a key feature for HS (Hollywood Strings) is its studio sound vs. the concert hall sound in EW’s Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra.

HS’s studio sound provides composers with another choice as to which string ensemble recorded in which space do we want for the piece we’re working on. I use the word “piece” because it’s too easy to box Hollywood Strings into a specific genre when it has capabilities in virtually any musical genre.

The string ensemble size is 16-14-10-10-7 making it a large orchestral string section. The library has the strings recorded in their seated positions using this stage layout: Vlns 1, Vlns 2, Violas, Cellos with Basses behind the cellos. According to the presentation, Violins 2 are independently recorded.

Divisi for this library has been achieved through a unique mic placement technique (described by co-producer Nick Phoenix in the video presentation) allowing for div a 2.

There are three different methods by which divisi can be achieved in a string section. Per the presentation, it appears the method used by EW is, from the conductor’s position, dividing the strings so that players to the left side of the music stand play the high part while the players on the right side play the low, or inner, part.

In the presentation, Mr. Phoenix used the term first chairs to describe players on the left side of the music stand. The use of the term first chairs should not be confused with that term as used by L.A. Scoring Strings, which refers to the soloist for each section.

It should be noted that according to co-producer Nick Phoenix, Hollywood Strings have modeled muted strings. This means that the sordinos included with Hollywood Strings were not recorded with mutes on the strings. Instead, the Hollywood Strings interface creates a muted string effect. “We recorded real sordinos in HS, but they were only for analysis and comparison to the regular recordings,” explained Mr. Phoenix on the VI-Control.net forum.

Comments on the Overall Presentation
By way of background, on January 6, 2010, members of the press (including myself) received a written invitation to attend a live demonstration of Hollywood Strings on January 13 at the EastWest facilities.

Unfortunately, because of the number of journalists that didn’t come to NAMM this year, that meeting was canceled and replaced with this video presentation, which was made available to both the press and the general public on January 14th. On January 15th, a revised presentation was posted.

Observations and impressions here are from the revised video. Just to restate, the revised video is the only information journalists have at this writing with which to write about Hollywood Strings. Consequently, I’ve posed a number of product feature questions that this first introduction to Hollywood Strings didn’t cover.

After months of waiting for what promises to be a game changing library, I confess, I was somewhat let down by the video presentation  (which EW calls a tutorial). With so much time available before formal product launch, it would have been good for EW to produce, using Keynote or Power Point, a basic 5-10 minute overview that could also be posted on YouTube. Hollywood Strings has a number of features and string bowings not found in other libraries, and its approach to recording with a Decca Tree all point to the need of a presentation modeled along the lines of, The Making of… especially with a product name like Hollywood Strings.

About my Comments on the Hollywood Strings Library
My comments take into account that this is an unfinished library not shipping until mid-February. I look at the video as things to come, understanding that the programming is still being worked on. That HS was originally scheduled to ship on January 13, 2010 and has been deferred until mid-February indicates the immensity of the library.

Remarks are pegged to timings (minutes: seconds) in the revised video presentation.

2:56 – Slur Runs – compelling feature especially with five mic position choices.

3:19 – The dream – load a patch, play chords in the left hand and a melody in the right so that it sounds like finished music. A program is displayed labeled “Tommy Williams” (?). Is this a preset? A custom program? Some explanation is in order. Re: Mr. Phoenix’s comment that the demonstration at this point was on a feature that’s never been done before. This also needs a little explanation. Plenty of composers in the past and present have used a program usually labeled All Strings to quickly knock out a cue with chords in the left hand and the melody/theme in the right hand. So I’m not sure what Mr. Phoenix means when he says, “It’s never been done before,” and then refers to, “unthinkable power.”

4:12 – Celli Legato Monster Patch – If I’m understanding this correctly, what EW has programmed in the Monster Patch is comparable to the concept behind several of the Vienna Instruments programs where all the basic expressive articulations are within a single program (patch), including up bow/down bow in the demonstration.  If I’m understanding this correctly, this is an awesome programming achievement, and I’d like to know if there are equivalent patches for the violins, violas, and basses.

5:43 – Mic positions – Mr. Phoenix used the Cello Legato Monster Patch as the basis for demonstrating the five mic positions. While brief, you certainly see the great options available with this feature. It would have been useful to have a one-sentence explanation for each mic position demonstration to clarify better what you’re hearing, especially for those who are recording novices and unfamiliar with a Decca Tree and how it works.

6:47 – Mic Mixing With Reverb – Impressive. Certainly allows an ease for using HS with other libraries, and certainly with HS alone. Since there are no direct woodwind, brass and percussion libraries recorded to match HS, it would be useful for EW to provide some template setups for QLSO, StormDrum 2, Gypsy, Quantum Leap Pianos, and Ministry of Rock, so that you can have a ready-studio orchestra post-installation built entirely of EW products.

6:58 – Full Strings Patch – This was demonstrated both open and muted. It was performed live at the keyboard by Thomas J. Bergersen, one of the co-producers. Though brief, you get the idea. Quite lovely. However, the program displaying in the browser is Violas Sus RR Omni. So which program was it we were hearing?

8:05 – This is a demonstration of the First and Second Violins in octaves (Vlns 1 – Vlns 2) using what Mr. Phoenix called a Violin Performance Legato. A different group of players were recorded for each of the sections. This combination is most frequently used when Violins 1 are in the Medium through Very High registers with Violins 2 in the register an octave below.  I’m impressed with this demo. String octaves are a major writing technique, and they’re a major technique in film score writing.  This can be a very difficult technique to do with samples, and even though we’ve only heard a little portion, EW seems to have captured this.

9:07 – 2nd Violins Shorts Mod Speed Patch – Mr. Phoenix didn’t say, and I couldn’t tell from listening to the Marcato Shorts if whether the shorts, all activated by the Mod Wheel, are with an arco string program so that on the same patch, you can go back and forth between arco and a particular “short” depending on the melody’s needs. If not, it would certainly be great to have such a program so that you can have a fluid string line on a single track. Least impressed with Staccato-on-Bow in this example. Otherwise, impressive.

10:40 – This demonstration uses multiple programs but only one program displays in the browser, 1st Violin Legato (1). Very good demonstration.

12:58 – Divisi - Good explanation of their recording approach.

15:46 – Measured tremolo – Demonstrated the program and the micing. Good feature.

17:06 – Tremolo controlled by mod wheel. Good.

Audio Demos
There were two audio demos by Mr. Bergersen, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the presentation. The first demo was Hollywood Strings alone and the second was Hollywood Strings mixed in with a full electronic orchestral mix.

My questions really come from the second demo.

Was this HS with only QLSO or was this HS with Mr. Bergersen’s other libraries mixed in? If it’s with QLSO and other PLAY products exclusively, then those having QLSO will see immediately how their investment can be enhanced. If it’s with other libraries mixed in, then we have an excellent example of Hollywood Strings’ blendability. If it’s the latter, it would be most useful to have some explanation of what was used and how the mix was achieved.

Pre-Ordering Considerations
At this writing, Hollywood Strings, listing at $1699 and shipped on a hard drive, can be pre-ordered at a $200 discount off list. As a fellow composer, I believe the question is, “For what you’re writing today and what you think you might be writing in the next year, do you think having Hollywood Strings will add to your ability to earn income? “

If the answer for you is, “yes,” then by all means consider pre-ordering.

Installation – Hollywood Strings Diamond Edition comes on a hard drive that is not to be used for streaming the samples. Fair enough. But what we need to know is can HS can be split over multiple drives? Should the library be spread across a couple of computers?

Other – We need an explanation of what, “multiple finger positions for all sections including open strings,” means and how to use it.

Conclusion
There are two elements to me that are game changers with Hollywood Strings. One is the need to really understand string instrumentation and string arranging/orchestration techniques to fully get the most out of this library. The other is having the instruction to understand how to mix Hollywood Strings alone with the Decca Tree (as demonstrated in the video) and, then applying that knowledge to working with other libraries in your collection.

As composers, we need to realize that this is a musical game change. It strikes me that with Hollywood Strings the emphasis may shift from discussions about editing and envelopes, and endless discussions on eq’ing strings, to the joy of writing and creating, to having the kinds of musical discussions arrangers, orchestrators, and composers typically have with each other.

This is new. And it’s about time.

NOTE: Post publication we found a post on the Soundsonline web site stating that the samples used by Mr. Bergersen in the second demo Hollywood Strings mixed with other libraries.

Peter Lawrence Alexander is the author of the Professional Orchestration series which has been endorsed by winners of the Academy®, Grammy®, Emmy®, BAFTA®, G.A.N.G, Telly®, and AVA Gold® Awards.

Consequently, we shouldn’t get too giddy. We still need to keep our eye on the ball. But before we step up to the plate and start swinging for the fences, we need to scan the field and see where things are at.

Thus, the year-end prognostication column. Where do I see things going?

Shaking my “8″ ball, I foresee 2010 becoming even more the year for the Mac. With the Mac Pro Nehalem, we are seeing more problems solved than created. Digital Performer and Logic, unless something drastic happens, will remain with the 3.65GB limitation of RAM. But by learning more effectively how to run VSTi’s in stand alone, composers can get around that issue. I have one composer friend in Los Angeles who reduced a 7-computer studio down to one system – a Mac Pro Nehalem.

The potential bottom line – the end of black spaghetti in our studios. Simplicity. (Sigh a breath of relief here). Lower electric bills reflecting a different kind of green – money that stays in our wallets.

2010 could become the year of Kontakt. What’s in Kontakt’s favor is, “learn once.” Master Kontakt at the basic operational level, and it’s theme and variations thereafter for each licensor, making it quicker for end users to learn each library. What’s also in Kontakt’s favor are the sheer number of independent developers creating new product for it. As such, Kontakt can easily become The Standard for virtual instruments. However, K4 will not be backwards compatible to Power PCs. So G5 users are locked out of K4 and it remains to be seen if the programming will be broken on older Kontakt libraries you try to load into K4.

2010 could become the year of the Vienna Ensemble Pro Virtual Mixing Board which hosts Vienna, Kontakt and other VSTi’s. Why? Same reason as Kontakt, “learn once.” Today, it’s not yet working with PLAY, however the word-on-the-street is that this issue is now in beta. So if the Vienna wizards get this resolved, and we hope they do, that will be one more step towards the simpler recording studio.

2010 can also become the year for Canada’s Plogue Bidule. The kind of system integration and routing possibilities are truly exciting. To see Plogue Bidule in action, go to the Cinesamples web site and scroll down to the last video titled, Orchestral Film Scoring Template With Bidule and DP.

Then there is the quagmire. It’s GigaStudio. No need to rehash the past, because it’s the present that has to be dealt with, especially for those with thousands of dollars of investment with the Vienna First and Pro Editions, and its Performance Tool. The situation is as follows:

1. Machines are getting older.
2. There’s no legal mechanism in place to re-register the Giga software on a new machine.
3. There’s no formal ongoing testing to determine which older Giga versions, specifically 2.x, will work on Vista and Windows 7, assuming they can be re-registered.
4. And if a perfect world emerges, what audio cards and drivers will work with an older Giga 2.x on Windows 7?

This isn’t just about moving on. Thousands of dollars was spent on the software and hardware, but few take into account the thousands of dollars that went into learning, not just the software, but the sounds, and how they work and what they work best with.

I see two potential marketplace solutions.

The first marketplace solution is the new G-Player from Soundlib. It’s a new Mac plug-in from the folks who brought us CDXtract. It’s showing real promise and can be purchased as a digital download. It’s now available for Mac and PC.

The second marketplace solution can come from Vienna by re-opening cross grades from older Vienna product to the newer. Every First and Pro Edition owner’s name is registered in the VSL computer. Send an email. It’s an easy thing to do.

There are also marketing considerations for European developers.

2010 could be the year their sales begin to explode even more in the U.S. then in the past. But to do so, they need to seriously consider imitating Toyota and other Japanese automakers by establishing a manufacturing presence in the United States, since for now, and for the foreseeable future, the dollar will continue to remain weak against the Euro and British Pound Sterling. Exchange rates overprice European libraries by default, and sales are limited as the consequence.

The place to locate isn’t Los Angeles, it’s Nashville, or Memphis. They’re both practically in the U.S. center, and UPS shipping in any direction of the compass averages 3-4 days. Real Estate and health costs are much lower than either California or New York, there’s an active music scene, and quality DVD dupers and printers are all available in the central U.S.

It’s just a thought. The Old World has its charm, but so do the Great Smokey Mountains, and the Grand Tetons, and the Rocky Mountains, and the Grand Canyon.

We must also take into account the trend of independent sample library developers selling direct, especially with their own direct downloads. This is a firm trend for 2010 and it will continue to be so. But here’s the thing. Getting the product to buy will be faster. But my observation is that the decision making time to purchase will be slower, especially with fewer and fewer quality composers available to create great demos. The convenience will be balanced with concern. “Am I really getting what I’m being asked to pay for?” will be the not so unspoken question. It’s the challenge of a not-so-new business model.

And now, a final thought.

With 2010, we’ll have yet another opportunity to start a new year afresh to forge our way. But the better news is that we have the same opportunity before us each day we awaken with our eyes open and with limbs that move.

SC – What’s your musical background? Instrument you play? Did you go to music school? Play in a band?
AS- I learned the Piano when I was four in a conservatory, but only for two years as, as I said it back then, “there was too many notes”… so I switched to the drums that I learned for like twelve years at the conservatory. Then I have been playing and practicing it on my own. I also have learned electric bass for six years and then Upright Bass for another two.

That was the music studies part, but I am also graduated in physics and have two masters, one in acoustics (at the IRCAM research institute in Paris), it’s called ATIAM (Acoustics, Signal Processing, and Computer Science Applied to Music), and the second one in Architectural Acoustics.

So I’ve been studying a lot, but I have also been playing music in various bands, mostly jazz and funk bands, and more recently in an acoustic drum’n bass band that I started where we played my compositions Now I am creating a new one with three friends of mine that are professional musicians, but as you maybe know, good musicians are pretty busy, so it takes some time

SC – When did you decide you wanted to sample sounds?
AS - I always have loved electronic music, some of them like Amon Tobin are sampling all kinds of old Jazz or Funk records, and I wanted to do the same. At first I sampled my CD’s, tapes or vinyl records, then I realized i could record stuff on my own with my brand new mini-disc and the various instruments I had. I began copy-pasting every wav file into my sequencer, and I realized that having like 20 snare samples in the same measure would be easier to deal with if I were using like… a sampler… and I made my first libraries.

Sampling was also a need. When I started that drum’n bass band, I had to show the people I wanted to play with, something to make them trust the project, this is where I started to make larger sample libraries of my own instruments. I thought about buying some libraries, but on one hand when I was listening to the demos, I wasn’t convinced and thought mine were not that bad compared to it, and on the other hand, of course they were too expensive for me at that time

SC – When did you realize you could turn it into a viable, money making business?
AS - At first I began selling stuff on a simple website and I only thought I could earn a little money with it as a side job, but with time I saw that people really liked my job and were encouraging me. At that time, I was a computer science engineer and I didn’t like it so as I saw that it was growing and that companies like Native Instruments and Mach Five [ed. note: Digital Performer] were interested in my products, I thought I would quit my job and give it a shot!

SC – Is your total focus on acoustic instruments?
AS - For now, yes. As I told you before, I studied acoustics and really loved the part about mechanical behavior of instruments, in fact I loved it so much that I almost began a luthier career. I even builded like 7 upright basses! They did not sound as good as I wanted them to, but I really enjoyed myself. In a way, sampling instruments is also trying to simulate its behavior, at least that’s how I see it.

I still may give it a try someday because I love electronic music and strange noises.

SC – Of all the instruments you’ve sampled so far, which did you find the most challenging and why?
AS - That really is a hard question. Every instrument has its own sampling difficulties. The pianos and keyboards are quite simple because they are supposed to be played with a keyboard too, all the MIDI standards are keyboard oriented, but the time and consistency you need to record them is really enormous. It takes a lot less time to record a bass or a guitar, but then the hard part is on the scripting and articulations.

So I guess that the hardest instruments would be the horns as I am working on a horn library right now and it really is harder that everything I’ve been sampling until now simply because the way it’s played is completely different from a keyboard.

SC – What for you is the challenge in sampling a piano?
AS - For me the challenge is to reach playability and the feeling that when you play it, it actually behaves as a real one. There is a huge debate on whether the sampled piano or modeled pianos are the best. I think it can be summarized as: the sound is a lot more realistic with sample libraries, but modeled pianos just feel like a real playing experience. So my part is to make the sample libraries act and feel real.

SC – With so many sampled pianos on the market, why did you feel another one could be commercially successful?
AS - Just because I think that this Kawai-EX does fell like a real piano when you play it

I’m also thinking that people have a lot of different piano libraries because they love to have different sounds, most people that compose music on their computers are sound lovers and collectors.

SC – In creating your sales plan for each new sampled instrument, what for you is your measure of success both artistically in your work and in your sales?
AS - In my work, it’s when I release a library and am fully satisfied with it, most of the time, it’s not the case, I have the feeling that I could have done better.

In the sales, it’s obviously when a lot of people buy it as it means that people like it and recommended it to other people. But the best reward is when people send me some messages or talk about it in the forums saying that they love it AND use it.

SC – As a developer, why do you see so few companies creating product for the EXS24 since you have an automatic built-in base of customers?
AS - I think it’s mostly because it’s Mac only. There is still more than half of the audio community that use PCs. Then you have use Logic, I love Logic and am using it for absolutely everything, but some people prefer Pro Tools, Digital Performer or Cubase and they can’t use EXS. In terms of the software itself, the disk streaming is really well implemented, but there are also some basic features that are missing like the time envelope for releases that cannot go over two seconds (unless you’re using Keymap) or a good legato function. Most of all, there are no scripts and that’s why Kontakt is used the most.

SC – For you, what are the advantages of working with Native Instruments’ Kontakt program? Is there also a downside?
AS - The scripting feature is really a must in Kontakt. First you can build a product that will have a dedicated interface and some user interface controls, not just a simple .nki file that you open and looks the same as the other libraries. Secondly, the scripting capabilities allows you to simulate an instrument behavior, as a simple example, you can play a pedal noise when you press or release the sustain pedal on a piano.

Until now i did not see any downside apart from the fact that people that want to use it need to own Kontakt.

SC – Do you use the same micing techniques for each acoustic piano you sample?
AS - No, absolutely not. I’ve learned a lot about instruments acoustic radiation, microphone positioning techniques and room acoustics and you always have to take those three factors in account. The sound esthetics you want to get is also really important. For example, a jazz piano will need to be recorded closer to the strings than a classical one.

SC – From the day you started recording to the day you finished editing, how long did it take you to sample the Kawai EX?
AS - Actually, on the Kawai EX, I’ve been working with Lance Herring and he has been recording the piano and cutting the samples. My part was more the script and patch building, but this piano was sampled like 10 month ago

SC – Which for you is the most demanding: recording or editing?
AS - Frankly, i don’t know. The recording takes a lot of time and is really tiring. You really have to stay in front of a piano playing it without breathing or making any noise and, of course, stay focused and consistent on what you play.The editing is even a longer process because you have to take care of every file making sure that there is no unwanted noise in it, or that you don’t trim it too much, but that’s when you begin to hear what the library will sound like and most of the time this is when I get excited.

SC – What’s next for AcousticsampleS?
AS – Ha, good question! I have a lot of projects going on for all kinds of instruments, but I guess the one I’m the most excited about is the horns library I was talking about earlier.

I also have another piano in mind that will feature everything I’ve been thinking of while doing the Kawai

Oh and maybe I will partner up with a sampler maker to make my libraries available as virtual instruments…