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Sample Talk Thread: OT Benjamin Wallfisch Strings

I like the focus on more dynamic layers and the fact that it's legato only. I also applaud OT for trying something new.

However, the bowing directions and unlooped samples don't seem like a very useful addition to me personally.

They said they focussed a lot on the legato quality which I appreciate. Sadly it's not at a level where, like other said, I would pick it over CSS or SAS. I'm still hearing too many bumps and the transitions sometimes sound disconnected. I guess it's just really hard to get that right.

I just listened to some PS Vista 2 demo's again, and besides some hiccups, those just actually blow me away big time.

I guess I'm just waiting for a library that has PS / CSS legato's with the tone and quality of OT / Teldex :]
 
ALittleNightMusic said:
A more liberating area to discuss this new release from OT and Benjamin Wallfisch. And to share demos and comparisons.

What do folks think? It is certainly pricey - but given how Spitfire is pricing Abbey Road Orchestra strings and how much VSL Duality Strings Full is, maybe this is the new baseline for "next generation" libraries?

Huge file size - given the limited articulations, it seems that those non-looped sustains are really quite long! And recorded at least 2x/4x with the up bow and down bow. We better start getting our larger HDDs ready for the libraries of the future - only going to get bigger.

Nice to see another divisi library on the market - only a handful have been done until now. But this one is super limited in the articulations sadly.
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It looks like the huge file size is mainly about the 18 mic positions, multiplied by divisi for every instrument.

So per mic per single instrument there's an average of 1.85 GB (x 15 instruments x 18 mic positions).

This is really not very big compared to other similarly priced libraries, likely because of the lack of articulations (especially in the divisis). Probably more like tuttis are 2.2GB per mic position and divisis are 1.6GB per mic position.

Compare to Abbey Road Orchestra Cellos, which is a single mic position and comes in at 4.2 GB.
 
LATABOM said:
It looks like the huge file size is mainly about the 18 mic positions, multiplied by divisi for every instrument.

So per mic per single instrument there's an average of 1.85 GB (x 15 instruments x 18 mic positions).

This is really not very big compared to other similarly priced libraries, likely because of the lack of articulations (especially in the divisis). Probably more like tuttis are 2.2GB per mic position and divisis are 1.6GB per mic position.

Compare to Abbey Road Orchestra Cellos, which is a single mic position and comes in at 4.2 GB.
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Half the mics (9) are marked as "RAW". Does this mean, "We just threw the un-mixed mic channels in, to pad out the GB at almost no cost to us"?
 
There is some really, really lovely writing in those demos. But yeah, I don't hear anything in there that (for me) makes me want to drop CSS, or justifies the sticker price and the colossal 1TB+ storage requirement. I do love the concept, and there are obviously some terrific musical minds involved here - it will be interesting to see how this library evolves.
 
I don't understand.
Either I am an alien and just try to approximate human hearing or I am actually disabled or my tastes are just built so differently from the norm that seems to be prevalent here.

I love the sound and I would happily trade this for a lot of other string libraries that I have.

Yupp it's expensive (shocker).
Yupp it's limited in articulations.
Still sounds better than most competitors to me.
 
Loerpert said:
I like the focus on more dynamic layers and the fact that it's legato only. I also applaud OT for trying something new.

However, the bowing directions and unlooped samples don't seem like a very useful addition to me personally.

They said they focussed a lot on the legato quality which I appreciate. Sadly it's not at a level where, like other said, I would pick it over CSS or SAS. I'm still hearing too many bumps and the transitions sometimes sound disconnected. I guess it's just really hard to get that right.

I just listened to some PS Vista 2 demo's again, and besides some hiccups, those just actually blow me away big time.

I guess I'm just waiting for a library that has PS / CSS legato's with the tone and quality of OT / Teldex :]
Click to expand...
If someday OT collaborates with Alex Wallbank and Jasper Blunk. However, this will not happen, as they are direct competitors to each other.:sad:
 
InsomniaEmperor said:
They boast of non looping longs but when has looping longs ever been a problem?

The divisi part feels half assed too. Yeah it’s 7 violins a piece for violin 1 and 14 if violin 1 tutti but you realize Berlin Strings violin 1 has 8 people and way more articulations and Symphonic Strings has 18 violin 1 so nothing is stopping me from just using Berlin Strings for divisi if Symphonic Strings is my main sound.

This might have been a lot better if they focused solely on up bow and down bow instead of half assed on multiple fronts. I don’t know much libraries that make the distinction so this could have been a nice option for the toolbox if you want a specific note to be this bow.
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Well, you can say the divisis are like having two SF Appassionata caliber libraries, assuming the legato is convincing, however OT chose to implement it. (From the walkthrough BWS seems to struggle with runs more than Appassionata, and runs aren't Appassionata's forte.) And at the level, I'm not sure I'd say the divisi is half-assed, though it's a maybe bit surprising that it doesn't at least cover trems and trills, since it's not uncommon to treat those divisi, and the reduction in instrumental forces is hard to simulate with those articulations, probably even more so than the standard sustains.

Denkii said:
Either I am an alien and just try to approximate human hearing or I am actually disabled or my tastes are just built so differently from the norm that seems to be prevalent here.

I love the sound and I would happily trade this for a lot of other string libraries that I have.
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If you are hearing something you like in the library, you don't hear it in other libraries, and you think it suits your music, I think that makes an excellent case that it is a good library for you to invest in.
 
ka00 said:
The price of the main library, and other recent libraries like ARO have created a psychological breaking point for me.

I am seriously considering finding a new, cheaper hobby/passion.

But I might get Soundscapes first, and then find that new hobby.
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All the more reason I am realizing that I started on this path to be a composer with a rational set of tools - not a collector with a completionist one.
 
AndrewS said:
Yeah, agreed. Also "non-looping" longs isn't enough of a selling point for me, since that's never really been a problem in the past. It seems a bit like a problem they've manufactured to then solve to further differentiate what's just another string library.
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Yup. They are selling a scratch for an itch most of us barely notice.
 
VannKraken said:
All the more reason I am realizing that I started on this path to be a composer with a rational set of tools - not a collector with a completionist one.
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I agree but easier said than done. Because every library you don't buy contains a musical potential you have refused. So you have to have a very strong sense of what you want musically to build that "rational set of tools."
 
It sounds pretty cool, but my writing has shifted. Now that I have libraries with anywhere from 10-20 dynamic layers for some of the patches, it's hard to go back from that level of expressiveness. I genuinely enjoy playing them and floating away in the details. This has a lovely sound and I'm sure some will do awesome things with it but my small wallet is holding out for the second coming of vista
 
1) BW's mixes sound great. The raw sounds very small and boxy, which is what I'd expect from something literally called RAW. Cool beans, honestly.

2) I still wish there was an "auto" mode for the up and downstrokes. Then again, I program everything manually, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3) the marcatos sound REALLY good. The top end of the dynamics sound killer (walkthorugh 18:50), and the low end of dynamics sound really musical (27:05)

4) After a first play around, you can change the marcato dynamics mid-stroke. very cool. They're not a one-shot or based on Velocity like the other shorts. That makes then VERY usable.

5) I do here more of an edge on the downbow stroke than the upbow stroke. Cool.

6) Dynamics of the tremolo are fantastic. The quietest dynamic reminds me of "the sound of silence" if you know what I mean.

Good to know:

Marcatos have 4x RR
Staccatos have 3x RR
Spiccatos have 6x RR
Pizz have 3x RR

Trills have 3x dynamic layers
Trems have 4x dynamic layers
Pizz have 4x dynamic layers
All others have 5x dynamic layers
 
jbuhler said:
I agree but easier said than done. Because every library you don't buy contains a musical potential you have refused. So you have to have a very strong sense of what you want musically to build that "rational set of tools."
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Totally agree, and it depends on a lot of factors like individual composing experience level, aspirations, genre preferences, etc. My point is, I guess, that for me I'm not going to think of it as a binary decision between having every new tool I desire or giving up because I can't.

And as a newer entrant into this space, I also wonder what will happen to these large, specialty strings libraries when the first high quality modelled strings arrive? At that point, how fast will these be obsolete? The recent releases in woods and brass seem to get better and better, and strings could still be a ways off, but I always have that in the back of my mind.
 
VannKraken said:
And as a newer entrant into this space, I also wonder what will happen to these large, specialty strings libraries when the first high quality modelled strings arrive? At that point, how fast will these be obsolete? The recent releases in woods and brass seem to get better and better, and strings could still be a ways off, but I always have that in the back of my mind.
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It may happen tomorrow, it may happen next year, it may happen in a decade, it may never happen. I do know that folks have been saying it will happen for as long as I've been working with sample libraries, more than a decade now. And yet here we are. I would say that's even true for winds and brass, though there have been notable gains, sampled instruments remain very useful in those domains, especially for orchestral support playing. (One thing is that modeling often shows better results with solo instruments because of issues of handling dynamic and vibrato through crossfading with solo instruments.)
 
ALittleNightMusic said:
Huge file size - given the limited articulations, it seems that those non-looped sustains are really quite long! And recorded at least 2x/4x with the up bow and down bow. We better start getting our larger HDDs ready for the libraries of the future - only going to get bigger.
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Unless/until something like Synthesizer V gets created for string ensembles... that barely uses any disk space at all (relatively speaking, that is...). And then, with a little tweaking of the model, the non-looping sustains could be trained to go on forever....
 
AnhrithmonGelasma said:
Unless/until something like Synthesizer V gets created for string ensembles... that barely uses any disk space at all (relatively speaking, that is...). And then, with a little tweaking of the model, the non-looping sustains could be trained to go on forever....
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Synth V is amazing. But for modeled orchestral instruments, I still hear a huge delta in tone between samples and the modeled sounds.
 
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