Vienna Strings Reviews
Easily the best strings around. Unfortunately, Classic Phrasing can be a little clunky, because slurred notes often have ugly swells and the contrast between them and "regular" notes ruins a lot of ideas. They recently added repeated notes though, so I'm hoping this will be addressed at some point.
great
This is absolutely amazing! It would be nice for there to be a "con sordino" sound, but it's still amazing!
No complaints. The articulations and sample quality are significantly better than the free MuseSounds. The bundle goes on sale often so snag it when you can
For those who complain about "swelling" or "tailswell" all you have to do is add a Staff Text to a passage and change from "Standard" to "Classic Phrasing" and the problem disappears. Standard phrasing works best on fast passages, classic on slow ones. Overall the sound is excellent - detailed and warm. You can add reverb to the Aux track and set each instrument's amount separately. IMHO the sound is much better than the free MuseStrings, which are muddy by comparison most noticeable on faster passages… Well worth he money, especially when on sale!
I am extremely disappointed. While the instrument sounds are pleasant, the library suffers from major flaws that make it almost unusable: dynamics are inconsistent with random bursts across all sections, melodic passages sometimes stop or drop in volume unexpectedly, and tremolos and trills sound unrealistic. These issues make it nearly impossible to perform soft or nuanced music, and the overall experience is far worse than some free alternatives. If these significant bugs are not fixed, I would like to request a refund.
Very dissapointed with the library. Better than musesounds, sure, but also has VERY noticeable swelling and sounds when changing notes. Dynamics between instruments (e.g., cello vs violins 1 at ff) are inconsistent. Will be requesting a refund shortly if this does not get resolved.
Best sampled strings,, better than this, you have to go live
It's totally inappropriate for classical genres... thank you
The dynamics are inconsistent; some instruments, like the cellos, are way louder than the Others. The legato patches also sound quite unnatural
The sound is a night and day difference from Muse strings. I have enjoyed using it for faster moving pieces. I have noticed in slower more sustained sections the notes will swell towards the end of each note. It Is fine for a few measures but it makes the whole entire piece feel like a rollercoaster. I believe it is an attempt to add musical expression but it does not translate well when you want sustained sections throughout the music.
I have just paid for and installed the Vienna sounds and not very impressed. The main issue is with the Violin 1 sound … it is not well balanced … the G4 is way too loud for example when on mf dynamics. Also, the note attack after a rest is too strong … it sounds unnatural and is not smooth. I can out a tenuto on it to fix it, but I should not have to. As there is not try before you buy on these, I'll have to ask for my money back.
This might be the best string library on Musehub. Very balanced sound, and great quality. However the bigest thing (for me) is that you can have accented staccatos! HUGE. the other string smaples available dont handle those well. As mentioned in other reviews there are issues with swelling and dynamics, but the pros outweigh the cons.
Same remark as "Incandescentdivider5". It makes it unusable on slow passages
There are a few minor sound flaws but a huge improvement from the musesounds.
Great sound, and much better balance than Muse Strings. But there is a problem: When playing staccato, crescendo and decrescendo doesn’t really work. The volume changes abruptly after too long, it seems like there are only forte and piano and nothing in between. Please fix this, almost everything else is great.
With slower pieces, when the strings are playing,, there is an annoying swell that they do when changing notes. The good thing with this library is that these string ensembles sound more together when they play as compared to Muse Strings. Although Muse Strings do not have high quality solo sounds, the ensembles sound very sweet when playing sustains in slower pieces. In your next update, you must remove the unnecessary swells from the strings. When I apply the Classic Phrasing staff text, the strings start sounding as if they are played on a synthesizer, not realistic.
Please fix the annoying swell in dynamics for the strings. Everyone has been asking about it, and you guys haven't gotten back about it or made any effort to repair it. Please fix it.
All in all, the only string library which sounds as good as or better than the Musesounds library, at least for my purposes. Agree with the others that the note repetitions should be fixed asap!
Partner Response: Hi, This has already been fixed. Hope you like it now! - Paul/VSL
But still a couple of slight bugs, the repetitions do not seem to work for now.
Love these string sounds. They sound rich and realistic. There are a couple of bugs that need to be ironed out. This review is mostly for the developers to know what I’m hearing. Firstly, for repeated notes, the sound will cut out entirely between two notes of the same pitch. I’m sure this is just a bug, but I would recommend correcting this ASAP. Also, there tend to be some unnecessary swells at the end of longer notes which sometimes messes with the shaping of the music. Tone and quality are beautiful, just a couple of things to fix.
These have a very nice tone & excellent clarity. Balance is good although I like to push the 1st Violins slightly up in volume. Having these strings recorded totally dry allows much more flexibility when it comes to using reverb. There are a few minor quirks (somewhat choppy legato on faster string runs) in the initial release but hopefully these will be ironed out soon.