Vienna Symphonic Library SYNCHRON-ized Solo Strings

Heightened Authenticity, more flexibility

SYNCHRON-ized Solo Strings leverages the Synchron Player’s time-stretch feature, which bestows many benefits, such as letting you change vibrato speed in real time using your MIDI controller. Real-time time-stretching also allows you to change the speed of tremolos, trills, portamentos, and glissandos by assigning a CC controller to the Synchron Player’s Stretch Factor fader. You can speed up or slow down scale runs — even during playback — and you can automatically sync them to the host tempo.

Unique release sample technology

Harnessing the Synchron Player’s unique release sample technology, SYNCHRON-ized Solo Strings makes it possible to add a variety of optimized release effects to different articulations, greatly increasing their usefulness. Short notes ring out with stunning realism, in accordance with the instrument’s body resonance and the note volume. Even if you play long- and medium-length notes such as détaché, portato, crescendos, and diminuendos shorter than their recorded length, they will still automatically be provided with authentic release sounds. This, for instance, lets you use the first part of a crescendo note as a mellow portato articulation; or the first part of a diminuendo note as an espressivo articulation with a slight decrescendo that sounds natural and highly musical.

Smart repetition performance technology

The repetition performances from the original samples, from legato and portato to staccato and spiccato, were also enhanced by the Synchron Player’s release sample technology and by new repetition and interval logic. These new Multi Shorts patches automatically produce notes that sound very natural in medium and fast passages, depending on how long a note is played, and on the previous note (the same note or an interval). The new Dynamic Layer patch sourced from the original repetition recordings offers up to nine velocity layers of each articulated note, allowing you to play passages with finely nuanced dynamics, accessing the individual velocity layers of each articulation via the mod wheel or key velocity.

Seamless note transitions

The painstakingly balanced volume levels of the entire sample database give you seamless note transitions when you’re shifting from one articulation to the next, while velocity crossfading has been further optimized for ultra-smooth volume changes. Many articulations are now available as looped notes, such as sustains (with and without vibrato), trills, tremolos, and more. Un-looped legatos remain available and demonstrate the natural musicality of each perfectly articulated target note as originally played by the musician.

World-class acoustics

The reverberation and instrument placement presets created by Synchron Stage sound engineers combine custom impulse responses and Vienna MIR technology with meticulously crafted reverb settings for each instrument so that they are re-created perfectly in situ in the large hall of Synchron Stage Vienna, one of the world’s best-sounding scoring stages. You can also disable the Synchron Player’s convolution reverb and algorithmic reverb and insert the dry samples into any other setting. By adding the world-class ambience of Synchron Stage Vienna Stage A to the dry samples in real time, SYNCHRON-ized Solo Strings perfectly blend with any other product in VSL’s Synchron Series, for production-ready sound, right out of the box.

Included Synchron Player

Driven by a powerful new audio engine, the Vienna Synchron Player delivers flawless streaming performance and a new level of advanced simplicity. Just step through the articulations, select a variation, and audition how the pre-configured controllers affect the loaded preset. For authentic in situ instrument soundstaging, the Synchron Player incorporates an internal mixer with 5-band equalization, individual delay settings for runtime compensation, algorithmic reverb, polarity switching, and panorama controls, as well as a specially designed convolution reverb derived from Vienna MIR Pro that features the world-class ambience of Synchron Stage Vienna’s 5,813 square-foot main hall.

About Synchron Stage Vienna

Synchron Stage Vienna, located on Vienna’s historic Wiener Rosenhuegel, can accommodate a 130-piece orchestra and has proven its mettle over the decades not only for film score recording, but also for sampling sessions. With its massive concrete foundation, room-in-room construction, sound insulation, and specially designed HVAC system, the studio boasts an ultra-low noise floor of 16dBA, even with the air conditioning running. Stage A sports a reverb time of 1.8 seconds — and unlike many other scoring stages, there is no low-frequency masking effect. Instruments sound warm and punchy, with superior depth and panoramic localization.

First-call Musicians, first-class samples

At Sweetwater, we hold the Vienna Symphonic Library in high regard; that’s because we’re picky about our orchestral samples. It all starts with the musicians. Since VSL’s inception, first-call musicians have been providing the sound and character of these instruments as soloists and ensemble leaders. This approach is largely responsible for the impressive sonic authority and authenticity we have come to expect from VSL virtual instruments.

VSL SYNCHRON-ized Solo Strings Features:

• Completely overhauled and enhanced sample database
• Optimized for the Vienna Synchron Player
• Time-stretch feature for changing vibrato, tremolo, portamento speed in real-time
• New algorithms increase range of use and flexibility of articulations
• Mixer presets for authentic placement at Synchron Stage Vienna
• Production-ready sound, right out of the box