Orchestral Tools - Berlin Strings 1.0
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Prologue
Berlin Strings, well expected continuation of Berlin Woodwinds carries out the second appearance on the stage of Orchestral Tools. Recorded nowhere else than in Teldex studios, Berlin, this library had the audacity to show the world something unexpected - flawless legato.

Setting in the footsteps of 8dio Adagio series, with however more generic approach and better script this library was thought to make an industry standard of lifelike sound.
Did it succeed?

Introduction
Well that's a question worth answering. But before that happen, let's sneak a peek inside.
Berlin Strings comprises of half-section ensemble, making a good balance between symphonic sound and detailed expression of chamber section.
The library is literally packed up with dozens and dozens of articulations, just to list a few rare ones:

• Accented Tremolo
• Blurred Portato, Spiccato, Staccato, Sustain
• Hook Tremolos and Trills
• Martéle
• Playable Glissandi

Con Sordino (muted) is available for every patch as well-tweaked EQ. Normally such idea would get dismissed, but this time my hat is off, it sounds really convincing.

Even in the long list, you might be missing Col Legno, Sul Ponts and Sul Tasto <- those are all available in EXP A.
The whole library is a little over 120 GB in size, making it one of the biggest string libraries to date (Hollywood Strings still holds the lead with 320 GB)

Layout & Specs
The first thing that might pop in your head:
When there are so many articulation, then why the library does not come with consolidated patches or multis like BWW did. 1st Violins contain 32 recorded articulations - they thought it's wise idea to put each and every one on single track? 140 tracks for five section ensemble, how's that sound ? Sure there are workarounds (through program selector), but it's never quite reliable.

Each section comes recorded with total of four mic position, 1st Violins has one mic extra - placed right beside first chair player. Yes something like Lead mic on Spitfire Mural vol. 1.

The library is a complex one, so let me just skip to the important stuff...
like Legato


Fig. 1 - 1st Violins legato - Slurred, Agile and Runs
Legato patch is very comprehensive and on a theoretical plane it covers everything necessary. However in practice it's cumbersome and most of the time does not work as expected.
Attack is controlled by velocity - and adequate legato transition is picked based on how fast you play. There's one dial missing on the GUI, I'll let you guess for a while...
...
...
...
...
OK, take no more, it's Legato Transition Speed. Slow passages would really benefit from this functionality, and Spitfire outlined it very well in its videos. It's one of the things that makes strings so delicate.
Otherwise the GUI has everything you might need. Intonation however cannot be changed manually.

Runs transition replaces Orchestral String Runs, since one has the freedom to play runs on their own, but I found the runs to be not quite responsive in fast passages.

And no, Berlin strings does not come with sampled rebow/perfect 1st transition

About vibrato...
forget crossfading *yes*
but hear me out: there are 3 different types, well two, hence "Without Vibrato" is not really a vibrato type, now is it?
Those two are Romantic and Strong (Strong is not available on Violas, Celli and Basses)

OK let's move on to short notes...


Fig. 2 - 1st Violins spiccato and its RR
Spiccato and short notes in general might take you aback with the RR number, for 1st Violins it's 24 alterations!
However the sound coming out of it, well I can't help it, but it feels to me lifeless. Far from what Spitfire calls Spiccato, with every imperfection well recorded.

Well, most patches feels that way, you hear the sound, but it lacks the player soul, the uniquity of each instrument and its player so to speak.


Sound
As already mentioned, the sound is, strange. All the natural noises are there, yet that sort of sparkle, that it lacks. Maybe it's just me using it improperly, though I played with it right out of the box, no tweaking and this is what I got.
To compare it so most of you understand: It's like putting LASS inside 50% wet stage reverb and leaving it at that.

Problems & Recommendations
There are some annoying bugs in version 1.0, but most of the time it's solid.

• Agile Legato in Cellos comes out very harsh and unrealistic at low velocities.
• X-Fade script still needs some polishing
• No consolidated patches - with such articulation count, this becomes quite an annoyance

That's probably it! *yes*

Original Product Video

Conclusion
In the beginning it was just an idea, then it was a dream for many of us, and then Berlin Strings got released. I'm sad to announce, I was disappointed. With the success of Berlin Woodwinds taken into account, this was a real bummer. But just like there was Windows 7 after Vista, we might see better future sooner than one can muster. Alas, there's 1.5 version already available, which I was not able to test. So things can change fast.
But even with all the downsides, some people still composed beautiful tracks with it..so in the end, it's about how you use your tools. But for me, this tool I don't want to keep, for now. But be sure to try it.

Reviewer's rating:
EDIT: Based on the discussion below, taking into consideration all the bugs, this rating is more appropriate.
5 out of 10 stars


Thanks for reading!

PS: This time no promises, but I really set an intention in my head to finish all the articles I promised. And since I got way more distracted from music than I would like, this intention of bringing articles every second day is welcomed for me to get back on track with music.

 

Muhaha, Andrew is again the first to kick some serious ass! Thanks for the time you took to review it (and, which might have taken even longer, I imagine, to download it).

PS. Spitfire all the way! The king stands tall!

 

>As already mentioned, the sound is, strange.
>To compare it so most of you understand: It's like putting LASS inside 50% wet stage reverb and leaving it at that.


On the top right corner of the GUI, there is a knob "release sample". You can change the volume of that sample. Try to decrease it to 30-ish and you'll get a very dry sound.

Actually I find the ambience really great, very natural. In the manual, they explain that if you don't like the natural ambience, you can turn down all microphones except for the CLOSE one, and decrease the volume of release samples, then add your own preferred reverb.

 

This was fast...
Great work again Andrew.

Big Fat Thanks

 

Where was I when this musical sorcery happened?

There are so many people to thank in the forums these days that it's taking me forever...and I'm loving every minute of it. Andrew please go at your own pace and write whenever the mood should strike you. Thank you my friend for always taking a little time out to create and share these excellent reviews with us.

Don't forget to hit the thanks button or drop a line, he does write these not copy them from another site and I'm sure they take quite a while to put together. It only takes a second and it also might encourage him to write more. Not that one should need a reason besides not being an ingrate. *no*

 

Thanks Andrew!

When this came out, I was like wtf? Another huge one? I am really pleased with Spitfire and didn't really feel like going through the trouble of trying this one out.
So thanks for the review mang!

 

Gr8 review Andrew!

Thank you for that

 

Thank you for the review Andrew, huge library size and the messy patch setup were the reasons that kept me away from it but reading your review I understand that the product also fails to inspire (be it the sound or the technicalities). For inspirational libraries, I still go to various Spitfire libs or Cinematic Strings. And to be honest I haven't been able to successfully utilize Berlin Woodwinds yet because of so many patches and lack of sections.

 

Nice review man

Just not found the HD space yet for the 250 gb of data in this monster string package

 

Thanks Andrew, great review as always, was waiting for this.
I will stay with Spitfire with which I'm very happy, considering that I have little HDD real estate too to try such big stuff.

 

I noticed that there is no "poor optimization" in the Cons section. Do you have a beastly rig, Andrew? I'm asking because I've read many reports of BS being very demanding resource-wise...

 

I didn't find it demanding, even my least performing rig was OK (1.6GHz C2D). Yes it eats a lot of RAM, though not CPU power. *yes*

 

actually 123 Gb in nkx format ('uncompressed' refers to wav samples that's all)

in addition you can get rid of the nkx files you won't need after installation.

The main problem seems to be to handle too many articulations spread over different patches. Not very user-friendly as pointed out in this review.

The sound is amazing however, really. If I find the time, I will make up a little blindtest with different symphonic libraries so that people can choose the sound they prefer depending upon their project.

 

I just found out another major failure of this library - I think Andrew is goint to add it to the review - all I'm gonna say is - at 1000$, the bugs and flaws that OT conceded are incredibly disappointing. Why did they hurry so much? Did anyone even test all the patches before the release? it certainly doesnt seem that way, and that's even less understandable because it's not like the library would go rancid if they released half a year later...

I mean, if I bought the library for a thousand bucks and found out about those bugs,I'd be fucking pissed, and I mean like AVGN-pissed. Imagine buying a car and finding out that it can't go in reverse or something like that. I just don't understand how much some developers can fuck things up and get away with it. I'm glad there are people like Horsemen who enable us to test things out and avoid wasting money on unworthy products.

UPDATE: Andrew hasn't added it yet, so here's the deal:

It sounds like there is no round robin with Cellos Spic. At first, I thought it was an issue with the unofficial LITE version, but I informed Andrew and he tested it and found out that it was an issue with the full BS release as well. You might also notice the missing RR control on cellos spic, even in their official SHORT NOTES video (which, in my opinion, contains some very crappy sounding shorts - I especially dislike those cellos, which sound synthy to me, which is even more laughable considering it's a 0.75GB patch) . What a bummer!

Also, when I play the spiccatos (I tried Cel+Vla+Vln) on 1 midi channel as an ensemble, it sounds horribly out of tune – I found that I needed to set the tuning of Vlas and Vlns to +4, but as Andrew confirmed, it's the pitch of the cellos spic that needs to be corrected by setting the tuning to -4. Haven’t tested the pitch of other articulations yet.

 

Thanks Revenant, I'll definitely add that to the review. *yes*
In the meantime I'm trying to fix the mishap that happened to the OTBS lite post.

However I am sure they fixed most of these bugs in 1.5, which was released in 2 months after original release

 

Well, that's cool to know, but it still doesn't change the fact that they did release a 1000$ product in a disgraceful state.

As for the BS lite post, I have no idea why it's been unavailable for so long. Will be glad to see it up and running again!

 

Perhaps there are more bugs, I'll keep testing and if I won't find anything else, I'll update the review with your findings, deal?

Yes I found another one - using sustain pedal on sustain patches misplace the release tails

 

Lol, yet another bug - with a little more effort, this might get the rating down to 5 stars or so...

 

Thanks Andrew for this and all the other reviews you made so far.

All the best and strength for your future reviews

 

Have a disk ssd, and to load an instrument of Berlin string, takes long, and when I touch them with a keyboard midi, fetter the sound, sounds retarded, think that by this reason has gone out the update 1.6 of Berlin strings. Somebody has it the update 1.6?