Freyja Grimaude-Valens

I was considering DS Thorn, but I am up to my gills with synths, so I'll pass up on it this time.

Okay holy shit, this is amazing. Out of the box it is immensely playable, and it sounds spectacular. Do not sleep on this one.

There doesn't seem to be that much of an overlap between some of the standalone VSTis

Yeah, on reflection, it would be more prudent to just grab Celestial Voices Calypso on APD.

So I gave it a try, and here are my initial thoughts. The Rock Amp output sounds like fried rectums. The Clean and Direct DI sounds much better even when put through a free amp sim. (I used Duality Bass Studio) The pop playing style that happens at velocities 100 or over feels a bit abrupt with a very sharp attack, which is fine on its own, but doesn't fit in well with the slower attack of the lower velocity groups. It would be nice if there was a ramp up to the pop playing style, so that the transition feels smoother. I am not sure I like the way it does hammer-ons and pull-offs, there doesn't seem to be any way to control the attack transient of those articulations, as the velocity of the note played is what controls if the hammer-on/pull off range is a semitone or a whole tone. I would prefer an auto-legato system where if the end of a note overlaps with the start of the next note, it automatically plays the next note in a hammer-on or pull-off articulation if the next note is played at under 64 velocity, with a maximum range of...say 3 total semitones from the principal note, and the attack of the legato is determined by the velocity of the next note.

How well does this library stack up with others of its type? I am genuinely curious.

These samples are of very high quality, and the interface is pretty intuitive and lightweight that allows you to do some light sound design on them with. Don't sleep on this one.

It would be nice if the items fit into the layout instead of having everything veer off to the right and not listing every item that fits into the strip category. Some of the elements that were on the KontaktHub's item page are no longer functional, like an embedable Soundcloud playlist. I noticed because I had a demo track for Hideaway Studio's Zero-1 Synth featured on its page as a part of the song demos playlist and as an embedded Soundcloud track that Dani manually put there, and they're both gone, as is the option to contribute demo tracks for Kredits. The playlist and demo song preview feature is still dysfunctional. I think the site could have used a bit more time to bake in the oven before being served, because it's a little bit raw right now.

I'll be sure to support you folks more then! I have been very happy with Cabal 8 so far.

Quick question, will Cabal 8 or Senfine ever make it to the Kontakt Player system? I have Cabal 8, and it would be pretty cool to be able to access it from the library tab

It has come to my attention that Ilir Bajri, the person responsible for Orchestools One for Sample Tank 3 CS has made stand-alone VSTs and apps based on those same samples, plus a few extras, using HISE. https://musictop69.wixsite.com/orchestools/download

If you need the sounds from Bandlab's virtual instruments, you could always create stems from the app, download them and then import the sound clips into your DAW. Alternatively, you could do the perfect 4th method to sample notes from the upper to lower ranges of the instrument, and then chop up the resultant sample file into a free sampler like Grace or TX16Wx.

I got it. 5 mins in and i am already in love. ❤️

I broke down and got the Fusion Modeling Electric Violin and Cello duo.

As someone who had a chance to play around with Phoenix, this is a fantastic addition.