Berlin Strings Reviews

A good main driver, with supplemental muse or other strings.

I have some sounds that sound weird : cello and contrabass in staccato (F, G, A1, Bb1), they squeak. The expression in volume is too much strong between mp and mf and f. The sound itself of chords is good.

The sound is very good and clear. I think it's the best strings equipment. The dynamics are also very detailed like staccatos and trills. For example, a symphony with Berlin Strings sounds amazing

It has a fantastic tone quality - very realistic and expressive - I really like the sound of the violins playing high melodies but also great as a complete section.

I'm writing here since I can't write for the entire series but this has been very disappointing the follow up on fixing the bugs related to these libraries. Obviously the current prices aren't very good indicator of the quality of the product so the price cutdown was very suspect, the previous price was too much 99€ for each of berlin series and the quality and missing articulations EVEN from the main line-up not including the additional libraries. There are tons of bugs regarding the vibrato. 2016 Orchestral Tools release of Berlin Strings have 3 vibrato options: Molto vib, regular vib (romantic) and no vibrato and including all 3 legato options. Clearly this was not included because the strings by default play Molto vib and not having the chance of playing the 2nd option, romantic vib. Also some very poorly made decisions to make soft sustains only trigger on ppp or pp, most of the time (80-90%) it is not noticeable in the MuseScore versions since there are no ways to control the dynamics. Another failure was the short spiccato option on the Violins I by default which is very strange... because it has a different tone from the regular spiccato of the remaining instruments. The balance is so off and most of these were reported 3 months ago or when it was release for MuseScore in July, the poor response to fixing these issues was a very bad marketing and decision making from the Muse Sounds developers because currently I have unfinished products that only sound 1/3 of the original library (VST). This doesn't only include strings but the whole series like I said previously. Berlin Percussion have a lot of misses in terms of balancing the sound. The mallets doesn't sound good as it is and celesta even after 3 months I reported a bug on celesta pedal, it is still not out (Very disappointing). TL;DR If you buy this series, just don't. I wouldn't advise buying any paid products right now. It is clearly insulting to the client who bought these products, I was lucky to buy them with sales but this is plain joke right now. These libraries really need some looking into and developers are prioritizing new releases instead of fixing "This". DO NOT BUY THIS!

Playing techniques don't show as in the video. Also poor dynamics.

Not really better and much less complete than the free Muse Strings.

Just burned $30 on this, basic legato strings don’t work at all and are poorly balanced. The dynamics do weird swells and drops seemingly at random so it’s pretty impossible to use. The free Musesounds strings are 1000 times better.

My projects sound amazing with Berlin Strings, I love the audio and think that the samples are great. Brilliant tone and articulation. However, the Bugs are there and do limit the capabilities of what I feel Berlin strings is capable of. Its not there yet, but it will be soon and I look forward to that day!

I’m a newbie so don’t take this for gospel, but the Berlin Strings feel pretty rough to me, I mean the actual sound - a bit scratchy, loud and a bit overwhelming. I’m going to try Symphony Strings to compare. You should look at the two articulation videos and see what I mean. Doesn’t Berlin seem coarser than Symphony? Just my opinion. I’m so glad all these products are coming out.

The samples are great, but there are bugs that hinder playback. Major ones being that the Violas are too quiet, and all the spiccatos are quiet.

I have no doubt that with just a little more programming, mostly with equaling the volumes (for some reason MS4s engine doesn't like violas), and getting runs to sound more consistent I would say that this could be amazing for MS. I hope to see this and the other sound libraries continue to be worked on because this has the potential to be amazing. With all that said though, I would say before purchasing to understand that there is some work that needs to be done but the actual sounds are good.

Dynamics are not balanced whatsoever, it sounds like a muddy mess and lacks many, many playing techniques required to make it even remotely competitive with the free library, with all its problems and limitations. A shame to be honest