Jos,
... we ended up talking about "library X vs library Y"!
Ok, it makes sense.
I do not think you should anymore worry too much about using non-Garritan sounds. I had the same issue years ago, I did not like that people would come here showing off with more 'professional' libraries or come here to PROMOTE other libraries, it really made no sense to me. But nowadays Garritan is pretty much forgotten, development has stopped and the libraries seem to have been left to their own destiny. It is only natural that everyone began to look elsewhere.
VSL. I agree with you, my favourite VSL string libraries are 'chamber' and 'solo'. I think this is due to what I already mentioned in a previous message: VSL sounds really shine when intimate, this must be due to the recording technique in a dry, anechoic environment. You end up with a signal that is SO detailed that you can never 'lose' that detail, the sound is very interesting but never really 'organic' when used in an ensemble, especially a large one.
I never used these libraries so I do not really know.... but I think you might easily get some more attack and crispness also with the chamber strings (especially if used together with solos). The point in my opinion is not dimension vs chamber, but the fact that you obtained a nicer rendering of a typical baroque bowing in the second version, the one with Dimension strings.
Independently from the fact that these are dances, baroque music in general has a very heavy rhythmic presence and string players do use a particular bowing. I mentioned before a sort of "staccato" quality but that was not correct, I was simply talking in 'samples' slang'. That bowing is a detache with sharp attack to enhance the rhythmic character and with very loose bow, that you keep jumping on the strings.
Take a look at this, my 'hero', particularly in the 'danza' at 1:18:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H9Y9wJmC7Q
This is not staccato, not spiccato, not detache, not portato.... it's baroque and is linked to technique and to the particular nature of the baroque bow.
Who knows why there's never been an attemp to sample baroque strings. This would have been nice. I really really like their sound.
The version using IR from MIR is a bit more 'airy', yes, but overall the two versions are both effective, there is no need in -my opinion- to worry too much, it is not that one is neatly better than the other. It merely depends on tastes.
Have a nice Sunday.
Fab
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