Vienna Symphonic Library
The company is located in a landmark protected building, called Synchron Stage Vienna based in the Austrian capital's 23rd district.
[2] In the 1990s, Tucmandl, a former cellist (as a substitute member with the Vienna Philharmonic, amongst others), later cameraman, director and composer used some of the available first-generation sample libraries for the creation of his own film scores.
While the largest libraries at the time covered the entire orchestra with about 6,000 samples, Herb Tucmandl developed a structure for over a million individual notes and phrases.
Until the end of 2016, Tucmandl invited singers, musicians, ensembles, orchestras there and samples were recorded almost daily under the artistic direction of Michael Hula.
In 2013, the Vienna Symphonic Library took over the historic, landmarked "Synchronhalle" on the grounds of the Rosenhügel film studios of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation.
The hall, which dates back to the 1940s, was converted into a globally unique music production facility, in collaboration with the renowned Walters-Storyk Design Group and architects Schneider+Schumacher.
Completed in September 2015, the building features several recording and control rooms, editing studios, individual booths ("iso booths"), two instrument storage facilities with several pianos and concert grand pianos and approximately 300 percussion instruments, a sheet music archive, lounges, and offices and lounges for composers, producers, staff, and guests, totalling more than 2,000 square meters.
The production was a historical bridge-building project: Back in 1955-1957, the original music for the three legendary films about Austria's Empress Elisabeth, which helped Romy Schneider to her international career, was recorded in what was then known as the "Synchronhalle."
Based on the original manuscript by composer Anton Profes, Paul Hertel put together three suites which were recorded with the Synchron Stage Orchestra under Conrad Pope as conductor.
Hollywood stars such as Grammy winner Nan Schwartz and Joe Kraemer were on the guest list, as were ORF Director General Alexander Wrabetz, Justice Minister Wolfgang Brandstetter and VfGH President Gerhart Holzinger.
Rahman, Alan Silvestri, Alexandre Desplat, James Newton Howard, Pinar Toprak use it to produce mock-ups of their orchestral scores and also combine the virtual-orchestral sounds in the final mix with live recordings of the actual orchestra.
The "Vienna Instruments Collections", released from autumn 2005, contain the free player, which runs in the formats AU, VST, AAX Native and RTAS under Mac OS X and Windows.
[20] Since 2012, the sound libraries are no longer delivered on DVD but exclusively via download or data carriers (flash drive or hard disk).
All products in the series are recorded with a multi-microphone set up to capture the sonic character of individual instruments and their natural surround sound.
The last library of the series was recorded in spring 2021 with the Gumpoldskirchner Spatzen: Before, the VSL community was asked for the first time, and they voted for producing a children's choir in the poll.
[27] With the release of "BBO: Ymir - Children's Choir" in May 2021, the "Big Bang Orchestra" series was concluded, a year and a half after the start of production.
