Is this forum really about Vienna Instruments?

[thinkingMusic]

I'm new to using hi-end samples. Two weeks ago, I blew my budget on Opus 1 and Solo Strings, and haven't even had time to begin to learn how to use them and the Performance Tool (which I just downloaded yesterday!). Now I discover that something called Vienna Instruments is perhaps about to make my recent purchase -- and the complete VSL -- redundant! I race to the Vienna Instruments video tutorials, but they won't download. I try to view them in what appears to be streaming video format, but my snail-paced dialup connection won't even go near it! So, I finally turn to this forum, hoping to learn something concrete about this new technology/development from VS. And all I seem able to find here are peripheral questions-- questions about pricing, or the type of studio setup one might need for VI -- but almost nothing about VI itself. Actual VS responses to forum questions seem few, and always quite brief. It's like hearing numerous references to a concert one hadn't attended -- very frustrating!

What is Vienna Instruments? What do they do? How do they operate? What drives them? How are they different from previous VSL products and the Performance Tool? What are their pluses and minuses, compared to the previous VSL products? What do they make obsolete? If they are VST-plug-ins, how can they possibly compete with GS streaming and CPU usage?

Would someone care to fill me in on what I've missed?
I'm just plain [*-)]

[sky_lennard]

Here's what I know from the tutorials... VSL is a VST plugin (duh) that basically emulates all the hard work that is necessary to put all the samples together and make your MIDI orchestra sound "real" via more-or-less Artificial Intelligence algorithms based on how you set it up and play the notes. Instead of having to build in the different samples to make the sound, it's all controlled by MIDI in the form of a trigger note (like C1, C#1, D1, etc.) to correlate with a certain style, or by speed/velocity, etc. So...if you play a groove and press different non-note midi keys, you can get your portamento or legato or whatever sound -- WITHOUT having to run different samples sets through different MIDI channels and have your MIDI groove pick out of the available channels. It also integrates the Performance Tool seamlessly. This does it all real time, in one MIDI channel (while your processor and RAM gasp for air, hehe!).

I hope this is a fairly accurate assessment of the basic function of the new VI, and I WILL tell everyone that can't see the videos that I pretty much melted in my seat while I watched the video tutorials. Definately worth checking out and getting high speed internet for! [[;)]]

However, I do have to say that all the discussion about pricing seems to be 100% justified to me...from an individual/hobbyist/amateur composer perspective. YES it is the absolute answer to MIDI orchestra available in the world (at least from my research and experience), however $10,000 USD is very much NOT a price that anyone who is NOT doing this stuff professionally can swallow. In my case, I'm plain SOL since that kind of budget is more than I have for a car, much less a music play thing.

NOT that it's an unjustified expense considering the quality of the product, I just think that VSL should consider providing a solution to the hobbyist/amateur composer, whether via lower fidelity, or limited samples (which I don't think I'll even be able to use all of them anyway!). The only way I'll likely ever play on VI is if a buddy of mine with a bigger budget decides to buy it and let me play on his computer afterward.

--Frustrated--

-SL

[PolarBear]

Michael, first off, your purchase is not at all obsolete.

Vienna Instruments are self-contained virtual instruments, that means you only communicate with them from your sequencer. The previous availible products all were sample libraries, that need a sampler (like, GigaStudio, EXS, Halion, Kontakt and so on) in order to run them. The sample libraries may have some less features you can view in the video tutorials (see also RapRookies' links foro a direct download of the video files) - but you have also less features with the new VIs (virtual instruments), because you can't program things on your own and don't have access to the samples anymore and have to rely on what VSL is providing you.

However you can do most things that are possible with the VIs also with your current sample libraries, though it doesn't involve complete automation which is what VSL designed the VIs for. The Perfomance Tool you got - while sitting in the MIDI chain between your sequencer and sampler - allows you to do performance legatos and alternations as well as repetitions (in case of your Solo Strings). The VIs have everything (and more) implemented thus making it obsolete for use with the VIs and enabling your sequencer to directly communicate with the VI.

Hope this makes some things more clear for you!
PolarBear

[thinkingMusic]

Thanks, PolarBear & Sky, for your feedback -- I appreciate it! (Though I am currently sleepless - in Canada - trying to figure out if I should be angry with VSL or my retailer for not having told me about VI before I bought the older VSL products!)

First, thanks for the RapRookies' link, PolarBear -- if I can find anyone with a hi-speed connection here (I live in a semi-remote, rural area), I'll download the videos from there, and won't have to rely on text descriptions of this wonderful and perplexing new beast.

From your descriptions, it sounds as though VI is a kind of super key-switch: instead of permitting key-switches between, say, a few articulations of the same instrument, it loads umpteen possible combinations. Is this a correct assessment?

Or does it do far more - perhaps in the nature of Synful Orchestra, which interprets key velocities, etc, involved in the input of any passage, and then assigns what it considers to be the most appropriately articulated samples? (If so, then VS has achieved what most Synful listeners wished for: Synful's synthesis coupled with high quality samples.) On the other hand, is it possible that such automated interpretations might actually conflict with the composer/input-er's intentions? Is this what you are suggesting by "you have also less features with the new VIs (virtual instruments), because you can't program things on your own", PolarBear?

Beyond the pricing issue (yes, I'm in your league too, Sky!), I'm wondering about the ability to do full orchestral projects (if one has to open as many instances of VI as there are tracks -- as I read somewhere in the forum). From what I've so far read, it seems that VI uses a great deal of RAM - and probably CPU - for even one midi track. If so, then is there a computer that could possibly handle fifty or more such tracks? Or is it assumed that one would immediately 'freeze', 'lock', or render-to-audio any VI-created midi track before going on to create another track?

There's also the issue of non-multi-timbre -- although that might not be an issue for most melodic instruments (which make up the majority of orchestral instruments), if the lack of multi-timbre does not extend to playback of more than one track (and I would imagine it wouldn't, if one must use multiple instances of VI for multiple tracks).

Any feedback on these questions would be most welcome!

[PolarBear]

Well, I think I oversimplified some things and didn't do justice to the new VIs. They are not only substituting the Performance Tools but far more, as you said it's possible to work with them like with Synful. You load up a VI and select the instrument you want to play on, and everything else after is handled by the VI. You could also edit the parts that didn't turn out the way you wanted after as a possibility. What I meant with "less features with the new VIs" is, that you can't access the sample pool itself, so you can't edit the program's or parts of them. Meaning, if I'd like to program a 1 velocity patch, I can't do that with the VI, but I can do with the sample libraries. If I want to stretch one sample to substitute the next (because it may have a flaw or a timbre I want to substitute) I can go to the editor in Giga or EXS and do that. With the VIs there is no such thing as an editor to program your own patches.

I doubt a single PC or Mac machine can handle all SC at once for a full orchestration just like it was before. There are no definite hardware specs posted so far, therefore I'd not like to speculate about performance too much, so from what I read so far that I think you could expect to do at least the same with one PC or Mac that you can already with the sample libraries.

With the (yet) non-multi-timbre VIs you can still do a lot things that you can't compared to other VIs. A non-multi-timbre VI hosts all articulations for one instrument, that means you only need one VI instance for one instrument in your orchestra. So theoretically you could do a complete orchestration on a single PC, but I bet you run out of processing power before (again, I don't have info about the hardware specs so I'm speculating here). But with the 10 modules you get with the SC you can easily spread the modules between multiple PCs or Macs without having to purchase additional sampler or Logic licenses (a big advantage over the sample libraries IMO).

And if you work track-by-track it may even be possible to run the complete composition, when having used the RAMsave function after you complete a track. Even if you feel the need to bounce we are promised faster-than-realtime bouncing and faster loading than what we are used to now, so this shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Hope I made some points more clear for you!
PolarBear

PS: I think it is a very good idea to have a look in the new VI FAQ as some questions also appear and are answered there:
http://community.vsl.co.at/viewtopic.php?t=6909

[thinkingMusic]

@PolarBear said:

Hope I made some points more clear for you!
PolarBear

Thanks for the additional feedback, PolarBear.
- M.