VSL & Reverb Options

[Polar]

I am a home user who has been using a basic orchestral VST inside GarageBand. I am considering upgrading to VSL SE in the immediate future, and could use a little help weighing some additional options. I have had the opportunity to demo Logic and Cubase Elements, and have come up with a few options for upgrading my DAW and reverb solution, to use in conjunction with a new library.

1. Cubase Elements, TrueVerb & Roomworks SE (the Cubase basic reverb)
2. Cubase Elements, TrueVerb & Renaissance Reverb Combo
3. Cubase Elements & VIPro II (with included reverb)
4. Logic Pro 9 (incl. Space Designer)

All the options above are essentially equally priced. In the future I would potentially want to upgrade to a more robust solution such as Vienna Suite, Altiverb or MIR, but for the moment am looking for a budget solution to get started. Alternate solutions are also welcome.

I don't know much about the VIPro II reverb, and am curious about its the ability to simulate instrument depth on a virtual stage. I realize that VIPro II is more than just a reverb, which confounds the issue a little more. Ultimately I know I could demo VIPro II after the initial library purchase, however I will not have an opportunity to purchase VSL until next week, and Waves is running a pretty good promotion on their reverb plugins right now.

I am also running a single quad-core i7 iMac, and so am wondering about the efficiency of running multiple instruments to a few plugin reverb instances, vs. running individual instrument reverb effects inside VIPro II.

Thanks in advance to anyone able to offer some help.

[Beat Kaufmann]

Hi Polar and welcome in the Family of VSL!

Creating a virtual stage is a very essential matter with the dry recorded samples of VSL.

So you will need a good panner for getting the left and the right side of the stage.Further you should be able to narrow the sereo width with the panner.

A second and important matter is the ability to create depths so that you can place the instruments in the depth of your virtual stage as well.

The best tools for this job are convolution reverbs with good IRs (Impulse Responses). I don't speak about the reverb but about the integrated ERs (Early Reflections) within those IRs. They can give a very good impression of "depth" of a certain room.

In other words: Reverb isn't Depth in any case.

BTW: The reverb within VIPro adds some nice tail (reverb) but it isn't helpfull for creating depths.

...

All the tools you need will be in the Vienna Suite: Panner, Convolution Reverb with nice IRs but also EQs with presets for certain instruments of an orchestra, a compressor...

Getting good results without the right tools is quite impossible... You always can buy a lot of cheap things or one time the right thing for ever.

So try to calculate also the following option as well:

5. Cubase Elements, Suite Elements (they are worth every cent)

Even if it is maybe a bit more expensive the Suite Effects include all the things which can lead to the results you want to have.

Listen to the following examples. All of the different depths and pannings are done by the Suite Effects:

http://www.beat-kaufmann.com/downloads/cre_hyb_pres_wide_chamber.mp3

http://www.beat-kaufmann.com/downloads/cre_hyb_pres_med_concert_hall.mp3

http://www.beat-kaufmann.com/downloads/cre_hyb_pres_light_church.mp3

Have also a look here. It's about creating different virtual stages for different sizes of orchestras.

Even if you will find presets for doing this within Vienna Ensemble (the VSL Host-Software) all the virtual stages are created with effects out of the Vienna Suite.

So I really can recommend the Suite Effects - but this you already know, I guess [;)]

All the best

Beat

[noldar12]

Polar, welcome to the forums.

One general point to think about as you consider entering the world of higher quality sample libraries: if you buy "cheap" you will almost certainly end up buying twice.  It might be worthwhile, if it is an option, to wait to purchase a quality item rather than buying cheap to get started, and then realizing you need to replace the "cheap" item a few months later with something better.

In my own situation I have the older MIR SE.  My next purchase will almost certainly be the Vienna Suite.  If you are working with smaller ensembles - 24 instrument icons or less - MIR Pro 24 might also be worth considering.  The vast majority of users that have purchased some flavor of MIR have found it to be one of the most valuable tools, particularly if mixing is not a major strength.

Long-term pairing the Vienna Suite with MIR Pro 24 could be an excellent option.  With MIR SE, my older quad core i7 930 does quite well (32 tracks - the older maximum in SE, does push it about as far as I dare - using mostly full libraries).  The SE sample libraries are not nearly as demanding as the full libraries, and all four of the SE libraries can fit quite well in 8 gigs of ram.  I cannot comment on spec requirements for MIR Pro 24.

It is quite common for VSL users to start with some of the SE libraries, and then to gradually add full collections as funds allow.

[Polar]

Thank-you for the warm welcome and the advice/info.

I am in agreement with the notion to aim to make quality purchases instead of multiple purchases, and definitely wish to avoid using inexpensive and sub-par stop gaps.

VS, and/or VEP+MIR will need to be considered at a later date, as their purchase now would exceed the budget by two to three hundred percent.  I will need to do some thinking on the matter. [:D]

I do have another question regarding the reverb tails and power pan options in VIP. Are they intended to be used as alternatives to, or in conjunction with the like options available within VE and VS?,

Am I even correct to interpret from the product information page that the basic version of Vienna Ensemble includes the power pan function?

So many questions, thank-you for your help.

[Beat Kaufmann]

Hello again, Polar

To clear up the situation about the VSL-Products even more:

Each library comes with the "Vienna Instrument (VI)" - the Basic-Player for the Libraries.

The VIPro is able to do much more of course, but I believe that it is OK to start with the common Basic VI because it isn't bad.

The "Vienna Ensemble (VE)" is a Host-Software which can hold a couple of such Vienna Players. The main advantage of VE is, that it is able to "see" and to play libraries which are installed on other PCs or MACs via LAN. If you don't have the libraries on several computers (which is not the case with SE and maybe two or three others) you don't need to buy VE. 

Yes, the VEPro holds a Panner function for each channel but it isn't as comfortable as the PowerPanner of the Suite.

BTW you also get such simple panners with all the DAWs (Cubase, Logic, etc)

Because it isn't that easy to play music with such a lot of possibilities (VI, VIPro, Suite Effects, Cubase, VE, MIR, all the samples with their articulations and the belonging selections with controllers and keyswitches etc.) I recommend to start very simple:

Buy a DAW, the SE-Library (with the included Player VI) or the one you prefere.

Further it wouldn't be bad to buy the Suite Effects as well because you get all the effects you need for creating a virtual stage situation (AudioMix).

Start then collecting experiences. I'm sure you will use six months or more to get results as you wish to get them just with this easy setup.

It seems to be a long time but on the other hand you also will know after that time, which parts you would like to expand.

You will know which further libraries you like to buy, wether you like to buy MIR or not.

Believe me: All of these software products are "worlds for themselfs".

So once more: Your start should also enable you to see into the world of "music with samples" (DAW, Library, Suite Effects). And that's an important part as well.

Further, if you buy just these 3 products you don't lose anything. They will be part of your system on a higher level as well.

Nevertheless, they will give you a first and good view over the subject "music with samples".

One last thing: Don't buy Cubase Elementry. Buy Cubase (which includes btw a convolution reverb as well and other comfortable things) and a Libray. If you really want to make music with samples you will need later on Cubase "full".

After buying the first Library together with Cubase save money for six months and buy then the Suite Effects...

Voilà - that's the way...[;)]

Beat

[Polar]

Thank-you for all your help. [:)]