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  4. Feature Request - VEP & VIP

  • Feature Request - VEP & VIP

    S
    S

    Dear VSL,

     

    I'm sure you guys are getting sick of my feature requests, or soon will. What can I say? If I notice it, I'll mention it. ;) When naming channels in VEP or Matrices in VIP, if I hit "TAB" I expect it let me type a name for the next item. To illustrate, do this in Cubase or Studio One or in a list of files/folders in Windows explorer. Rename a file then before hitting enter, hit TAB instead to go straight into renaming the next file. It saves a ton of time. Where I'm about to create a few hundred VIP channels in one VEP instance, this would help considerably.

     

    Cheers,

    Sean
  • S
    S

    One more to add:

    Folders in the channel list! :)
  • S
    S

    Round 3:

    When you add VI-Pro instances to VEP, and you have port 1, channel 1 on your first instance... VEP will auto-assign the next channel. It's great. Although at "1, 16" it just keeps adding "1, 16". It would be great if it moved up to "2, 1".

    Cheers!
  • M
    M

    Some good ideas here. Just wanted to let you know that we are listening. Keep 'em coming!

     

    Thanks
  • S
    S

    Thanks! I did worry a bit that the replies might go unnoticed, but still... glad to hear it!
  • S
    S

    A few more...

    These aren't as simple as the previous requests. But I'll keep the safer/easier ones coming as well. ;)

    VEP

    1 - A button to expand/collapse all tracks in the mixer view, like the channel list has. It may even be nice to see a visibility option for hiding channels. So only the buses I want to view are visible. But I realize that's a bigger request.

    Vi-Pro

    2 - Switch articulations based on musical context. A potential problem with this: I'm not sure if Vi-Pro can use the ability to "look ahead" while running inside VEP. Why I suggest it: More human/natural 'out of box' VSL presets could be built. Specifically, switch articulations based on the first/last note in a phrase. I could see this being useful for downbeats/upbeats also. Here's two ways it could be used:

    A) On a trumpet (or any wind instrument), when playing fast repetitions, the first and last note are generally a bit longer than the in-between notes. I'd like to have Stac-rep-rep-rep-rep-rep-Stac be performed instead. Think "dig-a-dig-a-dun" instead of "dit dit dit dit dit dit" Dun is just longer than dit. lol

    B) This would also allow me to have the last note of a legato phrase automatically switch to legato-sustain.

    3 - I've said it before, but I still believe the standalone-mode instrument converter (hidden feature) would be great if it was better developed (reload instrument ranges, etc) and in plugin mode. Any mass editing help is great!

    4 - Matrices per MIDI channel. I know this isn't seen as being advantageous from VSL's perspective. But not every setup is necessarily configured the same way. Given how flexible Vi-Pro is at managing articulation switching, I'm not sure why this particular method wasn't opted for. Program Changes seem to be a bloated thing of the past by comparison. At very least, it wouldn't hurt the program to add such functionality.

    Cheers!

    -Sean
  • S
    S

    Also, why I personally want MIDI Channels per matrix:

    I despise keyswitches and manually switching articulations in any way that isn't readily visible. I used Expression Maps successfully for a few years. But the Studio One UI allows navigating multiple tracks (articulations) in such a way that it's nearly as easy to work in as maps are. I've found enough other workflow improvements that an "almost as easy" solution for articulations is well worth it. Because of this, I wanted my VSL instruments to work the same way the rest of my samples do. So... all my VSL articulations are currently on different channels. I'm using several... several VEP instances. :( I'd love to declutter it all.

    While it's a credit to VIP that it can handle it, and VEP, I still believe MIDI channels are a reasonable addition here. I will say I'm prejudiced here though. ;) I only feel the need to justify my reasoning cause I guess I have little hope this request will be as welcome as the rest. Kind of like my hopes that someday Vi-Pro will support 3rd party sample libraries. *still keeping fingers crossed*

    -Sean
  • S
    S

    Wow, 4th time in one day. (sorry)

    I'll at least promise to keep the requests on the simple side moving forward. Those bigger ideas I realize are... well, bigger.

    On the right side of Vi-Pro, the preset list - I often find myself having to open the preset folder to rename presets when I notice an inconsistency. Call this nit-picking... but in the right-click context menu, a rename option would be an improvement.

    -Sean
  • S
    S

    One thing I've had to work around a bit is the CC2 Xfader. Why was this opted for? Where the modwheel is CC1 by default, I never quite understood this. Sometimes I've even had to go through preset after preset just to change this after the fact, because I tend to not notice it until after I've built everything. No complaints really. But I would think the default value would be CC1. Am I missing something? I hate to bloat the system options with a ton of settings, but perhaps a way to set "current settings as system defaults" button would be advisable. It could essentially save the current state as a preset to always load upon a new instance.
  • D
    D

    Are you asking for a way to import some/all Preset settings into an existing Preset? Or just wanting the default to be different? If the latter, you can do that already.

    DG
  • S
    S

    DG,

     

    It was the latter. Thanks! In my defense, I actually do read user manuals. ;) We all miss details at times, I just miss them a bit more often than the rest.

    A note to Martin:

    IMO, a way to make this feature more obvious would be a right-click context menu option "set as default" or "set as startup preset". I'm sure you'd agree and I know sometimes things just don't go into a design. Heck, a lot of my favorite features in software have been developers adding things just cause they think "hey, that's a good idea" at the last minute. lol Either way, I realize that may not change. I just suggest it for others who may miss this as I did.

    Cheers!
  • S
    S
    last edited
    last edited

    More feature requests:

    I have several this time. The last requests had a few template building items. But now that I've been composing again (finally!), I'm noticing some different kinds of tweaks that could help improve experience.

     

    1 - VEP CC Data

    FYI, I initially marked another thread as solved. However, it no longer is as I really have to use the VST3 VEP instance. Please at least take note that it's open now. It's one of the most important issues I've been having.

    2 - Disk Performance Monitoring in VEP

    Call me a cry baby, but I hate never knowing how my computer is handling what it does. Studio One has a brilliant ASIO monitor that displays each VST and it's CPU usage. It would be brilliant if each VEP instance would tell me how much disk it uses, especially if I knew that it wasn't getting the audio into the buffer in time. Not sure if I put that right. But I'd love to know when a drive is or isn't able to handle what I've put on it.

    3 - Kontakt

    If Kontakt crashes, then so does VEP... and all of VEP for the entire computer. 😠 I would love if it would only crash the one instance. That may not be possible to avoid. But if so, it would make life easier than reloading everything all the time. Heck, if VEP even reloaded that frame and reconnected automatically, I'd pay for a VEP6 upgrade for that one! 😉

    4 - Make Vienna Suite free.

    (I can hope, right?)

    5 - Accidental Deletion Protection

    I go a little insane anytime I delete a matrix by accident and lose data I spent a great deal of time working on and didn't save (because I'm a moron sometimes). I realize "undo" is a unique kind of feature to code. But it's worth mentioning.

    6 - Live Time Stretching in Vi-Pro

    I employ the "Time Stretch Pro" algorithm in Kontakt for the larger part of my template. While VIP is great, it requires that I go through each and every articulation to pre-determine a TS curve. That certainly has the advantage of control, just not ease. I understand this may be a preference I'm alone on. Just a suggestion.

    7 - Cell Naming

    While this works like a charm, the ALT function to replace a patch and retain preset settings/values does not actually preserve the name of cells if you have put in your own names in certain cases.

    8 - VEP and Kontakt at war?

    So VSL has, IMO, the most stable and freakishly well thought-through software in existence. 😃 Studio One may rival you on that one soon (watch out! lol) But seriously, great stuff. The ONLY exception to this... at all... is Kontakt. I swear the thing runs better directly in a DAW. I can't prove it. I have no bug to report. So I know I'm being a useless cry baby. I'm just mentioning it, in case others perhaps bring this up as well. Also, remember that thing about how I said I'd love all my samples to run inside Vi-Pro? *wink wink*

    Cheers!

    Sean
  • S
    S

    Hey, remember me?

     

    So here's one (and I'm sorry, it's not an easy one) I've wanted for years... since the beginning really. Vi-Pro has a humanize for delay, pitch, but not expression. And while VSL has dynamic articulations... I would prefer legato have just a bit of growth or movement on it whether I move the mod-wheel or not. Think of it like a mini-LFO built in to the sampler. I'm very capable of moving the modwheel, but I never want the performance to be flat just because I haven't programmed something in at every moment. I believe I'm in a minority here. I've asked for this before only to find other VSL users who disagree. Many users on here want a great deal of control. I don't want to craft a performance performance. I just want to write notes and get a fairly realistic performance already, only tweaking when needed. Thus this request.

     

    It's worth noting that my Spitfire samples work this way. They have a little crecendo on them. Yes, I can mess with the modwheel to create a performance. But just flat dynamics notes even sound fairly decent as they aren't actually flat. I wanted this before I started buying other libraries. I truly believe it would lend to a more dynamic and human-like VSL library. I'm not sure I have the right implementation here. But suffice it to say, I'd love to see a human element to the dynamics. You've done timing and pitch, so I don't see any reason why this feature would hurt. Perhaps some will voice that they wouldn't dare touch such a feature. I respectully tell them to bugger off (in the nicest way possible) and enjoy their library as is. But I'd like this feature dang it! :) lol

     

    -Sean

    P.S. I swear... every day... pain. So much pain. Kontakt is my pain. Memory Errors. It's tragic and criminal. I dream of the day a beautiful powerful sampler such as Vi-Pro will let me build my own instruments in it, with my own samples. Dreaming.... still... dreaming...
  • D
    D

    Couple of other requests for future software features:

    1.  Provide a way to invoke the VI Pro MIDI Dump command programmatically (e.g., over the Vienna MIDI port).

    2.  Any chance you will make the API that was used to produce the VI Pro Remote app available so we can do similar things using devices other than browser connected over a wireless network connection.  I'm using Lemur connected using USB so if this API were either MIDI (Vienna MIDI port) or OSC then that would be great.  One possibility is just providing more information in the MIDI Dump.  This might go a long way to solving that problem.

    3.  OSC support in general would be good.  I have seen this requested before so just adding my vote.
  • S
    S

    dbudde,

    Great requests!