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  • Bernd Kistenmacher 's Track: To Higher Spheres (Smart Spheres Demo)

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    Hello everybody!

    When I saw that Bernd Kistenmacher, a Berlin-based die-hard fan of synthesizers, specialist for symphonic-electronic music and sound-designer, contacted us via support, it was clear that I HAD to ask him if he was interested to do a track with our Vienna Smart Spheres.

    Luckily, this was good timing, so he sent me his track "To Higher Spheres", made with Vienna Smart Spheres exclusively!

    I'd be interested to hear how YOU like this track and also how you are using the Vienna Smart Spheres in your setup:

    What do you like?
    What do you wish for?
    Are you building your own presets with your own FX racks, like Bernd did?

    Bernd also attached these thoughts with it:

    Bernd Kistenmacher: Learning from the best to break boundaries

    "Talking about this topic ten or fifteen years ago – it would have been impossible. The days of large studios with massive and expensive analogue gear are more or less over. Modern music, simply all kind of musical genres, comes “out of the box”.

    Fast computers, Audio-over-Ip networks, DAW’s with endless possibilities, 5.1 Surround mixing, immersive surround formats . All of this is affordable nowadays and realizable in the smallest rooms. Just like in my “Ivory Tower Home-Studio” in Berlin.

    I have been producing my so called symphonic-electronic music since more than 30 years and, during this time, experienced all stages of music production, from cheap tape recordings over multitracking, MIDI-sequencing up to the use of fast DAW’s. A process that never ends.

    And while I was evolving my own musical style in the past years, I discovered my love and appreciation for orchestral music and classical textures.

    Of course, I looked to Hollywood. I love the big screen and the epic scores, which accompany all these fantastic images. And why not learn from the best by paying close attention to what they do and how they do it? I wanted to understand how it is possible to run projects with 2000 tracks, how to get fastest access to a nearly endless number of instrument- and FX- plugins without any loss in audio quality or latency troubles.

    That brought me directly to Vienna Symphonic Library. At first I installed the Vienna Ensemble Pro 6 host software followed by Vienna Instruments Pro. That was truly an eye opener. Even “only” using the Vienna Ensemble Pro Server on my master computer, without any networked computers, changed the possibilities of my DAW drastically. Now I am captured. The installation and integration is quite easy and clever. And there is no limit to the use of numerous instances at the same time (beside the limitations of your computer maybe).

    These days I was invited to discover and try-out the Vienna Smart Spheres as part of the fantastic Synchron Player. As someone with a background in sound design and a deep love for hard- and software synthesizers, I had to put aside most of my usual approaches to get true access to the possibilities of Vienna Smart Spheres.

    Sound design in this case is created in a completely different way and my focus was both on the massive presence of very versatile digital effects and on extensive use of freely assignable MIDI CC-Controllers. With these tools at hand, any hardware MIDI controller can become an active part of the sound design options Vienna Smart Spheres offers. This kind of intuitive interaction allows you to create vital and non-static sounds within minutes.

    Playing with those options was probably the most fun to me. In my demo track “To Higher Spheres”, I tried to fathom the sonic possibilities of Vienna Smart Spheres, without ANY additional tools, and have to say: Everything is possible. Vienna Smart Spheres is a sound designers dream…"

    Have a great sunday, with best wishes from Vienna and Berlin,

    Paul


    Paul Kopf Product Manager VSL
  • What is so amazing to me is how far you can go once a composer is "under the hood" with this library/software.

    The plucks especially really have a great feel... and they sound so different than what you can render with outboard synths or software.  I assume that's because the Smart Spheres are based on samples from real acoustic instruments.

    This track was really fantastic.


  • I really love the library. I hope there will be updates in the future with tons of new presets. As I'm really not an expert in sound design, they are very useful.

    Best,

    David.