Originally Posted by: Gamma1734

I have another issue, I find the A6 and G#6 (but other notes as well) to sound very strange when pressed repeatedly, especially in the p to mf range. I attach a file. I don't know if I screwed a setting but it really distracts me from playing. Actually I just loaded the player setting and mixed a little bit some other mics in as well.

I've been doing a lot of A/B comparing this morning between Vienna Imperial and the new Synchron Imperial and came to the conclusion that they are so different you can't really compare them. I love the "clinical" anechoic VI sound, it's just like you sitting in your own little (well, maybe not so little) booth right at the piano keyboard, but you cannot compare this to the infinite variety that the Synchron piano with its multiple mics and flexible delay settings gives.

As to Gamma1734's point, that strange "wah wah" effect that those few notes give when repeated in certain dynamic ranges, actually you can hear it just a little in VI too. I'm guessing it's down to the interaction of the string tension and damper force in that particular very small range of notes, but I think it just so happens too that it's hitting something in the acoustic response of the Synchron Stage, like a little bit of "slap" which is arriving back and accentuating it.

Bottom line, I'm going to stick with VI for just playing a piano for enjoyment as the Synchron Imperial has too many little idiosyncracies, but it's got to be the Synchron for serious orchestral work.

I noticed that too this morning, but rated it less annoying than the pedal noise and lack of sympathetic pedal sound. Actually, if I was picky, I'd also say there was something off with the release samples in the C1 area as well.

I have to agree with Snoopy10 about the pedal noise - it's really loud on the presets, though at least (unlike the  bugged Vienna Imperial) you can actually turn it right down. But really with a continous damper pedal it should be velocity sensitive, because at the moment no matter how slowly I press the pedal, when it reaches a certain threshold there's the same noise. If I move the damper pedal slowly, the damper pedal noise should be much quieter, but the "ambience" from the opened strings should still be there.

And talking about opened strings, am I missing something here, but is there supposed to be an equivalent of the Vienna Imperial's "2sus" mode? It's one of the things that, for me, really brings a piano to life.

Having recently invested in a new 88 key master keyboard, I've been playing the Vienna Imperial a lot more simply for enjoyment. Now maybe it's because for various reasons I'm having to use heaphones more, but I've noticed some strange behaviour with the damper pedal noise. I've turned that right down because it seems a lot more obtrusive than it did through speakers, but even when turned right off it still sounds sometimes. For example, with the damper pedal noise fully off (-inf):

• Press the damper pedal
• Play middle C pianissimo
• Release the note
• Release the damper pedal - the pedal release sound can be heard

Even more bizarrely:

• Press the damper pedal
• Play middle C pianissimo
• Release the damper pedal
• Release the note - after a very short delay, the pedal release sound can be heard!!!!!

I've specified the note and the velocity because this issue doesn't happen with every note and velocity. So for example, if I played D above middle C then it would be fine, or if I play C forte that would be OK too.

I've just reinstalled the latest player version (Windows 1.1.778) and it's still there so I don't think there's anything wrong with my setup.

Apologies for the necroposting, but it's about the same issue.

Why should I have to use a higher latency with Vienna Imperial (which I've only just started using) to get the convolution reverb when MIRx in VI is quite happy to work with my usual buffer size of 32 samples?

My initial surprise at Solo Violin 2 soon faded to dismay when I saw that the articulations didn't match those of Solo Violin 1. For someone who has had to make do with a transposed SV1 in their string quartet work, I still have to resequence the whole second violin part if I want a "real" second violin. And no marcato????? It's one of the most common articulations.

One other thing that I've just found you need to take account of when double stopping if you are using "speed" to switch between different matrix cells is that the speed detection algorithm can get confused. So if you have a very small time offset between the notes of a chord, as you sometimes seem to need to do to help the performance legato work as desired, this can be interpreted as a sudden speed increase and so the wrong cell can be selected. I suppose the ultimate workaround is to use separate VI instances for each part, but that really seems like overkill.

I've also noticed that the speed detection algorithm includes non-sounding keyswitches in its calculations as well, which surely it shouldn't, but I guess that's one of those things that's been in there for a long time and so it can't be changed without affecting a potentially large number of existing performances.

Wow, I didn't notice this at the time for some reason. A definite upvote from me too so I can actually play the organ like an organ. Bonus points if the new software has the correct couplers, extra bonus points if I can save registrations and recall them via a MIDI controller/keyswitch/etc., even more bonus points for simulations of the two Schwellwerk shutters, and lifetime gratitude for a simulated tremulant (which I know would be extremely difficult to implement) so I can use the Vox Humana as it was intended to be played!

On a related topic, is there any possibility of ever recording the Fernwerk (and Fernpedal)? I understand that when the organ was recorded the Fernwerk was not in a good state, but is this ever likely to change? I've been working on something very quiet recently and really felt the limitation of not having it. After all, it's not as if the Fernwerk was something added to the organ at a later stage, it was part of the original sound design of the instrument. I actually ended up creating my own "virtual Fernwerk" by borrowing stops from the other divisions, shifting up or down an octave if necessary, reducing sound levels in the mixer to restore some sort of balance to the ensemble and trimming a little off the top end of the frequency spectrum in the EQ. Finally, in my DAW I reduced the stereo width to make the various stops sound closer together, swapped the left and right channels to give even more stereo separation of each rank from its original position, and added a small amount of algorithmic reverb (in addition to the release samples) to give a feeling of extra distance. I've no idea if it sounds anything like the real Fernwerk, but it at least it's better than nothing.

Hi Paul,

I recently upgraded my system to full SSD but because of the cost I have a little less capacity than I used to and since I've bought more VSL libraries recently I was looking around for ways to save space. I too bought the SE Standard on DVD, so given that I haven't used things that would have been in the SE Extended, can you confirm that I can download the SE files from my download area, delete the "100 SpecialEdition" folder and then presumably rescan? I know this is what you appear to be saying, but if I've somehow misunderstood then it will take me a while to put things back together again!

The "VI_perf-detache" patch seems pretty much perfect for my double stopping violin passage. Playing it legato rather than trying to mimic the detache style actually gives a good impression of the fingers repositioning on the strings, and the delayed vibrato corresponds well to the physical reality of double stopping.

That was interesting too. As it happens I'm working on a solo violin passage with double stopping tomorrow and I'll certainly give detache a go.

If you have a library that includes non-vibrato patches then you might want to consider using those for double/triple stopping passages as it's very difficult for a string player to use vibrato there.

Also, audition the results carefully if you're using performance legato as the legato algorithm is good but can get confused by double/triple stopping sometimes, resulting in some slightly strange effects. Consider G and E going to A and F - the legato should be from G to A and E to F, but depending on the relative start times of the notes in the second chord, you may get G to F and A to E.

I think you mean "with a few mouse-clicks and several hundred Euros".

The "Stokowski layout" of Vi1 - Vi2 - Vla - Celli - Bassi has been the predominant worldwide standard since the 1930's. I appreciate that the reason for this layout was technological rather than musical, but it's what I've been used to for 50 years and anything else sounds strange.

William, your points are largely correct in a recording situation. However, whilst the current VSL interface is superb for live playing of many orchestral intstruments, I struggle to understand how it could be thought of as anywhere near acceptable for live playing of a large-scale organ. In fairness to VSL, I accept that the VSL interface performs very well when using it for what it was primarily designed for. However, as an organist trying to use it for live playing of an organ (simply for my enjoyment, by the way), I am constantly disappointed and frustrated by it.

How many people here would like to see a full simulated organ interface like a certain other product? For me, "just" the ability to do much more layering would be enough - as has already been said, that's one of the most fundamental feature of organs. Of course I haven't a clue how big a change that would be to the VI player.

The VSL interface is very limiting for an organ, but then it was presumably designed as a general-purpose orchestral instrument player rather than be too instrument-specific. As it stands, it's not too bad if you want to play something that uses fairly conventional registrations so you can set them up in advance as a custom matrix, but for anything else that either uses complex or "unconventional" registrations, or simply for improvisation, it's really not much use. One workaround that I'm experimenting with is the use of multiple instances of VI within my sequencer, all run off the same MIDI channel. Each instance has a small custom matrix that starts with an empty slot and contains stops of the same pitch. That way I can build up registrations by selecting the appropriate combination of 16', 8', 4' stops, etc. on an instance by instance basis. The next step would be to dust off my copy of MfxScript to simplify the selection of matrix cells and so I can use a midi controller device to select stops easily in the same way that I would if I were sitting at an organ console.

All of that said, the overal sound is wonderful. Maybe the wind pressure is a little low to successfully carry off some of my favourite 20th century French organ works, but for most of the symphonic organ repertoire it should be superb. Certainly a more organist-friendly interface would be nice, but so too would be the 12 stops of the Fernwerk. And the pedal Fagott and Bassethorn stops. And the Vox Humana with tremulant because that's how it's supposed to be played (although I can see the technical difficulties there). Oh, and the Glockenspiel 

As seems common, I have a small, fast system disk holding my OS (WinXP) plus the VI software, and a much larger disk that holds (held!) the instrument data. My data disk has crashed, and so I'm replacing it. Is there anything special I need to do when re-installing the instrument DVDs given that the VI software and dongle presumably already think they are installed?

Thanks in advance...