If you handed a bassoonist a score with a low-register note at "pp", he would play a note. That would be what's natural. Silence would be unnatural, so it's odd to me that you claim silence would be "natural".

I never suggested VSL should do anything like that. You must have misunderstood what I wrote. I don't even know which of my words you're referring to.

The "logic" you're criticizing here is nothing I've ever suggested.

"Natural volume", as I've defined the term, is absolutely a measureable, invariable quantity. The issue here is that you're defining the term "natural volume" differently than I'm defining it. You and I are speaking different languages, and that's a semantic issue and nothing more. So when you say "no, it's impossible", you're not addressing anything I've actually suggested.

This is perfectly consistent with everything I've suggested.

I have earned a good living making and selling music, despite my beliefs about software, which beliefs you assume need correcting.

I got straight A's at CCRMA. I got straight A's from:

Max Mathews,

John Chowning,

John Pierce, and

Julius Smith

In 1997, I assisted Dave Smith in creating the world's first professional software synthesizer for the PC, which won the 1998 Editors' Choice Award from Electronic Musician Magazine. It was substantially sample-based, and the science of playing back samples at particular volumes hasn't changed since 1998.

My other degree is in artificial-intelligence, and I am CEO of a company developing software to assist composers. My company is not in competition with VSL.

But you will correct me about software here. I will say one thing about software, you'll imagine I've said something different, and instead of quoting the words I've actually typed about software, you'll criticze the imaginary thing which I never typed.

Reality outside the VSL sphere disproves your claim. Load up a Symphobia ensemble, press one note, and natural timbral balance emerges. Symphobia will do this even if a cat walks across your keyboard and steps on a key. A cat who knows nothing about individual instruments.

Load up various Mural patches, play them simultaneously, with assorted velocities, and only natural timbral balances emerge. You tell me things are impossible, but I've witnessed these things myself, so I have to filter your opinion accordingly.

There are so many ways to 'natural' timbral balance; so many more ways than you're conceiving here.

I have half a dozen books about orchestration, and nothing in any of them invalidates even the smallest point I've made about natural volume. However, I believe you've misunderstood most everything I've typed about natural volume. Who are you, and why are you advising me about anything?

You want me to approach music the way you approach it, but I don't really want to be more like you. I've never made a "mockup" and I don't plan to. And yet for some reason, people on the internet continually tell me how I should approach my "mockups". I wish these people could find personal fulfillment without imagining that I aspire to be like them.

I already have and use orchestral sample libraries from over a dozen companies, so I don't understand your point here?

Originally Posted by: Dietz

Originally Posted by: BachRules

Originally Posted by: Dietz

I kindly ask you to stick to a respectful tone towards all other participants

... Will be you be calling out "civilization 3" for his disrespectful tone? Why apply a double standard? ...

Well - it seems as you don't expect me to give any more answers, as you gave them all yourself already. :-)....

You didn't call out "civilization 3" for his disrespectful tone, and there's no apparent legitimate reason for your double-standard.

Originally Posted by: Dietz

BTW: Some of the words you have chosen to post here could be actionable in several countries. I strongly suggest to withdraw the quoted sentences and to apologize.

I have experience arguing 1st-Amendment cases in real U.S. courts, and I'm willing to take my chances. Despite your toleration of JimmyHellfire's violation of the forum rules, he has harassed and libeled me here, and I stand by my response to that.

Originally Posted by: JimmyHellfire

Eh, it's just BachRules and his usual diatribe, well documented on these forums and elsewhere. At least he's consistent.

Why are you harassing me? You saw monkeys on another forum harass me and you got it in your sycophantic head to mimick the imbeciles? You saw moderators inviting harassment against me, and you took their corruption as an opportunity for you to bully me with impunity, you sadist? It's true that monkeys like you around the internet do obsess over me; but post a link to my "well-documented diatribes" to substantiate your latest personal attack against me, unless you're simply lying. You've attacked me for making a feature-request, and now you're lying in an attempt to justify your offensive conduct, you foolish monkey.

Originally Posted by: Plougot

I think you two could almost continue your arguement in pm, now, since it's not interesting for anybody, and not even relevant to your own post . At that point, who insulted who first isn't relevant any more.

I posted some messages, why don't you answer stuffs about that instead ^^ ?

I skimmed your post and it appeared to be squarely on-topic, so I intend to read it carefully when I have the time it warrants, later. In the meantime that housekeeping I performed took only a few seconds.

JimmyHellfire, please use PM for your future personal attacks against me.

Originally Posted by: JimmyHellfire

expecting software to do a job you're fearful of attacking yourself is exactly why you made this thread.

That's what sycophantic fanboys cry every time anyone makes any feature-request. Why are you attacking people for making feature-requests? Why are you so pathologically defensive about some software you bought? You invested your self-esteem in the belief that a computer program you bought has no room for further development, so my feature-request upsets you emotionally and you attack me with the idiotic accusation that I'm "fearful"? You spend time performing tasks which could be done instead by software automatically and more accurately, and you pretend this makes you especially brave?

Originally Posted by: JimmyHellfire

I also went to the university....

But you ended up a sycophant attacking people for making feature-requests on computer-program forums, and that's a foolish way to behave, so apparently the university took your money and ran with it.

Originally Posted by: JimmyHellfire

BachRules,

let me put it this way: for obvious reasons, I find your use of terms like "egomaniac", "babbling", "self-absorbed" and "vapid" quite amusing. I'm sure you'll figure it out. Look at it as a chance for personal growth. It's not science, after all, isn't it?

That's deep, man, because I'm the one prattling about his art in a thread where it's irrelevant. Except it was you not I who really did that.

So you bought a DAW and learned how to move the faders, and from there BAM you inferred the entire natural world depends on your operation of the faders, and anything less is "hair-splitting and semantics".

You saw the earlier talk about worlds where there are no humans to perceive air-pressure waves, and that hypothesis was too much for your ego to bear, so you pretended it never happened and you charged in slack-jawed insisting how important you are to the functioning of audio.

And when someone asks about the operation of MIR's Natural Volume feature, there you are like a drooling Pavlovian dog preaching, "Hey it's not some magic do-your-mix-for-you button," and you preach this despite no one ever having suggested it was.

You're so distracted by your own mixing practices, you can't comprehend that there's such an objective phenomenon as Natural Volume that's independent of you and your mixing. And you'll remain ignorant because you'd rather attack than take the time to figure out wtf the words "Natural Volume" really mean (not what you assumed).

No one asked you about magic do-your-mix-for-you buttons. That's just some music-forum cliche you memorized before this thread started, and you'd see it's irrelevant if you read the thread.

In summary, you move your DAW faders until you like how it sounds, and you feel compelled to announce that mundanity to the world, even when you're disrespectfully hijacking unrelated discussions.

Originally Posted by: DG

Originally Posted by: BachRules

Originally Posted by: DG

Originally Posted by: BachRules

If you set your volume faders all to the the same level, turn on Natural Volume, and use only velocity (and instrument-positioning in the MIR room) to control loudness, your will get combinations of timbres limited to the combinations which are possible in the real world.

No, that is not correct, because it ignores the differing dynamic range of instruments. There is probably one dynamic at which this is true, but as I have no idea as to how the Natural Volumes were calculated, I have no idea which dynamic it would be.

I'm not understanding your point. Not disagreeing with you, but I don't understand what you mean....

... the dynamic ranges of VI are not really accurate. For example the dynamic range of a Flute is far less than say a Trumpet, but in the VI player the difference is less severe than it should be. Maybe this is something that the VSL guys could comment on and possibly give figures as to how the normalisation (for want of a better word) has been achieved....

If my assertion in the inner quote is incorrect, there should be an example of specific settings where Natural Volume results in unnatural timbral combinations. If no such example surfaces, I'm going to chalk this up as superstition or unsubstantiated rumor.

Originally Posted by: JimmyHellfire

Natural volume... can't eliminate the necessary task of arranging and mixing music ....

Who asked about that? Who claimed Natural Volume can eliminate the task of arranging and mixing music? What are you responding to here? What words did you see on your screen which gave you that idea? Quote them? Or you just thought you'd make a random speech about "mixing / arranging" in the most inappropriate thread possible for that? You just thought, "Since I, JimmyHellfire, care about arranging / mixing, I assume the world and every thread in it revolves around arranging / mixing, and furthermore everyone should emulate my personal arranging/mixing pracitices, as I fancy myself to be the center of the universe"?

The topic of this thread lies 100% outside your comprehension. It's about the Laws of Physics, which you dismiss as "hair-splitting and arguing semantics".

Here is for the egomaniacs who can't refrain from prattling about their art:

You would have gone there earlier, if it were enough for you to preach about "mixing / arranging" at an appropriate time and place.

Originally Posted by: BachRules

Once you introduce art, taste, and creativity into a discussion, the discussion is bound to degenerate into nonsense.... But science -- e.g., audio engineering and computer science -- is different, and it has rules, and when I have a question about science and someone tries to change the subject to art, I will always attempt to redirect the discussion back to the topic: science. Thanks for understanding.

Thanks for understanding, everyone. If you cannot imagine Newtonian Mechanics functioning without humans to perceive it and artists to adjust it, you are incompetent for this topic. If you feel Newton was all about "hair-splitting and arguing semantics", please allow me to show you to the appropriate thread for you:

What will be the next self-absorbed, vapid lout's excuse for prattling about his art in this thread.

Originally Posted by: BachRules

Quote:

Natural volume is a nice feature that gives you a general guideline. It's a time saver. It's there to get you in the right ballpark quickly.

Not sure which ballpark your referring to. There's one ballpark for simulating nature on the one hand, and there's a different ballpark for mixing artistically on the other hand.

This thread doesn't need any more evangelists preaching about the 2nd ballpark. I know about the 2nd ballpark. You are not helping anything by babbling about it here, in this thread about the 1st ballpark. Pat yourself on the back for knowing about the 2nd ballpark, but it's not the topic here. Every idiot knows there's a 2nd a ballpark. You are not some hero for figuring out that there's a 2nd ballpark. You're just a person who doesn't understand what the MIR Natural-Volume feature is designed to accomplish.

Do you storm into conferences about physics to preach your opinions about art? It's not enough for you to do that at conferences about art? You have to be disrespectful about the time and place you choose for your preaching?

Originally Posted by: BachRules

As people continue to misunderstand this topic, I'll continue to clarify that it's unrelated to human perception. It's just about numbers in DAW's and pressure-waves moving through air, not about humans. If I could make that clear using fewer words, I would.

Originally Posted by: JimmyHellfire

Why would you ever be concerned about relations of volume if not in the context of musical arrangement,

It's a secret. I'm not safe to discuss my practices. I've been attacked by hundreds of artists and forum-mods around the internet for attempting to discuss my practices, so now I'll just say, you and I are two different people doing two different things with our software, and I don't want the cretinous, control-freak, insecure mob to lynch me for using my software differently.

I'm not concerned with how you make your music. Why distress over how I use my software? This isn't a two-way street. It's me minding my own business, while you fantasize I have some desire to emulate you.

I have nothing to offer the obtuse beggars who come to me for affirmation. If someone broke into my domicile and tried to force me to use my software a certain way, I would shoot him in self-defense. Please leave me alone. You should mind your own business like I mind my own.

Originally Posted by: BachRules

Quote:

For pretty much every aspect of what we do, this division between measurement and perception exists and that’s where science and art blend...

 

Perhaps that's the case for pretty much every aspect of what you do, but it's not the case for what I'm doing -- you and I being two different people doing two different things. You don't know me well enough to know what I'm doing with this software. It's not what you're assuming.

I hadn't even known I needed your permission.

Originally Posted by: JimmyHellfire

Not sure what this is really about. Hair-splitting and arguing semantics?

Certainly not, though it may appear that way to someone laboring under some misunderstanding of what's been written.

Not sure which ballpark your referring to. There's one ballpark for simulating nature on the one hand, and there's a different ballpark for mixing artistically on the other hand. Many in this thread are hell bent on conflating those two different ballparks, but I for one am not afraid to distinguish between them.

No one's suggested it can. On the contrary, post after post after painful post, I point out that arrangement and mixing are totally irrelevant to this specialized topic. You've misread the topic, or misunderstood it, or even been led astray by those working to misconstrue it.

Actually the only thing that's scary is discussions of objective audio engineering -- too scary for mix-artists to witness without blurting out their irrelevant opinions about the art the mixing.

This topic is not the right place for egomaniacal artists who believe that sound waves depend on their ears and brains. Sounds waves don't care about artists' ears and brains. Sounds waves move according to the Laws of Physics. These Laws were not really created by mix-artists.

What is compelling artists to masturbate in this thread?

Originally Posted by: BachRules

We're talking about things unrelated to human perception, things which would still exist even if robots or a plague killed all the humans. That, at least, is how I meant the topic when I personally created it. There are so many other threads for people to talk about art and human-perception. This is probably the least appropriate thread for that. Hijacking the thread to muse about art is disrespectful.... This thread is about objective levels and has absolutely nothing to do with how those levels are percevied by any human's ear. Pretend an asteroid killed all the humans, for this thread. We're just talking about sound waves in a hypothetical world with no humans.

 

As people continue to misunderstand this topic, I'll continue to clarify that it's unrelated to human perception. It's just about numbers in DAW's and pressure-waves moving through air, not about humans. If I could make that clear using fewer words, I would.

I see this this forum is short on people who comprehend that the natural world doesn't revolve around them (cf. the Catholic Church's attack on Galileo when he heretically suggested the Universe doesn't revolve around the earth), so I'll just try to step back and observe the artists express their grandiose, egocentric views about audio engineering.

Originally Posted by: Dominique

Ok, I came up with something here:

Balance snippet

It's a snippet from a classical piece, playing twice. One is a recording, one is a mockup I made. Can you tell which is which?

The 2nd snippet is not VSL, because VSL doesn't have that much noise.

Originally Posted by: Dominique

Which snippet do you like better, and why?

I don't want to hijack this science thread to start talking about personal preference, taste, art, and subjective things.

Originally Posted by: Dominique

Is there something that strikes you as unnatural in one or both of the snippets?

No, but I'm an especially poor judge of natural volume, due to my inexperience with natural instruments and the bass-response in my playback system, as mentioned previously.

My sound examples weren't intended to catch anyone either. I don't imagine anyone would be able to judge it blind with perfect accuracy. Still, I'd like my libraries to offer accurate natural volume, for my own reasons which I keep to myself because they're irrelevant to this thread.

I'm stuck on statements made by you and DG, which I quoted in my two most recent posts. Without clarification, I don't understand why you and DG believe VSL's Natural Volume is imperfect.

Originally Posted by: Dominique

As I'm currentlly abroad I can't give you such an example until midweek. I'll try to do it then.

Looking forward to it, at your convenience.

DG and Dominique,

You have me so confused now. You're saying the current Natural Volume in MIR is a good start but breaks down in some cases. Can you give me a specific example of a case where it's imperfect? Please tell me which instruments to play simultaneously, at which specific pitches and velocities, so that I get unnatural results?

Originally Posted by: Dominique

On a flute, for example, the higher register can go much louder than the lowest register.... Natural Volume feature in MIR... won't account for the cases where you play the lowest note on the flute, and assign a cc 1 value of 127. It will be too loud compared to the rest of the instruments (simply because the low notes of the flute in VSL have the same dynamic range as the high notes, which in reality, they haven't).

This is natural or unnatural?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/...UlRBVDA/view?usp=sharing

Originally Posted by: DG

... the dynamic ranges of VI are not really accurate. For example the dynamic range of a Flute is far less than say a Trumpet, but in the VI player the difference is less severe than it should be.

When I first read this, it made sense to me, but now I don't get it. What's unnatural about this example (warning: loud trumpet)?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/...UnpOVTA/view?usp=sharing

The flute and trumpet are at the exact same location on stage.

Originally Posted by: Dominique

... VSL is recorded with close mics, in their silent stage. It's a different concept....

I understand this.

Originally Posted by: Dominique

... A con of recording close up is that you have to balance the volume between the instruments)....

It's not really a con, as MIR automatically adjusts volume as you change the distance between simulated instrument and microphone, and MIRx-mode seats the instruments in place on a virtual stage.

Why do you believe it never will be? What's to prevent VSL from adding an option to override this unnatural behavior:

Seeing that VSL altered the flute volumes in the first place, why would anyone doubt VSL is able to unalter the flute volumes so that they go back to their natural relation? This is superstition or false rumor:

Originally Posted by: Dominique

when the samples have been normalized, you can't reverse it.

That is reality:

--------

Originally Posted by: Dominique

In short, VSL's approach is more flexible, but needs more work (balancing the volume, placing the sound in a room, applying reverb etc.).

This work could be done by VSL, no? They're a company in the business of doing work to help customers, right? That's the whole thing about businesses, no?

Why assume the "VSL concept" precludes VSL from balancing the volume, placing the sound in a room, and applying reverb? MIR is proof that VSL has been willing and able to add room-placement and reverb-application to their products.

I'm alarmed every time a software-user tells me the software's 'concept' prevents the developer from improving the software. Has VSL declared they'll never improve their Natural-Volume feature? Why be pessimistic about this?

Originally Posted by: Dominique

To achieve what you want you would have to record each instrument in it's respective place on stage, with the mic placed at the conductor position.

That's not true. What I want can be achieved with software and samples recorded close on a silent stage. You may not understand how software could do such a thing, but I do understand. It's simply a matter of whether VSL wants to offer this feature to their customers. I don't see why you're insisting otherwise.

Originally Posted by: Dominique

Originally Posted by: BachRules

I'd appreciate if VSL would inform us how to set things to that there's no dynamic compression or expansion applied to the instruments.

That is not going to happen, because when the samples have been normalized, you can't reverse it.

You really can reverse it.

It could be possible in VI Pro, it's just a matter of whether VSL chooses to make it possible.

It doesn't have to be a crazy amount of work. VI could contain a table of how many decibels to adjust each sample to undo whatever adjustments VSL made in the first place. If Spitfire can deliver Natural Volume, it seems odd to suggest that VSL can't. VSL's engineers are in a different, better league than Spitfire's engineers, imho.

Un-normalizing the samples would be no harder than it was to normalize them in the first place. VSL managed to normalize them, so I'm sure they could manage to un-normalize them (optionally). If a sample was normalized +3db in the first place, to un-normalize it, just change it -3db.

Thank for pointing that out. I hadn't known that about the VSL flutes, and I probably never would have figured it out by listening, on account of my inexperience with real flutes.

But, it seems it would be easy for VI to include an option to un-normalize the flute volumes and bring the lowest flute-note back down to where it was before it was tampered with in the first place.

I'd rather those adjustments be performed by the company which possesses records of exactly how far they amplified the samples in the first place, and I'd rather the adjustments be performed by experts who have studio monitors and room-treatment.

No, it doesn't have to come to that. (And I don't know where to find un-normalized libraries, except Mural.) VSL could un-normalize their samples for us. It's simply a matter of wether VSL wants to do this. There's nothing stopping them.

The art of mixing is a separate topic entirely. It's a nice topic, but it's not part of this topic.

Originally Posted by: DG

...I've conducted hundreds of performances in many different venues...

I haven't done that. I'm curious why convolution would fall short. Convolution has limitations -- it fails to model ways a room might change over time -- but in theory convolution is really good at simulating nature.

Originally Posted by: DG

All samples are likely to be altered in volume a small amount after being recorded.

Not altered after recording in Mural (at least, that's what Spitfire has claimed), and that's why I keep mentioning Mural. (It's the least useful library I own, however, for entirely other reasons, and I'd return it if I could.)

Originally Posted by: DG

I have no idea how Mural works so I can't comment on that. However, I do know that the dynamic ranges of VI are not really accurate. For example the dynamic range of a Flute is far less than say a Trumpet, but in the VI player the difference is less severe than it should be.

So VSL is giving us some dynamic compression or expansion on either the flute or the trumpet, if I understand you correctly, and I agree that would interfere with Natural-Volume functionality as I've been describing it.

I'd appreciate if VSL would inform us how to set things to that there's no dynamic compression or expansion applied to the instruments. Dynamic compression / expansion has a place in art, but it's not natural, and it gets in the way when natural dynamics is the goal.

One company has included this in their manual: "Move the dial all to the left and you will have the original dynamics as recorded". It made me so happy when I read that.

I'm skeptical about your point here. I haven't experienced this, and I don't see how the laws of physics would allow for the 'reaction' you're suggesting.

If you rented a hall, seated the instrument-players in their normal locations on stage, hung a microphone over the conductor, recorded every note on every instrument at lots of different dynamic levels, and if you never touched your gain faders throughout this process, and you never changed the volume of the samples, you'd get Natural Volume; and to use such a hypothetical library, you'd never alter CC7 or CC11, you'd just use velocity or CC1, and it would control timbre and loudness at the same time, always keeping them in their natural relation.

This hypothetical library would be inferior to VSL in lots of ways, but at least it serves as a model of Natural Volume made easy for the end-user. Beethoven had to decide among ppp .. fff for each note but that's just a simple one-dimensional variable for dynamics. I have to set velocity, CC7, CC11, DynR, Velocity Curve, and probably some other variables I'm overlooking. That degree of control -- 5 independent variables -- is nice when I want to make unnatural sounds, but it only gets in the way when I'm trying to do things like Beethoven did them.

Originally Posted by: andyjh

I have always assumed that it is based on the maximum level ot the loudest dynamic (maximum SPL of that instrument),  but the huge diversity of dynamic ranges per instrument makes things somewhat more complex, especially when a piece may not be utilising that dynamic range.

Mural gives Natural timbral relationships, and only Natural timbral relationships, at all dynamic levels. Just like a natural orchestra -- the diversity of dynamic ranges works against this in no way. This is how I conceive of Natural Volume, though it's possible that I still don't understand how VSL Natural Volume works or what it does.

Originally Posted by: DG

Originally Posted by: BachRules

If you set your volume faders all to the the same level, turn on Natural Volume, and use only velocity (and instrument-positioning in the MIR room) to control loudness, your will get combinations of timbres limited to the combinations which are possible in the real world.

No, that is not correct, because it ignores the differing dynamic range of instruments. There is probably one dynamic at which this is true, but as I have no idea as to how the Natural Volumes were calculated, I have no idea which dynamic it would be.

I'm not understanding your point. Not disagreeing with you, but I don't understand what you mean.

To use Mural as an example, if I set my volume faders to the same level and use only velocity to control loudness, I get only the timbre-combinations which are possible in the real world. I get this despite the differing dynamic range of instruments. Or are you suggesting Mural doesn't work this way either?

Originally Posted by: nektarios

I get you and know where you are coming from. The point I was making is that natural volume may need further refinement so that you are not left on having to use your perception and make adjustments. 

Natural Volume simulates a natural orchestra. Composers for real orchestra have to decide which dynamics to assign each note (ppp, fff, or somewhere in between); and true to that model, Natural Volume leaves VSL-composers with the burden of deciding which velocity to assign each note.

There could be an added layer of technology which assigns dynamics (velocity) automatically, but VSL's Natural Volume was never intended to do that aspect of composition for you.

I'd buy software to compose my dynamics for me automatically, if I liked the results. But hopefully they'd name it Artistic Dynamics, so as not to confuse it with Natural Volume, which is a science, not an art.

Originally Posted by: nektarios

BachRules, I tend to agree with Kenneth in many points. You can't ignore perception. One example that comes to mind is this: Have you ever watched the weather person say: It will be -5 degrees but feel like -17 with the wind. How do they measure the  "it will feel like" part if it can vary from person to person?

But this thread is about the number that shows up on the thermometer, and that number is unaffected by your perception of the temperature; and so, human perception remains totally irrelevant for the intents and purposes of this thread.

If you really, really are unable to ignore perception, you will believe that your perception of the temperature will alter the number that shows on your thermometer. That would be egomaniacal, to imagine your perception alters the functioning of thermometers. But hey, we live in a world where authorities imprisoned Galileo for claiming the earth isn't the center of the solar system, after all.

By bringing human perception into this discussion, the most you can achieve is continued misunderstanding of the Natural-Volume button on your software. Suit yourself. Natural Volume isn't about what you perceive. It's about the objective motion of your speakers and objective waves of pressure passing through the air. How your brain perceives those pressure-waves is none of Natural Volume's business.

Now I'll leave you and Kenneth to agree that human perception is relevant to the functioning of the Natural Volume button on your software. I concede the election: The MIR Natural-Volume button functions however you and Kenneth decide by consensus. The machine-code compiled inside MIR will alter itself to accomodate your perception.

I have no more time for this lunacy, as I'd have no more time for egomaniacs believing their perception of the temperature alters the numbers a thermometer displays.

Originally Posted by: nektarios

Originally Posted by: BachRules

Originally Posted by: nektarios

... the impression he or she will get is "Oh, let me click this to get a natural sound, natural balance).

That impression would be correct, assuming "natural" means the resultant air-pressure waves would be objectively the same as the air-pressure waves generated by a live performance in the real physical world.

If you confuse -- as Kenneth does -- "natural" to mean "artistically preferable", of course there's no button that can read the minds of your listeners to find what they prefer to hear.

What natural volume is to me is this for example: I go to some hall and there is an ensemble there but there are no microphones whatsoever. The sound coming out of this ensemble is natural (irregardles if it's pleasant or not). Like this one: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33556625/Music/Chamber%20Orchestra%203.m4a

Just my iPhone recording. There are no mics, just the natural sound of the instruments and hence volume. So I expect that is what natural volume tries to simulate.

If you set your volume faders all to the the same level, turn on Natural Volume, and use only velocity (and instrument-positioning in the MIR room) to control loudness, your will get combinations of timbres limited to the combinations which are possible in the real world. This optional limitation is the purpose of Natural Volume. When you want real-world-possible timbre-combinations, allign your faders, turn on Natural Volume, adjust velocity (and instrument-positioning in the MIR room) to countrol loudness, and leave the faders alone.

When you reduce velocity on your drum to 60, you are taking advantage of Natural Volume. When you alternatively leave velocity at 100 but attenuate by 8 db, you're breaking the don't-touch-your-faders rule and you end up with a combination of timbres which isn't possible in the real world. In the real world, you can tell the drummer to hit the drum less hard. That's like reducing velocity to 60. In the real world, you can't tell the drummer to hit the drum 8 db quieter while maintaining a constant timbre. That's physically impossible in the natural world; that's what you get when you leave velocity at 100 but lower the fader 8db.

None of this is to say what your listeners want to hear, or how you should do things. Just describing the objective science of the Natural-Volume button.