As long as you don't use MIR Pro, MIRx or the "synchronized" version of Dimension Strings, there's no audio processing going on (apart from the necessary post-production steps during the creation of the sample sets themselves, of course).

Kind regards,

Hi Sam,

You're right that I created all the MIR-based settings for the Synchronized Vienna Instruments, but I wasn't implementing them into Synchron Player. I have to admit that I don't know about the plate reverb, but I assume that it is meant to serve some kind of "sweetening purposes" in a hybrid-reverb approach.

I'll ask around. :-) Thanks for your patience!

Huh! That's strange. I can't recall other reports describing this behaviour, but I'll ask VSL software engineers to look into it nonetheless.

Thanks for your patience!

Thanks for the screenshot.

The main window of MIR Pro's plug-in version should always open in the size it had been set to the last time you used it. When you write "the GUI is always stuck on full screen", does this mean that you can't re-size the window manually at all?

Hi Wader,

sorry to hear that you're facing issues. By "standalone" you mean MIR Pro's plug-in version, or MIR Pro as part of VE Pro, but without using VE Pro's server infrastructure?

... a screenshot could help. :-)

Kind regards,

Ah! It seems that the deliberate limit of "two times the original width" for solo instruments is not observed when typing in numbers, but applied nonetheless when recalling these settings. That's an oversight, it seems.

I'll forward it to MIR Pro's software engineers.

Thanks for your input, Fatis!

Kind regards,

Welcome Yoshihito,

sorry to hear about that issue. It's the first time I hear about it, that's why I kindly ask you to report the problem to , with a reference to this forum thread. I can't test the configuration you described myself as I don't have OSX 10.14 on any of my machines right now, but VSL support team members will look into it swiftly.

Thanks for your patience!

I'm astonished that you're able to increase the width of the solo flute's Instrument Profile to 5 meters at all.  8-/  This should only be possible in case of ensembles or General Purpose profiles.

Would you supply us with a screenshot, please?

Kind regards,

The good thing about digital audio is that 0 dBfs is just that: Full scale, i.e. the maximum gain a single sample can reach. So in this sense "Overload Protection" will do - but so does the D/A-converter itself. 

Many people nowadays adjust their listening volume in the digital domain _before_ the converter, so they will still could run into an ear-shattering noisburst if their monitoring is set to full power in the analog domain. No brickwall limiter will save them from that - unless that "brickwall" limiter is set to something like -20 dBfs maximum output (or whatever appears to be a meaningful value).

HTH,

Yes, but only at midnight on a Blue Moon, after dancing five cycles counter-clockwise around your DAW with your eyes closed and your your left index finger in your right ear.

*Herman Munster theme song*

;-D

The use of MIR Pro's RoomEQ is conceptually organized in a away a software engineer tends to think (using "lookup tables"), not so much in a way us sound guys would tend to think ("routing" and "inserts"), which makes it harder to grasp without more detailed explanation.

The main section at the bottom of the Output Channel is used to activate, edit and organize the 32 (or actually 33) different RoomEQ settings you can choose from. 

The pull-down in the Instrument Channel determines which of these settings will get used for the wet signal part of the selected instrument. As soon as you select a different instrument, the assigned RoomEQ will be diplayed in the Output Channel.

In other words: You can't assign an EQ-setting by means of the RoomEQ section in the Output Channel. You do the edits there.

For detailed organization of your project's RoomEQ please open the EQ's main editor window by clicking its toolkit-icon (used to be an "e" in earlier versions of MIR Pro)

Note: A Room EQ will only affect the wet signals of MIR Pro pointing to it. It's by no means a master EQ!

There are highly detailed RoomEQ banks freely available for all MIR Pro Venues that offer the MIRx Mode.

... I hope that sheds some light on the issue. :-)

Originally Posted by: Dewdman42

[...] I guess there are no absolutes but can you say anything about why or when we might want to adjust the predelay in Miracle for hybrid scenarios? I guess it would depend on the room and how much we want the ER’s to stand out, but I’d be interested in your wisdom here

It depends on the room, of course, but also on the sound you're aiming for. If you want the algo reverb to be less of an obvious effect and more like some an unobtrusive layer a you will choose longer pre-delay. If you need a dense and clearly artificial tail, the pre-delay will have to be shorter.

... in the end, it's a decision I take on a case-by-case basis. :-) Sorry that I can't supply you with hard rules.

Originally Posted by: samsonite789

Dietz,

Again, I can't thank you enough for how much time you're going to save me panning and fading in the coming years.  I'm excited to dig deep into this program.

One last question, if I may:

Is there any way to see the EQ graph of the different character presets (like Silk, Air, etc.)  I ask because I'd be interested in matching the character preset of a Vienna instrument to a similar, non-Vienna instrument.  For example, I'd like to match the "Bite" character of the Vienna nylon guitar to a Turkish Oud instrument from Kontakt.

Thanks for indulging my endless curiousity.

- Sam

You're welcome! :-)

The graphics attached below should give you an idea of what to expect of MIR's Character Presets.

... please keep in mind that the settings I created for Vienna Instruments are much more detailed and specifically tailored for one well-defined signal source. It's best practice to use General Purpose profiles (and the more generic Character Presets they come with) for all other sources.

Kind regards,

Originally Posted by: Dewdman42

Main thing is to block the ER's in the algorithmic reverb so that you only hear the long tails from it after predelay. 

MIRacle doesn't add ERs in the actual sense of the word, it's all about the late reverb tail.

Originally Posted by: Dewdman42

[...] i prefer to use Miracle or some other algorithmic reverb just for the very longest and latest part of the tail in order to get a bit more modulation and movement and fill in the cracks, but all the early reflections and some of the late reflections too are coming from MirPro, which capture the character of the rooms they are modeling...

[...]

 That sounds very familiar! :-) 

BTW - talking about long natural reverb tails: To my ears, RoomPack 5 - derived from Pernegg Monastery - has the most beautiful and even reverb of all MIR Pro Venues. As a matter of fact I've already used it for mixing movie scores*) in 3D by using the IRs from the choir's balcony as top layer. Now _that's_ some nice spatial enveloping, believe me. 8-)

*) .... admittedly not your typical "epic" Hollywood soundtrack ;-)

Hi Sam,

thanks a lot for your enthusiastic message! Highly appreciated. :-)

Re. 1) - Personally I would always use one of MIR Pro's Studio Venues for the hybrid reverb approach you seem to have in mind.*) Most of the studios and scorings stages were captured with a comprehensive approach all over the room, rather than a "stage only" setup. Like that, you have much more freedom to move your sources to almost every position you could aim for - e.g. also to the very left and right for extreme width, or even behind the Main Microphone's position (... the latter to be used with caution, though).

The following MIR Pro Venues offer the aforementioned "blanket coverage":

- Funkhaus Wien - ORF Studio 2 (RoomPack 2)

- Funkhaus Wien - ORF Studio 3 (RoomPack 2)

- Teldex Studio Berlin (RoomPack 2)

- Tonstudio Weiler (RoomPack 2)

- The Sage Gateshead - Northern Rock Foundation Hall (RoomPack 4)

- and of course Synchron Stage Vienna. (RoomPack 6)

That said, I dare to doubt the unconditional necessity for a "hybrid" approach. :-) More often than not, the careful shaping of the Main Microphone's virtual capsules and (at least equally important) the use and shaping of the Secondary Mircophone make algorithmic "sweetening" of MIR Pro's reverb superfluous.

... which leads us directly to the answer of your second question:

Re. 2) You're absolutely right that some understanding of the basic techniques used for orchestral recordings makes the usage of MIR Pro easier. But trying to answer a topic like that thoroughly is beyond the scope of a forum message. Maybe a fellow forum member has links to some meaningful resources to share ...?

An old-school way to grasp the basics of recording is this old but tried-and-tested book: 

-> http://www.stereosoundbook.com/index.html

... this is nothing for a 15-minutes break, though. ;-D

Kind regards,

/Dietz

*) BTW: You _do_ know that MIR Pro comes with "MIRacle", a dedicated algorithmic reverb add-on with exactly this task in mind ...? ;-)

When working with MIR Pro's plug-in version (opposed to the VE Pro-based "main version") the output format of the first instance defines the format for all instances added at a later point. This might be problematic with some hosts when re-opening a project containing MIR Pro. In these cases the option to "Force (the number of) Output Channels" will guarantee the proper Output Format.

... and I have no idea what ghosts Plogue Bidule sees inside of MIR Pro. :-D ... does it work like expected? Then I would simply ignore the ominous third output of the plug-in's stereo version, as well as the exotic I/O numbers. I will have to ask MIR's software engineers to be absolutely sure, but AFAIR MIR comes with mono- and stereo-inputs only.

Regarding your feature request: Seperate outputs for dry and wet signals in the plug-in version is hard to achieve consistently in 3rd-party hosts; still it's high up on a wish list for future versions of MIR Pro, that's for sure! ;-)

Kind regards,

I've never seen this before, sorry to say so. But as a matter of fact Studio One is one of the few DAWs I don't run into regularly, so it might indeed be a host-specfic issue.

If you find the time please send a message to VSL's support, with a reference to this thread. I assume that there's the possibility to test the issue in-house with a recent version of Studio One. Please include as many technical details as possible (repro steps, OS, software versions, CPU, RAM size ... you know the drill ;-) ...)

TIA & kind regards,

You're welcome! Thanks for your friendly words. 

All the best,

:-)

To avoid any confusion, I would remove all MIR Pro instances from Synchro Instrument channels. I assume that you used mono-to-stereo instances of MIR Pro for one reason or the other. This will mono-ize the input signal even when the plug-in itself is bypassed. BTW: A bypassed instance will remain visible on a MIR Venue's stage, too.

My approach would be to use MIR Pro with the additional instruments only, while using Synchron Instruments as they appear in the samples. I would combine them in a bus (a.k.a. "sub-mix") to have control over the complete groups of instruments.

... MIR Pro will have to reside on the individual channels of the non-Synchron Instruments, not the sub-mix, of course.

HTH,

Synchron Instruments and Vienna Instruments rely on different approaches to sampling. While SI were recorded in place and come with (what the lingo calls) "baked-in" reverb and positioning/panning, VI were recorded centered and without noticeable reverb.

The latter approach lends itself perfectly to very flexible (and malleable) setups with tools like MIR Pro, but it needs some manual adjustments. The former approach is easier to start with, but it's very hard to change the sonic fingerprint of the recording.

To use SI in MIR Pro I would suggest to use the close-mics only. This will allow MIR Pro to apply its magic to a certain extent.

HTH,

Oh, I see! :-D ... you're welcome!

... and you're right, there's no snake-oil driven, built-in mojo in MIR's recording chain - just top-range 21st century recording equipment, carfully selected DSP algorithms (both commercial as well as in-house developments) in the hands (and ears) of VSL's Tonmeisters. ;-)

Kind regards,

Hi Betuel,

Like fellow forum member Bbelius I don't really understand your question. Of course the impulse responses we captured for MIR Pro are meant to have all the colour from the original venue - but we tried to get rid of any other unwanted influences, like all non-linearties of the recording signal chain and so on.

... does this answer your question ...? 

Kind regards,