Hello VSL Community,

I wrote a blog post about reverbs and I wanted to share it with you. 

Francesco Pirrone - Types of Reverb

I am aware that many of you either use MIR or the BBO/Synchron series nowadays, which is great, yet I love the good old Vienna Suite, not just the Converb, I use the whole bundle a lot for non-orchestral productions too.

Also I remember that when I first came across people using two reverbs I was confused as to how to set them up......I was like: "do I have to mix with one reverb and then bounce everything and add the algo at the mastering stage? Or do I put it on the stereo out directly? Or just set another send? How? Why?......"

I came up with my own solution in the long run and overall I use the second reverb sparingly, but I would love to hear what you do especially when adding reverb to wet samples or mixes that were done in MIR.

All the best

Francesco

Hello William,

your composition is beautiful as usual.

I like the mix, which I find very creative, also I haven't heard anything with a similar dynamic range in a long time.....which makes me wonder what I'm doing with my life ahahahahah.....

It's excellent., seriously.

yes the collaboration side of music for media can be a downside, in my little experience with games and ads I was very lucky but one can always bump into the client who doesn't really know how long it takes to make things or sometimes it's just communication issues (see the book "No Minor Chords")......

the best clients hire you because they like you and they trust you, and then give you freedom: it doesn't happen every day.

Also on the general matter of film/game music, I think the taiko/ostinato is slowly being replaced buy a new more minimal and "intimate" trend.....where "intimate" means 3 piano notes drowned in reverb..... I sense that we're gonna hear more and more of that....but it's okay and I don't blame HZ or anybody else, there's no blame in my opinion: in that context, the film is the medium and music is an element of it, the director has a view and the audience has a preference......

But anyway I agree that both William's and Guy's music would be very interesting and enjoyable to hear in the context of other media as well.

All the best

Francesco

Hi Dave,

it's a great piece, thanks for sharing it! 

May I ask which piano library is it?

All the best

Francesco

Thank you William, I am really glad you like it. 

I credit my client for that: they needed something soothing for their sci-fi VR project, which forced me to make something much quieter than I normally would and, surprisingly, I was happy with it.

Best regards

Francesco

Hello Dave,

it's been awhile! 

Thank you for your kind words and I noticed that the forum is much quieter than 5 years ago (when I was much more active as well)..... I guess the shift towards social media and mobile platforms might be playing a role as well.....this forum is beautiful but it's best enjoyed on a laptop/desktop and nowadays over 85% of media consumption happens on mobile..... I am just guessing, but I agree that it's a shame because this community is a great source of inspiration, advice, great music and all. I blame myself as well for being less active on the forum.

Thank you muchly for your comment. 

All the best

Francesco

Hello VSL Community,

I just wanted to share with you the Cubase playthrough for one of my latest compositions:

Multiverse OST - Rocky Planets

It's all VSL apart from the piano (which plays a few notes anyway).

I hope you like it. 

Best regards

Francesco

Hello everyone,

I hope it's okay to post this here: if not please let me know and I'll take it down straight away.

I made an article about how to mix sample based orchestral works, there are many professionals on this forum, but also new people joining all the time and maybe they struggle getting their mock-ups sound good, just as I was struggling 5 - 6 years ago.

The article: Orchestral Mixing

It mainly (but not only) revolves around mixing dry samples with traditional mixing tools that are available to anyone.

It also mentions the VSL PowerPan because it's a very helpful plug-in and I use it all the time for other genres as well.

I explain what I do with wet samples as well, but later on when I can finally put my fingers on the awesome BBO I will write a more specific article about that.

I hope you like it, I hope someone finds it useful.

Thanks

Francesco

Thank you kindly for your nice feedback, sir. 

This is the good old Special Edition (mostly 1 and 2 but also some 1 plus and 2 plus), which is probably known as VI series these days.

The reverb is the Convolution Reverb in Vienna Suite (again, there might be more than one Vienna Suite now....I bought it before the advent of Vienna Suite Pro/non-Pro etc....) XD

Just one Converb, with the different sends, and panning via Vienna Ensemble.

First time I hear this.......very interesting..... 

not that I would mind, I am in fact a brand evangelist and I am happy to help promoting VSL, I mention VSL on my website too..... 

.....but as far as I am aware the sort of license I got is free from such obligation......hopefully one of the admins can clarify that.... 

Thank you very much Paolo for your kind words. 

Francesco

Hello VSL Community,

I hope you are well and safe.

Please let me share with you one of my recent works: a soundtrack that I made last year for Multiverse, a social VR app that runs on Oculus Rift/Quest. The app came out in January and I've just released the music on its own.

Multiverse "The Planetarium" Original Soundtrack

It's all SE, apart from the piano, there are also cymbals from a 3rd party library here and there, in combination with the VSL ones.

I would be pleased to hear your feedback, thank you.

Best regards

Francesco

Thanks Ben!

That's very helpful.

So you never had this problem where the Cubase cursor (progress bar, however it's called the vertical line moving across the measures) doesn't get captured in the OBS video?

If it's only me having this problem then it must be a glitch, perhaps it's to do with my graphic card....IDK...

All the best

Francesco

Dear all,

for the first time in years I tried capturing my VSL template in action and I miserably failed.....

I tried OBS, Snagit, the X Box bar...

I get glitches with all of them and mainly the progress bar not showing in the video or leaving a "tail"????

I presume Mac OS users will just use quicktime, not an option for me.

On the tube I only found lots of people explaining how to route audio outside Cubase but non of them shows how to actually capture a decent quality playthrough.

Any suggestions?

Many thanks

Francesco

Hi Paul,

thank you kindly for your reply.

All the best

Francesco

So in other words, should I upgrade from the SE Harp , I would have each semitone sampled and of course all the nice articulations but the dynamic layers are the same.

What about round robin?

Sorry for being such a nuisance 

Thank you, Ben.

All the best 

Francesco

Hello Ben,

thanks for your reply.

So does the full library one have 3 layers only as well?

Thanks again

Francesco

Hello wonderful VSL Community,

I missed this forum.

Could you please tell me how many dynamic layers our harps feature in the full library VS the Special Edition?

I think it's only 3 layers in the SE but I'm not sure.

Many thanks

Francesco

Thank you for checking that out!  No worries at all. I hope you will enjoy that bass library, it is really cheap as well. I know it's not fair to talk other companies in here but Vienna doesn't do rock bass guitars at the moment then hopefully I can get away with it for once. XD

All the best

Francesco

Hello Crusoe,

thanks for your comment! I am glad to hear that the differnt themes work. 

I don't mind you asking at all, it's a pleasure, nevertheless I hope that you won't be disappointed about the answers:

- bass guitar, that's NI Scarbee Rickenbacker, highly playable VST instrument

- drums are definitely too perfect, I come from years and years of power-metal, hence drums are never "too timed" or "too tight" for me,  they do sound weird, that's mainly because I don't have a dedicated VST-i for drums at the moment, they are mainly from NI Damage, which is a cinematic percussion VST-i with some studio drumkit samples included as well.......it doesn't feature any separate Room and Overhead channel and it hasn't got any built in mixers, I have to find ways around this issue but I like the samples. I only dislike its featured Ride Cymbal and Kick, therefore I get those from one of my Steinberg Acoustic Agent SE kits......maybe the strange Kick sound comes from that? 

- all I used for the Beggar and the Accountant is a mix bus compressor, there's no compression on the drum bus and little on individual drums, I have used two limiters in the mastering chain, each one doing a few dbs of gain reduction, but no multiband at all.....

Thanks again, regards

Francesco

Hello Jos,

thank you very much for your positive comment, I am glad you enjoyed it! 

Francesco

Hello VSL Community,

I have been to a game jam last weekend and did the music for a short videogame, all the orchestral stuff is obviously VSL and although the game is very small, music plays a huge part in it as there's 5 carachters with different endings hence different themes.

You can play the game here if you wish or simply listen to the soundtrack here.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Regards

Francesco

Hi Littleweirdo,

I really like your piece.

Just curious: have you tried it with different IRs?

Cheers

Francesco

That's cool 

edit: well if you don't get paid it's not cool but I mean, take your time

It was about me and the track I am working on at the moment.  A track that made me question everything......aahhahh

Seriously, what you said about the Violas and your template sounds very interesting. It's probably overlooked as an instruments but as far as I can say the most effective examples of orchestration I've ever heard make good use of the Violas.

Have you please got any links of your track handy?

Are you suggesting that other users are becoming morbid?  

Ok, bad joke, sorry. 

Omg that's such a beautiful image you've depicted.

That's great, thanks for sharing your experience. I am just looking for odd/alternative ways to pan my orchestra when it comes to blending it with other elements. I might even consider having the orchestra as a whole mono-element to be moved freely across the stereo. I'll play with it and see what happens. 

Thanks!

Francesco