No, it's not directly accessible to either MIDI control or deep automation. (I'd guess that's because it's not a suitable parameter for realtime-privileged control, but I don't know).

However, if there's a particular case in which you strongly prefer "Parallel" Mode to be set one particular way under certain circumstances but another way under other circumstances, then you could set up a new slot and link it to a new Dimension column in which you've prepared your alternative "Parallel" mode. Then you can select either branch through the tree at any moment in realtime, using any of the the usual ways. (This method of course presupposes that the tree you'd need to modify in this way has room to accommodate a new column.)

If we could have a choir with not only a phrase builder (using generic Latinate-sounding syllables) but also solo voices, such that this sort of work would be possible, that would be really and truly fantastic! No pressure, VSL Lolol. (Well hey, it's just a wish.)

[I completely agree with Paul Hindemith's description of Max Reger as "the last of the giants". And in my book Reger was also the last of the true avant-garde - attempted innovations have been all downhill, ET-centric claptrap since then.]

"Requiem" Max Reger (1914)

Note that as Paul has mentioned several times, VSL's strict policy is never to divulge plans for or thinking about future VSL libraries. Thus it's not only pointless to interpret VSL's silence on this topic as meaning "ain't never gonna happen", but also somewhat improper to then assume open season for reviewing non-VSL choral libraries here. As guests, let's please accord all due respect to our host.

Oh indeed, if ever VSL fancy doing something like (or I should say better than), say, the Mars and Venus phrase builder, I'd definitely be up for it.

Has Dorico really introduced a paradigm shift for composers? Is it truly revolutionary? I don't believe so. Arguably it has made great strides in terms of being more convenient and flexible than the others - I like Guy Michelmore's comment that Dorico has done to Sibelius what Sibelius did to Finale, Lol.

But what about the elephant still sitting in the room? Why doesn't Dorico offer orchestral intonation? That would indeed be revolutionary. It seems to me the onus lies fairly and squarely with Dorico for getting that put in place, not with VSL.

And once Dorico has taken the real revolutionary leap and incorporated OI, then the niche interest in spectralism - ugh! - would also be catered for, being of course simply a matter of notating Syntonic comma shifts explicitly (except where a composer is intent on torturing the musicians with absurdly awkward partials, though thankfully those few sadists are unlikely ever to become popular with orchestras or conductors, Lolol.)

Well I must examine the Dorico user manual more closely to see if I can set up cycle of 53 temperament - aka Mercator's Temperament (the mathematician, not the map-maker), the only temperament that can emulate PI while also doing a fair job of accommodating JI.

Have you actually listened to quarter, sixth and other similar idealised divisions of a tone? I've not found any that are anything more than idealistic mathematical conveniences - attractive to some music theorists but useless in actual music that people want to listen to. For example I still see amateur theorists today talking about Arabic scales using "quarter tones"; though in fact they do no such thing. It's just a regurgitation of some old, dogmatic and fallacious western music theory that didn't bother about empirical validation.

I'd urge anyone entering this field now to guard very carefully against being seduced by apparent mathematical conveniences.

And yes, Paolo, by now you should know I've long been painfully aware that all DAWs fight shy of fully bridging the great divide that still separates the electronic keyboard world from the real world of acoustic instruments as have been used in orchestras and other ensembles around the world for many centuries. All that history is not about to go away, nor be reshaped to become convenient and amenable to simplistic electronic mechanisms and trite arithmetic. That's been my position for a very long time.

[Update] I can't help but hear Grisey's work through the prism of decades of experience in my own experimental music dating back to the '70s. What I hear there is, sad to say, too unsophisticated for me to get even the least bit excited about. Sorry but that's just how it is.

And in my book, today's talk of so-called "spectralism" and "microtones" is skirting rather too close to snake oil. Alas there appears to be a marked tendency these days to try the "Elizabeth Holmes approach" to innovation - i.e. history, truth and cultural realities be damned; just get people to believe in the unicorn.

The only "microtones" I use are the Comma of Pythogoras the Comma of Didymus (aka Syntonic Comma). I've found that departure from these two leads to nonsensical Carrolian rabbit holes. I get by very well with 108 pitch classes in total (120 including ET).

On a positive note, many years ago I identified what I believe is a unique chromatic scale that includes these partials:

   15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20. (the others are straight JI, if I recall right.)

The 17th and 19th partials are present in ET (where they're not exact but within 2c of the pure numbers); 17 giving the well known "Blue note" (as used so poignantly by J.S. Bach in his sublime BWV 721, and more recently in countless Blues songs), and 19 giving that exquisitely beautiful yet always somehow elusive minor third of ET.

Hope you give it a go, Paolo, I'd be interested to hear what you think.

One thing that really disappointed me on first exploring my new Dorico Pro was finding that the only intonation alternative to ET on offer is 24 EDO - one the most unmusical intonation schemas I've ever encountered. I must say, if that's the Dorico development team's idea of a useful option, it hardly bodes well for Dorico users such as your good self who wish to spread their wings intonation-wise.

Also, perhaps we both could start lobbying Steinberg/Dorico to make the pitch class of every written staff note available as some sort of straightforward MIDI code, and also to introduce the option of inserting a MIDI transformer (lifted from Cubase but with a lookup table feature adapted from Logic) that could turn this pitch class code into a Pitchbend message. (I'm grossly oversimplifying the technical necessities.) Then BINGO! At least there'd be the possibility of basic orchestral intonation directly from notes written in Dorico. Special intonation schemas would then also also be possible simply by selecting special transformer lookup tables in Dorico.

However, even if Dorico added these things, it still wouldn't help composers hear what they're playing live in their chosen intonationation schema. But at least it would be a big step in the right direction, and no doubt composers would then soon express their wish to have live playing included. Then the real challenge begins: how to tell the DAW which of the 35 staff notation pitch classes are being played live, without having to use exotic MIDI keyboards that might look something like, say, Nicola Vicentino's design, shown here:

Vicentino's special keyboard

It's right after the Synchron Pianos section, though it's not listed in the Support/Instrument Manuals contents sidebar.

Many thanks for that good news, Ravez; your encouragement is much appreciated!

It depends on what kind of stuff you intend to do, but for today's libraries I think you'd find 8 GB RAM extremely tight if not horribly restrictive. Even the max RAM option of 16 GB for that particular machine would probably be very tight indeed. Very sorry to say, I'd not recommend that iMac for symphonic work with Synchron libraries.

I get by, carefully, with 64 GB in my 2017 iMac.

I encountered the same kind of trouble in my first attempts to edit a Synchron library. Plowman says it for me too: it can be "befuddling".

Then when I used Sublime Text to view the whole Data Admin Schema (DAS) used for Synchron Player's Dimension Trees, I realised I'd have to work out the precise rules of this particular DAS - and most especially the rules governing edited Group Names (which appear in the DAS in the items labelled "EditId"). I didn't get any further than that realisation, because data admin ain't my part of ship, and many other pressing tasks were waiting. So the idea of editing my own Synchron presets has remained on a back burner.

It would be improper, I believe, to ask VSL to explain to us the full functionality of their Synchron Player DAS - because after all, it's the fruit of their world-class proprietary work. I also think they've been very generous in offering a wee bit of under-the-hood access to the DAS for those who know what they're doing.

I think there's an important clue in VSL's contextual help text for the Group Edit feature: "you can create additional groups" (my emphasis). Likewise the Synchron Player manual says "You can also add custom groups". These two statements seem at odds with the other stetements relating to the functionality of group edit, but I have to read it as meaning "Don't try to edit existing groups unless you really know what you're doing." And since I don't, I won't.

For us mere mortals, Plowman's approach seems to be the best - start from scratch.

What if there was demand for a full-blown jazz orchestra? Would it be possible to make such a sample library using traditional sampling techniques? I doubt it.

Even so, just attempting to make such a thing would probably result in some amazingly advanced technical spin-offs for classical orchestral instrument libraries, and thereby make the attempt worthwhile.

For anyone interested in the possibility of a sampled jazz orchestra, try listening to this truly excellent LARGE jazz orchestra while considering what might have to be done to boost sampling technology to the point where many of these exquisite performances could be emulated convincingly:-

Beneath the Underdog: Charles Mingus Revisited (BBC Prom 53, 2017) (Full 2 Hour Concert)

Prom 53 Finale & Encore, ft. Leo Pellegrino (20 min)

Happy 2022!

Oh it would be fabulous to hear the magic of big bands rekindled! The addition of saxophones and special muted brass, together with some special big band licks from various instruments, would probably get the VSL collection there. Big bands were very expensive luxuries back in the day - VSL to the rescue?

ESA's Arianne 5 heavy lift rocket has delivered the Webb telescope perfectly to the start point of its solo mission. Six months from now we may be looking at the oldest and farthest lights in the universe, and scientists will begin to fathom the mysterious beginnings of everything.

For music composition also, surely Webb will become a very special source of much inspiration.

Best wishes and bon voyage to the Webb mission.

Happy Christmas.

Thanks Nazim for sharing that very interesting and useful quote from EvoX650.

It's reminded me of the recent spate of worrying posts here complaining about mysterious audio stuttering, glitching, popping, etc, with adequate RAM and SSD, and while the average CPU load appeared to be steady and relaxed - nowhere near core saturation. Those posts had me nervously listening very closely to my audio and watching my CPU load meters like a hawk - but as yet I've not encountered anything like that sort of problem, even at pretty heavy CPU loads. My (now quite pedestrian) 2017 iMac has AMD Radeon Pro 580 8GB graphics, and in light of what's been said about Nvidia card designs (including drivers) going through a rough patch (to put it mildly) vis-à-vis impact on the value and stability of DPC latency, I'm now seriously thinking this might indeed be the crucial difference.

I've known AMD since the '70s and have always had high regard for the way they've taken good care of their high-end pro (including military) markets. In my book, Nvidia are still the new kids on the block; brilliant and ambitious though they are, I'm skeptical about their commitment to high-end quality.

Also, I've lately been entertaining the idea of building a PC VEPro slave with masses of RAM (mainly because the new Apple Mini is still so tight-fisted with maximum RAM). So it's very reassuring to note that a PC slave with only Intel integrated graphics would be unlikely to pose any serious limitations or problems in that kind of usage.

Many moons ago I introduced in this forum the first step-by-step method for creating custom multiport VEP AU3 templates. Since then I've developed different methods for doing this, and have gained much insight, knowledge and experience in using my AU3 templates. And even with Apple's new Port I/O assignments feature in Logic 10.7 (assuming it will eventually work properly), there will still be a need to get crafty in Logic if one is to exploit this new potential of AU3 to best advantage such that advanced, sophisticated and versatile VEP templates can be built and used for composing.

But alas, this new territory for Logic has yet to be thoroughly prepared by Apple. Indeed I've begun to seriously doubt that Apple wants Logic to go in such a direction. It's significant that in the App Store, Apple's description of Logic starts as follows: "Logic Pro is ... for professional songwriting, beat making, editing and mixing ...".

There's no hint of Apple having any interest in serving the needs of professional composers and other makers of serious orchestral music. Too often, sophisticated users have to coax whatever advanced facilities they can get out of Logic by using considerable technical ingenuity. Makers of popular music appear to be the only market Logic is positively aimed at and catered for by Apple nowadays.

And what else might we divine about Apple's development strategy for Logic, given the one time payment forever policy? Isn't it that Apple are targeting Logic ever more precisely at youngsters, perhaps many if not most of them being potential 'graduates' of GarageBand on iOS devices? Aren't they now pretty much Apple's only significant potential source of revenue from Logic? So it's not exactly surprising that Logic development has been moving pretty obviously in that direction.

It's hard to conclude that any of this bodes well for the notion that Logic is - or can or could be - a competetive, serious, sophisticated and advanced tool for professional composers. It appears Apple have ceded that territory to Steinberg. And owing to this disappointing lack of healthy and fruitful competition, I doubt that the music of our 'Middle Earth' will prosper as well as we would wish; though I don't imagine there's a Sauron scheming to destroy all good music, Lolol.

This thread has served the purpose I intended for it, although it has fallen foul of yet more nugatory and deceitful noise of the same old sort from the village Gollum, Lol. (The pretence defies all sense - how can someone live like that?). Therefore I'm declaring my thread here closed.

Members are kindly asked to start their own new threads if further discussion is sought. 

[Moved by the writer due to nugatory-noise nuisance.]

Oops! My comment about the Mid mics being summed almost to mono was incorrect; I was mistakenly thinking of the Close mics - I've just been working with SS Elite and there I have to regard Mid mics as the nearest approximation to Close for the ensemble. In Synchron libraries Close mics are summed almost almost to mono; ensemble Mid mics of course can have considerable L-R contrast. Sorry about that.

So to revisit your question, Paolo, yes of course you could swap Mids too if it's an ensemble and if you can hear distinct azimuth placement (other than by pan and/or balance settings in the  Synchron Player's mixer) as well as L-R stereo contrast in the Mid pair. (Before I begin my spatialisation of a Synchron library I always change all pan and balance settings in the Synchron Player mixer back to default.)

"Straight" and "reversed"? Oh dear, what a situation. Lolol.

I've become a USB license-dongle convert!

I use my iMac as a dual-boot system and have various machine-based licensing systems. It appears these licensing systems and a lot of my other 3rd party software insist on treating my two boot drives as two different "computers". This has led to a lot of inconveniences - and serious issues in the case of Waves and CodeMeter licensing,

And yet in the midst of all these asinine problems involved in dual-booting, I've been able to rely upon two things without the slightest fuss or bother:- VSL licensing, and the VSL location databases for VI and Synchron sample libraries (spread across the 2 boot drives plus another drive).

So I'll be going for the iLok dongle when the time comes. Even if the iLok Cloud wasn't so tyrannical I'd still prefer the dongle. (I have plenty of powered USB ports thanks to my big Sabrent hub.) All I ask is that the iLok system provides me with the same totally hassle-free and dependable service as my eLicense system.

Never ever thought I'd be a dongle fan!

You seem to have sorted it then. Never mind that intellectual nagging in the background - it'll soon clear off once you've put your foot down and said this is how it's going to be!

[Edit] Try it and see, Paolo. Not only are the Close mics almost summed to mono, but also their residual room ambience is so 'polite' and non-assertive that it doesn't seem to interfere at all with L-R-swapped Mains, nor with the HRTF panning and artificial reverb I sometimes add to Mid. But let your ears tell you what's what, when deciding which mics you need to L-R-swap.

Jay, no worries about your ID mixup.

I'm stuck with Logic because of the very large subsystem I've designed, developed and been using for many years  in Logic's Environment to give me Orchestral Intonation (OI). I designed version 1 of this subsystem 20 years ago in EMagic's Logic Audio Platinum 3.5, and ran it via IAC with Reason as my sound module containing orchestral instrument samples I bought on CDs. Today I have VEPro doing the job Reason did back then.

If I'm to share my OI subsystem with other Logic users, but Apple's development of Logic thwarts that plan, it may be that my only option then would be to become an indie Apple Developer and write an app to do OI - but that's unlikely to happen. Thus if Logic devlopment continues to move away from conditions that suit my OI subsystem, I'll just continue to use OI for myself in a suitable old version of Logic for as long as possible. No doubt someone else will put OI where it belongs - in the hands of composers.

You know the roller-coaster experience of working with Apple products, so I'll say no more.

All the best Jay.

Au contraire, Ashermusic. As VSL informed us, VEPro7 (AU3 Beta) was the world's first plugin in which Apple's new AU3 support for multiple MIDI-Out ports was implemented; even though it's still Beta and now in a badly broken state, unlike in LPX 10.4.8.

If you have reliable information about the status of AU3 in Apple, please do share it with us, citing your source(s).

My class action remark was just a quip - as signified by a customary quip-signifier:- "Lolol".

I've no idea why you mentioned DP. It's nothing to do with me and I've nothing to do with it; nor have I ever had even the slightest intention of becoming involved with it.

Hello Paul, mega thanks!

Just installed it. First impressions (and please forgive any excesses here; I've fallen in love with this instrument):-

This completely exquisite harp sounds so perfectly at home in Synchron Stage A; a match made in Heaven. I simply cannot imagine a better sound of a recorded harp. This is surely destined to be the world's No.1 pedal harp sample library.

Each and every Regular note is a hymn in itself, and Tina's consummate artistry beautifully expresses and subtly adorns all the Harmonic and Bisbigliando notes at every level of intensity. Expressive depth in spades!

A really superb production; my thanks and congratulations to each and every person involved in its making.

[P.S. Can't wait to get it into my Situater Orchestral Intonation subsystem and start playing some heavenly Pythagorean melodic lines. (Move over, Elysium, the Queen has arrived.)]

BTW Paolo, though not a player of any acoustic instruments these days, I do have some idea of the excellent acoustic damping properties of bookshelves! My bookshelves are behind me and seem to prevent any echo when I talk on Skype using a large dual-diaphragm omni mic.

I know we're way off topic - my apologies to cmillar - but I'm posting this because I've just remembered a great series of videos on YouTube that really highlight the superb acoustic damping of bookshelves, for others who may be interested. The series is called Tiny Desk Concerts and features many well known musical acts performing in a book store! The series is posted on YouTube by NPR Music.

I've linked one performance here by Yo-Yo Ma, and there are plenty of other videos in this series featuring some wonderful acoustic instrument players and superb singers, including some very famous artistes. And all with that very focused sound you mention. (A little too 'naked' and 'forensic' for my taste; I prefer a 'produced' sound. But then again, I'm not an instrumentalist.)

Yo-Yo Ma: Tiny Desk Concert

It seems you have a great home studio, Paolo. Lucky man!