Well done Dagmarpiano. There's money in them thar' hills! I did a similar project (mainly using VSL) for Universal Music and also did a few tracks in the Elfman style. (There's actually one on the userdemos called 'Buccaneer' although that's more 'Pirates of the Caribbean' - ironically ended up as a trailer for that movie 'Robots'!) The only problem with these bigger libraries is they have so much stuff and can take ages to publish the CDs but I earn a living from them all the same. This brings me neatly to my next point:
A co-writer friend and I have started a new music library which we are heavily promoting this month and is getting a lot of interest from the industry. I think it's because we pay a lot of attention to simple, 'musician sensitive' presentation. I would really welcome contributions from VSL users such as yourself. Check out www.productionmusiconline.com It's early days for us but we are definitely going to champion good virtual orchestrators! So please bear us in mind...we also offer very musician friendly non-exclusive deals which mean you can also sell your music on iTunes! :-)

Please..anyone who's interested email me

best

Patrick Wilson

Yes, I totally agree. All I can say further on this is that I sure hope Apple eventually improve this. The more people give them feedback about this the more likely. I would encourage all people who share this wish to take the time to send Apple feedback on their Logic page.

I also have been essentially 'forced' to buy the remaining 5 Vienna Instruments a little sooner than I wished. I too originally bought the full Pro Edition and have been attempting to buy the VI equivalent over the last year. One thing that has made it hard for me is that VSL keep bringing out new stuff (like the Organ and Sopranos) so I've felt I needed to prioritise buying those new sounds. On the one hand I'm kind of glad to have been pressured into getting on with the purchase (since I am essentially prone not to spending until I have to) but on the other I am worried about the trend for the company to not do as they originally said. I share Pingu's reservations about committing to platforms that are quickly technically obsolete and then having to pay out for upgrades or entirely new products. I would point out that since I bought a new Intel Mac and Logic 8 last December, the Performance Tool in Pro Edition no longer works (in EX24) rendering the move to Vienna Instruments even more essential. I would have hoped that VSL would have addressed that but they've apparently not. It's all very fine for them to say that Apple moved the goal posts but I still think VSL should have tried to fix that for Pro Edition EXS users. I would like to see more support for legacy products please.

I just bought and installed quite a number of Vienna Instruments. I also noticed that the installation prompts you to insert the same disk you just loaded. Clearly an error in the manufacture but I was confused at first. I am presuming that a lot of boxes were sent out to distributors with this flaw. Mine were quite old since the software included is old - I bought from Time and space in the UK. I wonder if VSL have fixed this yet?

Hi Peter,

I had an initially promising exchange with your contact at Apple who said he'd have my 'wacky tempo' problem looked into by their technicians. To this end he requested I send him the song file which I did. Unfortunately I have not heard a peep since which is rather disappointing. Whether they simply have not got around to it or have simply drawn a blank is anyone's guess. I do think it's rather impolite not to have replied at all especially since last month I followed up with an email asking if there'd been any progress. Maybe you could remind him if you're in touch. I'd be grateful.
I have so far only a suspicion that the problem was related to tempo markings in the score page which I've deleted. The problem may have been something else of course because I deleted a lot of other info that was not essential and the problem seems to have gone away so far. I had a pretty good score for that piece within Logic but even Logic could not cope with the demands of that piece so I used Sibelius in the end - which rocks as far as I'm concerned.

We clearly share the exact same misgivings about the appearance of the arrange page in LP8. I still maintain it should be a switchable option to see the 'note view' which was more useful to me than the 'birch bark' he he. I am soldiering on with Logic 8 on my native set up but have kept my old G5 rig with Protools and Lp7 frozen in time at OSX 10.4.7. I simply have a load of tracks to finish on that platform which will take a year or so to get around to. in the meantime I'm having quite good fun on LP8 with loads of new native plug-ins!

Thanks for remembering me...it's good to hear from you again

best

Patrick

Hi, eventually I will forward the relevant comments here to one of the Logic developers at Apple (who emailed me and actually saw my POV). I also posted on The Logic Pro 8 forum at http://discussions.apple.com/forum but the thread was removed by the moderators for some reason.

If you feel strongly about some missing feature (like the removal of the 'View Region Content' option) it's a good idea to email Logic's Apple developers directly at:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/logicpro.html They apparently do read the feedback.

Both sublime. Thanks.

I'm doing a survey to see if any composers who write orchestral music (and hence probably more complex arrangements than your average user) find the Arrange Page in Logic 8 less easy to work with - now that LP7's 'View Region Content' has been removed for apparently looking too noisy.

Personally I find the new appearance to be lacking contrast and I can't see muted phrases etc. any more (which used to appear as lighter grey little notes).

I'm asking this here because somebody at Apple essentially suggested I ask around how many others feel strongly about this. If enough people express dissatisfaction with the new look they may improve it. My immediate thought was to ask fellow VSL users here.

I make my case here:

http://www.patrickwilsonmusic.com/logic8.html

I am not suggesting that Apple go back to the 'little notes' scenario necessarily. I just think that as it is, it's harder to see what's going on in the most important musical areas. ie. pitching/phrases and gaps. Maybe there's a better way of doing it? Any suggestions?

I have run the Synchrosoft License Control successfully and downloaded everything, and done as you suggested ( ie. put the package.info in the download folder) and then I've tried running the Library Installer which says the following when I navigate to package.info as instructed...

The following licenses are needed to install this package: VI Online_09


So now what can I do?

The only such preference I can find in Safari 3.0.4 is:

Open "safe" files after downloading

...and that has always been ticked. Is this what you mean because it doesn't seem to work here?

Same problem here.
What on earth is BOM-Archive-Helper? That is not on option on this Mac ( Intel Mac Pro 8-core 10.4.11)

Patrick

Yes, I second that. I sorely miss the discount manager...I'm busting to buy some products but the whole thing's become very unclear. It's frustrating not being able to plan quickly. Even the dealers I ring here in the UK don't seem to know how to give me an accurate price and then when I call VSL (call me old-fashioned but so much can be sorted on the phone) I get told that I have to email ...and wait for a reply.
I'm an immediate kind of guy..I want to know how much what I want costs straight away and get it straight away!

Here's what I do to convert free-time playing to actual bars/beats in Logic.

Play the piece in as you like-maybe on piano.

Make sure it's all in one contiguous part (glue together separate parts if necessary)

Open Matrix Edit, select all notes and drag first to bar position you like (1.1.1 maybe)

Keep part selected, go to 'Region' drop down menu >Lock [part] to SMPTE position

Now you can open the Tempo editor, insert tempo changes to line up the notes to the beats and bars. To do this I keep the Matrix Editor open to see the effect of my Tempo changes on the note positions).

Hi Evan,

I have a Dual 2.5 GHz G5 with 8 GB RAM and have been using EXS Pro Edition (w. Sample Merge on all instruments) up until now.

I have just got around to testing the Vienna Instruments (which I bought ages ago) but am only now daring to use having been busy and put a lot of work into my EXS/Pro Edition template. Personally I am keeping Pro Edition/EXS instruments happening as I can a) access the samples easier b) I don't have the entire VI library c) I am more comfortable w. a period of comparison and integration of the 2 systems.

Regarding load intances. I have to be a bit vague but here goes: My orchestral template usually uses about 30-35 instruments comprising multiple instrument EXS' and/or other Audio Units.

I opened 'Activity Monitor' and loaded as many Vienna Instruments , each with a preset/patch or two - here's where it's vague - I didn't note the instrument size but I was watching my RAM allocation get smaller on the Mac utility 'Activity Monitor' as I added more VI's. Then I dashed out and bought an extra RAM stick to bring my G5 from 7.5 ish gigs up to the max 8 gig. That helped. I ended up with about 32 average-sized Vienna Instruments's loaded (but nothing else) before it maxed out. The extra 500 megs RAM seemed to make a bigger difference than I'd expected. I've never really completely understood how the 'swap file' thing effects performance but there's obviously quite a bit of that going on somewhere under the hood too.

So far it looks like I'll get the same kind of instances with VI interface as with EXS. If not I'll use the EXS w. Sample Merge. I'm feeling confident to give the VI's a go, but not on all instruments. My approach has been not to buy the entire VI library but to make the change a little more gingerly, replacing key stuff first like the strings and new stuff you can't get on EXS. BTW I have bought the Special Edition which is a good way to test the VI's. Things like the harp I'm not sure I'll ever bother changing. 24 bit is obviously a key reason to upgrade. I'm working on my first piece with the Vienna stuff now so I'll report back here if I notice anything important. I have yet to really test this to the max - my current composition will certainly provide a good opportunity to test performance in a real work sitution. It's the biggest arrangement I've ever attempted.

Patrick

A quick question. In the midi files I notice there is the usual keyswitch info @ C0 and also another note slightly before @ C-1 What's this for? (I'm learning)
Another thing I didn't realise you could use the same patch at the same time on 2 separate VI's (ie. 2 bassoons, 2 flutes etc.) I guess that's ok then.

How about whales? They have a huge song catalogue apparently!

It's great to hear Jay's v. well-executed rendition of this beautiful piece. When I first got Pro Edition I had a go at it myself so I was particularly interested in this. Right now I am considering buying the Cube and bought the Special Edition as a taster. I also downloaded Jay's tutorial to see if my Mac could handle custom layered presets. Jay has about 30 here which I could not load without 'optimising' each instrument for more memory. Which brings me to ask how does Jay or others for that matter manage it? I got as far as loading 10 of his instruments and my Mac was looking maxed out. 'Activity Monitor' reported 'VSL-Server' using 1.81 GB, Logic 378 mb, and (for some reason) only 110 MB's free remaining memory. I did get around this by optimising in te end. Also I'd like to have got hold of a tempo map. Anyway thanks a lot Jay, that's helped me a lot. How about some rousing Beethoven next!? (That's what's I'm planning for my next experiment)


Logic Pro
VSL Special Edition
G5 dual 2.5
6.5 gigs RAM
10.4.7
ESB TDM within Logic

Thanks Paul,

1)The distortion is the most well-known bug and happens anyway from time to time. The fix is to instanciate an empty EXS and it resets it somehow.

2) Haven't had the clicks and pops yet.

3) I have been trying to get to know the interface better this afternoon. Something I did in the VI window definately crashed it once but I'm not sure what. I had to restart Logic. Otherwise I played around with it for a couple of hours without a further crash. Whether this will get worse when I instanciate multiple VI's I've yet to discover. I had only 2 running.

When you say 1.05 crashes the DTDM driver "very often", is that with multiple instances of VI or in any particular circumstances that you can describe?

Now I can see the potential of VI I am tempted to buy the whole damn lot except of course I bought the Complete Pro Orchestra plus many horizon products. I think I may just buy some of the new VI stuff for the time being. Thanks for your advice on the phone too.

Hi Dom, thanks for that. I think if I upgrade PT (or was it Logic?) further I'll lose my HTDM Altiverb in Logic. Apparently the TDM version is 'chip hungry'! Anyway I guess you must also be wondering how future Logic/PT compatability will pan out.

As I say I use one or two VI instruments without problems so far.

My real question is are there certain features of VI instruments (that I haven't discovered yet) that simply don't work in a Logic ESB situation?

I would like to hear from any VSL users who are using Vienna Instruments with Logic Pro and ESB.

I am thinking of investing in more Vienna Instruments but my enthusiasm has been dampened since Paul (at VSL) told me there may be some problems with my present configuration.

My system is:

Mac G5 Dual 2.5
Memory 6.5 GB DDR SDRAM
System Version 10.4.7
Pro Tools HD 3 software version: 6.9.3
Logic 7.1.1 using ESB
Vienna Instruments: - Orchestral Strings 1 and Appassionata Violins
VSL Complete Orch package (EXS24)

I seem to be able to instanciate Vienna Instruments on Logic Instrument channels (which are routed via ESB outputs to TDM mixer within Logic.) This configuration seems to work OK although I have not really got my head around the interface and wonder if there are some specific problems that I might encounter due to the ESB situation when I use certain features or playing styles.

On a side note. I am indeed aware that if I upgrade ProTools, Logic, my Mac etc I will encounter a whole another set of incompatabilities. So that is not my intention. Quite a few pro users I know are sticking with a set up roughly equivalent to mine until Apple make TDM work in Logic properly again.

Thanks to you all for the feedback. I really appreciate it. It all seems encouraging which is good. Interestingly no real negatives.

One other question:

I still use Protools as a front end using DTDM (ESB). Are there any really nasty conflicts with VI on ESB instrument tracks? One problem I had with EW choir was that their much vaunted 'word builder' feature needed multiple midi channels which simply never worked on my set up.

Jack: I think it is a bit of a shame that the samples are encoded as metadata because one way I have found useful and quick to work is this - I want to search a particular cymbal hit (for example) to insert in a recording. I simply go to the import audio page and audition the samples directly. There are a massive number of samples that I would never have found searching through presets. Having auditioned ones I like I then simply import them as audio files into my arrangement. Voila! I would have liked to still have this option but in 24 bit.

JWL and Ploughman :You both make the point that EXS library is by no means reduntant. Im fairly sure I'll be using a combination of VI and EXS which in turn, makes me wonder whether I may be best off initially, spending my hard earned cash on the new samples (Power Trumpets/Appassionata etc) rather than doubling up the ones that I already have. Probably I should replace some of the Pro Edition instruments that are really going to sound noticeably better in 24 bit initially and where the VI performance is really going to notice. Any ones particularly stand out as sounding dramatically better? Maybe the Brass and Strings?
Looking at the 'Discount Calculator' It appears there would be little financial incentive to buy the entire Cube rather than individual VI's. Anyway I have already bought the Orchestral Strings 1 so maybe I have inadvertantly lost that opportunity.

Julian and mpower88: I take your points about the VI window. Maybe I have an old version but whenever I open VI get a white pop-up window saying: "Vienna Instruments AudioUnit-Server Interface...Show Window" which strikes me as a mildly annoying bug.

I guess everything is bound to sound better in 24 bit...

Right..I obviously need to spend some time watching the videos etc. Thanks for the encouragement. I guess that's what I need. I'll keep an eye here for further comments.

I bought the entire VSL Library in the previous format for EXS 24 (Complete Orchestral Package+Horizon) and now am contemplating an upgrade to the Vienna Instruments (which I gather give more articulations and 24 bit quality). This would cost me about £3000 after the discounts I am due. To buy the new instruments I want would cost even more. I also assume I'd need to buy some serious extra Hard Drive space.

A year or two back it seemed that there was a consensus on this forum that the optimum way to achieve a large number of instruments in Logic Pro was to use Redmatica's EXS Manager and the Sample Merge feature. I put a considerable amount of time aside to a) set all this up b) create customised Key-Switching patches etc 3) study the library and learn how to use it. Having done all this I basically got down to some happy composing work and was naturally reluctant to make the switch to the Vienna Instruments and have a whole new time-consuming learning curve and expense. I was however, more recently tempted into buying Vienna Instruments 'Orchestral Strings 1' so as to qualify for free preview samples of the 'Appassionata Strings'.

Am I alone in remaining somewhat mystified as to how this Vienna Instrument works? Maybe I'm old-fashioned but one of the things that inspired me to get to grips with VSL initially was that the package included some very nice documentation in a printed booklet that explained everything nicely. The Vienna Instruments I bought came with no such documentation and for some reason I've never really understood the interface. I watched the video and read some pdf's but it remains something I have yet to be as confident in using as I am my EXS set up. I need a little inspiration here!

My questions are directed to former users of EXS with Sample Merge who now use Vienna Instruments.

Are you happier working with Vienna Instruments over your previous EXS/Samplemerge set up?

What are the clear advantages and/ or drawbacks?

Does the key-switching work as elegantly as it does in Logic's EXS?

Can you instanciate as large an orchestra (ie as many instruments in one session)?

Any feedback appreciated.

I don't know whether this is relevant to your problems Nick but I have been experiencing a lot of crashes with LP 7.1 which were related to memory and DAE.
Here's what i do to keep crashes to a minimum:

1) Load song

2) Make sure Undo Levels are set to 30 (Preferences>Global>Editing)

3) In Undo History - delete memory.

4) Double-Click on the 'Reorganize memory' button (Transport Bar-underneath tempo).

5) Open Audio Window>audio file and Update File Information. (maybe select 'unused audio' and clear first)

6) Save song with new name.


By the way I use 'Kingston' Memory chips (6.5 gigs) and keep quite a lot of disk space free (60 gigs) on my System drive for the swap files etc.

Often Logic crashes when you click the song icon to open a song (this is only songs using the DAE/DTDM). My workaround is to open Logic application and then open songs from the file menu.
Another thing I've noticed is that songs tend to crash when cycling with recorded DAE audio. Spectrasonics plug-ins like Stylus RMX seem also to cause similar problems in cycle mode on DTDM tracks. I get a horrible noise and Logic crashes. Sometimes it manages to automatically save the song at this point (adding 'crashed' to the song name). Other times the whole machine freezes and no 'crashed' song is saved.

My use of key command 'Apple-S" is becoming much more frequent these days! I think 3 or 4 crashes a day was a bit on the optimistic side I'm afraid.

I'm still on ProTools 6.7. I don't know if things are improved with the Tiger compatible (DAE) version. Interested to know actually.

Thanks. I appreciate this feedback as I am wondering whether to go Tiger now that ProTools is compatible. My instinct is to wait for those clear two days you mention and maybe also a few weeks...

What I'd be interested to also know is...what are the advantages in terms of Logic performance if any? There was a lot of talk about Logic being able to access more real memory (beyond the 2.5 gig limit or whatever). Have you noticed any substantial improvement(s) in anything at all?