Hi all,

I'm a long-time user of VEP 5, I like it a lot. I'm using it for the first time as a VST3, since my newer computer setup will run that. But I'm finding that when I open the Preferences menu, the menu doesn't actually get shown. When I click anything on the interface afterwards, it makes the usual 'can't do that' notification sound. This suggests to me that maybe the Preferences window is open, I just can't see it, like it's stuck behind the main window or something. And that until the Preferences window is closed as normal, the rest of VEP isn't accessible.

The only way I can get out of the situation is to end VEP using the Task Manager, but there's no suggestion there that VEP isn't running correctly. Again, this makes me think the window is open but somewhere I can't see it.

I am running VEP as a VST3 in Cubase 10.5, if that makes a difference in this scenario. Any thoughts on what's going on and how I can fix it please?

Thanks!

Sorry, I'm sure I've done this before, but I cannot remember how.

I'm adding lots of tracks in Cubase for a big orchestral project. I assign tracks 1-16 to VEP, get them set up no problem. I'm sure there's a way to then send more tracks to the same VEP instance? I know there's a drop down menu in VEP that does this (to the left of where the MIDI channel is set for each track), but I don't know how to do it on the Cubase end. I can add more instances of VEP, but then the instruments aren't all in the same space.

Can anyone else remember how to do this please? I've recently gone up to a newer version of Cubase, and everything's different!

Hi!

I like the sound of church organs. I know roughly how they work. I know they're played by several manuals and a whole lot of pedals. And I know pulling out different stops connects the manuals to different banks of pipes.

...And that's about it.

How many stops is it customary to use simultaneously? How often does one actually pull out all the stops, and does it sound that good? If I want a massive sound, would I be best just using the loudest pipes, or the whole lot together?

I love all the depth and flexibility of this beautiful-sounding instrument. I just don't have a clue how to use it!

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks

Hi all,

I've just upgraded to Windows 10, so have had to do a fresh install on all my VSL software. The standalone version of VIP is working, but when I load VEP, I can add instances of VIP but not actually get to the window to see them. They show up on the mixer tab and the MIR tab, but there's no individual instrument tab. And they have no sounds loaded, and appear as the default cardioid microphones.

Vienna Imperial is working just fine within VEP and MIR, as is a non-VSL plugin like Absynth 5. The other thing I have noticed is that there is a delay of several seconds after clicking the Add New VIP Channel button before it appears, if that helps for diagnosing the problem.

Does anyone have any idea what this is?

Thanks!

Pyre

Hi, this looks fantastic!

Is the product being available for free time-sensitive at all? My computer is down at the moment, so I'm wondering if I need to download the product now or if I can wait for a few weeks to get everything sorted first.

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

My PC is finally giving up on me, so I'll be getting a new CPU/motherboard/RAM combination, and maybe a new GPU while I'm at it. It's lasted 11 years, I think that's good going.

I remember it used to be the case that VSL users were advised towards Intel CPUs rather than AMD ones, as Intel ones ran VSL products better. Is that still the case please? I was stuck with an AMD one before, but might switch to Intel this time around if VSL stuff will work better.

I'm currently looking at this Intel chip:

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/WtyV3C/intel-core-i7-9700k-36ghz-8-core-processor-bx80684i79700kOr this AMD one (which can hyperthread, where the Intel one can't, so would probably be better):

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/QKJtt6/amd-ryzen-7-3700x-36-ghz-8-core-processor-100-100000071box

Thanks!

Hi, thanks for the advice!

I've now tried all of those things, and there's no sign of the licences. The eLicenser is immediately recognised by the computer, appears to be functioning fine in every other way ('Recover' in the Control Center menu says there are no issues to solve). But there are no licences here.

Thanks, I'll email support.

Hi everyone,

I took my dongles out of my computer (a VSL eLicenser and an iLok dongle for Pro Tools) to move some things around in my studio. I've just put them back in, and there are no sign of any licences on the eLicenser.

None listed on soft-eLicenser it mentions as being my hard disk either, but I think that's fairly normal?

Any ideas what might have happened and if thee's an easy solution?

Thanks!

Hi all!

I'm just finalizing my purchase of the extended library of the Symphonic Cube to go with the standard library I bought a few years ago, as well as the Keyboards Complete collection.

Am I right in thinking all VSL products are now download-only or on the VSL hard drive? I just realised I hadn't seen an option for a physical product (prompted when it asked for shipping address, which I presume doesn't actually get anything shipped to).

I have the 10-case set of the Symphonic Cube for the standard library, am I right in remembering that that already contains the extended library too, but the extended licence is needed to access it?

Thanks!

Pyre

Hi all!

I'm between album cycles at the moment, so haven't been doing much VSL-ing of late. But I saw the email come through a few days ago about the May special offer, and am thinking it would be a good time for me to snap up some products (also I'm in the UK, and with the way we're going politically, our UK-EU exchange rate is likely to continue to get worse!).

I had been planning to pick up the Keyboards Complete package, which includes Vienna Imperial and Bosendorfer Imperial. But there are now two (soon three, I think?) Synchron pianos to consider instead. It has to be instead, rather than as well, for simple but unavoidable price reasons.

So I am trying to compare Vienna Imperial with the two Synchron pianos, judging things like velocity layers per key and so on. I know Imperial mentions up to 1,200 samples per key, but the Yamaha CFX says 4,200 - but I presume the second number is higher as the Synchron pianos were recorded from a lot more microphone positions, which aren't so relevant to my needs. Would you be happy to provide a comparable figure for the Yamaha to how Imperial boasts having up to 100 samples per key please? ...Does the Yamaha not have as many, or is sampling that many the normal way of doing things now, and so not specifically mentioned?

I am thinking Imperial would be better for my needs, as all the rest of my libraries are VI series rather than Synchron, and my work involves much more out-there mixing conditions than the traditional classical approach I think the Synchron libraries are designed for? So having the drier piano would probably be more useful to me. Also, I have wanted Imperial for at least seven years, so that's definitely the one I'm biased towards.

Two further questions, please! I have Vienna Suite, complete with its convolution reverb plugin, as well as the first five MIR venues - can I load any of those into the Vienna Imperial Player instead of the Konzerthaus reverb samples? I usually use the Teldex setup, and I'm just wondering if it's possible to do that directly in Imperial Player when using it for standalone low-latency piano performance.

Also, are there any recommended circumstances in which I might realistically be better using Bosendorfer Imperial than Vienna Imperial? If I go with Keyboards Complete (which would be great for both Imperial and the Konzerthaus Organ), then the Bosendorfer Imperial is included anyway. It seems a shame to have it and never use it, so I'm just wondering if there are any things you think it's better suited for than Vienna Imperial.

Thanks very much,

Pyre

Hi all,

My PC setup has several 1TB hard drives, and used to have a 128GB SSD for the OS. In time that became full, so I've just replaced it with a 256 GB SSD. Annoyingly that meant reinstalling Windows and all my programs with it, but it's mostly done at last.

I store my VSL samples on one of the hard drives, but I am wondering where is best to install the MIR room packs. Should they also be on the sample drive, or better on the SSD with the OS for fast loading, if they aren't too large? Ideally I'd have the samples themselves on SSD too, of course, but no way can I afford a RAID array for multiple small SSDs, or even a single large one.

Thanks!

Thanks, that sounds great. The modulation would only affect the wet sound, right?

Hi Dietz,

Just to quickly check, is the same true for wet/dry mute when using MIRacle?

So I could export the track once with the wet MIRacle slider muted, and again with the dry one muted, and when I play them back together it will be identical to one track with neither muted?

It's an awkward work around, but seems the best option if a mixing engineer may not have the MIRacle plugin.

Many thanks,

Pyre

Hi all,

Am I right in thinking that if I export one mix of a MIR project with the Dry Solo button pressed, and another with the Wet Solo button pressed instead, and then load the two audio files into a new project, the end result would sound identical to if I'd exported it with neither button pressed?

If so, that would be a neat way for me to hand both dry and wet to my engineer, so that he could adjust the balance in the mix if necessary.

Thanks!

Thanks very much, Dietz, got it now, that worked a treat!

Ah, brilliant, thank you. I've found the Default.vmi file, it says it was last modified in 2014 (same as every other file in the folder). I installed the latest VEP version earlier, so, if that didn't update the file, any idea who else I might do so please?

Sorry, I can't see Default.vmi anywhere, or ProgramData. I have C\Program Files\Vienna Mir Pro, but that only contains the Vienna MIR Pro and unins000 applications, and a file called unins000.dat

Weird, that's the version I'm using too. Yet the solo voices options are definitely not listed. Is this something I should send to ?

Hi Dietz,

My version of MIR doesn't have those presets, its Other menu has the five Vienna Choir options labelled 100, then 101 Soprano Choir, and then goes straight to 151 Upright Bass and Concert Guitar, and then 152 Electric Guitar.

What would I need to update to get the missing profiles?

Many thanks,

Pyre

Hi all,

I bought Vienna Solo Voices a couple of months ago, and I'm just getting around to using it properly for the first time. I've loaded it up in MIR as usual and added articulations, but it's not automatically selecting an instrument profile, and then I try to do so manually, I can't see any solo voice profiles on the available lists. I've tried installing the latest version of MIR (dated 6/2/16), but that hasn't made any difference.

Do the solo voices not have their own profiles and the Vienna Choir profiles should be used instead? Or am I going about updating things the wrong way?

Many thanks,

Pyre

Well, we know that Dimension Strings involved around a million samples. About a quarter of which were presumably violins. So just the second violin section for DS alone would be another 250,000 samples. One could perhaps cut down on some of the articulations as it's only the second bank, but only so far before losing the versatility and realism that we flock to VSL for in the first place. I sometimes write second violin parts just as technical as the first, and cutting out too many articulations would hamper that. Add to that the additional samples for the Appassionata, Orchestral, Chamber and Solo libraries, and the sample count climbs higher still. And to integrate fully with the other samples, the recording and editing process would have to be exactly aligned with the original ones, which in some cases are ten years old, so may prove tricky to duplicate. The point is that recording the samples for a second violin section would be very time consuming and far from cheap. Given that we've found workarounds for the lack of second violins for the whole time we've been using VSL to date, I wonder how many users would then pay out for the real thing. A new set of second violin samples would come at the expense of time VSL could spend doing other things, and money you could spend on other things.

A transposition trick button, on the other hand (not that the two have to be mutually exclusive), would presumably be easier to implement. I have no coding knowledge whatsoever, but given that half the functionality is already there, I would hesitate to suggest that it might even be the sort of tool included free in a new version of VIP. It would not be anything like as complicated to program - I'm guessing - as the APP sequencer, after all. It would offer much greater versatility - string quintets were mentioned as needing two solo violins, but I thought standard quartets did too? I routinely use two banks of cellos as well as two violins, so the ability to equally double the cellos would be much more appreciated to me at least than just a second bank of violins. It could also double thing like piccolos to help balance the one piccolo against the three-flute ensemble.

I usually find I get a better sound by having the first and second violin sections using different articulations, but there are some situations (like pizzicato) where that isn't much of an option. The transposition trick is very useful in those instances, and a button would make that easier. But I can certainly live without it too :-).

Hi all,

Not sure if this is quite the right thread for this question, but not sure where else to put it.

I've just bought the Vienna Solo Voices Choir, and downloaded it last night. I had installed the latest version of the eLicencer, but foolishly had not updated Vienna Download Manager. The file downloaded fine overnight, but then this morning it said it needed the latest version of Download Manager to install.

So I downloaded and installed the latest version of Download Manager, and I have the downloaded Solo Voices folder on my library hard drive. The bit I can't figure out is how to open it with Download Manager so that I can install it. Is this possible, or should I download the package again?

Many thanks,

Pyre

Fantastic, thanks very much, that Sonalksis one works brilliantly, has loads of +/- leeway, and doesn't seem to use too much processing power. Looking forward to comparing how different my choir sounds with +30 gain before hitting MIR instead of after. Thanks!

Hi Dietz, no problem, will do. I hadn't seen the Matrix Mixer before (I thought from the name that it would be something to do with mixing different VI matrices at different levels), it looks incredibly powerful. Are there any plugins you would recommend for transparently adding gain that will work happily with VEP?

Hi all,

Further to the above question, could I add a feature request please? How easy would it be to implement a method for switching the positioning of the MIR send/return in the VEP effect chain?

At its most basic, this could be a basic fader plugin that could be inserted pre-MIR just like the Vienna Suite EQ with just the output level control (I have tried doing this, but as the EQ output level only goes down to -30, and the VEP faders go down to -60, the resolution steps are different and so my existing fader automation doesn't match). At a more complicated level, it would be fantastic to have the option to put the MIR send last in a chain after buses, so that group levels could be set pre-reverb, just as one would with a traditional reverb bus.

I'm honestly not sure how this would work with the volume and panning adjustments that MIR also makes to the sound. I just wondered if there were a way around it, it's really nice being able to control instrument volume when mixing using automation rather than CC numbers (higher resolution, much easier to see on-screen), and having three different points to control the volume (CC11, CC7 and VEP fader) is really helpful (I use CC11 for instrument performance smoothing, CC7 for section performance smoothing, and the VEP fader for section levels within a mix). And while it's useful to be able to control the output level post-reverb, in my case it would be much more useful pre-reverb, as changes afterward sound like mixing/production alterations rather than performance ones. Am I right in thinking that an old version of VEP/MIR had a pre/post switch, or am I imagining that?

Many thanks,

Pyre