It looks like MIR isn't quite for me yet due to laptops limitations.

Thanks for your answers.

As I am going to be travelling a lot, I'm looking into buying a laptop for two purposes:
1. Keep in touch with my loved ones.
2. Work on my scores on the move.

The first point should be fairly easy to achieve with Skype and an integrated webcam.

As for the second point: I want to be able to use Sibelius, VE Pro, VI Pro and VSE Bundle. Ideally, I don't want to be limited to VSE Bundle. So I guess more RAM and probably a second internal SSD would be necessary.
On top of this, having worked on Mac for the last 7 years, I thought I would buy a new machine that would host MIR (and therefore Windows).

Hence my questions:
- How does MIR integrate with Sibelius?
- Is there a super Windows laptop machine that would be powerful enough to run Sibelius, VE Pro, VI Pro, VSE Bundle, MIR and additional libraries (such as orchestral strings and complete winds)?
- If not, what would the best machine-vs-software setup?

- Any other thing that I need to take into account before buying my laptop?

this might be a dumb question but i couldn't find the answer in the manual nor in the forums (i probably didn't read the right section).

how can i set a humanize setting to a whole matrix rather than one single cell?

i understood that polyphonic legato was activated only when playing chords (and the option in the advanced menu). i'll turn it off then.
thanks for your response, andi.

it's in the title: i've switched from vi to vi pro within my ve pro template, and now the notes played legato are playing slightly longer than the notes' length. as a result, the slurred instruments sound as if there was an accent at the beginning of each note (ie. the first note still playing and the new one starting). that's surely weird!

can anyone help?

Hi Guy,
I've always been a big fan of your arrangement, orchestration and VSL mock-up skills and talent. What I hear in the Christmas pot-pourri this year is more of a ready-to-be-orchestrated piece than a 4-hands piano piece. At times I find it too complex and dissonant for one single instrument, but I can hear the wonders it would do played by an ensemble/orchestra. So did you really arrange it for 2 pianos or in the view of orchestrating it?
Oh well... These are just my thoughts and I'm not an expert.
Best,
Denis

Thank you all for your comments and pieces of advice. I'm back from holiday and all this seems a bit blurred in my head at the moment. But I've got some new ideas to develop and a new classical project, so I'll be back here soon.

I'm looking for some flurry in classical orchestral and chamber works - not modern / film, but classical.
So I'd really appreciate if you could suggest some pieces and composers I should listen to.

Hi,

Where can I find the description of the various impulses that come with Vienna Suite (room including room's dimensions and usual purpose, mics, difference between wide, warm, far, etc...)?

Best,

Denis

First, a free ad for Beat Kaufmann's 2009 tutorials: this is the missing manual for the Vienna Instrument. Simply brilliant! Thanks Beat for putting them together!

Now, this leads me to one main question: how do you organise the workflow when you're composing music?

To me, composing for an orchestra (or smaller ensemble) requires the use of a notation program for one simple reason: I need to see on screen (or on paper) what each instrument is playing or I won't be able to voice correctly. For this purpose I'm using Sibelius.
Now, even if the playback in Sibelius has improved a lot, after I read Beat's tutorials, I eventually understood why I would not be able to achieve what I want with Sibelius only. I would then have to export my score into Logic for the production aspect.
My problem is that I'm still at what I would describe to be the dawn of my scoring life, meaning that unfortunately I cannot only write with a pen and a piece of paper: I need to hear what I am actually writing. In other words, I will spend a lot of time in Sibelius to try to get things right so that I'm happy with the music when I play it back. As it never happens, I lose myself into production considerations (including triggering the right articulations as the written articulation isn't necessary the one I want to hear) that should only occur when the piece is written. This prevents me from going any further in my composition, hearing the same 20 bars over and over, not being happy with the result, resulting in me getting tired of what I am working on and eventually giving up.

Interestingly, this has never happened when working on non-orchestral music. So I blame it on my workflow, which should be:
1. compose and arrange the piece
2. mix and produce the piece

I would imagine that I am not the only person here dealing with this sort of frustrating limitations. So if any of you has some great techniques and pieces of advice to share, please do!!

Best,

Denis

Hi Chuck, sorry for being unclear: I meant the music sheet, not the actual audio (which I've got in vinyl and CD)

I remember reading that Ennio Morricone composed the score that was then recorded before Sergio Leone started to shoot the film. This score is amazing, one of my all time favourite.


Does anybody know where to buy this sort of film scores? Are they available at all?

+1


Apart from the Mac Pros that became totally inaccessible lately.

Beat,
Thanks a lot for this: very helpful as usual!

I find that it sounds much better to do midi +2 semitones and pitch -200 cents rather than midi -2 / pitch +200. I guess this must come from the pitch shifting that sounds better to my ears when lowering the pitch.
Is there a way to modify the value of the midi note within the Vienna Instrument (or VI Pro) so that I can play a C4 on my keyboard while VI transforms it into a D4 and pitch-shifts it down to a C4 thanks to the pitch wheel?

Now, this would give me two violins. That's a good start, but I need three more...

Regarding the semitones sampling: do I need to buy the whole solo strings DVD package to get it, or is there a way to get the equivalent of my VSE Plus articulations sampled at every semitone? In other words, is there some strings download instruments? (I guess not: I've been waiting for them for so long. But it still worth asking).

I read about Numerical Sound's Hollywood impulse responses and listened to the demos. That sounds interesting but the warm, dark, clear and bright impulses really change the whole feel rather than subtly alter the tone of the violin.
I've also read a few papers about violin's impulse responses, but I couldn't find any impulses.

So any suggestion would be very welcome.

Thanks,

Denis

Hi,
I'm working on a piece for 5 violins. Sometimes the instruments are playing in unison or 3+2 or 2+2+1. The problem I have is that I am not really convinced by the sound of 2, 3, 4 or 5 different instances of the solo violin playing the same note together. It doesn't sound like as many instruments playing simultaneously.
I've read about the trick of playing 1 tone higher (midi) and pitch-shifting 1 tone lower (Vienna Instruments). But I'm not too sure how I can achieve that for 5 violins using Sibelius, Vienna Ensemble Pro and Vienna Special Edition Plus.
Can someone suggest a method, not necessarily pitch-shifting?
Is there a way to use some sort of impulse response to transform one solo violin into a slightly different solo violin? After all, every instrument should be different from the other.
Would Vienna Instrument Pro allow me to do such thing?
Thanks for your help / suggestions.

D.

What exactly is the anti-aliasing distortion?

How would you define it? What does it sound like?

So why even bother with a manual?! ;)

I must agree with you Steve. Your examples are spot on. I really feel left alone in the latest Airbus: amazing technology, potentially the best aircraft in the world, but they forgot to tell me how to fly the beast!!

Thank you for all these info Beat! This is more or less the way I am already working.

I just wish some tool did all this for me. You see, I am using the samples to learn about the colour of the sounds / chords (ie. for example violins+flute+oboe vs. violas+flute+clarinet). So if I need to do all the mix myself, I feel that it defeats the purpose as I am creating the colour by changing the levels, eqs, etc...


Now there's Mir SE, which seems to be what I was looking for. But it only works on Windows systems, so it is of no use for me.

Thanks for your useful input Bas10!
I will pay attention to the template coming with the VSE demo and check out Hetoreyn and Beat Kaufmann's settings.

Dietz, I know it's called MIR and costs an extra 795EUR, fine by me. But it is not available for Mac. So it's of absolutely nouse as far as I am concerned.

Now you talked about a very interesting feature called "Natural Volume" which is only available with this wonderful piece of modern technology called MIR. But after I read one of your previous answers, I understand that VSL don't want to help users achieve it if they don't buy MIR... and a PC. This is why I have the bitter feeling that VSL don't want to help their customers get the best result possible with their products. This isn't the first time it happens.

And after all, all we ask for is a "volume compensation table" or call it whatever. Not a big deal, or is it?!

All I want is to have a great time composing orchestral music and hearing it played back on my computer. All I've done for the last 18 months is trying to figure out a way to do it, asking for help and advice on the forums and elsewhere, getting new tools such as VSL Suite for this purpose in the view of making realistic mockups with VSL samples. But to no success so far.
Alright, you can argue that I might be a bit dumb, that everybody should be able to get the best out of VSL products very easily. Sorry, I'm no sound engineer or producer, and I have no interest in becoming one. I'm just learning how to compose, arrange and orchestrate. It's difficult enough.

Unless I missed them (in which case, yes, I'm an idiot given the amount of time I spent researching it), I can't find any tutorials on the VSL website explaining how to use VSL Suite and VEPro to achieve the different depths in a room, no walkthrough the impulse responses coming with VSL Suite (What are these rooms? What's the difference between Studio 2, Studio 2 Warm, Studio 2 Wide, Studio 2 Wide Warm for example? Can I use all these impulses in one mix? And for which purpose?). Apart from "this button does this, that button does that", I cannot see any documentation regarding the so-straightforward-but-not-for-everyone-here-I'm-afraid Powerpan plugin, anything that explains when to use the pre and post balances, why it's coming as a cone of what looks like 120 degrees rather than a semi-circle representing a stage, how to apply it to the different instruments to achieve successful and realistic panning. And of course, I cannot find any description of the difference of volume between one instrument and the other (but this has been discussed above).


Now, this isn't snappy: it's just a fact. And I'm very disappointed and frustrated.

Should I understand that VSL don't want to help their customer achieve the best result possible with their products, in the same vein as they have denied their customers some depth presets with Vienna Suite convolution or powerpan presets for usual ensembles?

I really look forward to hearing from you.

Dietz, anyone else at VSL,
any chance to get your input and help to achieve Natural Volume without using MIR?

Thanks Animus, that was incredibly useful.

Oops... Sorry, I wasn't very clear with my explanation. Yes, these two instruments are different and that is surely their purposes!

However I found at many occasions that it proved difficult to make them blend when both played together (to me, they sound more like two different takes rather than two similar instruments playing together, flute 2 being always very dominant).

Anyway, I hope that the team who developed the "Natural volume" in MIR would be kind enough to help with a volume compensation table.