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Originally Posted by: Macker

There is nowadays a disturbingly gross inflation of the presence and influence of memes - not only as visual images and spoken phrases, but also musical memes and behavioural memes. This inflation is now obviously far beyond the natural needs of a healthy and robust culture.

Cui bono? Who benefits from masses of people all perceiving, feeling and acting so uniformly and predictably? Yep, narcissists do. Control is their big thing. They do not want people being naturally independent, dynamic, authentic, imaginative, creative, and hence less easy to predict and - above all - control. Narcissists, great and small, are today's worst enemies of any living culture.

Small-time narcissists make up the great bulk of what recent academic studies have posited as an epidemic of narcissism. It's now like dealing with flies - whack one and straight away there's another in your face; and more in the human sphere, they can be very tribal - kick one and they'll all limp, lol. But seriously, we can and should use whatever skills we can muster in lively, robust, genuine and accountable criticism of the misdeeds of narcissists, and in scotching their endless attempts to direct - i.e. to mislead - dialogue and narrative.

Speaking of the product named in the title of this thread, for me it reeks of narcissism in both its origin and intended market. Anyone who uses it is of course not automatically the antichrist, lol, but we might well want to carefully consider their motives - not that getting honest answers from 'suspects' is in any way straightforward!

Is this stance too draconian? Certainly not in my book. I happen to love and care about my culture and will go to great lengths to protect it from harm. But I also go further - I'll back others outside my culture as far as I can, in their love, care and protection of their own culture, wherever this insidious kind of incursion is in progress.

It's a very interesting point of view, even if I'm not sure if I get the link between narcissism and the topic.

But to mutually share our points of view, I'm not going to use the Orchestrator for any of my projects, because I make a totally different type of music. (I just own it due to subscription, because I use the Choir, and I hope the new player will make it work better).

Being a musicologist I had the "professional deviation" of analysing trends and facts, and I found some academic and social explanation for the trend object of this topic, that correlates with education and business.

I'm not really feared by this type of tools being produced and sold to any type of musician, because I think that in the hands of good composers whatever the tool makes good music, while in the hands of poor composers it will only produce ridiculous and cliche crap.

I suppose that some clever artists will be able of earning work and money with a clever application of the tool, and that some poorly educated and instinctive audience will perhaps enjoy the result: 

in my opinion we don't have to be sad for that, but we may ask ourself some questions and if we think that it's a pity that the audience waste time on this music instead of listening something better and more elevated from spiritual and artistic point of view, we have to fight on the field of education and be ambassadors of the great western tradition of educated music that is the legitimate mother of the majestic sound of the Symphonic Orchestra. 

I hope it clears up a bit the previous set of misunderstandings.

Originally Posted by: Macker

fatis, I can assure you that I've made, as is my habit, considerable efforts to transcend language difficulties. You make your snarky little personal insult and falsely accuse me of jumping to (adverse) conclusions without having read what you've said (I read every word of your posts, matey); you haven't attempted to answer (to me) anything in the main body of my post to you; and now I see that in your post to someone else you're attempting to smear what I've said to you,

I'd say that's all pretty sad and offensive of you. And I'd also say your evasiveness has nothing at all to do with linguistic difficulties. The pattern is obvious now. William's first response to you was spot on. But no matter, I'm not in the least bothered. You carry on, chum.

I rest my case.

I reply just because it seems you were taking it seriously, and you were expecting some more detailed answer.

I apologize for being concise before, but I think it's easy to understand that starting a post with a direct sarcastic prejudice about my music (that by the way I'm wondering why you assumed has anything to do with the object of discussion) was not inviting to a friendly conversation.

Finally you had provocative statements about my supposed underestimating of good and educated music and my supposed proposal of replacing it with the clone-crap, with even some kind of political and philosophical reference. I never wrote anything about, so what can I answer? 

That was a bit off-topic, because I was just analysing with some academic and neutral point of view the facts, inviting to fight the ignorance with the musical education, and inviting to understand the reason for some sad modern music trends, instead of just blaming them with disgusted surprise.

That's all.

Originally Posted by: Errikos

Macker: I appreciate the cheer!

fatis12_24918: I see. Be that as it may, I am not wrong in what I said in the context I established, I believe....

In my humble opinion you believe it right. I think we are almost totally in agreement and had just some language issues to properly follow the logic of our posts.

In general I think that we may be proud of passion for traditional and original composing. ( I say we, because yes believe it or not I'm a graduated composer, musicologist, early music passionate and I was studying teaching and performing as much as I can. What I'm not, and I will never be, is a professional producer, soundtrack writer, pop-music maker or similar. Then perhaps I'm not really entitled to represent that category at all).

What i always recommend by the way, is to be open minded: a composer MUST know and take care of the psychology of audience. The whole theory of music and composition is about that, and if few of us love and understand the Music (with capital M) and millions don't we should try to use our knowledge to understand, and analize, and learn from the events, instead of being self-satisfied by just "avoid others music like a plague" in a selfish and arrogant way.

That's the attitude that kills the tradition and makes educated composers appear as outdated useless self-referential niche of gurus... It's not the service great music deserves, and we ALL agreed on this point and repeated across all posts.

Spread the love for the quality, invite sceptical people to experience the power of good music, contribute to musical education, and so less people will buy music made with ork- estrator, and more people will understand and enjoy your fine music instead.

Originally Posted by: William

Anand posted an excellent statement as he always does.  I find his perspective as a musician and scientist very valuable.    Macker and Errikos - I had decided not to post anything partly from being permanently banned on another forum but you kept tempting me with your deliciously sarcastic dialogue.  I was enjoying immensely  your mutual, uncontestably valid dismissals, but avoided, - somewhat like a Freudian patient desperately attempting to stop the eruption of repressed contents of the Id -  posting anything here for a while.  I have annoyed VSL enough over the years and have tried assiduously to do more of the same recently.  

But then it was unavoidable after fatis posted a statement that seemed to support the creation of musical idiocy.  Because  - as fatis implied - dumbasses like it.  So music is good if complete idiots like it (?)   

Apparently I was wrong about that though  - fatis is simply expanding awareness of stupidity in music (?)  Or what is he saying? I don't know.   Right now he seems somewhat incomprehensible.  Perhaps he wants to put in a good word for musical carnival barkers.  Which is what Errikos was originally pointing out...

William your fair feeling is just due to the mess that having a complex conversation about complex matter across different posts with different writers references and different focus is unavoidably creating :)

Despite the wonderful and intriguing topic, the mess is so deep that Macker is convinced I make this type of music, even if I never stated that and even if I wrote the opposite, and even if he knows absolutely nothing about my background. The good and the bad of Forums all in one place 

It was probably enough to read my very first sentence to avoid following misunderstandings, so I re-post it here to close the discussion. I think we are all in agreement about it, (...and if we are not, then we have to stop talking about LOL  ):

Fatis wrote at the beginning: "- as you all stated art is art, and tools are tools. Without talent there is no tool that can transform you in a genius and if you are a genius, there is no need of special tools to show it. This is the bitter and obvious reality. "

Bye guys, peace and love, and make some good music in the spare time, whatever the tool, even glasses and coins, since good music will always be good music, and that's all.

Originally Posted by: Macker

Fatis, if that's really the basis of your creative musical endeavours, would you mind awfully if I avoid your music like the plague? It's nothing personal.

Such a sad example of the modern communication of self-referential sarcastic attitude.

I don't pretend my Ital-English is crystal clear but it's quite obvious that for bad was my language you didn't pay attention to anything more than 2 out of 100 lines of my posts, but you take the time to write an almost offensive answer directly to me... wow, kudos.

I actually make ancient music,  acoustic and in live performance, so don't worry you don't have the risk.

Errikos:

"Back to the software. fatis12_24918 said the pyramid is based on rhythm, then timbral colours, then melody, then harmony and finally counterpoint. This only applies of course to this Trailer park "music" this software facilitates. Music, in the western world at least (and orchestral music was born there), began with melody/rhythm (we'll never know which came first), then counterpoint, then harmony, and finally timbre. And it was always sophisticated; as sophisticated as it could be at any time."

Sorry but it's a great misunderstanding of my post. I talk about perceptive layers... the amount of instinctive vs. rational involvement requested to "understand or enjoy" a musical content. It has nothing to do with history/chronology or culture, the opposite it's some how ancestral and human.

(this rating is based on some ethno-musicology and anthropology studies and musical theory speculations, beside some neuroscience studies etc. but it's also a way to approach music "components" of several didactics, and not by chance... but in my opinion it's also self-explanatory and evident: people love the sound of something (a nice ring instead of a brutal noise etc.) before it become music, and people recognize and enjoy rhythm even when they are poor in intonation, they can't sing, or they come from a totally different melodic culture. Melody start to be more challenging and more culture-related. Then harmony and counterpoint are really educated expressions, that can deeply characterize a style, an age, a culture, and ethnicity etc.)

Originally Posted by: agitato

Its sad most people who think classical/romantic/orchestral music is either boring or for snooty rich people will never find out how amazing it is, as few will ever attend live concerts. I think thats the key to the survival of this great genre (and by extension good film scores) and I hope it will come back.

Ive made some rambling disconnected points. Will sign off now.

Anand  

 

And my conclusion is we should invest as much as possible in musical education. That's what I did at my best during my life, studying, financing, teaching, performing etc.

Unfortunately the pop culture try to keep the educated music away, to manipulate audience for business, but as you mention, if you provide experience to the listeners, they won't step back anymore. So hope never dies...

Originally Posted by: William

edit - I shouldn't be so obnoxious but these statements set me off.

 "fake orchestras and AI clichè can be succesful vs. original mastercraft and innovation." - fatis 

"If the average and rewarding audience today asks for basic emotions made of timbral hype and rhythmic excitement, "the art" is finding moving and exciting combinations of colours and patterns, whatever the source, in the comfort zone of clichè common language everybody understand... and this is not trivial. It's an art itself." - fatis

-  In other words, auto-generated musical cliches are just as good as individual musical artistry if someone likes auto-generated cliches.    Like a producer or audience who demand the cliches.  So go ahead, line up and supply the cliches. Stop being a stuck-up "artiste" and just do what the audiences and the producers want.    

Obviously not William.

My point is that there is an art in composing elegant and emotional patchworks, more or less as composing pop songs, that can make common people happy and provide work and money for producers.

If it wasn't the case, we had not big investments in the segment, and if no art/talent was requested to make it properly, everybody should be rich and famous, and obviously it doesn't happen.

So we can keep our choice of being artists, and being the educated and original artists, and I think we can be proud of being, but we simply shouldn't underestimate the talent and the business of clone makers, that are successful in the middle of the crowd and that's because they succeed in making common people emotional :)

...anyway out of pure technical curiosity and feedback, and out of easy jokes about the clichè and creativity delegation, I have a serious comment:

- as you all stated art is art, and tools are tools. Without talent there is no tool that can transform you in a genius and if you are a genius, there is no need of special tools to show it. This is the bitter and obvious reality. But...

- as educated composers with technical know-how, we still have to remember that music is made of layers and ingredients, components that target different levels of consciousness, different levels of education and different mixes of rational and emotional stimulations: the pyramid is based on rhythm, then timbral colours, then melody, then harmony and finally counterpoint... so with fine counterpoint you will catch just a few educated or hyper-sensible people, while with good rhythm and emotional sound you will get all...

This is the key to understand the actual industry and the success or failure of different approaches:

- industry is based on success (because success is money...) and even if success is a mass/social average factor, manipulated by the media and a recursive education vs. brainwash process, still success is based on customers satisfaction. So why so often people love crap? That's the question we always ask... and it's misleading.

- because the concept of "crap" itself is subjective and context dependent: here the theory of music and perception enters the game and explains why fake orchestras and AI clichè can be succesful vs. original mastercraft and innovation.

- low education makes the musical perception more basic. People will stop to sound and rhythm, and will be moved by the loudness, the spectral richness, the punchy basses, the martial patterns and exciting ancestral stimulation. They will perceive pleasure and satisfaction, despite the lack of original or sophisticated melodies, and total absence of any counterpoint etc.

- is your audience educated? would your audience listen to Bach's fugues or the maximum they can afford is a popular tune of Mozart? Are they more exposed to rap and disco, or to chamber contemporary music?

Then the paradox is we composers still have to write for an audience. If we don't, we are just selfish idealists, perhaps we will be discovered and appreciated in the future, but it's unlikely... perhaps not impossible, but really unlikely,

If the average and rewarding audience today asks for basic emotions made of timbral hype and rhythmic excitement, "the art" is finding moving and exciting combinations of colours and patterns, whatever the source, in the comfort zone of clichè common language everybody understand... and this is not trivial. It's an art itself.

Perhaps closer to pop-industry than academic composing, but still about music, about audience, and about talent.

Originally Posted by: Errikos

I'm also a customer of both companies (Symphonic Choirs - since nobody else will release a fully "phoneticizable" choir). Do I understand you correctly? Are you saying the Orkestrator engine will play VSL instruments through VEP? That is, the Orkestrator will apply its patterns and settings onto other libraries' sounds? I don't get the 'as-it-is' in your post.

Yes:

- in VST (e.g. Cubase) you may route the MIDI output of the plug-in to another instrument for real time playback (or to a track for recording the midi data).

- If the instrument is VEP, then each channel of the Ork-estration will play a VEP channel: if they are assigned to the right and corresponding VSL instruments what you get is a VSL playback version of the original score/ostinato etc.

- the instruments of VSL Synchron and/or Synchron-ized collections sound pretty well without additional effects or manipulation (the EW effect chain of the orchestrator is pretty complex with e.q. compression reverb and dynamic/velocity compression etc.) because the Synchron default set up are already including similar (in my opinion more natural and less invasive) effects for a final large Orchestral sound suitable for cinematic effects.

VSL sound is a bit less bold/normalized (sound softer) but a bit more acoustic and less artificial in my opinion. Obviously if you save MIDI data and edit it to best fit the VSL controllers and articulations, the effect is even better, but even without any editing in live playback (that's the intended sense of "as-it-is", without further processing) it's already good.

 Well... in case one is customer of both the companies (as I am) and one want to make some nice comparison, the Ork-estrator is a lot of fun: it drives MIDI channels to VEP and you may play a full VSL Orchestra with it!

The result is amazing, and despite the fact EW HO with Orchestrator is already fine tuned to get a bold cinematic sound with tons of effects in the chain, still playing "as-it-is" VSL Synchron(-ized) Orchestra sounds great out of the box with Synchron Player default presets! 

If you go a step forward instead of using the pre-made scores and ostinatos, and you write your own (few minutes of step sequencing LOL if you know about orchestration and composition of course...) you may have even more fun.

But GOSH YES... you definitely MUST know a bit of chords...  Ah no... in reality you may just take a song book, write the chords into the chord track of the sequencer, set-up the routing, and enjoy the PC producing for you automagically some (pretty bad clichè) music(k)... 

This was brilliant, I really love it.

Great improvement, and very fair treatment of loyal customers. Congratulations for both the decisions!

I had to stop using the patch (and found my self back to Dimension strings, even if I love the sound of SSP).

Actually I'm not convinced by the explanation I got from support (unavoidable echo of the room embedded into samples, so no way to edit it), because if only the feed from ambience and release were the unavoidable issue, then it should affect the other instruments also, and they are unaffected instead.

On the other side, if it was just wrong mapping of the legato transition samples, or scripting bug, I suppose the fine developers of VSL team had fixed it after a while... so it's still a mystery to me.

The pity is that violins are of course the prominent voice, and then the artefact is very invasive/audible.

(The development team by the way was working under pressure on a disruptive massive set of projects in a relatively short time... so perhaps sooner or later they will find time for fine tuning previous jobs... I still hope in a fix. )

definitely good news: as a user of both platforms I have to report that using iLok is always a better experience, for both software and hardware stability.

That should be already a good reason, but I know that there's even more benefits at corporate and licensing side, so it sounds like a win-win option for VSL and customers.

Looking forward to it!

Hi Milan,

actually I think there's a basic misconception as a base for your disappointment: the MIR scope is to give you total freedom for positioning whatever you want wherever you want the way you want.

That's the opposite of having point 1 to 11 skipped with pre made set-up like you love in Synchron player.

But despite this total open precess being possible, you have two more different workflows available to you:

1) the semi-automatic process described by William before to get all "sound" parameters set but still free and manual positioning is requested.

2) the totally automatic set-up, including optimal positioning managed by the MIR-X function.

Obviously to learn how to use the VI instruments set-up, and the MIR-X presets you have to spend a bit of time on the instructions and accept a learning curve. Then once you get the logic and learn the shortcuts and preferences that suit your needs, it is super fast and really convenient.

But I suppose you know already that powerful and complex professional tools do have a learning curve... if you were starting today using Logic or Cubase without any background you should be in similar or even worse situation. I hope this explain the point...

Intersting to notice that both of you have Powerbooks.

I didn't experience your issues (but some small incompatibility with the missing Driver of Steinberg UR22C), but I'm using a Macmini.

I'm using it for some weeks now, and stressed a bit the system, and all sounds good up to now.

Originally Posted by: Dietz

As far as I remember the reasoning of VSL's software engineers, this strange "Balance"-thingy has been left in for compatibility reasons. I would prefer to get rid of it, but I didn't win through, obviously. ;-D

... hope this answers most of this thread's questions.

Got it, thank you. Yes it does answer.

cheers

F.

Originally Posted by: civilization 3

Well, the Balance control of VE Pro is not a power panner so I never use it. Leave it alone is the answer, at center/default it's not doing anything.

Hi Civ, thanks for sharing your experience. I agree on the first statement... Balance is not PowerPan, and PowerPan is not Balance. I also understand that if you don't know about something and it seems not what you are looking for, it's better you don't use it, so I understand you simply ignore it.

On the other side, the slider is in place and it's operational. Usually VSL software is carefully designed and usually everything existing has a reason to exist: that's the reason why I ask VSL experts and developers to tell us more and/or give recommendation. Often I learned so much thanks to Dietz answers to questions, that it changed and improved my practice on features that are not 100% covered or clear in the manuals, and not always self-explanatory.

Dietz... any comment recommendation?

Any chance to get an answer? 

Anybody else can share experience and/or knowledge?

thank you again,

Fabio

I got some doubts coming from the behaviour of stereo-channels volume and perceived positioning of some instruments tracks that had both balance and PowerPan manipulated on the channel:

- VI have a single knob acting like a balance or like a PowerPan if the stereo field get open at will. Then no discrepancies are possible in the VI mixer. For that reason I was always considering the PowerPan overriding the balance, with an additional information about the stereo field width.

- In VE Pro channel strip, the "Stereo Pan" is optional, available as an integrated audio insert, and then the Balance slider is still active and can be set with different and "contradictory" direction. Is Stereo Pan overriding the Balance or are they merging/interfering?

- In Synchron Player we have back a Power Pan control on instrument mixer, but a Balance knob is optionally selectable and it keeps different direction even if a Power Pan setting is overlapped. Again, is Power Pan overriding the Balance, or are they merging/interfering?

I'm a bit lost in names/differences/similarities, and sometime the acoustic and metering outcome seems different from the one I expected, so please VSL team, kindly help me to understand and master it correctly.

Thank you in advance, F.

Originally Posted by: mat123

fatis,

this is good news! This also means that licenser works without problems, right?

I am using lots of vst within MainStage (intel Mac). I am wondering if, on an M1 mac, it is possible to run rosetta-based VSTs within a native app like MainStage. Have you tried this?

BTW, perfect choice: VP-1 with synchron pianos! To my eyes there is currently no better solution!

Yes no problems on my system with the elicenser: all working fine, including steinberg licenses I have on the same key.

Yes native Apple audio software is running a bridge (kind of sub-rosetta) for VSTs and AUs. When it creates compatibility issues, you may still run the whole app in rosetta mode, and it will increase even more the number of viable plugins (e.g. my VOCALOID-5 works only if the host is running in Rosetta, it's common for the plug-ins with large and non standard GUI etc.)

Yes VP-1 and Synchron pianos is a top combination, I really love it:  I had and used several digital pianos but this is the closer-to-real feeling I ever had.

Originally Posted by: samphony

How did you got it working?

I am running a Mac mini m1 as DAW Mac and an i7 Mac mini as VEP server.
The moment I open the server plugin in my daw its window stays empty. 

I can manually enter the server IP address but am unable to select the specific instance from the plugin window!

I simply connected it and it was working, without manual IP input, just the instance was showing up!

But I had a similar problem with my old macs (a Mac Pro 2013 and a Mac Book Pro 2019) in Catalina/Mojave:

- automatic list of instances not happening, and even manual IP connection impossible if they were on different channels of the router... I realized they have to be all on the very same network, including the channel of the router (e.g. 2.4 vs. 5Ghz, subnetworks etc. etc.)

- still automatic detection impossible despite the correct network, but then manual IP connection perfectly working and saved in the file (so it happens again when you close it and reopen it later)

For that reason I suspect there is some issue in network detection caused by the last versions of the macOS, disregarding the M1 or BigSure updates. In my case I was so happy to get back the automatic connection between the M1 and the MacBook Pro both running BigSure 11.1

I recommend you carefully check the network set-up to ensure both the machines are in the very same channel/subnetwork, then if it doesn't fix at least the manual IP connectivity, then double check software versions. Can't say more than this sorry.

Originally Posted by: Eulenauge66

Also waiting for this. Bought the M1 MacBook Pro and can't wait to test it with VEP.

I did it, and it works pretty well. I tested network on ethernet and Thunderbolt 3 both working very well.

The power of the actual unsupported and casual Rosetta2 adaptation is amazing, and competing already in performance with i9 top CPU. Then if software issues will be fixed and we get stable native version of the VSL software, I'm expecting some interesting result, let's say equal or better performance of the "actual one" should result already in an amazing quality/price rate for the Macmini M1, and good forecast for successors.

I actually spent last couple of days testing my VSL arsenal with my new Macmini M1 16Gb, and I have to report I'm pretty surprised by the good performance despite the fact the full package, including my Audio interface (Steinberg UR-C 22) are UNSUPPORTED!

- all synchron and VI software is running smoothly stand alone or hosted in VE Pro and MIR Pro 24, as in Logic/Garageband native DAWs.

- synchron pianos for instance are performing as good as on my Mac Book Pro i9 2019 (actually costing 4k euros, instead of 900 euros as the Macmini...)

- the speed and reactivity of the whole system is impressive, everything being more fast and smooth than all Intel Macs I own and owned (including the Mac Pro early 2013 12 cores, now a bit outdated, but still pretty powerful in multi core computing, RAM and disk access)

WARNING: in general the system is not ready yet for professional application, due to some (pretty small to be honest, but potentially disruptive for professional workflow and performance stability) little graphic artefacts and audio issue: for an undetected yet reason I get unpredictable small interruption of sound (kind of overload, but without noise or digital glitch) then I can't say if it's due to disk, or software, or audio driver incompatibility.

But due to the pretty stable fast and good result in synchronization (both audio and MIDI) and bounce/rendering I'm very happy and looking forward to great performance with native universal binary version of the software coming (more or less) soon from manufacturers (hopefully including VSL).

This is not only meaning that we can expect some future mid-range Mac will do magic, but it already opens the hi-performance scenario to affordable actual small macs as well, candidates for budget home-studio, or for arrays of VE Pro servers etc.