Thank you both for your responses.  I bought Solo Strings 1 Extended for the purposes of writing string quartets, so I was hoping I could resolve it that way.

I'm in the process of writing a string quartet, but I'm running into phasing issues between the two violins.  What do users usually use for violin 2 in order to avoid phasing in unison lines?

I got an email from iLok reminding me to renew my zero-downtime subscription and it made me think about my VSL/eLicenser products.  I'm keeping an eye out for the two year mark to buy new ones, but I'm wondering if there's something else that can be done to mitigate a potential loss through breakage (normal attrophy), fire/natural disasters, theft, etc.  The main thing I'm concerned about is that it may just stop working one day, as computer things tend to do.  I waited over a decade before I could afford this stuff, and doubt I'd be able to repurchase.  This is a very important aspect of my life.

Thanks for any info you all can provide.

Thank you again for your reply.

Does MIR Pro 24 come with reverb, or do I need to buy that seperately?  Are the room packs the reverb, or are they just components that plug into MIR Pro?  Right now I'm using MIRx, and would like to have it applied to all isntruments, but I'm running a few slave computers.  If I get MIR Pro, is there something comparable that comes with it?

Thank you, I think it does help.  

Which manual would help me with routing between VEP and MIR?  Both, maybe?

I'm going to demo MIR Pro 24, and I'm not sure which machine to run it on.  I use Sibelius 7.5 on my master machine, and VEP/VIP pro on 3 slave machines.  As I understand it, I can only run MIR Pro 24 on one machine, and I'm thinking that should be my master machine.  What I'm not clear on is how to route into it.  

Is it:  Master/Sibelius - > 3 slaves VEP -> output to master and capture it with MIR Pro 24 stand-alone, or do I run it in Sibelius itself?  I know I can probably run Pro Tools with MIR Pro in it, and capture the output that way, but I'd like to maintain my workflow.  I currently complete my finished product with Sibelius, and export to audio file that way.

Any ideas?

I opened my score today to find that some notes will continue to ring out after playback has stopped.  I end up having to go into VIP to 'unlatch' the note/notes that are still ringing.  It's never the same instrument.  Any hints about what might be wrong?

Update:

It looks like I fixed the issue.  I deleted and re-added the bass channel in Vienna Instruments Pro (being run inside of Vienna Ensemble Pro 5).  I'll post again if it ends up continuing after a while.  I think it may have started due to a power failure while the computer was in Sleep mode.

I have a few questions:

Right now I'm running 3 violins, viola, cello, and contrabass from Solo Strings 1 Extended; flute ensemble, solo flute, solo oboe, solo clarinet, clarinet ensemble - from woodwinds 1 extended; strings, woodwinds, horns, trumpet and percussion from Epic Orchestra.  I get pops and clicks at certain points during playback, and I notice the network data coming back to the master computer is pushing 700 kbps (if memory serves).  At some point I'll be adding piano and brass instruments (VSL).  Oh, and I'm using MIRx scoring stage.

1.  How will my master computer (MBP retina 16 GB RAM, 1GB USB ethernet) handle multiple slave computers if it's almost maxing out its throughput, and what can I do to deal with this before adding another?

2.  I've worked with buffers, Optimization, etc and still get pops and clicks, which makes me wonder about #1 more, but also makes me think I need to prepare the environment before I add any other libraries.

Thank you for the help!

I'm using Sibelius 7.5 to trigger VSL Solo Strings 1, VEP, and VIP.  I'm a little bit confused about these two things.  I've read that if the checkbox is ticked, it'll ignore all velocity info that accompanies a midi note, which I don't want to happen (I have midi CC messages as hidden txt in the score), so I should leave the box un-ticked, correct?  

If that box is un-ticked, will velocity x-fade still be in effect for humanization?  During playback, I see the fader moving up and down, so I'm assuming it's working?

Thanks for the help!

I'm not sure how to ask this question, so my apologies if it's confusing.

I'm trying to figure out how to add articulations that aren't a current part of the preset matrix (Solo Strings 1 Extended).  

If I extend the matrix using the mouse, will it throw off the preexisting settings?  Will the additional rows and columns cause the playback to go awry?  I'm afraid to try it in case it wrecks things (I have a deadline).

If it won't, and I add "harsh" to an empty spot, do I then just need to add an entry in the playback dictionary (in Sibelius) to trigger the sound?

Also, is there a quick list to show what articulations are included in the sound set vs. which aren't?  I know I can look at the sample content page and compare it to the sound set in the sound set editor, but I'm wondering if there's a quicker way.

Thanks!

Thank you for the reseponse!  I'll take your advice about additional dynamic markings to help with the realism.  Any other suggestions?  I'm reading the manuals pretty throughly, so I'm catching onto things like setting the note start point to a negative number (depending on the situation), etc.

I'm using Sibelius 7.5, VEP 5, VEI P, Solo Strings 1 Extended.

My next project will be to render this string quintet with VSL, and I'm wondering how close I should expect to be able to get to a near-real rendering?  The biggest concern I have is for the precision of the rhythmic figures (the 'feel', 'pocket', driving-ness).  I don't mind it taking many hours/months, I just don't want to spin my wheels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnSwKSe6ggE

Thank you for your time...

This is the place.  When I have a problem, I approach it like this:

1.  I try to figure it out intuitively.

2.  I read the manual, and continue trying to figure it out.

3.  I post here, keep reading the manual, and continue trying to figure it out while I wait for some help.  

Responses come pretty quickly.

As fas as your question is concerned, give us your system specs (hardware, OS, etc), and the DAW, or notation program you're using (if any).  Or let us know if you're running in stand-alone mode (it sounds like you might be).

Did you run your Directory Manager to tell VEP/VEI where your samples are?

That's what I figured.  I had to check, though.  I've researched it, and posted to a few other forums.  Turns out, this kind of thing happesn with Sibelius scores, on occassion.  In 10 years I've never experienced it.

When should we expect an update to the Sibelius soundset to arrive?

Thanks, by the way.. I love the product!

Setup:

Mac Book Pro running Sibelius

A second computer running VEP Pro / VI Pro running Solo Strings 1

When I have my score marked up with a fair amount of midi CC text, and custom velocities I get the spinning beach ball every time I touch my score.  I can't click on it without it without getting this indicator, which makes it unworkable.  When I delete the midi CC text, everything goes back to normal.  Oh, and I have experiemented with the buffer settings.  Any idea what this might be?

Thank you in advance.

UPDATE:  now the score crashed Sibelius.  I'm not sure if this is related to the Humanize Playback plugin, which I LOVE (more on that later), or VSL, or a combination of all three.  Here's the post I made in the Sibelius forum:

http://www.sibelius.com/cgi-bin/helpcenter/chat/chat.pl?com=thread&start=675915&groupid=3&&guest=1

This is what I'm running:

Model Name:MacBook Pro
Model Identifier:MacBookPro10,1
Processor Name:Intel Core i7
Processor Speed:2.7 GHz
Number of Processors:1
Total Number of Cores:4
Memory:16 GB

It ran fine with ~10 instruments.. no problems at all.  I owned Vienna Ensemble Pro and realized I could network my other two computers together to offload any *potential* performance issues, so I did.  Right now the only thing running on my Mac is Sibelius, no instruments.  So, I can't speak to anything more than 10 instruments, but those ran fine.  They were 6 intruments from Solo Strings Extended, Epic Orchestra (2 percussion tracks, strings, woodwinds).

Do you have an entry in your lmhosts file that is conflicting?  e.g. localhost redirecting to something specific that would point away from where it would normally resolve?  Sometimes certain group policies, virus scanners, or spy bot protection programs will cause this.

I don't know if you can get that exact sound, but it sounds like a combination of tremelo, portamento, and sul ponticello.

I do that obssessively, which is why it suprises me when it doesn't load properly.  Sometimes an entire instance of VEP doesn't load, then other times it may load 'empty', then other times it loads fine.  I've gotten into the habit of saving VEP Server, and both VEP instances every few minutes, just to make sure.

Perfect, thanks!  There's so much documentation, and steep learning curve, that I'm missing some obvious things.  Thank you for your patience.

Once more question:  I'm noticing that my event input isn't saving it's assignment when I reload Sibelius each time.  Both instances of VEP 5 that I'm running are set to Preserve.  It's also worth mentioning that sometimes my second instance of VEP 5 doesn't open when I open my score (after starting the VEP server, of course).

Thanks again!

Hello,

Is it possible to have Epic Orchestra and Woodwinds 1 hosted in the same VEP 5 instance?  If so, how do I deal with the soundset difference?  I tried to use an Event Input plugin, and point it to my VEP instance, but couldn't get it to work properly.

Thank you for the help..

This may explain it:

http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/threads/kontakts-5-the-vienna-symphonic-library-vs-the-other-vienna-symphonic-library.157524/

Very interesting, man!

Thank you for your response!

I'm not sure what to do with the Velocity X-Fade using the mod wheel.  Do I increase it when changing notes, and decrease when the new note is triggered?  Do you read about the technique somewhere?  I saw something in the documentation, but if there's more to it, I'd like to learn it.

Again, thank you for replying.