I'm not sure I completely understand your question but are you asking if you need VE Pro in order to host VI pro?

No.  You can use the free hosting software to host VI pro instances. 

VE Pro just has more advanced features like being able to host 3rd party players and automation.

Genrally speaking, the transition from VI to VI Pro is pretty seamless.  You're just going to have many more features to learn how to use but all of your presets won't be affected.

Wow! Nice job.

I can't agree more to what's been already said but, overall, a fun and lively recording that sounds so natural.

Hey Paul,

Nicely done. This must be for you a profound exploration of emotions intertwined with some sweet memories.

I think the older we get the more we yearn for "the good 'ol days." For me, these nooks and crannies of nostalgia are both soothing and therapeutic. There's nothing like letting your thoughts drift back to a simpler time when it seemed the world was a better place.

May I ask where you grew up?

Something tells me that you grew up somewhere best described as pastoral?

Anyway, I enjoyed your piece. The recording is profesional and both the composition and the arrangement took me to "happy places" I forgot were there so thank you for sharing.

Are you using VI Pro?  If so, what's the legato interval set to?  Make sure it's mono, not polyphony.

Is velocity Crossfade turned on or off?  Make sure it's turned off then see if you have the volume differences.

Pixelpoet1985,

I think I may have misunderstood your original post.  Sorry about that  You're right about being in the dark on many aspects of the VSL world.  But it didn't used to always be like that.

In fact, I remember watching the old video tutorials, with the original Vienna GUI, and they answered many of the questions you raised. I could have sworn there was a video about the various Performance samples, what they are, and when to use them, etc. but I think those videos are considered legacy now.

Perhaps VSL should consider "rebooting" some of their legacy tutorials videos re-explaining some of these things?

 

Sorry William,

I know this isn't what you wanted to discuss in this thread so I'll check out now.

 

But what's important to you others may care less about.  Comparitvely speaking I think VSL's product pages are comprable to their competitors.  Personally, I go straight to the demos and if I like what I hear I'll dig deeper.

It's a tough job trying to design product pages for these libraries because you're dealing with a wide variety of people. Some people are old fashion pen and paper composers who just want their written works realized and could care less about how many samples a library has to offer or mic positions etc.  But they might care a lot about the fact that a professional musician like Gisela Mashayekhi-Beer recorded the flute samples on the Woodwinds I library.  While others may have more of a technical background in computers/programming and care more about GUI's Interfaces, software ease of use, and wouldn't know the difference between Gisela Mashayekhi-Beer and Gisela Mashayekhi-Grape Juice. 

Then there are media composers who are interested more in the number of articulations so they can quickly create their mockups for clients.  These folks could care less about the MIDI controllers and sample manipulation (VI Pro) because they're just trying to create an approximation of something that will be recorded live.

Then you have hobbyists, educators, students etc.  Everybody has different needs.  

I asked a question similar to this a long time ago and the response I got from VSL was that it is generally less taxing on a system to host individual VI instances in a single VE instance rather than having say individual VI instances for Violins then another instance for 2nd violins, Violas, etc. The samples also load faster if you have to leave the project and come back to it later.

Also, the advantage to using VE to host your VI's is that you can build and save templates (Strings, Brass, etc) which can be used again and again for future projects so as to avoid the necessity of having to reinvent the wheel time and again.  Does that make sense?

I've only worked in 440 and 432 so I can't speak for any really exotic tunnings you might have in mind.  Almost all of my larger works are in 440 but I prefer to do chamber in 432.  I have templates that are identical in structure but the tunning is either 440 or 432.

In the past (The Old Vienna GUI) I would use anything between 430 and 442 and there never was any discernable deterioration of the sound quality and I don't imagine that would be any different today.

Forgive me for askiing but is there any reason why you have to use two machines?

Some people use two, or even three or more, machines and get by just fine but I've always said, as the number of machines in your workflow increase so does the number of potential problems.  So unless it's just a personal preference or you're working with gargantuan templates having 3rd party 4th, 5th and upteenth thousand party libraries with over a gazillion samples loaded you could probably get by with just one machine.  Maybe just increase the memory if possible.

But I sincerely hope you find a solution to your problems so you can get back to composing. 

Hey Jerry, long time no hear. Busy working on that CD I guess.


This sounds very nice. Very impressive recording and sound overall.

Some composers shy away from synths in an orchestral setting thinking they're not appropriate and too lowbrow best left to the throbbing EDM'ers devoid of any semblance of culture. How nearsighted. When used tastefully, synths can introduce the listener to whole new and interesting dimensions within a piece and you've demonstrated that here. Incidentally, you're not the only Jerry who's used synths with an organic orchestra. Jerry Goldsmith used synths unapologetically in many of his works.

I've tried mixing synths into my orchestral recipes but none of my sonic confections are as deliciously sweet as your Passacaglia. Congratulations!

That's ashamed William. I'm very sorry to hear about your problems.

I had an issue like this with VE5 (which I still use BTW). In my situation the input channels from my DAW had somehow been switched to OMNI in VE so everytime I moved the controller on my keyboard all of the channels on OMNI, or "ALL" were affected.

Does this problem happen with any project you load or just this large one?

Is it just the pitch that's affected?

Did you try double right clicking on the affected fader(s) to decouple it from the controller?

If it is a corrupted file you could try working one track at a time, bounce to audio, then mix the audio tracks. I think in VE6 you right click the track and an option comes up saying "deactivate channel? I think.

Yes. Working one track at a time is laborious and time consuming but if it will get you through without having to redo the whole project it might be worth it.

I hope you find a solution because I'd like to hear what it is you're working on.

Hey Mike,

I work with Sonar Platinum and have been living in the Cakewalk realm for a very long time.  I'm curious to know why you work in the staff view.  When compared to Finale or Sibelius, Sonar's staff view is deficient in functionality and is extremely limited, although it has gotten a lot better over the years.

Don't get me wrong, whatever floats your boat and I hope you find a solution to your problem but maybe the solution is to demo some notation software?  It just seems a little counterintuitive to be trying to compose staff with software that was specifically designed as a DAW.  I thought the staff veiw was for notation inclined people to be able to just sketch out an idea then work with it in PRV.  I haven't used the staff veiw since Sonar 7.

And I bet that, at the very least, 1 hour and 50 minutes of the music on that JW CD could stand on its own without a visual and still be enjoyable music. Unfortunately not 1 minute of a contemporary score today couldn't stand on its own.

"Coming up with enough music to fill almost 2 hours." 

Try writing an opera John.  Although I have never actually gone to the theater and seen one performed I hear that operas are pretty much "wall to wall" music, from start to finish, and some operas are 3 + hours long. But if you have an army of drones at your fingertips then 3 hours is nothing.

Well ain't that the sad truth

And nothing says brooding more than the ominous DRONE burrrrrrrrr...

And no self-respecting so-called composer today wouldn't be caught dead without their loyal army of drones standing at attention on their harddrives just waiting to be called upon to do their duty.

Here's a link to the VI Pro tutorials.

 

https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Vienna_Software_Package/Vienna_Instruments_PRO#!Video_Demos

 

Just go to the "Human Performance Control" video and you'll see that it's pretty straight forward.

Well done John! and Thank you for sharing.

I agree with William that the score sounds more lighthearted then the serious subject matter the film portrays. Maybe, since Bernstein was Jewish, he saw scoring this film as an opportunity to give a one finger salute to the Nazis in his own small musical way. So maybe he just has some fun with it.

The score reminded me of John Williams 1941 March (composed 15 years later) but not because they sound alike, because both composers took similiar approaches with the scoring style.  The difference however is that The 1941 March is a bombastic and cartoonish score to a bombastic and cartoonish film so the score fits.

But in a strange sort of way Bernstein's score fits too.  Go figure. 

After a closer look, "LATEST POSTS" actually does break the posts down, you just have to read a little further.

My apologies.  When I logged into the forum I just went straight to "LATEST POSTS" which doesn't break the posts down by the individual sections so I didn't know which section you posted in.

Yes, my remark was meant as humor not sarcasm nor condescension.  In your original post it sounded like you were asking for permission to do what you wanted to do which I found to be humorous.

Again, sorry for the confusion.

BTW, Bill has a point.  It's always better to do keyswitches unless you're playing live or trying to do something on the fly.  Why don't you explain what issues you're having with keyswitching and maybe we can figure something out.  Keyswitching probelms are almost always caused by MIDI routing issues.   

Congratulations!

On behalf the "CC Events for Articulations Governing Board,"  TFIS, myself and my imaginary friends have granted your request for using CC Events for switching articulations instead of keyswitches.  Please try to understand the awsome power at your fingertips and do not let this knowledge fall into the wrong hands.  We're depending on you.

Well Done! You've earned it.  

But seriously...

In the basic view go to Matrix Control and to the right of "X Axis" you should see a button (I think it defaults to keyswitch I can't remember).  When you right or left click the button some options should come up and there should be one for CC controller or pitch wheel maybe but this should at least get you in the right direction.

An interesting piece.  More like a vocal sound design I would say. 

It is what it is. Not much else to say other than what you already wrote in your description.

As for the mix, I didn't really hear anything derogatory but I was listening in my car.  Thanks for posting.

The Attack affects the start of the sample; whether it begins fast or slow.  a low Attack value means that the sample will have a fast start (hard Attack) As you raise the value the beginning of the sample comes in softer and softer (slow Attack)  Keep in mind that some samples, like staccatos, have natural hard attacks and attack values have no effect on those samples.

Release is kind of the same as Attack except it affects the end of the sample so the higher the Release value the longer it takes for the sample to fade to silence once the key is released.

I don't know what Delay and Start Scaler are but I do know about the Start Offset which I use frequently.  There's a pretty good video tutorial that explains Start Offset better then I can. 

Here's a link to all the VI Pro tutorials https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Software/Vienna_Instruments#!Video_Demos 

Personally, I wouldn't set a fader for volume because there are other means to control the master volume and it would free up a fader.  Instead, I would set that to Attack or Start Offset.  Attack you won't use all that much but it would depend on the sample you're dealing with.

Have you updated your VI Pro lately?  They added Legato Blur and maybe one or two more that I can't remember but you should set a fader to Legato Blur which adds realism to your legato lines by manipulating the transition sample between the notes.

 

So here's an example of what I have faders are set to and priority:

Vel X Fade (an absolute must have)

Expression (a must have)

Attack (Ehh... Not so much, but nice to have)

Humanize (a must have)

Start Offset (a nice to have)

Legato Blur (more than a nice to have but not quite a must have)

As a general rule I usually set the Release fader value up a few ticks (a few more for strings) because it helps with those lush legato lines.  Although, Legato Blur may have made this Release tip obsolete?  Anybody have any thoughts on that?

Of course none of these are written in stone as it depends on the style of music, instrument, etc.

 

 

Except the Vel X Fade if it is turned off.

I do apologize for yet another belated thank you for listening and your comments but I've been a little busy lately.

@ William,

You mentioned the timbres and that reminded me of the VSL gongs I used. There's something enchanting about the VSL gongs and I find myself using them quite a bit.  The haunting sound they create has a soothing effect and I just love them along with the other VSL percussive instruments but those gongs really stand out for me. 

Also, the Vienna Suite makes a huge difference because you can sweeten the sound without over coloring it, if that makes any sense.  Of course you can sweeten and color if that's what you want but, to me, that sounds over processed.

 

@ Errikos,

Well, I do fancy myself a lady's man at times and anything I can do to impress the fairer sex is worth a shot.  Of course my wife would prefer I make the Musikalische Opfer to just her alone in which case I happily oblige by tickling the ivories for her when the mood is right.  Then after a few glasses of wine we proceed to tickle each other but I won't discuss that here because, well this ain't that kind of forum buddy

And on that note, I don't know if the forum is dying or if it's going through an evolutionary cycle but it does seem like many of the stalworth forum elders no longer contribute their wisdom.  It's kind of sad.  I was just thinking the other day what ever happened to DG?  He was such a treasure trove of knowledge and advice.  I miss his well informed and pithy posts.  I hope he's in good health and successful.

But I'm so glad to see that you still keep in touch with the forum because it just wouldn't be the same without you 

Hello Dave and a belated thank you for taking the time to listen.

Originally, I had planned this to be a Classical piece comprised of just percussive instruments (it's from a piano arrangement I composed)  I think maybe the drum kit playing the Jazzy riff shines a more Popish light on the piece.  The funny thing is the drum kit was an afterthought.  I thought it sounded a bit bland without it.

Perhaps I should consider removing it and try something else.

Anyway, thanks again for listening  

Okay, the last link won't work on certain devices so, as much as I despise Soundclound, I went ahead and resurrected my account with them and posted it their as well.

Here's the link:

Sound Cloud Version

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Who isn't just fascinated by small shiny objects?

Well, here's a track I composed dedicated to all the small shiny objects in the world.

Small Shiny Objects

It's an all VSL percussive venture using all of the Vienna percussive instruments that I have (Celesta, Xylophone, Miramba, Gongs, etc.). Also it was mixed and mastered with the Vienna Suite.

The only thing that is not VSL is the drum kit which is Session Drummer I think.

Enjoy and comments welcome of course.

Sorry, I was having trouble getting the link to work earlier.  You might have to download the flash player when the site comes up. Sorry for the extra step.