How do I just re-install a single instrument? I want to re-install my Tuba (from Brass I), which I accidentally removed when trying to free up some ssd space.

Hello All,

This is a bizarre question, and probably somewhat OT for just about every forum here... But...

I'm doing some research into automated keyswitching, and I'm wondering if anybody knows of a method for parsing the VI's .fxp files? Mostly I want to be able to analyze programmed midi files and map out the articulation choices made. The problem is that people's fxps tend not to be consistent (particulary true across different composers/programmers), which prohibits automating the analysis process (i.e., I can't know which midi notes are switching to which patches without the info from the fxp). [Obviously, I can do this by hand, but it will be very time consuming, particularly over a large number of midi files...] If I could parse the fxp, then I could automatically map out which notes are keyswitches, and which articulations they're switching to, which would be a huge help to get things underway.

Perhaps there's a vst dev wizard in our midst?

J.

Originally Posted by: SJSF

As a matter of following up on this, I've found that Studio One's navigation makes for a fairly effective transition from Expression Maps to living without them. You can turn on a sort of "articulation viewer" as well as color-code the piano roll. So I'm actually fine now.

 

I know this post is a bit old, but I've been wondering about the best ways of dealing with articulation switching in Studio One, and would love to hear a little more about how you're doing this.

Thanks in advance!

J.

Ah!! Okay... heh... just found the "Crosshair cursor" --> "show horizontal line" setting... sorry Steinberg... Mind you, the hint popover is still a good idea, since it would remove the need to have the lane tall enough to keep all the text visible.

I've been getting used to composing in Cubase (instead of Sibelius and/or Logic) and found this thread while researching how to make that huge articulations lane more manageable. I have to say I do love the expression maps technology (and I'm waiting with baited breath for Dorico to perfect its implementation, and particularly to get their controller lane working!). But selecting articulations is pretty laborious... For me, I find it too hard to tell what articulation I'm hovering over, with the names way off to the left of the screen. One thing I find absolutely amazing, from a UI design perspective, is that they didn't at least add a horizontal (y position) guide along with the vertical (x position) guide. It's just crazy... such a simple solution...

Or better yet, they could highlight the expression at the current vertical mouse position... Or, probably better still, they could place a little hint popover to the left of the cursor, indicating the articlation at that y position (i.e., when you hold the option key)... So many solutions...

Or maybe I'm just missing a setting somewhere?

J.

Originally Posted by: DG

The first thing VSL needs to do is come up with a VST3 version of VIP. 

DG

It looks like major VST2s like Kontakt and Vienna Instruments will be "whitelisted" in the app, so we should be able to get working with them right away. Very excited about this software, btw—many of the basic features look brilliant (and, for me, somewhat life changing). Perhaps even more importantly, it's philosphocially on-point, in the sense that it's designed from the gound-up with an understanding of composition, engraving, playback, and printing (yes, those are the "modes" discussed in Daniel's posts) as essential, but different, aspects of what (many) composers do. I'm genuinely on the edge of my seat with anticipation.

Hi Paul,

Sorry for the delay. I discovered the problem running my own "ManuScore" software, where I can specify at a ms level which comes first (i.e., since I have the source code!)... But I'm not sure how to specify this in another platform/DAW (can't do it in Sibelius). I can try faking the same idea in Logic next week, but I don't have time right now.

Actually, maybe you (or Andi) can answer another (perhaps related) question? I've reverted back to Sibelius 7.1.3 recently, due to a problem they've introduced in 7.5 with trill playback. What I'm noticing now is that legato sometimes plays back correctly and sometimes just plays silence. In the VI, what happens is that it chooses the first Matrix—in this case SS_Cello_Basic_L2 (which isn't actually the "Performance" matrix)—and selects an emtpy row at the end of the matrix (corresponding to CC 1, >105). So I don't get anything at all. At other points in my score, legato plays fine. So it's quite mysterious (but maybe a similar problem to my thread topic?). Is that empty row in the "Basic" matrix supposed to be there, btw?

Anyway, I'm using the latest soundset installer from the VSL site, choosing the Vienna House Style, and using the VE Strings soundset, with preset: -Sibelius/Strings 3.1/Solo Strings/SS I - extended/...Sib_SS_Cello_L2.

thanks,

J.

I've noticed that VI (2.4.13477) can miss control changes if they're immediately preceded by program changes. If I switch the order, and send the control change first, followed by the program change, it works as expected. This is on Yosemite 10.10.2.

Hi Andi,

Thanks for the reply. I didn' think there was anything VSL could do about it as it seemed pretty clearly to be a Sibelius bug. Interesting to know that 7.1.3 works... (I may look into a temporary downgrade.)

J.

Yup, same here. Trills won't stop once they've been triggered. It seems to work correctly for a little while (like a very little while—literally the first couple of times playing back) on a new score, but then it starts sticking on trills after that. I've gone through all the details in the Optimization pdf, have downloaded and re-installed all soundset-related stuff, and pretty everything else I can think of. I'm not sure this is true, but it seems to be connected to time signature changes and/or the addition of fermatas and other time-related alterations to the score (that is, things that change the absolute temporal location of the articulation changes)... but I'm really not sure about that...

It's been doing this for quite a while, actually, and I've just ignored it thus far, but I really have to get this working now. I have a couple of big projects starting **now** and I really need to stop fighting with this...

I'm unbelievably frustarted by Sibelius+VSL at this stage. Though, honestly, I'm not at all sure that this is VSL's problem. It's just that I have zero faith that Avid will fix it. (Please, please, Daniel et al. at Steinberg, get us something that we can use soon!) Since version 7 I've developed a deep and passionate hatred for Sibelius, but I'm totally tied in at this point... ugh... (that is, until Steinberg comes out with their offering)

But if anybody out there has had this problem and actually found a relaible fix... well... you may just save my life!

Ah yes, Software Archive was the trick. Thanks!

Although I suppose I get the thing about the text being small, for the most part the new site is a HUGE improvement. Nice work!

I'm still using VE Pro 4, but all references to it, updates, etc., seem to have disappeared on the new site. Is it officially discontinued and unsupported now?

Yes, good point on the single instruments/small groupings idea. Some techniques require multiple performers, but I would hope that VSL would make the library in such a way that we have control over the details, and don't just get some kind of "FX" package, with all the Hollywood cliches pre-programmed/performed in. The potential of these techniques, particularly via combinations of different instruments (and also combined with conventional technicques) is immense. It shouldn't be arbitrarily reduced to what we already know by "pre-composing" (as other libraries have done).

Okay, so our local shop had one. I managed to try it out, but wasn't too impressed, unfortunately. If you need something with precise control of continuous data it just doesn't cut it. I was a bit worried when I saw that all the demo videos were focused on electronica and drum patterns (it does have that kind of design). It's probably great for that, but VSL needs something more refined, with greater precision. Too bad. It's a great idea, and probably great for a different kind of composer/music, but not so appropriate here, imho.

J.

btw, Jim, did you ever find a good solution? I'm curious about that new(ish) USB breath controller:

http://www.tecontrol.se/index_files/USBMIDIBreathController.htm

I just found out about the QuNeo -- that looks extremely cool! It looks like it could offer a really brilliant way of handling both keyswitches and continuous changes. I'd be really interested in trying one out... And it's kind of ridiculously cheap, too ($250?). I expected something around $1000... Hopefully I can find one to try somewhere soon.

The boot is actually pretty good - not like the SSD, but really not bad. And I don't really reboot very often anyway. I've been installing software and samples all day, so I'd imagine the XT's cache is pretty confused about what's important! Once I'm into using it normally I suspect boot times should improve.

However, I have noticed a few times that my samples are cutting off early when holding notes -- not legato, just normal sustains. And it's definitely not a release (i.e., a short sample), it's just getting truncated. It seems to do it on some samples the first time they're played. Once they've cut out once they don't do it again. But it seems a little weird. Have you ever had this problem? I'm really hoping there isn't a problem with this set-up, as the whole process has chewed up a ton of my time already... I should note that this is playing from Sibelius 7, so I suppose it could be a problem there, not necessarily in VSL.

J.

Okay, I'm up and running with the XT as my boot and the M4 as my sample drive and... holy crap!!! It's too sweet for words. I knew sample loading would be faster, but this is absurd. My fairly beefy solo violin extended patches load in around 2 seconds. Absolutely brilliant! Couldn't be happier. Way beyond my expectations.

J.

yeah, that was my instinct. Somewhere on this forum I found some numbers comparing a few HDs vs the Crucial M4 SSD (which is what I bought) and I was a kind of shocked by the improvement with the SSD. So I figured I couldn't go wrong using the SSD for samples. I'll probably get another M4 for my boot drive, when I have a bit of spare loot, but the hybrid should do for now.

J.

I'm just curious whether anyone has done any streaming tests of Vienna Instruments with the Momentus XT? I have a 512 GB SSD and a 500 GB momentus XT (hybrid), and I'm wondering which I should really use for which task... System on the hybrid, samples on the SSD, or vice versa?? So far, I've been working with the idea of putting samples on the SSD and the system on the hybrid. But being a long-time user of SSDs for boot drives, I know I'm going to miss the speed there. So, if the hybrid will be good for samples, I may change my plan.

Anyone have any thoughts, experiences?

Thanks in advance.

J.

Has anybody tried this thing out? It seems like a great idea... I'm just not sure how well it would work for VSL. What I've been trying to do is to find an all-round solution for a good laptop composing set-up. Currently I have a Macbook Pro with an SSD as my boot and a 750 GB HD replacing my optical drive. It's basically fine, but with only 8GB or RAM, it has a clear limit for larger scores. I'm wondering whether swapping my SSD boot for the Synapse 128GB, and moving everything to the 750 GB HD (i.e., system and samples) would be better or worse. Obviously, it winds up putting the system on the same drive as the samples, which is typically a bad idea. But with the Synapse running, I'd imagine the amount of cache used by the system would be a pretty small chunk (on the 128 GB version), leaving a decent amount of room for sample caching... It's just a matter of exactly what data from VSL would get cached, and how much that would help the streaming situation.

Anybody had a look at this yet?

J.

Hello Paul, and thanks for the info.

Of course, it isn't hard to believe that you're already running at the maximum compression. But, at the same time, it also would have been a feature worth holding for a major version upgrade. Good to know. My big thing is trying to get a system that can run nicely on a laptop. I've recently seen reasonably affordable 16GB kits, so that may be the best route.

Thanks again.

J.

Can either of you tell whether keeping the preload settings comparable to those in VI Pro 1.0 will actually load more samples? I swear I read something at some point about optimized compression/streaming code, and the ability to load more samples in memory... but I could be hallucinating (again...)

J.

Hello All,

I'm just curious about whether VI Pro 2 has improved memory usage? I seem to recall some suggestion that this was the case, but the details given on the site only state that the preload into RAM is now adjustable, for use with faster drives/SSDs (i.e., the compression in memory is the same, but we can now push more of the work to the drives). Has there actually been any change to the memory usage (compression), given the same drives, with the same settings? After all, "10 times" is fine and all, but I'd settle for 2! ;-)

J.

+1,000,000