Originally Posted by: Dietz

Thanks a lot for this interesting and informative summary!

The lobby of the Vienna Konzerthaus is indeed used for performances and opening ceremonies regularly, so the idea to capture this Venue for MIR wasn't too far-fetched. In the early days of legacy Vienna MIR it was a good replacement for the (back then) still missing "cathedral-like" halls. Truth to be told, it was one of the hardest recording sessions of all, because there's almost no sound-isolation against noise from the outside, and we had only a few hours to run the whole thing. 8-/

The Konzerthaus-lobby is also one of my favourite Venues for MIR demonstrations. It's always funny to have a player "walking up" the stairway, with this very distinctive sense of distance and indirect reflections. :-)

Still I would strongly suggest to look into Vienna Konzerthaus - Mozartsaal for smaller orchestrations and delicate arrangements. This beautiful hall is said to be one of the best environments for chamber music on ths planet - for a reason!

Apart from that, I would be interested in your definition of "warm" sound. The three halls of The Sage Gateshead sound fabulous, but acoustically they are all on the clear, well-defined side, if you ask me. OTOH - of you like the Konzerthaus lobby, you should _definitely_ try our version of the Pernegg Monastery (a.k.a. RoomPack 5). For me, this MIR Venue is maybe the most versatile of all, which lends itself beautifully to all kinds of music (despite its ecclesiastical origin). It can be used in both directions (front > back, back > front), it offers dedicated elevated instrument positions from the organ balcony, and the reverberation time can be brought down to almost "dryish" values without losing the sense of spaciousness. Highly recommended! :-)

Kind regards,

Thanks for the thoughts, I define "warm" is usually a bit more emphasis on the mids and low mids. Its generally less tiring on the ears, but also has a more subdued sound and probably idea for smaller, less bombastic music.

I have all the MIRx rooms and have been playing with the limited options it provides for quite a long time using the Pern monastery, and once the amount of wet dry signal has been adjusted to be a bit more reasonable, it has what is in my opinion, one of the most beautiful, deeply coloured reverb sound I have heard. It is personally my favourite venue of the MIRx groupings, but I have to tell you, the lobby of Konz in MIR Pro is quickly growing on me.

Having only recently had the chance to really dive into MIR Pro (this might be a violation of the terms, but a friend let me borrow his Vienna key so I had a chance to use MIR Pro for an extended period of time while he was out of the States), I finally decided to buy my own license with roompack 1, and Im very quickly wishing I had pern monastery (Roompack 5). There are many reverb engines out there, but nothing tailored for orchestral work with exception to maybe altiverb, which pales in comparison.

The hidden little gem about MIR Pro? I think Paul dropped the ball on this, MIRacles. It gets a 45 second mention in one of the later videos and is never mentioned outside of this. It really deserves its own video, even if you just take the video from Suite pro and drop it into the MIR Pro video collection, because this hidden little gem allows us to really have the best of both worlds, realistic venues with some algorithmic sweetness to iron out resonances, or, in my case, accentuate resonances. Let me explain.

While many sound engineers and composers are looking for a flat sound, I am not. A room plays the biggest role in the sound an instrument makes. Arguably, the sound engineer is "playing" the room when he is mixing. I like to write, compose, and mix to the room. This means, looking at the room, determining the type of reverb, tail length, resonant frequencies, and other key characteristics and writing music tailored for that venue. I am not an expert in sound engineering, nor am I a very good composer, dont take everything I just said as some sort of blow hard set of comments, I only mention this to say that even something as simple as changing the key of a piece to match the acoustics of a room can make a HUGE difference in the tone and timbre of a piece, and it is something every composer should consider.

A trumpet sounds terrible on a street corner when compared to an acoustically tuned room. Add coloration to that room and that adds character. Most sound engineers consider color to be a flaw, I consider it to be character. The most overlooked aspect of composition is the room with which a piece is played in, and if you are not paying close attention to the acoustics of the room, you are missing an important detail of the the timbre of the music.

This is, by the way, why I wish there were more mic positions available, Id love to be able to capture more of the room's tone, but I have digressed. Pern Monastery, I will pick it up in the coming months, the current "crisis" has me broke. Why did every sound font company have to put everything I wanted on sale this last month??

Probably a common question, I'm doing a lot of smaller arrangements lately to try to improve my music theory and instrumentation skills, working with self-imposed limitations allows me to really have to work harder to make an arrangement sound good without using a huge swath of instrumentation to hide poor/artificial sounding instruments because of lazy MIDI programming (as good as MIDI is these days, it still requires a lot of work to get a MIDI instrument to sound realistic). One of the aspects I am also working on is my mastering skills, including compression, EQ, and reverb.

A lot of what I am doing right now is upbeat chamber music from the medieval era, usually, the kind of thing you might expect to hear in film in a kings court type of settings (think tambourine, small string quartet, some historical winds like recorders and even the crumhorn got some use last night!).

I'm currently using MIR Pro with the starter edition complete libraries (1-7 and 1+ & 2+) in either the VI or Synchron stage variety, depending on which UI I feel like working with. It's worth noting, I really love these libraries, my only wish is that they had progressive vibrato, for the price of these libraries compared to other similar libraries, the others do have progressive vibrato, it puzzles me that the starter editions do not. However, I digress...

My mastering is done completely in Vienna Suite Pro, and I have Ensemble Pro with Instruments Pro, the only room pack I have a license for is Konzerthaus (room pack 1).

Surprisingly, the lobby is actually fantastic, very lively sound, interesting and unusual reflections, it really adds a lot of character to smaller chamber music and I am betting, it's overlooked by many. My guess is, many think the lobby was included as maybe a goof, or, a "why not capture the lobby, we are here", sort of thing, but it really is a fantastic sound, provided you dial down the wet/dry mix and make some small adjustments on the tail (nearly 5s of reverb tail is a bit much haha). I find the tone in the lobby to be warmer and more friendly than the small Schubertsaal venue that is also included. This whole paragraph is all to say, if you have room pack 1, don't overlook the lobby, even if it's for bigger work, again, with the caveat that you adjust the tail and wet/dry ratio.

That said, I'm looking at room pack 4 (Sage Gateshead), specifically, hall 2 wondering if this has a good sound for the kind of music I am writing, or perhaps there are other venues with some tweaking, might be suitable. (I have all of the MirX rooms so that might be an interesting way to preview the bigger Mir Pro room packs).

Anyone have any thoughts on any specific room packs that might be suitable for this and some possible appropriate adjustments to make for a more authentic and warm sound?

Originally Posted by: seanmccoy

Hey, gang! Forgive me for trying to tap into all of your experiences, but having no shame, that's exactly what I need to do.  I find myself now owning all the original SE libraries, all the Synchronized SE libraries, Epic Orchestra 2.0, and Smart Orchestra. So in order to keep me from spending so much time comparing each and every preset and never actually getting to any composing, I have two questions: 1. Having the Synchronized versions, is there any reason whatsoever to open any of the original VIP versions ever again? And 2. Are there instruments in the Epic Orchestra (or Smart Orchestra, for that matter), that are worth exploring that would improve upon or complement what's in the Synchronized SE libraries?

Any advice or opinions greatly, greatly appreciated, as it will vastly improve my chances of writing at least one piece of music before I die of old age.  

Smart Orchestra's primary purpose is quick sketching or live performances.

Big Bang & Epic Orchestra is primarily for sketching or projects that might require light orchestration where individual instrumentation is not necessary.

The more complete libraries like the special edition libraries or even the standard or full libraries are for focused orchestration that requires individual notation for each and every instrument in the orchestra. It is notable that for the vast majority of composers just getting started, the Special Editions cover almost everything you need minus the ability to adjust the amount of vibrato (for the life of me, I don't understand why crossfading is not included, since many more full libraries that cost significantly less offer this functionality, such as the Chris Hein libraries, which are in my opinion, the best overall solo orchestral instruments on the market right now).

Whether you have a reason to open the VI instruments is all a matter of what products you currently have, and what your needs are. If you have a license for Vienna Suite Pro and MIR Pro with Synchron stage IR, You can easily get the identical sound that is offered from the Synchronized libraries but has, but with much more flexibility.

You have to understand that Vienna decided to create a product that sounds good out of the box (Synchron libraries) but at the cost of less flexibility. The advantage the Synchronized editions provide is good sound, less time spent having to shape the sound of each instrument, and results in having to spend less money for said results.

On the other hand, the VI libraries provide more flexibility at the cost of having to spend time shaping the sound for each instrument and require spending additional money on things like reverb or FX like compression or EQing. Of course, you can set up templates, but this comes at the cost of having to load more into memory than you may be willing to load, which is an additional tradeoff you have to make if you use templates.

Finally, probably pretty obvious, but often overlooked, is the UI provided with Vienna Instruments versus the Synchron player. My personal opinion is the VI player is better for my tastes. It looks less fisher price and more like a product that is professional, however, each person will have their own tastes. I think feature for feature, VI Pro is on par with Synchron player, in fact, Synchron player has the advantage of offering polyphonic legato without having to pay extra, something which for the life of me, is an astonishing money grab by Vienna. In my view, if you paid for the instrument, polyphonic legato should not be an added cost.

My personal workflow involves using Smart Orchestra, Epic Orchestra 1 & 2, and Big Bang to sketch out ideas, then quickly convert the instrumentation to full orchestration in one of the Special Edition variants. For epic or trailer work, Synchron is great. For more subdued projects, I use VI. For example, I just wrote a Fugue, and it made more sense to use VI for this project. A month or two ago, I did a 12-minute trailer that made use of the Synchron libraries. One other point worth mentioning, some specific instruments simply sound better in either the VI or Synchron variation. The solo coronet, for example, is simply stunning in the VI variety, run through the Black Hole reverb plugin. The majority of the string libraries are fantastic in the Synchron library right out of the box with almost no sound-shaping required. It is all a matter of exploring both of the libraries. You paid for them, spend time getting to know them, start writing pieces with them in different styles and varieties, and it will quickly become apparent where they are good, and where they are not so good.

Seems ya'll heard my requests, this looks like alot of fun. Percussion yay! Time Stretching yay!!

Now, if you wouldnt mind doing one small favor, would you do a short video of your cymbal rolls with soft mallets? I have been searching high and low for good cymbal rolls and I have been unable to find any that work for me... This might be the answer, especially if time stretching works the way I think it does / should :)

We just need some timpani love and some phrases used in time signatures outside of 4/4!

My apologies to Paul, I stole your announcement.

Percussion absolutely makes sense in this library. This is a lite library that should have timpani hits and rolls, bass drum hits and rolls, and cymbal rolls and crashes. It's an "epic" orchestral library designed for quick scoring. It doesnt need dozens of articulations, but basic hits and rolls for timpanis, bass drum(s), and cymbals absolutely fits.

As to having to have every instrument in the DAW, the idea is that you literally drag from Synchron into the DAW and the notation is added in separate tracks. What instruments you are using is up to you.

I am curious, are there plans to add tempo sync to the Big Bang product line? I dont understand why I cannot set my tempo in my DAW and have Syncron dynamically adjust to my tempo settings as many other similar products are able to do.

I am also curious whether there are plans for drag and drop functionality into my DAW that will automatically place the notation used into the MIDI tracks I have created in my DAW. For example, perhaps, I want to double the Cello and Double Bass used in Capricorn with a low brass library of my choice (whether it be Vienna or another library).

These are both features offered in other similar products such as Sonuscore's The Orchestra Complete or Sonokinetic phrase based libraries. Granted, you often have to tweak CC data to get them to sound authentic with third party libraries, but at least the notation is easily put in place.

Also, as I havent looked at Capricorn (literally just bought a license about an hour ago and Im too exhausted to dive into it right now), are the phrases in the 120 BPM section the same as the 130 and 140 libraries? If they are, perhaps we can simplify this, remove the option to select BPM and just put tempo sync in.

Im liking the direction you are going here with BB, however, I want to see more, much more, with more time signatures, a more flexible arp that doesnt lock me in to specific phrases, and has more flexibility in not only notes played, but play style (legato, staccato, marcato, etc), note duration, etc.

Pick up a license for The Orchestra Complete and take a look at what they are doing, as this is probably the best arp library on the market right now. I think you guys can not only reproduce what they are doing, but do it better.

Also, while Im not specifically needing it, BB is curiously missing percussion. It is Big Bang after all. The big is there, but wheres the bang?

Did not mix in surround sound, I am unable to figure out how to get cubase to export in 5.1.

As to using the stereo imager, I dont know what this. If you mean, did I pan the instruments, yes, however, I did not use the power pan plugin, I used the pan builtin to Ensemble. I also used the exciter, eq, hybrid reverb, and compressor.

*Added* So I just looked at the panning, it seems that everything was centered.

This is with the panning correctly implemented. (yea, I know the reverb tail at the end is not right, Ill fix that part later this week)

https://soundcloud.com/joshua-gardner-15/ds9-updated-with-correct-panning

Growing up, Deep Space Nine, a popular scifi television series, based in the Star Trek universe, always fascinated me. The theme for this TV show was majestic, bold, brassy, and in your face, with big fat fifths and occasional dimished chords that are so good for brass instrumentation, and I wanted to arrange something that would really showcase the Vienna Special Edition library and its capabilities, hence this arrangement.

This is done using (exclusively) the starter / special edition libraries from Vienna, with one exception, I used an atonal rumbler from omnisphere to provide a bigger oomph to the opening of the track. This track showcases the most absolutely wonderful coronet that is included with the special editions (my favourite unsung hero of the Vienna libraries). You will also hear french horns, which carry the main melody and harmony of the piece at various points of the piece (the coronet and horns carry the melody throughout the piece). The appasionata strings carry the lovely, high string line that sings over the top of the theme, and the tubas and trombones fill in the low end, along with a cello, and as a side note, now that Im thinking about it, I should add a double bass haha. Also included is the orchestral strings to carry the softer string line often associated with the opening of almost any star trek theme. Also used is the wonderful Cannon from Smart Spheres for an even bigger bass line.

I also utilized the Vienna Suite Pro FX plugins that was recently on sale, I used the compressor, EQ, hybrid reverb, and my new favourite plugin, the exciter for the cymbal rolls, strings, and coronet. The result is absolutely stunning in my humble opinion. I went outside of Vienna for one FX, the horns did not have enough of a spacial feeling, so I used my favourite reverb engine (next to Mir Pro), Blackhole on only the horns.

Without any further ado, the theme to Deep Space Nine the way it was meant to be heard.

DS9 Theme

My concern is, resources are still an issue for me. I write and compose using a single PC, an Intel core i7 8700k with 64 GB of ram. A full orchestral piece consisting of about 60 tracks in which I use every instrument that is loaded, will eat every bit of that ram up in a heartbeat. I cannot upgrade my RAM any more than that, 64 is my motherboard limit, so my next option would be to start freezing tracks or converting tracks to audio, which would severely hamper my creativity (waiting minutes to unfreeze and reload a track is a creativity killer).

Factor in MIR Pro and perhaps a light compression / delay VST (I use the FX builtin to Ensemble 7 as the FX are quite good), and the video editing software I use (Magix Vegas Studio) which I like to have open with the music writing process so that I can write music and time / render it correctly in time with the video and things start to go quite nuts on resource usage. While I know there are options for reducing resource usage, and I certainly could do what I do without having everything loaded all at once, It would slow down the final bit of the process for me, when I am fine tuning the work I do.

It is also worth noting, probably 70% of what I work with is already what I would consider a light library (Special Edition libraries - 1,1+,2,2+,3,4,5,6,&7). I shudder to think how bad it would be if I were using the complete libraries. I mean, in all honestly, with exception to the solo instruments, luckily, I dont see a big enough value in the complete libraries (for me) to use them or I would have to consider replacing my motherboard and doubling my ram, a prospect that would run me about $1000.

As much as I absolutely love Orchestral Tools libraries and some of Spitfire libraries, the main reason I dont use them is the size. They are unbelievably ginormous and unnecessarily so.

I also, as a side note, do not want to introduce complexity in my workflow. Running Ensemble over a network, while neat, adds unecessary complexity that I just dont need or want. As the famous line goes, the more they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.

Synchron pianos is already one of the biggest piano libraries out there, surpassed only by another piano library that touts a terabyte and a half as I recall. I am glad that VSL decided to release the special edition synchron variant, as it serves well enough to my ear to use for orchestral work, and hell, I think the special edition variant is STILL larger in size than most piano libraries on the market.

Finally, I dont think it is beneficial to anyone to suggest that performance is better with higher sample rates. What we are doing is vastly different than what many articles are writing about, which is simple playback. We are adding FX and we are not merely simply playing wav audio. The audio format is in a proprietary format, not native to what soundcards are acustomed to playing, which adds overhead, increasing processor usage.

All this having been said, I am not against having an optional download for those that want higher quality, although, if this option is provided, I dont understand why they should need to sell it as a "give us more money" choice, because they already have the samples in this format. It would not or should not require much more effort on their end to make this option available, and it should be a free choice, as it is with every other library on the market that offers quality choices (Sonokinetic for example, it is a free optional download).

Personally, no offense meant, but I find it highly suspicious that anyone can tell the difference between 48 and 96 sample rates. Now, between 16 and 24 bit, in very specific circumstances, that I can tell the difference, but the circumstances where I can tell the difference are very specific, having to do with dithering with certain frequencies and lower volume levels. However, who am I to get into a debate over whether someone can hear a difference?

Anyway, I have Physics homework to get back to, make the option available free of charge, choice is never a bad thing, I merely wanted to address the notion that performance was better with higher sample rates.

Originally Posted by: Crystal

I just find this from a french site (https://deveniringeson.com/frequence-echantillonnage/) :

“(...)les pilotes de votre carte son (surtout les convertisseurs professionnel) seront optimisés pour une fréquence d’échantillonnage donnée. En général, les pilotes ASIO de vos convertisseurs sont optimisés pour la fréquence d’échantillonnage maximum qu’elle propose : 96 000 Hz et 192 000 Hz dans la majorité des cas. Ca peut être surprenant, mais vous aurez moins de latence et plus de soulagement pour le micro-processeur avec une fréquence d’échantillonnage plus grande.”

Reverso translation :

“drivers on your sound card (especially professional converters) will be optimized for a given sampling frequency. In general, the ASIO drivers of your converters are optimized for the maximum sampling frequency it offers: 96,000 Hz and 192,000 Hz in the majority of cases. This may be surprising, but you will have less latency and more relief for the microprocessor with a higher sampling rate. »

It could be an element for the discution about latency.

 

Gabiel Plalame

Right, but we arent just talking about playback, we are also talking about adding FX. The reverbs and other FX we add to our sounds becomes more complex (thus, significantly higher processor usage) with higher sample rates. Its easy enough to test, if you have a library that contains multiple sample rate options, both with and without FX.

On the off chance that they were included in "Drums" under Percussion, I found them, plus rolls. Yay Vienna, ok, now I know where to find them. I shouldve thought to look here, Ive been using the ones from epic orchestra all this time :(

I have both Starter Edition Complete for VIPro and Synchron (1, 1+, 2, 2+, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7) and I am curious, why do the starter editions not include your Taiko drums? I have it in Epic orchestra as a bonus instrument, but would love a way to drag this into the starter edition section of Synchron player, as I am forever forgetting where these things are and end up digging around in other libraries to find them, or, even better, Im sure you have a variant of them that has not only strikes, but rolls as well. Any chance an update can be provided for SE license holders that add the Taiko drums?

As a long time fan of Smart Orchestra (I use it for both live performances and for sketching), I really wish you had your beautiful coronet in here. It is, without a doubt, my favourite sampled instrument you guys have. I do not know why it is never mentioned when discussing the praises of VSL. In one of your videos for the expansion, you asked for instrument suggestions, well, here you go.

In addition to the coronet, Id also like to see a low brass and high brass ensemble in here. They dont need to be separated into different instruments, Trombones and Tubas mixed is just fine for low brass,

Also, phrases, where are the prebuilt phrases? This is a sketching library after all! Runs, rhythmic phrases, prebuilt chord structures, some sort of arp structure. I get it that Synchron isnt built with this functionaility, but you have it in Vienna Instruments Pro, but alas, the choices in Instruments Pro are also lacking. Its a feature with almost no presets. Now, as I understand it, prebuilt phrases are included with your complete libraries, but I do not understand not including them with the starter edition libraries. The starter edition libraries are extremely powerful and short changing them by suggesting that good phrasing just cant be done without the full set of articulations is just untrue. Sonuscore's The Orchestra Complete has fewer articulations than even the special edition core bundles and it has an arpegiiator that is just stunning and so easy to use. You really should purchase a copy of this and take a look at it, as far as orchestral arps go, there really is nothing better.

I have written tons of prebuilt runs and phrases inside of Instruments Pro, including rhythmic, runs, and chorded trills that unfortunately, are suck in Instruments Pro and cannot be used in Synchron Player that I use all the time (I have even written a few canned fanfares that I use for live performances from time to time).

Originally Posted by: dmidi

Originally Posted by: littlewierdo

Not to mention the memory footprint. A full orchestral piece requires 60 plus gigabytes of ram for me, and that is really nothing in comparison with what it could be. There is a reason why 44.1 at a 16 bit depth rate was chosen for CD audio, this is considered just above the maximum quality that anyone can hear a difference. Anything above this is really unecessary, unless you are time stretching samples (think slow motion video, the more frames you have, the smoother it will be). When it comes to orchestral, I dont think time stretching samples is something many people are apt to do.

1. No disrespect, but have you read the thread?  This is about LIVE instrument playability quality, not RECORDED/MIDI music file playback sound quality or time stretching. 

To summarize, there is a negative effect of latency on pianist's sense of hearing and motor cortex processing as impacted by low sampling frequency.  That is, if you press a key and you expect to hear the sound in 3 Milliseconds, but the sound instead comes to you in 6 Milliseconds, that will be as if the sound board has moved from 3 feet away to 6 feet away.  A bit wierd to say the least.  And that assumes no other latency elsewhere in the sound processing chain.  As there always is this latency in every component, the cumulative effect of latency might mean that the piano sounds as if the sound board is 10 feet or more away.  And that's before we start to consider the effect of jitter, which can be described as the sound board constantly shifting back and forth several feet, with this perceived movement happening from note to note or even during the resonance of a single note.  Aye...very bad indeed for your brain to be 'hearing' the grand piano vibrating back and forth.

Also note that as this jitter is likely random, good luck trying to achieve consistent playback between pieces. And that is true even for playback of MIDI notes in which instruments are closely placed.

There is a way to elilminate the 'sound shifting':  By roughly doubling the frequency from 44 to 96 Khz, the latency of the VSL library is cut in half, and that allows for a more consistent and authentic playing experience. And by doubling again from 96 Khz to 192 Khz the latency is halved again and we have more 'latency headroom' to stay under the audibility threshold.

Don't take my word for it, but do take VSL's deafening silience on this topic as being problematic.  I suggest if my explanations are not sufficient, please research and understand other trusted sources.

2. As to RAM requirements, this piano at 24 bit 44.1 Khz currently has a RAM requirement of 4-6 GB.  Doubling the sampling frequency will half the latency and only require a total of 6 GB * (96/44.1) = 13 GB.  Most laptops with any sort of multimedia claims will have 16 GB RAM or more.

To editorialize a bit, VSL is doing an enormous dis-service to themselves and their customers by attempting to ignore the issue.  Unfortunately, an uneducated customer at some point becomes a frustrated customer...and that's a net negative for musical creativity and classical music as a whole (LONG LIVE POP MUSIC?).

I have, and its chalk full of misinformation and jumps back and forth between audio quality and latency, I was speaking to the audio quality side of the discussion (my response back to you, did YOU read the thread?).

Latency is a huge, convoluted mess of a problem that cannot be nailed down to just one thing, as some have tried to do in this thread. Audio interfaces do not "perform" better with certain resolutions over others, and yes, I confirmed this with a friend of mine who designs audio interface circuitry for ASUS.

Also conveniently missing from this conversation is the significant increase in processing power (and thus delay) required to play back audio with effects at higher sample rates. RAM access times and storage to RAM access times are another big factor, and then, probably the biggest elephant in the room not even discussed is, where the majority of the latency comes from, the MIDI / USB / Firewire interface.

I work with sounds from all sorts of sources, ranging from Orchestral Tools crazy 24 bit samples to, by comparison, EastWests lighter sounds and latency is of ZERO concern to me. It is within expected tolerances of 15-20 MS, all of which is easily compensated for by Kontakt, Play, and Vienna's engines, which have settings that work very well for this. Very rarely do I have to go back and correct timing, unless I am working with something that needs to be REALLY tight (big percussion sections or many staccato notes that need to be really tight).

Finally, most DAWs, on the playback side of things, have a track delay setting that virtually eliminates this problem. My guess is, you havent set a predelay setting in your DAW, look into it, this conversation becomes a moot point once you discover this setting. Then you run into a different problem, calculating the predelay, or determining what the predelay setting should be, because it is different for each manufacturer of soundfonts, and can even be different from library to library (the general default numbers to set in your DAW are 30, 60, or 120 ms). From there, you can add additional time depending on your standard latency, so I usually add about 15 ms and everything I record and playback is spot on the beat.

If you email support, they will work something out with you. They should have an upgrade path, but the way Vienna (in my opinion, mistakenly) looks at it is, going from VI to Synchron is an upgrade, going from Synchron to VI is not an upgrade. The one thing I can tell you is, regardless of their policy and what they say on the forums, they are interested in making a sale and they will give you a good price, probably near equivalent to the upgrade from VI to Synchron path.

As to whether it is worth it, in my opinion, it is. Synchron is great for having an out of the box good sound. Synchron however is very epic, Hollywood movie soundtrack sounding, which is not always what I am looking for. VI on the other hand provides a more subdued sound that I can, if I choose, make sound more Hollywood'ish, or, I can use less a less "epic" timbre for when I am writing for a more "classical" feel. After all, Im not always looking to have people feel like they are listening to a soundtrack.

The coronet is one of the special gems in the VI collection, by far, it is my favourite solo instrument, followed by the classic oboe, and the flexibility these instruments offer in the VI version far surpasses the synchron versions. By having a less wet and heavily eq'd version of these two solo instruments, I am able to use these two solo instruments for a more soft and mellow tone than what the Synchron versions allow.

I might also add, VI is incredible with MIR Pro.

The biggest issues with VI instruments however is, they dont sound good out of the box. They will require some pre-tweaking. If you are willing to spend some money, Vienna provides easily set presets that make them sound good, but it will cost you. For starters, Instruments Pro ($160) is a must with VI instruments. Given that they are giving away the features of VI Pro in Synchron, I am still unsure why they are selling VI Pro, but it is what it is. The premium features offered in VI Pro range from humanization to (unbelievably, you have to purchase VI Pro for this next feature) polyphonic legato, and some very useful functionality like time-stretching. You will also want either Ensemble 7 Pro or Vienna Suite for the useful eq and compression presets. I would recommend Ensemble 7 personally, as I dont feel like Vienna Suite offers anything appreciable that Ensemble 7 Pro doesnt offer, especially for the 3x price difference. Finally, you will need a good reverb engine. MIRx is ok, albeit quite expensive for what it is (almost zero settings & cannot be used outside of Vienna Instruments), but it sounds quite good. It is also worth noting that they still do not have a Synchron stage MIRx roompack available, so it is a bit tricky getting VI instruments to blend with Synchron instruments if you are using MIRx. MIR Pro on the other hand is the top reverb engine choice for orchestral instrumentation, but is the most expensive reverb engine on the market, with altiverb coming in at about 66% of the price difference, and, MIR Pro offers a Synchron roompack, so you can make VI instruments blend perfectly with Synchron instruments.

In short, be prepared to spend some serious cash on VI instruments, outside of the purchase for the VI instruments. I have both Synchron and VI instrument special editions 1-7 and 1+ and 2+, VI pro, VEP 6 Pro (three licenses), VEP 7 Pro (1 license), Smart Orchestra, Smart Spheres and its addon, MIRx complete room pack, and MIR Pro unlimited + all of its roompacks. I only mention what I have purchased licenses for so you know that everything I am saying is coming from experience. You can expect to spend an additional $320 minimum for Instruments Pro and Ensemble 7 Pro at a minimum, then potentially another close to $500 for MIRx complete, or $1600+ for MIR Pro complete, but what you get in the long run is far more flexibility than what Synchron offers, at the cost of price and time that must be spent tweaking each instrument to make them sound good (which is much easier / faster to do with the purchase of Ensemble Pro and MIR Pro).

Because 2 mic positions per instrument doesnt capture the full room sound. Im sure Ill get pushback on this, but in our church, we place microphones at the instrument location, and microphones in the left, right, and rear balconies. The result is astonishing, and since audio coming into these balcony microphones contains a mix of all instruments, there are nuances that you just dont get having each instrument mic'd in its own, isolated channel.

Having re-read what I typed several months ago, I wasnt exactly clear on this, but I dont want 4 mic positions for 1 single instrument, I would like 3 additional microphone positions that emulate all of the sound being produced by all instrumentation at the same time. Hence, a microphone on the stage would capture that instrument, relatively isolated from all the other instruments. The other 3 microphones placed say in the balconies on the left and rear would capture and produce the audio one would hear if they were standing at that microphone position while the entire orchestra is playing (these microphones would not merely capture the sound of just one instrument, they would capture the sound produced by any instrument that is currently playing).

As I understand it, the processing is done on a per instrument basis, so, if I place a microphone in the balcony and I dont tie it to say the timpani, isolating that microphone will result in not hearing the timpanis at all.

In the business, we call these room microphones, and I would like the ability to place at least 3, and have them function like a room microphone would in a live setting.

What I would like to know is, what am I getting with this new library that I would not already have with the Special Edition VI Pro or Special Edition Synchron Edition libraries I already have? No new instruments and I dont see any new articulations, with exception to I think fluttertongue, and, some confusing lingo about vibrato being progressive or auto, which I dont understand.

The video demo Guy Bacos put together is wonderful by the way, but could be easily reproduced with the Special Editions, so I dunno. Its a great price, I might have pruchased it if I werent going to be broke for the next month paying for Physics / Math classes.

Originally Posted by: Pixelpoet1985

2) I downloaded the library yesterday. Today there is a new verison. What's the difference? Do I need to download it again?

2) For Vienna Instrument products, go to the Start menu --> Vienna Instruments Pro and launch Directory Manager. Download the update and drag the file into the Directory Manager window, this will apply the update.

For Synchron libraries, I believe the update will automatically install through the download manager.

You dont need to redownload the entire library.

My Ensemble startup time is about 5 minutes, all of it because it is "scanning plugins". The bizarre thing? I have 5 plugins - Synchron Player, Synchron Pianos, Vienna Instruments Pro, Kontakt 6..1.1, and Omnisphere. Closing Ensemble is not as bad, but it does still take about 2 minutes.

I am running a core i7 8700k with 64 GB of ram, Kontakt runs on a 10 TB spinning drive, everything else is installed to an M2 SSD (the libraries are all stored on a spinning drive, but the actual software and plugins are on the SSD).

This has nothing to do with the number of plugins, since I only have two plugins that are not Vienna products, and omnisphere + Kontakt are not anything unstandard. I would be surprised if anyone writing music does not have these two products installed, Ensemble should not have any issues with these two plugins.

VEP 7 is also pretty unstable, frequently crashing whenever I have a MIDI track loaded in Cubase with an instrument already loaded in Ensemble and I delete the track from within Cubase 10.4. If it didnt take 5 minutes to re-open it and another 10 minutes to load my orchestral libraries in, it wouldnt be so bad, but it sure does put a damper on creativity to have it crash and know that its going to be 15 minutes before I can start working again.

VEP 6 had no such issues, and by the time I upgraded to VEP 7, VEP 6 was so wonderfully fast and stable. I expected issues initially, but not a year after its release.

Not to jump in here, but the technical term for this is velocity layers, when you see this listed elsewhere, or even in the documentation for Vienna, that is what this means. Since MIDI supports 127 volume levels, and it would be infeasible to get a real player to play at 127 different volumes, the playback software will determine which velocity layer to play based on the velocity value the DAW sends to the playback software. If you have only two velocity layers that are, for the sake of making this easy split at 1-63 & 64-127 (these values will be different for every soundfont manufacturer, and can even be different from instrument to instrument from the same manufacturer), if the value received is 63 or under, it will play the audio file associated with a softer timbre, and 64 or higher, an audio file associated with a louder timbre. The playback software further increases or decreases the playback volume based on this number.

You can manipulate this to create some very odd effects, or, get an instrument to cut through a mix by manually setting a velocity level of a note to 127, but setting its main volume very low. This will have the effect of tonally sounding like the player is playing as loud as they possibly can, but the actual volume of the note will be very quiet. I use this technique quite frequently when I need an instrument to stand out a bit more, but I dont want its volume to overpower the mix.

I also use this strategy in reverse quite frequently. I really love the Vienna horns, but, I cant stand how blatty they sound at higher velocity levels (there is a sort of 'buzz' they have at the highest velocity layer). I set the velocity for each of the notes in the horn section to something like 80, which is often too quiet, and then I use the main volume or velocity xfade, depending on the degree of laziness I am feeling at the moment to make them louder.

There is probably a better way of doing this, but understanding velocity layers helped me to make things sound how I hear them in my head, and the beauty with computers is, we can do things with instruments virtually that are not possible in real life. It may not be realistic, the way I do it, but it ends up sounding the way I want it to.

Far be it for me to recommend something to a perfect piece, but I have one thought I am curious if you considered.

At the 27s and 34s mark, there is a descending line the horn plays that is three notes, have you considered shortening these notes just a tad to allow the room reverb to carry the notes? Its a really small thing, but something I thought might work.

2:07-2:55 This is fabulous, I wish there was more of this. I love the playful flute, almost like a butterfly trying to get the big beast to play, the beast is tentative at first, but eventually gives in.

Throughout the piece, there is an almost reverant undertone while not becoming depressing, thanks to the careful flute flutter and run placements, its brilliant.

Originally Posted by: Paul McGraw

I'm sorry to be responding so late to your post. The video is very professional. I do not see how you could get anything better, even if you paid pros thousands of dollars.

The music, both arrangement and mid-performance was fabulous. No "civilian" (non VR user) would ever think this was anything but real. The performance was very musical. 

The mixing and mastering were awesome. You managed to get rid of the harsh upper frequencies without losing clarity. If you can do this with just the special editions, I would love to hear how you would do with the full libraries. 

Thank you for the kind comments <3 As a student, I can barely afford what I have, it will be a long, long time before I am able to afford the full libraries. The mixing and mastering I have to admit is made easy by Ensemble Pro 7, its almost not even fair to take credit. I mean, the EQ and compressor almost do the work for you, you just have to move a slidy knob or fiddly slider and use your ear :)

Thank you, this is high praise :) I really enjoyed writing this arrangement. Too bad homework keeps me too busy to write as much as I want, Physics, as interesting as it is, is not as interesting as music.

I am very much looking forward to whenever you finish and finalize your giant orchestral piece! I enjoyed the 40 minute one you put up a few months ago, but if I recall, you eluded to it not being finished?

I know there is a sale going on right now for students, unfortunately, the timing is awful. If this sale were going on in November, Id take advantage of it, but alas, the first two months of a new semester involve paying for my classes and text books. Since I pay out of pocket (no grants / loans / government assistance), it costs me about $1200 for 2 classes just for enrollment, and another $500 for textbooks, which leaves just enough for ramen noodles and bills...

Interesting, no one mentions the lute...

This sounds great! There is one glaring thing missing... Big Bang implies percussion... Timpanis rolls and hits, bass drum rolls and hits, cymbal crashes and rolls? I can maybe forgive the missing timpanis, but how is there no big cymbals and bass drums?

Yes, I know they are available in your other libraries, but they should be included here.

Your gigantic 36 inch bass drum even mixed with your taiko perhaps?

Originally Posted by: Itchy

Just my opinion, and I've been known to speak with my foot in my mouth many times, but this is my understanding (I earned my B.M. degree in Music Production and Engineering years ago when digital audio was new.)

You’re saying that systems these days are *optimized* for sample rates like 96KhZ @ 24-bits… to the point where input, processing, and output at that rate is actually *faster* than it would be if it had to digitally convert half as much data? Hmmm. You mention a few clock cycles to convert. I’m not a CPU expert nor an Apogee employee, but my understanding is that latency in one's system depends on I/O, processing, and conversion (at least). If I were a betting man I’d guess the nanoseconds it’d take interpolating half as much data would ballpark-equivalent to natively-processing twice as much data.

Not to mention the memory footprint. A full orchestral piece requires 60 plus gigabytes of ram for me, and that is really nothing in comparison with what it could be. There is a reason why 44.1 at a 16 bit depth rate was chosen for CD audio, this is considered just above the maximum quality that anyone can hear a difference. Anything above this is really unecessary, unless you are time stretching samples (think slow motion video, the more frames you have, the smoother it will be). When it comes to orchestral, I dont think time stretching samples is something many people are apt to do.