Am I the only one who received over 50 emails for VSL Newsletter 197? Oh, that is only so far... They keep showing up in my inbox. Can someone please fix this ASAP?

Or how about a Dimension Brass module with straight, harmon, and or bucket mutes?

MIDI computer running VE Pro: Mac OSX 10.6.6, 2x2.8 Quad-Core intel Xeon (Jan 2008) 12BG Ram.  This was not connected to the main computer when I was doing this.

It sometimes happens when I have only empty instrument instances with no samples loaded.  I did manage to change track colors, changing and then saving, but it crashed several times in the interim.

Crash report has been sent.

Has anyone else encountered this issue: when attempting to change track colors in VE Pro, it crashes the program.  It seems to happen every time.  Sometimes it will let me do one or two before crashing.  I am using the 64bit server, with only one instance open.  And I also tried creating an instance of 16 VI Pro tracks with no instrument samples loaded and it still crashed, although promisingly, I made it all the way to channel 12.

Fair enough.  How about if I said, "modern minimalism isn't my cup of tea" instead?  I didn't mean to imply he used prefab loops, as was indicated, and I don't own Omnisphere--probably couldn't afford it right now anyway--just that he seemed to repeat himself a lot.  Perhaps there was a reason for it and he was playing upon the filmmaker's suggestion of borderline Asperger's that Zuckerberg exhibited, and the kinds of repetetive ticks associated.  It worked with the film--I'm not arguing that, just that I personally and subjectively felt that it doesn't translate to the enjoyment of repeated listenings separately from the film in the same way that Dragon does.  I had an emotional connection to the musical material that transcends the movie, and I didn't with the Social Network.

I was personally hoping that John Powell's score would win for How to Train Your Dragon.  I loved the music and the film.  It worked really well together, and the music is enjoyable and entertaining on its own--separate from the film.

As far as Zimmer is concerned, whom I tend to, I guess, despise, I have to say that I liked the film Inception, and I like the music with the film.  But unlike Dragon, the music does not transcend the picture, which to my mind makes Dragon a better candidate.  Zimmer's music was powerful, but it had no heart to it, no real earnestness.

As far as Social Network, again the music works with the film, but apart, it's just loops and textures that don't mean a lot without something to look at.  Am I the only one who feels a similarity between the Social Network's main theme and the song "Passenger Seat" by Death Cab for Cutie?  It's those piano notes...

I don't think it's necessary to purchase VI Pro, since what it gives you are more bells and whistles--specifically humanization--which are fully applicable to other instruments as well, so it's hard to see the disadvantage to upgrading--though I do understand this frustration (I haven't upgraded yet either and my demo license is expiring very soon).  But it is the natural order of the music samples universe: they will make new things that replace (or compliment) old things, and we will want them (or occasionally, though more rarely, "need" them) and they will cost money, and we will buy them, and yea verily shall it continueth henceforth until the end of time.

But this tirade against VSL for releasing a new product is ridiculous.  First of all, what other products are they going to release?  There are only so many instruments in the orchestra.  So we have repeats, so what?  You now have choices and options.  I probably have enough orchestra libraries to do Havergal Brian mockups (Mahler symphony of 1000 anyone?).  VSL alone has given us 18 french horns (2 solo, 8 epic, 4 section, and 4 dimension), and I am not complaining.  How big is your brass section?  Mine is ENORMOUS!!!  Look upon my horns and despair!!!

Are you going to cry shame again when they release dimension strings? (it only makes sense they would do this since strings in an ensemble operate similarly, and people have been begging for VSL divisi and/or 2nd violins).  Can you imagine?  It's going to be a-a-a-awesome!

I don't understand the anger that you don't get a discount.  I have a few libraries (not the cube, but a few), but I didn't have the funding to take advantage of the winter sale, and I'm not going to blame them for my *really* wanting to.  I have plenty of other libraries, and technically don't "need" another, but I'm not going to go off on the company because I couldn't take advantage of their special before it expired.  So what?  There's always next year.  Maybe by then they will have released something new that I'll be drooling over (which is very likely).

If you have the cube already, how much more do you need?  The answer for me was "more, must have, [grunt, drool]" so I paid my money, so that the Circle of Sampled Life may continue.

So "Sorry, David, but I don't agree with you."  I guess I could have said just that.

Peace.

Finally!  I have been waiting for this!  It will be so nice to have a single solution, instead of fighting to get all the different libraries in my Frankenstein's-Monster-of-an orchestra to play nicely together, what with the different reverb, placement, recording techniques.  Garritan started with the ensemble building thing and I have been surprised how slowly it has caught on.  There's no reason to not sample each player.

It look like I'm going to have to reformat my system drive.  My initial hard drive completely died, ticking and whining and a restart rendered instead of the lovely apple and spinning gear, a flashing folder with a question mark on it.  Dead dead dead.

So I purchased a new hard drive and reinstalled from a Time Machine backup.  Everything seemed hunky dory, but there are a few strange glitches in the OS that either got corrupted or just aren't quite... right, somehow... Most of my sample libraries are working properly, which is great since I'm in the middle of about four projects right now, but I'm definitely going to have to reformat in a couple of weeks.

Do I need to remove uninstall all my Vienna stuff prior to wiping the drive?  I know I'm going to have to reinstall the programs and licenser (thankfully all the libraries are on other drives, otherwise this would take forever).

When I need this effect, I use the portamento patches and combine the orchestral strings and chamber strings.  You have to get a little creative with it, playing arpeggios and chromatic scales to get the proper timing and effect, but you can get some good results if you are patient.

I appreciate the bump, but can't you start your own thread?   Nice piece by the way.  If you didn't use Vienna, what did you use?

Thanks for listening, John.  The voices are my own.  I wish I had the Vienna Suite, but just used whatever came with Digital Performer, with the exception of the reverb, which was Altiverb.  The strings are both VSL SE layered with Sonic Implants.

Hello,

Here's the first cue from a short film I did with VSL and SI.  Hope you enjoy!

 www.josephcarrillo.com/mp3/DKG_1m1RM_BornInDarkness.mp3

Very nice big lush sound, and a very enjoyable cue.

Thank you for the clarification, Dietz.  I did mean Timpani A and B.

Great sounding realization, Paul!  Thanks for posting it!

Anyone have any comments?  Is the percussion package worth saving for, or is True Strike a better option?

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone with the full Percussion DVD could comment about Timpani 1 and Timpani 2.  is there a significant difference?  If so, what?  Could anyone post a short example?  I'm in the market for a new Timpani and the SE Timpani isn't quite doing it for me.  I've also tried the Sonic Implants Timpani and that doesn't have quite the right sound I'm looking for either.

All four tracks sound great!  The balance, the varied textures, and the programming definitely show your talent.  Very impressive work.

Due to the overwhelming response to this post, I thought you would all be DYING to know that this will be airing on June 22nd at 2:30AM PST on Comedy Central as part of Atom TV.

Well, I'm excited, anyway...

Hi everyone,

A video project that I completed in December has finally been posted over at www.atom.com.  It's called My Profile Story (there's a link on the front page on the left under Atom Originals).  It's scored primarily with Vienna SE.  The strings are doubled with Sonic Implants, and some of the percussion is also from SI.

I'd love to hear any comments you have.  Enjoy!

Joe

I don't know if anyone has brought this up before, or if others think it would be useful, but it would be nice to have a "master" set of learn, optimize and reset buttons in Vienna Ensemble.  My template makes use of several instruments and it would be nice to be able to arm all instruments with the click of one button.  Kontakt has a similar global function.

Cheers!

Joe

Hey mathias, I usually don't cut the movie file into cues. Up until this point, the film has either been quite short, or split into reels. So I just open the movie in the Movie Window in DP. Further, DP has a function called "Chunks," which allows you to set the sequence start time at any point. So if you have reel 3, and your cue starts at 3:01:53;14, you can specify in the Chunks window to start the sequence or cue at 3:01:49;14 (to give yourself, say, 4 beats at 60 bpm prior to starting). Of course I also use the Markers function to indicate hits sync points, which also reinsures that everything is syncing at the proper places if I want to get free with the tempo. Hope that helps.

Hi Mathias, I'm not familiar with Cubase since I'm a DP guy, but I will use one file per cue, or if it's a shorter project, one file per reel. I'm not sure if Cubase utilizes sequences, but I can use DP to have each cue as its own sequence in a single project file, and just separate the files into reels. It kind of depends on the project and what my workflow is at the time. I'm constantly adjusting to try new things.

Hey Anonymous Joe,

I feel your pain with having to build a bunch of instruments, but I've found that it is totally worth it. I started with one instrument, set up the key switches the way I wanted, controllers, etc. and then loaded all the patches for that instrument, hit save as, and then loaded the next set of samples for the next instrument and so on. I did this so that most of the instruments would load the same and articulations for the most part would be in the same key switch configuration as other similar instruments. It took a while, but once I got into a rhythm it wasn't so bad. Plus I knew how awesome it was going to be once I was done.

From there I used the instruments to set up templates in VE and it really made my workflow sail from there on out.

Something I've done is set up an on/off controller to switch Velocity crossfade on and off. It's useful in percussion when you want to switch from a series of hits to a dynamic roll. Occasionally I like to switch off velocity crossfade on wind and string staccatos. It requires a lot of customizing, but for me, it was worth it.