This article states that the international standard for pitch notation is to designate middle C as C4. 

Yet VSL chose to designate Middle C as C₃

I'm curious as to why. I used to struggle with this as Cubase on the original install designates Middle C as C₄   

Then I found a way to reset Cubase and never looked back until, I was reading several music theory textbooks and the authors show Middle C as C4

Hey Beat:

Thanks for all of the great help you've given to VSL users over the years. 

If you are loading from a DAW, it will automatically save everything in VE PRO simultaneously for you as you may have left it with the 'save as' from the file menu of your DAW. There's no need to save separately from VE Pro unless you wish to. 

To make sure, save instances separately in VE Pro by selecting the instance concerned, going to the menu bar and then selecting 'instance' from the menu bar, 'save project as' and select the file location to save to. Do that with each instance. Then save the whole project from the file menu bar with 'save server project as".

Good evening all;

Looking for tutorials that walk the student through the arrangement process with specific music examples from the vast collection of music literature from the past 400 years. I mean these are Orchestral Libraries, am I right?

So are there tutorials that show: 

The VE set up (mock up), choices of articulations, ya know, the whole enchilada?! 

Please do not point me to anything that's already on this web site, I've been through it all a dozen times. The tutorials attached to the music examples that are out there are quite outdated. The final product on the music page is fantastically wonderful. But I'm not told how it was done! Again, I'm not referring to the how-to tutorials such as this one: 

Vienna Dimension Strings (Introduction)

Looking for more like this one Stravinsky: Rite of Spring - Walkthrough by Stephen Limbaugh

Stephen's tutorial is about the only one out there that fits what I'm looking for. 

Thanks for listening

Ray

Resolved-VEPro crash; was related to windows magnifier. When I shut off the magnifier, system returned to normal and everything's back in production. Read all about it with searches for 'bug in Windows Magnifier'. It interferes with Dorico and VI both of which have scalable interfaces.  

Still not certain about VE pro server and the optimize feature-leaving it alone for now. 

Regards

Good morning, all,

I experimented with the optimize feature in VEPro Server 7 as my template building efforts were pushing up against my 32 GB limit. Actually VEPro said 14.3 GB but Windows said that 95% of the remainder (32gb total) was allocated. No biggie, I can weed out some of the patches, disable a few, and carry on. 

I overdid things after I saw that engaging enable inside of "optimize" was unloading hundreds of Megs of memory; also makes sense as 90% of the patches were as yet, unutilized.

But then, VE Pro Server 7 went completely silent, and is still silent. No sound. The audio interface worked on standalone instruments outside of Cubase 12, HALion Sonic SE3 and VI standalone. Meanwhile, Dorico Elements 3.5 crashed, in sympathy no doubt for its good buddy being silent too. 

Then VEPro crashed.

Anyway, on close examination when trying to reopen VEPro, VI and Synchron player had skipped out, so I guess everybody went on strike. 

Brought everyone back into the fold with a reinstall, but I'm on my own version of the Silent Stage, with no sampled orchestral sounds except for the standalones. Even Cubase yeilds no sound even with VI or Kontakt plugged in as individual tracks.  Can't really say how unhappy this makes me. 

So that's it. I'm in a sonic desert right now. I did discover an issue, the optimize won't work right if there are no 'live' DAW tracks, meaning some notes must be in the track for VE to gauge what's to be 'learned'. But there's apparently no turning off the optimize feature even though it's switched to off everywhere now. I've had this issue before. In future, I'll find another drive around for crowded memory space. Either I don't understand how the optimize feature works or it's broken; most likely, some of both actually. 

Meanwhile, I'm certain VE Pro Server 7 will wake up some sunny morning and I'll sail off this desert island. 

Thanks for listenting,

Ray,

Holt, Michigan, USA

PS. My desktop info is in the signature file at the bottom 

PSS: a Google search of the VSL website shows the word 'optimize' is used ~124 times. I've read about half of those. 

Harty har-

regards

These tutorials by Robert Danny Davis are a wonderful opportunity to gain inspiration and knowledge about music harmony, theory and composition. Be prepared to learn outside the box of the standard course for harmony, theory. 

But the standard textbooks can also be inspirational. 

Surprisingly, the first few chapters of this book are evocative and inspire the imagination.

Harmony and Voice Leading (4th Edition) by Allen Cadwallader, Edward Aldwell, 978-0495189756

Laitz emphasizes the importance of Counterpoint for understanding Harmony. 

The Complete Musician: An Integrated Approach to Tonal Theory, Analysis, and Listening 2nd Edition            978-0195301083, by Steven G. Laitz, Adler, the Study of Orchestration, 978-0393600520

Music for practicing piano skills. 

Piano Literature by Jane Bastien, Volume 2; Volume 3; Volume-4, Volume-5, 

Regards

Ray

Hey Paul; 

Thanks for getting back with me.

I am working with: Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz   3.70 GHz RAM32.0 GB

Windows 10 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

I tried to move Dimension Strings.

Ray

04/29/2022-this problem has been resolved with software updates from VSL. thanks

Good Morning VSL community;

I have now successfully installed all of my VS Libraries after the switch to iLok!

Party Time!

I took the plunge and deleted all of the old eLicenser files, not sure why I was hesitant to, but it's done. That left me with a lot of room on that drive which is much faster than where the libraries are currently installed. 

Problem arises when I ask Vienna Assistant to move the Libraries. Twice now Vienna Assistant has simply stopped processing about 1/3 of the way through the transfer of a particular library, the integrity of the files is then gone; they have to be downloaded and installed again. I was originally not keeping the newly downloaded files after they were successfully installed. I'm assuming that with the new iLok files any maneuvering done to the libraries has to be accomplished through Vienna Assistant, the old Directory Manager is now redundant. 

Question to everyone: is anyone else experiencing problems in asking Vienna Assistant to move files? I'm hesitant to try moving files if they're simply going to be chewed up by Vienna Assistant. 

Thanks

Ray 

Originally Posted by: Errikos

I would like to participate in this discussion, but I find it impossible if the words professional, amateur, hobbyist, dilettante are not defined and related to musical composition.

Contrarily: Hans doesn’t know his German 6th chord from his bootstrap (not to mention the French and Italian 6ths). Be that as it may, the door is coming off its hinges as everybody who can afford him is begging/banging to commission him. He is already reeking rich, marketing himself as a composer - film composer if we must. What is he?

I quite agree that the discussion is not well informed so far as pertains to the very long tradition of how musicians and composers received reimbursement for their efforts. I could review the situation with Mozart & Beethoven but I'll just say: Mozart struggled mightily at times, oddly at the very end of his career when he wrote the likes of Don Giovanni, the Clarinet concerto, Requiem and the last of his symphonies and piano Concertos. Viennese society was bored with him and it showed in his income. The trivial likes and dislikes of society and their eagerness to 'cancel' a particular style has absolutely nothing, very often, (indeed, usually) to the intrinsic value of the artist's work. Beethoven had much success in keeping his rent paid (despite having a tendency to forget to pay it) and his pantry well stocked-when he could keep a housekeeper to do his shopping. But given the ultimate societal decision as to the worthiness of his music, Beethoven's recompense was almost trivial. Again, shows no connection between success in society's measure and the cultural value determined as the ages roll on. Rossini, to do just one more example, was rewarded handsomely towards the end of his life, one may speculate whether or not he was overpaid. Again, shows the shallow nature of the judgement regarding how much an artist gets paid means almost nothing as to the intrinsic cultural value of a work; that financially success rarely means anything other than sheer luck of the draw. 

I dislike Hans Zimmer's works because he now shows a decided proclivity to engage in repeating himself over and over, time after time the same chugging bass ostinatos - to mention but one technique he over indulges in. Basically the minimalist techniques borrowed from Phillip Glass et al become boring when listened to away from the movie itself. Mind you, all I'm saying here is that I prefer *not to listen to Zimmer-I'll take Glass about as often-I have yet to achieve a full 20 minutes of either composer without becoming agitated to the point of distraction.

But speaking of Hans Zimmer:

Shortly after the official opening, Hans Zimmer's Remote Control Productions chose Synchron Stage Vienna to record a whole slate of productions, including music for Inferno, starring Tom Hanks (directed by Ron Howard, music by Hans Zimmer), and the Netflix series The Crown by Peter Morgan (music by Hans Zimmer and Rupert Gregson-Williams).

Here's an interior shot of the Synchron Stage 

I find my improvisation sessions keep me going on a day to day basis; when things are looking down, a quick review of some chord progressions on the piano gets me going again.

l got some similar inspiration from listening to your offering. 

Thanks.  

Ray,

Holt, Michigan, USA

Originally Posted by: LiamPullman

. I can't imagine music without any meaning. Often we can determine an author's mood by his composition. Somewhere it's not hard to detect it.

I agree and the ancient Pythagoreans also felt that the mere sounding of a tone gave the person hearing the tone, access to the spiritual plane of the gods. Akin to that philosophy and finding meaning in the acoustical presentation of sound waves to the brain, I find lots of music enjoyable that friends in my circle disdain. Art Music (music composed in the common style written from the time of Palestrina to Tchaikovsky), has its detractors but I will not stop listening simply because some critic with a post-Modernist axe to grind, finds it objectionable. Country and Western is found to be made up of outlandishly sentimental lyrics and simplistic, formulaic harmonies (which is true), to large numbers of critics; however, I take moments to listen to examples genre but will not listen to it all the day long. 

I do not subscribe to the theory though that all composed music is equal as I have my preferences. So does Richard Taruskin, author of The Oxford History of Western Music, (volume 3, page 3) when, for example, he relegates the composer Pierre Gaveaux to the outer realms of "otherwise unimportant" in comparison to Beethoven. The discussion there is about composers of Rescue Operas. Having listened to several minutes of  another 'otherwise unimportant' composer's work,  André Ernest Modeste Grétry  Richard Coeur-de-lion, I can quite agree with Taruskin's assessment. I'll save that reasoning for another day. 

Originally Posted by: MMKA

I don't know if you are using Vienna Ensemble Pro, but in that case the Integrated Vienna Equalizer Pro can be the problem.

Thanks for the noting the problem as I was not aware and have often experienced mysterious, silent instruments, say one out of 15 in an instance. 

Originally Posted by: AberforthD

Oboe II, Timpani A, and Timpani B

What is really odd is that most other instruments work fine. 

Does anybody have an idea what could be wrong and what I can do to fix this?

Hello Arnold: 

I have this problem fairly often and have memorized a check list-in addition to what you've already done. 

This assumes you are using Vienna Ensemble as a plug-in inside your DAW.

1. Be certain that VI player does not have the instrument located in a blank cell, something may have happened to move the matrix setting to a blank cell.  If that is the case; either load a patch to the empty cell or select a cell that has an active patch loaded into it. Also be certain the cell is not greyed out if a patch is loaded into it, as that means the cell is in a disabled state. Right click on the cell to enable. 

2. Be certain that the tracks settings in the DAW match the name of the instance (bank) and channel in Vienna Ensemble. Again, something may have caused the DAW to be connected to the wrong instance, or to the incorrect channel. 

3. As a last resort, delete the instruments from the VE instance where they were loaded and reload them.  If you have the patience, rather than reloading, try to find if any of the sliders in both the performance tab and slot editor have been changed so as to make the instrument inaudible. That's why I recommend discarding the instrument out of the instance and starting fresh-I've found that checking all of those sliders takes far longer than reloading the instrument into the instance again. 

Finally, be certain to watch all of the videos about VE pro and VI pro, I've watched some of them several times and they are always instructive. 

Respond back to the forum if you need to. 

Regards

Ray

Thanks a lot for putting this out there! I always appreciate when musicians explain their techniques so one can learn from the effort. Hope to see more!.

Regards, 

Ray

Michigan, USA

Thanks, now I remember Paul saying that in the intro video. 

Thanks again

I've recently purchased Synchron-ized Chamber Strings and Solo Strings. After installation was complete I noticed my 1st hard drive (1 Terabyte SSD) was nearly 99% full. Thinking to make more space available, I moved the installation to a different hard drive that had much more room. However the Directory Manager would not recognized the files in their new home, so I've moved them back and everything is good to go again. 

Wondering though about a solution to the crowded up hard drive-

1. do I need to download the installation again as I deleted the original download and than install to a 2nd hard drive? I have other VSL libraries on that hard drive and the Directory Manager has no problem finding those.  Love all those great VSL sounds! 

2. I'm wondering, do my Synchron-ized libraries have to be on the same hard drive as the original VI Libraries of Chamber Strings and Solo Strings?

I have updated everything from top to bottom as far as VSL software goes, also e Licenser.

Thanks in advance for all assistance. Post

Did you resolve the problems you were having? I could offer some help but it's a bit detailed, I'll help out if you still need assistance.

Also just a few words about the Digital work space on the set up you have would be helpful. Such as what DAW you are using.

If you were to upgrade your audio interface, would you be able to go over $150 (US) That's about the minimum to get started on a quality outfit.

Originally Posted by: Nounours_1

My computer is recent, an ASUS i7 but I am using its integrated sound card (RealTek). So is my problem simply that I need a better sound card to get a more "alive" and realistic sound ?

You didn't give a lot of details on why you're not getting the sound output you expected, so I'm just working in a general manner here. Also, please list out your equipment, particularly the audio and midi portion. You can put it in the Forum website on your account settings. 

I would definitely look for a better quality audio interface (sound card); it will be external to the computer.

A store with some USB Audio Interfaces; from Sweetwater, their sales staff is helpful. I advise to stay away from Focusrite-they are over priced. 

Not sure if USb is what you're looking for- it's the easiest to connect with your computer. You'll need to spend over $150 (US) to begin to move into a quality setup.  

Also, were you speaking of MIDI recording: If you check with you DAW manufacturer, they may have some tips on how to make MIDI recordings more lifelike. I find the MIDI connection with Cubase 10.5 picks up most of the nuances. Also, do a web search on tips on getting the most out of MIDI, there are ways to tweak the recording system. 

Also, do you have reverb set up on the settings? The output may sound very dry without it. 

The VI manuals have been updated fairly recently and I appreciate that. However, no examples were given so it makes the manuals purely a reference for a forgotten point when there  a person already has a good  understanding of how the VI interface works. 

So this is where the videos come in and they are great!

However, I've watched several of the videos at least three times and find myself giving up (again) in frustration because the dialog goes by too quickly and Paul unpacks some concepts so very, very quickly I just can't make the leaps as steps of explanation are left out. 

So in the interest of better pedagogy, could someone perhaps add into the written manuals, examples such as Paul has in the videos but making certain to not leave out any steps of what is done. The section on matrices and outputs connected to ports in VE went sailing by too fast. There's also a section on the slot editor which could use a rewrite. My main point is to get what Paul is saying into written format-I find videos usually helpful, except when they aren't and then they are too frustrating to use. 

Thanks

October/21/2020

Figured out the issue here was a plug in (Ivory II (Italian Grand Piano) by Synthogy that needs to be updated.); it was crashing VE Pro 7 and 6.5.

But the manual for VE needs to state explicitly what the difference is between the server version of VE and just plain old VE because of the midi *port* thingy as the server only has one port available for each instance where as VE Pro has 32 ports. 

Anyway. 

Have another issue with the training videos for VI pro2, but starting a seperate thread on that.

But this all takes away from composing and arranging, fussing with the technology takes way too much time and definitely takes all of the fun out of using these otherwise wonderful applications.

Later. 

1. Built up a template over the past 6 weeks with of patient, time consuming and now Vienna Ensemble crashes whenever I load Cubase 10.5.2. I suspect the problem is something I did so here goes with some questions before I report a crash-at any rate, there is no crash log anywhere that I can find. 

2. Let's start with a question: In terms of strictly from a users standpoint-what is the difference between VEPro 7 server and VE 6.5?

I get the idea of having VE Pro Server to set up 2 or more computers but I'm not interested in doing that right now.  I understand the server/slave setup would allow the server to do the heavy lifting of assigning memory slots but up until now, my templates have not come anywhere near using even 1/2 of the available memory.  Also, for that server setup to ever be possible, I'd need have to have a techie within a phone calls reach, (or arms reach) and that's just not possible. Beginning to see I need someone very close by for help with this whole scenario of using sampled sounds  and the associated software. There have been just tons of frustrating moments in the past 12 years. In a way, I wish I could give it up, it's only a pastime afterall, but I'm hooked and that in itself is disturbing. 

For me VE allows the establishment of up to 32 midi ports with 16 channels each in each instance. I found this very confusing when I only recently discovered that the drop down menu for the ports was connected to a real number of ports as they never show in the Inspector window in Cubase with VE Pro Server. But the ports are visible when I create instances with VE. I really need those ports to be visible in Cubase.

Or maybe not. Maybe I should forget about VEPro Server 7- I'm beginning to wonder about it's efficacy. Maybe I could get the same organisational ability by putting all the instruments in different folders (one each for Violins, Violas, Cello, Bass, Woodwinds, Brass, Percussion) in Cubase 10.5.2 and just use VI Pro2 all the way down. 

So again, does VE 6.5 work inside of VE Pro server 7? And will instances built with VE Pro 7 successfully load into VE 6.5?

Well thanks for listening to my ramble 

Ray

Holt, Michigan, USA

I assume you've found a solution to this?

I have the UA Apollo Twin USB 3.1 and had similar problems. I discovered they were related to missing some issues found on the Windows Setup - Required Settings page.

In particular, I had failed to disconnect two other sound systems that were preinstalled on the mainboard and monitor. 

Ray.

The plugins load under their own protocols so VEPro can't control that. You'd have to go into the system settings, display area and change the scale and layout as well as the resolution to get better scaling. I have a HiRez screen which is nice but there are times when it's useless in showing the GUI interfaces like Photoshop. Kontakt and Synthogy are all but invisible at highest resolution. 

Not sure how to unpack this statement from the Channel Overview MIDI Ports, MIDI Channels, Transposition and Key Ranges section of the VE 7 manual. My question is in red next to the area I need to understand. 

Using the latest version of VE7 Pro as well as VI Pro 2 and Cubase 10.5.

Each Vienna Ensemble Pro instance offers up to 48 MIDI ports [How do I access these ports in Cubase 10.5 PRo, where VE Pro is instantiated as a rack instrument plugin?]  with 16 MIDI channels each (= 768 MIDI channels) and a virtually unlimited number of audio ports. You can set the number of ports in the Server Preferences of each instance. [This I was able to do] 

The channel selector also allows you to choose omni to receive on all 16 channels (for multi-timbral instruments such as Kontakt, Omnisphere or Stylus), or none to temporarily disable MIDI input on that port. If you’re running Vienna Ensemble Pro as a plug-in, a dedicated Plug-in MIDI In port will be offered for every Instrument. [Not sure how these are 'offered' in my DAW-Cubase 10.5 PRO-so far I'm limited to 16 midi channels per instance, some snapshots of my setup are included  ]  Used as a VST 3/AAX/MAS plugin, up to 48 ports are available within Cubase, Nuendo, Pro Tools, Sonar and Digital Performer.

Issue resolved thanks to Bill

Good Morning all:

After several days of searching, I'm putting this question out to the community: Does VSL still supply prebuilt expression maps?

I'm gathering from the discussion on this forum that they are part of VI presets and matrixes but I don't know where to steer the load expression map in Cubase so it will find them. I've built a couple of maps myself. 

Thanks.