I'm having a very bad weekend, for non-musical reasons.

I've been trying to write, not much is happening. But I'd like to share this with you because, if any time, now is the time to ask. I am not a professional and I'm just trying to get what's in my head, into music. It's all VSL with the exception of an EW erhu. It is only partly written (Based on the poem I wrote, it's probably going to be at least 10 minutes long) and well...you'll hear all the mistakes. I'm just trying to be a writer, not an expert musician:

https://soundcloud.com/shawngibson1969/sharon

One of these days, I'll actually get a full song written and someone will say "I really liked that" but until then, I'm asking for you to please listen and give advice.

Merci:)

Shawn

Thanks...I'll just reply quickly here since I'm at work and have no paragraphs (plain text...enhanced doesn't work here). I pulled VEP5 from my EW products because there were a lot of crashes (Cubase 6.5.5). So I use Play directly as a VST now (and my slave computer uses VEP5 with all VSL products). I do have Suite available so I can experiment with it for panning and tightening up the EW instruments, especially anything 'solo' (I'll be adding more Ra and Silk instruments to what is otherwise a fairly standard Western...VSL...orchestra). I absolutely have to come to grips with all this speak of tails and reflections because it seems crucial to developing a space, and I simply don't understand these things. Time for a bunch of YouTube tutorials:)

Thanks. I still haven't figured out how to manipulate the erhu expression map, it's a bit wonky. Some of the wierd slides and phrases are just...goofy (I copy/pasted/tweaked a VSL Solo Violin part).

I forgot to mention that I'm also using Imperial, which of course is not MIRx. That kind of set the tone for everything (even though the real tone is hopefully set by Chamber Strings...which I don't think you can hear this far into the song).

With the intro I was kind of going for a Lamb Lies Down on Broadway meets RK Cappricio Espagnol sort of thing...arpeggios and solos and some farting thingies. And Glenn Gould warming up:) And of course, I have no idea how to play any of those pieces:(

>Who are you even quoting?

Not a quote...I use quotes like that when I don't really know if it's the right word. 

You guys win, I realize I can't ask much if you can't hear what the problem is...so here is a snippet. I just opened a soundcloud account so I hope this works.

All VSL is at master level of 100, MIRx/natural volume/pre-eq, The erhu is right out of EW, with a master volume of 69:

https://soundcloud.com/shawngibson1969/erhu-issue

Yeah, I agree. Sorry for the completely incoherent attempt at humour:(

I'm trying to ask...and I'm not sure how to ask...how can I take my entire setup in VSL (which is all MIRx) and have it 'get along' with the 'larger' sounding EW collections I have?

I don't know if it's reverb, microphones, room recordings, or something else, as I've zero talent for spatialization (which is why I bought MIRx). 

Since everything in the EW libraries I have is 'bigger sounding' would it make sense to do exactly what I'm already doing with VSL (MIRx presets on everything with natural volume) and just take that entire orchestra, and route it into a single instance of Altiverb 6 to make it, as a whole, 'bigger' in order to make it feel the same 'size' as the EW products?

I hope I'm being more articulate here...

Shawn

So I've got 3 minutes written with VSL, using MIRx, and I have natural volume, sync, pre-eq. Sounds lovely. 34 channels of VSL so far; I'm rockin.  Everything is at 100, so I have some headroom; I can hear everything. I add 1 small Ra instrument (an erhu) and get it to play the same thing (for now) as a con sordino solo VSL violin after setting it in Cubase to 100. It sounds like Godzilla just stepped on Ghandi!

I assume this means that, my room space needs to be based on EW, and that even with MIR x (unique to each instrument) I may be able to put my VSL stuff into a folder and add my Altiverb 6 (1 instance for everything in total) to make it really big so that EW doesn't completely destroy everything? Does this make sense? I have no clue.

Why would they do that??? Geesh. Oh hi, you're writing music? Let us stop you right now, and ask you to please write brain-pounding stuff. We recorded these samples on the sun, with a solar flare chasing us the entire time! It's awesome.

They made a small beautiful Eastern instrument sound like it was capable of starting WW3. Geesh.

I have no idea how to incorporate the stuff I've bought from them into my music.

As they say on the internet...halp! lol

Hi Michael, thanks very much:)

I noticed last night when reading through the expression maps pdf to find appropriate matrices for some of the instruments, that I did indeed have mutes. It's been so long I had forgotten. So I loaded up the trombone and trumpet (solo and ensemble) into 4 channels, synchronized/natural volume with MIRx, and indeed they fit in perfectly with my chamber strings and where I use Dimension (obviously not at the same time as the SE trombones or trumpets) everything works to my ear. I think I can get away with just upgrading the solo muted trumpets and trombones, for the extra articulations. I was, however, under the impression that another difference b/t SE and full downloads is that the full downloads have more dynamic layers? I could be wrong.

I don't see why you couldn't create an ensemble out of three instances, but of course they would have to be in their own VIP instance and then you could use whatever MIRx (and eq or Suite) settings per instrument you wanted. Interesting idea.

I've owned VSL stuff since 2008 but am just now (after financial and technological issues, not to mention my lack of patience) am getting around to exploring how incredible the VSL stuff is, software and samples. I truly think it's the best stuff out there, and support is second to none.

And I've thrown the Guide to MIDI Orchestration and Rimsky-Korsakov's book on orchestration into my bag for the ride to and from work. I feel like I'm moving, finally:)

Shawn

Hi,

The only brass I have is Dimension, and what is with SE1/2+. I write a lot of con sordino stuff with my strings (solo, chamber) so would I be helping myself to get the muted trumpets and trombones if the rest of my brass is Dimension? I've listened to the demos, and I like them, but I'm not sure if they fit with Dim?  I wish I could buy the complete winds collection, but I cannot right now. The Dim Brass is great, but a lot of times, I'm not thinking within its parameters. It does a lot of great stuff, but it's also very loud when you have Imperial playing a velcity of 22 and nothing else...

Second question is, since usually I write off of the volume/space/dynamic of chamber strings, should I be buying woodwind ensemble downloads, or woodwind solo downloads?

I know this is all a question of preference, but, as more learned people, what would you do in the real world?

Merci:)

Shawn

Thanks Andy. I'll look into expanding the map with the articulations I want to add. Hopefully there's something on YouTube to help.

I'm generally set to 64th or 128th on the grid and I have already noticed that timing is crucial with the ticks in the expression maps. 

Once I figure out how to add articulations, I'll make a map for the Upright Bass, which I absolutely love. Unless I'm doing rock, Trillian is collecting dust these days. I should also see if the SE 1 and 2+ drums can be used in the drum editor. Anything to help visualize is a good thing for me:)

Shawn

Just with VSL I mean. I'm very curious, because in one day I've done more than I would in a month. But of course, I hear things in my head that aren't part of the map. How do you deal with that?

That's my thought, too. I don't really know what stretching a sample does to it, quality-wise, but the analogy of making an image larger creating a lower quality image keeps coming to mind, so I was worried that stretching, as opposed to shrinking, might degrade quality (are you losing bits by separating them further from each other?). But if you only have to stretch a small percent, as opposed to shrinking a larger percent, it makes sense to use the option that disturbs the sample the least either way.

Hi,

Is there a prefered method to time-stretching regarding makimg it shorter or making it longer?

I am at 166bpm and have a 150 sample and a 190 sample to time stretch. Which is better? Or is it just personal preference, and not a quality issue?

Same question for the dyn samples...

Thanks Dietz. I've tried that (and did again yesterday) but when I do that, it actually 'locks' the input area and I can't type anything at all. We have a lot of security measures at work and are on an older version of IE, so I'm sure that's the problem...

I just wanted to follow up on this, sorry for the late reply. Thanks to your advice, I figured it out, and know how to route now (at least the basics). Do people tend to put every instrument on a different output? For example, right now all of my outputs are on 1-2 with the exception of one instrument, which is 3-4 since it needs the specific plugins routed to it. I guess a better question is...do people tend to only route to different outs if there is a reason to, or is it a matter of course? Sorry for the long paragraph, at work I can't type in HTML mode for some reason.

I read the manual, read your words, and watched the video, then went back into my project. What a phenomenal difference a little knowledge makes. MIRx rocks...thanks Dietz.

Thanks Dietz. Well it seems I should give this another go. I really want my work to sound 'live' or approximately live. I was definitely guilty of having very high levels and maybe that was the problem. I'll read the manual now, too...my bad:(

Hi guys, I always have left natural volume off and I ride the CC7 controller in Cubase to get the levels I like for each instrument, each part - it changes a lot, obviously. As an experiment, I turned on natural volume and removed all of my controller changes, but the result was very bizarre. For example, I couldn't even hear the solo violin when trombones and other huge instruments were playing. Am I missing the concept here or is using natural volume more than 'set it and forget it to make it sound like it would in an actual orchestra setting'? If the orchestra is playing is a solo violin totally drowned out (just as an obvious example for someone -me- who obviously doesn't have any real orchestra experience)?


Even setting the velocity very low on the bigger instruments and very high on a solo violin (again as an example) it is barely audible. I think I'm misusing natural volume...

Thanks as always, DG. Program loading times aren't a concern to me...just samples, and I've got that covered.

The things that "interest" me in Cubase 7.5 are full-screen, the ability to use Play 4 (if that's a good thing?) and that new chord thing looks interesting. There's a lot of neat new stuff that would be fun to play around with, but I'm still learning the basics here, so...it's just stuff I don't really need to learn/have available yet...

So that leaves me on the fence, or better yet, opens up funds for more samples:)

Speaking of the basics, I have a really dumb question that any real MIDI person would probably have learned on day one. I'll just ask it here so as not to polute the airwaves.

I'm trying to figure out how to add 2 effects (chorus and distortion) to a violin, for a brief "Vanessa Mae" type passage, going from VEP5 (Solo Violin) into one track in Cubase. The only thing I get when I click on the little "e" on the track in Cubase, is MIDI Channel effects...but what I want is audio effects. I assume I have to do a whole bunch of plumbing, but I've never done that before.

I can get the VST Instrument instance of VEP5 to open audio effects, but that effects all of my instruments, not just one. Any idea how I can do this?

Hi guys,

Having gone from a 3 box setup to a 2 box setup, I am now running my 'powerful' computer as a slave (all VSL and some other samples, all on Samsung EVOs) and a master/slave box (sequencer and some of the smaller EW products).

I will be putting the samples on the master/slave box onto an EVO Samsung via a USB3 cable (currently they are on an external USB3>7200rpm drive and they work fine as long as I don't load a lot of samples), but the main harddrive on this box (it's a 16GB 4th gen i4 'all in one' Dell 2720) is a big old 7200 rpm drive.

2 questions I guess:

1) I've heard that SSDs don't like writing lots of data, and it fatigues them quickly. Is it OK to make my OS/APPS an SSD then? This would house Cubase, VEP5, VIP2, and Suite, as well as Play 3 (I only have Cubase 6.5)?

2) Assuming it is OK to make my main drive an SSD, should I expect any performance gains i.e. I have (maxed) 16gb of ram and what is not really a great processor...will the SSD 'lighten the load' the way it does with sample streaming?

Would an SSD for my OS/APPS be a better purchase, or would sticking with the HDD and upgrading to the current Cubase be more beneficial, do you think? I guess that's actually 3 questions:)

Shawn

Sorry for the delay, guys, been working hard to get this stuff all working. I originally had 2 slave boxes, one housing EW products, and the other VSL (with aux items like Superior Drummer and Trillian scattered around) and a master box for Cubase.

The EW box, well, it crashed all the time, and after a long while of trying to fix it, I finally abandoned it just last week or so.

So now, I have my VSL slave, and my master box running Cubase - and that box is now housing EW as well.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I've removed the crashing computer, replaced a faulty router, and downgraded Play to version 3 since I'm using Cubase 6.5.

Both boxes have static IPs.

With the exception of EWSC, EVERYTHING is finally working. It's been a long haul! 

Right now, I'm using VEP5 on both boxes. And that includes Play in VEP5 on the master. It works fine, no glitches/pops.  The VSL box is all Samsung EVOs, so it blazes. The master box is all HDDs, so I've turned disk streaming off in Play and set it to 2048 samples, which seems to work great.

As I say, the only issue I have now is that EWSC will load (WB multis), but in time, it simply drops the samples, and goes blank. Reloading works to solve the problem.

I'm very happy that everything is working.

Obviously, I can't be building huge templates now as I only have a 24gb (RAM) slave and a 16gb master that's doing double duty to house Play, but as funds allow in the new year I will get a second slave and things should be just peachy. In July, I'll be upgrading the master to Samsung EVOs as well, which will allow me to load more instruments, obviously.

The biggest problem I face now that everything is working, is that Windows 8 doesn't support my GI-20 (midi guitar controller) so I think I will have to install Cubase on the slave (Win 7 Pro) and when using the guitar, write on that box. Unless of course someone knows if I can keep the guitar on the slave and somehow have Cubase read it on the master?

Thanks a lot for all the help I've received on this forum over the years. I'm finally able to write again:)

edit: ps, no MIR, just mirX for VSL and Altiverb 6 for everything else...though to be honest I've not figured out how to get Altiverb into VEP5...

Shawn

Thanks guys. Sorry for the late response. I have to admit my ignorance here, I've only ever run my guitar as an audio track in Cubase, via VST connections. How would I make Play instances audio directly into Cubase (not with VEP but directly on the same computer as the DAW)?

edit: clearly I'm not quite understanding all of the info you guys wrote. If I have my Cubase and Play samples on the same box (my second slave died) how would you recommend this?

Hi guys. Thanks to Bernd, my system finally seems to be running flawlessly. I admit, I'm a network dummy.

The only issues I'm having now are when my EW slave tries to play certain thing (EW voices), it works for a moment or two, then the next run though, there's nothing there, just silence. No crashes or errors, just silence.

I'm speaking of VoP and SC/VOTA. These are the only voices I have and they are incredibly inspirational, so when they die, it's very off-putting.

I'm running the latest Play. Does anyone know if this is a known issue, and if there is a fix?

I've had so many issues with EW and their "support" or lack thereof, that I want to ditch everything, but unfortunately that will take me time for funds, so I'd like to try and make the products work for now.

When I do have the funds to switch to something else for voices, I will FedEx my EW DVDs back to them with some cat poop in the package. Geesh. OK not really, but I'd like to:)

If you login to your user area, and install the download manager, you should be able to. Make sure your key is up to date, too:)

I guess that's the question for VSL. All three of my boxes crash and have spotty network interaction, but only when using VEP5 with Cubase 6.5.5. All three boxes run totally fine until I try to connect VEP5 and Cubase 6.5.5

Master is Win 8.1. It houses Cubase.

Slaves 1 and 2 are Win 7 pro. They house VSL and EW samples, respectively.

Master is XPS 2720 with 16GB ram; slaves are both i7-960 with 24GB ram.

All software is up to date.

I would like, if possible, an official answer on compatibility here, please and thank you:)

Shawn

Thanks rverne. Right now, my system is:

East West slave with 24Gb RAM (the one that has been crashing). I just upgraded it to a 120 EVO for OS/APPS and a 240GB EVO for EW samples and set all Play instances to "stream". As well, I added liquid cooling for the processor as diagnostics said it was overheating. I also added a second fan to the front. It hasn't crashed all day but I'm only running about 10 Stormdrum tracks.

The other slave is also 24Gb RAM, running VSL; I will upgrade to EVOs when I can, hopefully mid-June. This box never gives me problems but I get the "busy" thing in VEP5 with it and Cubase crashes sometimes. If I restart everything, it goes away. 

Master is an XPS 2720 with 16GB RAM, only running Cubase 6.5.5. 

I keep getting messages that my network is unstable on my phone, and sometimes the master doesn't even see the VSL box. I have static IPs on everything. I tried using an old router with no internet and that worked after I upgraded the firmware...but only sporadically. I lost the internet since my providor gives you a cable modem that must be used. I tried hooking up to the internet via WiFi but using my own DLink to connect the network for VEP, but it has been very buggy.

I never have connectivity issues between Cubase and the EW box, just the VSL box. Which is strange because all of this time it has been the EW box giving me problems.

All of my issues seem now to be network related, as they have been since the beginning. The biggest problem is I had more than one issue, so fixing problems has been a challenge. However I think I only have the network issue left, as the only problem now seems to be connectivity issues, as nothing is crashing...knock on my wood head.