# Vienna MIR Pro - workflow tips & best practices when mixing?



## JyTy (Apr 22, 2022)

Hi,

I'm currently playing around with MIR Pro and I love it, especially in terms of the sound and room placement of instruments. But it is a bit more complex beast compared to slapping a reverb on a string bus...

So for all of you that are using MIR Pro would you be willing to share some tops & workflow setups? Especially for the *standalone version*.

As I understand the standalone plugin should be added as a final plugin on the instruments channel (or on the groups you want to treat as a separate placement). So how do you approach mixing on groups?

To simplify things let's say you have violins, violas, cellos and basses all of them have a separate MIR Pro plugin on their channel so you can place them appropriately. But let's say you want to do some EQing or compression on the whole string group before the reverb? When using MIR Pro in combination with VEPro there are all sorts of routing options, separating dry/wet signals, sending all of the channels to a group bus before the mir processing and applying effects there... 

But I like to mix in my DAW, for two reasons as I'm not sure my slave would handle slapping MIR Pro and a brunch of plugins on top of everything else + I like the options that some plugins offer if you use them in the same platform, like Fabfilter's eq, where you can see frequency clashes between channels you are using it on, similar for Izotope's plugins... So what are your flows in this case, do you just do processing on individual MIR groups before adding the plugin on top?

I don't know if any of this even makes sense yet, as I'm a brand new MIR user... but I would really appreciate any tips and best practices on working with MIR Pro i terms of mixing and applying processing to instruments before the reverb, especially when using a standalone version outside of VEPro integration.

Thanks for all the feedback in advance!

Best,
J.T.


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## Marcus Millfield (Apr 23, 2022)

I usually add some compression on the instrument busses after MIRPro and later on the master bus to glue every section together because I mostly use individual instruments in MIRPro which all have their own track in my DAW, so glueing is probably more noticeable and needed then when I'm using a section library.

I'm probably the worse mixer on this board, so apart from this, I have no useful tips or tricks to give you. 

You can route your VEP channels back to your DAW without using any plugins/effects (including MIR) and just use your DAW for those tasks.

I recommend reading the VEP/MIRPro manual for more info on how routing can be achieved. Here you can find some info about routing and plugin inserts around MIRPro within VEP: https://www.vsl.info/en/manuals/mir-pro/routing-vep


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## Zanshin (Apr 23, 2022)

I agree with @Marcus Millfield 

I use MIR as my first insert generally, and stuff like Soothe2, compression, and the like after. I treat what MIR returns as you would a mic'd instrument. 

If I do put anything before MIR it's really a special case where I need to narrow the stereo field so it works better in MIR or something like that.


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## FireGS (Apr 23, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> I agree with @Marcus Millfield
> 
> I use MIR as my first insert generally, and stuff like Soothe2, compression, and the like after. I treat what MIR returns as you would a mic'd instrument.
> 
> If I do put anything before MIR it's really a special case where I need to narrow the stereo field so it works better in MIR or something like that.


I put any band-aid stuff on before MIR, like Soothe, or any EQ fixing before its sent into the room of MIR. Then yes, coloration effects like compression afterwards.


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## Zanshin (Apr 23, 2022)

This interview series with @Dietz , helped my MIR kung fu immensely:









Vienna MIR: secret tips from its creator - part 1 - Film Scoring Tips


Learn some of the best secret tips to use Vienna MIR like a pro. Brought to you by its creator, Dietz Tinhof!




filmscoringtips.com












Vienna MIR: secret tips from its creator - part 2 - Film Scoring Tips


Learn some of the best secret tips to use Vienna MIR like a pro. Brought to you by its creator, Dietz Tinhof!




filmscoringtips.com












Vienna MIR: secret tips from its creator - part 3 - Film Scoring Tips


Learn some of the best secret tips to use Vienna MIR like a pro. Brought to you by its creator, Dietz Tinhof!




filmscoringtips.com


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## Zanshin (Apr 23, 2022)

FireGS said:


> I put any band-aid stuff on before MIR, like Soothe, or any EQ fixing before its sent into the room of MIR. Then yes, coloration effects like compression afterwards.


Interesting, like Soothe2 for example I'm using to help with mid low build up for example, I felt like it would be handled better after MIR. But I know your MIR skills are great so I'll have to try your way too


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## FireGS (Apr 23, 2022)

Zanshin said:


> Interesting, like Soothe2 for example I'm using to help with mid low build up for example, I felt like it would be handled better after MIR. But I know your MIR skills are great so I'll have to try your way too


I'm using Soothe2 to tame ugly sounding resonances. Figure those resonances are already there in the recording, and now you're sending them again through reverb and trying to cut them afterwards (double resonance). If you try doing it from the start, you might get a better result. YMMV.


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## Zanshin (Apr 23, 2022)

FireGS said:


> I'm using Soothe2 to tame ugly sounding resonances. Figure those resonances are already there in the recording, and now you're sending them again through reverb and trying to cut them afterwards (double resonance). If you try doing it from the start, you might get a better result. YMMV.


You make too much sense, stop it.


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## Zanshin (Apr 23, 2022)

Tail helpers are important too, like for example Tai Chi, Cinematic Rooms, Lustrous Plates Surround... MIR comes MIRacle too with some helper presets ready to go for different rooms.

Don't be afraid to play with Reverberation Time, and the Dry/Wet offset is global.

So like for example here I'm using Pernegg with the reverb time shorted to 2.4 (from 3.8), and I have Lustrous Plates Surround on a Send to sweeten the tail:


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## JyTy (Apr 23, 2022)

Soo much great feedback! Thnx everybody 🙏


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## Dietz (Apr 24, 2022)

JyTy said:


> To simplify things let's say you have violins, violas, cellos and basses all of them have a separate MIR Pro plugin on their channel so you can place them appropriately. But let's say you want to do some EQing or compression on the whole string group before the reverb?


There are several approaches to achieve this in a way that MIR "likes". 

Var. A: Apply the same processing chain to each individual instrument's or ensemble's Group channel "pre-MIR", i.e. to the dry signals before they enter MIR Pro.

Var. B: Apply the processing to a common Group (read: sub-mix) of all MIR'ed elements. There's no difference in case of linear processing like EQs or filters, but of course it might be a bit more challenging in case of dynamic and non-linear processes like compression, saturation etc.

Var. C: Like you wrote yourself: Use the Vienna Ensemble-based "full" version of MIR Pro that allows for splitting dry and wet signal components. Make dedicated busses for them and add the processing there.



JyTy said:


> So what are your flows in this case, do you just do processing on individual MIR groups before adding the plugin on top?


I try to optimize the input signal (pre-MIR) like I would treat a spot-mic, with all kinds of surgical refinements as well as tools to "prettify" the individual source. I do "broad strokes" and "emotional" moves on the MIR'ed signals.



Zanshin said:


> Tail helpers are important too, like for example Tai Chi, Cinematic Rooms, Lustrous Plates Surround... MIR comes MIRacle too with some helper presets ready to go for different rooms.


Absolutely. The key-word is "tail", though: Make sure that any early-reflections are switched off, they don't make sense on a MIR'ed signal.

I would also refrain from adding other static IR-based reverbs or un-modulated Plates to MIR's output. MIR will benefit a lot more from those typical "Lexicon"-style reverb tails that add a bit of movement to the otherwise linear reverb derived from its Multi-IRs.



FireGS said:


> I'm using Soothe2 to tame ugly sounding resonances. Figure those resonances are already there in the recording, and now you're sending them again through reverb and trying to cut them afterwards (double resonance). If you try doing it from the start, you might get a better result.


^^^^^^^^ This!


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