# Suitable Hardware Unit to Colour Dead Samples!



## Tanuj Tiku (Mar 26, 2011)

Anyone using Rupert Neve Portico 5042 tape Fx emulation for example


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## Aaron Marshall (Mar 26, 2011)

Try a Thermionic Culture Vulture Master Edition. That thing can mutilate or change the sound ever so slightly.


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## chimuelo (Mar 26, 2011)

Thermonic Culture stuff is great.
But for warming up samples a nice hardware comp overdriven will go a long way.
I use this stuff live and Kontakts' quality has come a long way.
But it is not as " hot " as my old hardware samplers were.
So using an old hardware unit that has overdriving and sidechaining possibilities is perfect.
I use a design that emulates an 1176 called the SE-C2. I also love thier SE-1 and SE-1X Analog synths.
These guys make great gear and have great support.
Even the women in the family work the phones.....
I would love to get a Fat Busturd from Thermonic someday.
Many live performers come through town here and use TCult on their hybrid rigs.
I mean until you actually go up against Marshall and SVT stacks, you really have no way to compare the differences.
Obviously your ears aren't attached to the self gratifying part of your brain that says " I spent thousands on software " so it sounds great...
I can assure you in the real world the difference is quite noticable.
Especially with analog synths.
Personally I came to the conclusion that I cannot have just digital for convenience and analog for sound, but need both.


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## re-peat (Mar 26, 2011)

I happen to have a Thermionic Culture Fat Bustard. Wonderful piece of equipment, sure, but completely useless — just like every other piece of equipment, if you ask me — to breath life into samples. Can't be done.
Run any (orchestral) library, cheap or expensive, through the best tape simulators (or even real tape machines), fancy analog gear, high end mixing consoles, whatever ... it'll still come out like a sample library. It might sound a bit better than it did before, yes (have a bit more dimension and body to it), but it certainly won't sound any less artificial.
This 'lack of life'-artificialness is imbedded way too deep in the samples themselves and in the process of creating musical performances with them, for any piece of equipment, no matter how sophisticated, to be able to remove, mask or even lessen it.
(Much more effective than high-end signal processors, in my experience, is to use a clever app like Melodyne, which allows you to manipulate important performance characteristics such as pitch drift, dynamics, vibrato, etc. ... on a note-to-note level.)

I also don't believe in running libraries through a multitude of processors (hard- or software) in order to create a 'richer', and thuò     G>$     G>è     GŠ,     GŠ[     G‹–     G‹ê     G¯T     G¯m     Gé      Gé9     HÃ     Hà     H7Ð     H7ö     Hbn     Hc     Htº     Htï     HŒ´     HŒÊ     H™¨     H™ß     Hœ÷     H     HÀ1     HÀe     HÑ^     HÑ€     I&8     I&K     I2Þ     I3     I;„     I;å     [email protected]     [email protected]¹     IU     IU0     I}…     I}À     I“ž     I”     IÆ$     IÆH     J¢     Jì     JUM     JV     JY{     JZ     Jp2     Jpj     J‹q     J‹¿     JÑ^     JÑ     JÕù     JÖ7     K¡N     K¡n     K¦V     K¦¥     K©K     KªT     KºC     Kºy     KàÇ     KàÐ     L7A     L8k     LV„     LV”     LXÒ     LY8     L‚A     L‚¦     L˜     L˜X     LØ     Lž     LŸK     LŸœ     L¯*     L¯‹     LëÝ     Lìy     M&X     M&m     M(Î     M)     MmS     Mm¿     MmÓ     Mn?     M€v     M£     M’¥     M’é     M”!     M”>     M¸      M¸N     MÓÈ     MÓÖ     Mþ™     MþÅ     N0©     N0á     NÎ     N‘'     Om     O              ò     O#)     OGE     OG\     OR     ORt     O_i     O_³     OsÞ     Ot-     OÖÍ     OÖÿ     P#     PX     PDš     PDÞ     P`Û     PbF     Pw/     Pw[     Px5     Pxh     P°A     P°š     P²Ñ     P³5     Pîö     Pï+     Q1T     Q1–     Qð‡     Qñë     Qûð     Qüj     Rð 


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 26, 2011)

*first things first..... The re-turn of re-peat. Cool. * Our contrarian/experimentalist -in chief has re-entered stage left. 

On to the matters at hand. Yes, they will still be samples. However I decided to go the UAD route & just ordered a quad Satellite. I'll be getting most of their compressors and am reasonably amped to use Fatso Jr. & the Neve. Just got the Elysia stuff too - heady stuff. The Mir cpu is being assembled as I write. 

So obviously I'm on the same sort of path with this as Tanuj. I do have a handful of concrete steps I plan to take with this. I've started experimenting with using a handful of parallel buses to create sonic environments, sort of ala Michael Brauer. Compressors are his main tool. He's also recently jumped on the UAD bandwagon. 

You might want to go to mbrauer.com and read some of his articles on compression. I think there are some things that relate to the kind of stuff we do - and don't forget that most of us do some sort of hybrid orchestral/syth stuff and this will relate closely to these kinds of techniques. 

Until we can all regularly get budgets that allow for tons of live performers this may have to do for the time being. 

.


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## re-peat (Mar 27, 2011)

There seems to be some misunderstanding here.

Of course, I use all sort of processors to get the sound I’m after in my mixes, but that, it seems to me, is an ENTIRELY different discussion than what was put forward in Tanuj’s opening post (unless I misread that completely, which apparently I have). I thought that the idea of this thread was to see if (a combination of) processors, be they hard- or software, would be able to instill a suggestion of life, or an added ‘richness’, into what we all know to be dead matter: the sound files known as ‘samples’. And then I say: no. Impossible.

But obviously, if you want give your mixes an exciting, spacious, pseudo-mastered finishing touch, than yes, all sorts of processing is quite essential. No argument there.

_


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## Tanuj Tiku (Mar 27, 2011)

Re-peat,


You are right - the post does seem to be in two places at the same time. Well, while I hope that hardware units might add even 5 % life into the samples, of course the sonic advantage is always at the back of the mind as well.


If it cant be as life-like - perhaps, it can be well produced. 

You are right about the CPU calculations. I have posted here about that as well earlier. I feel, when the CPU is under strain, the export may not be as faithful because there are just too many calculations.

This is the reason why I want to get into hardware - its always on and works. I would rather keep my system for programming and basic reverb environment. 


The Mastering section can happen with outboard. The full-ness is missed sometimes. It sounds great until I play some commercial score and its just not as good sounding. Of course musically there is a huge difference - I am not a great composer and I dont have a real orchestra.


But I want to learn and deliver the best possible.


There is something about mixes sounding taller and have added dimension by using hardware - this is what everyone here on VI has said of using hardware. In my opinion - not a bad thing to have at all!


I am also not only looking to use it on orchestral samples. I want to use it on percussion, drums, synths etc. Of course, I can always call in a solo Violinist when the budget allows and also some other live players like flute, trumpet. 

Even in these instances, hardware will go a long way - I hope!


Now that we have some what agreed that its pointless trying to spend time making samples seem life-like.


May be now we can steer the discussion into the use of hardware for mixing and cosmetic purposes!


Re-peat, I would love for your to post some of your examples where you have used Thermionic and then some ITB mixed examples. 

That will be really really helpful!


Thanks.


Best,

Tanuj.


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## jamwerks (Mar 27, 2011)

A drum set with no processing (compression, gating, EQ, verb, etc.) sounds like shit !
So does an acoustic guitar.

And the difference between a mastered and non mastered version of a finished mix (even from a top-dog), is quite noticeable.

These "acoustic samples" that we use, especially the drier, uncompressed ones, can benefit from processing also! I’ve been using Slate Digital FG-X & it’s fantastic.

If there’s one "magic box" for samples (imo) that would be a Bricasti. Second would be a Red 3 (or other flavor comp). Third would be a brick wall limiter-EQ. _-)


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 27, 2011)

Tanuj said:


> Now that we have some what agreed that its pointless trying to spend time making samples seem life-like.


Not so fast, my sub-continental friend. 

I appreciate that there are 3 conversation topics going on here simultaneously – and that’s good because they are interdependent. I’d like to discuss this from the vantage point of Tanuj because he’s the OP. 

*1.	The sound of sample libraries
2.	The sound of the other mix elements 
3.	The mix itself. *

Regarding #1, the creation of better samples and their programming are the ultimate answers for improved flexibility of articulations and performance of timbre development over time. However tonality can be effectively changed with current tools. For me EQ is the _last _resort. Creative compression techniques certainly help. 

I had a real eye-opening experience recently. I sent Dietz Tinhof a short stereo audio example of a non-VSL solo cello (this should give you enough info to guess the library). Dietz was kind enough to send me back 16 examples of this audio excerpt in various Mir configurations (in 24-bit wav files so I could accurately hear them on my main monitors)! It was staggering. Each example had its own room placement & (non-reverb) room sound but also its own tonality. It was the same instrument but its characteristics were dependent on the specific Mir configuration (venue/room placement/mic selection/listener position) and the tonality differences ranged from subtle to obvious. Nothing I’ve ever tried before worked like this. It’s unique. It’s a game changer. Hey guys, Mir is not a reverb. It's a multi-convolution tool. It changes sound the way nature changes sound. 

Now Mir (& soon Mir Pro – its LAN sibling) aren’t specifically hardware per se. But I don’t think simply putting any piece of hardware across the stereo bus – no matter how nice or expensive it is - is going to change the nature and sonic acceptability of the sample libraries within that mix. Yes, I know re-peat has basically stated this also. I agree with him and think that Tanuj is chasing a rabbit down a hole on this one issue. 

You may not believe this until you have experienced it. Figure out some way to hear it for yourself. 

Tanuj in short, my answer today would be:

1.	The sound of sample libraries……………………Mir
2.	The sound of the other mix elements………various Parallel Bus compression techniques 
3.	The mix itself------------------------------------OK, get a piece of hardware for this.

.


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## JohnG (Mar 27, 2011)

MIR sounds interesting, Jack.

I am sort of confused about your conclusions, though. Are you saying that MIR doesn't do the trick? But you also say it's a game-changer. Tantalising!

Can you add a little more to your thoughts?


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## germancomponist (Mar 27, 2011)

Suitable Hardware Unit to Colour Dead Samples?

There is no hardware and no software for this goal. You can only try to do this by using all controllers what are programmed to move parameters in your libraries, and using dynamic controlled effects for controlling this and that..... .


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## Tanuj Tiku (Mar 27, 2011)

Wow!

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply guys. This is really helpful and exactly what I was hoping to get out of this thread!

John,

I am very keen to buy HS. I have also spoken to Alex Temple - who used it beautifully in one of his demo tracks. I have some EW Products and generally have had stability issues. But, you are right the last Play update has been rock solid so far. I have not had any problems.

I am not looking to edit my samples - I really dont want to get into that. I know Kontakt is really powerful but I like something like the VI Pro player which is in between the two worlds with amazing features.

It would also mean moving away from VSL and its products which I am so used to. Not an easy decision. If VSL has anything in the pipeline - it would be worth my while because I have the entire extended cube and would get a good upate. 

Recently I am slightly confused with what VSL is doing with their VARIOUS products. I bought Vienna Suite which was great and then bought the FORTI package - which is awesome. At the same time they have MIR which is not yet fully usable in the sense - does not allow third party content. 

I was one of the beta-testers on MIR when it first came out and it was quite amazing with the way you would approach the sound. I am waiting to see what MIR Pro will bring to the table and how VI Pro will sit inside - also Vienna Suite.

They have been focusing a lot of tools and not so much new sample recordings. I would really like to know if VSL has anything in the pipeline - sample wise.


Jack,

I agree with you. I know that Hardware is not going to magically transform my sound. I am not looking for that. I am at the moment as such happy with the sound I am getting and I have come a long way in the past year or so. This has simply been proof enough for me that tools and techniques matter. I was able to make the same library sound amazing compared to what I was producing 2 years ago. 

I am not a spank-in-the-face kind of music guy. I like colours and thats what I am looking at in hardware. Something to make the sound a little more exciting. 


Of course, writing around samples has been my number one priority - while its not the best for creativity, I dont always write music that I would write for a real orchestra. I have to make it sound as real as possible and thats only going to happen if what I am writing is doable with the library in question. 


I like how you are looking at this Jack. They are all connected to each other as such. 


I think I am probably looking at getting another sample library at some point + wait for MIR Pro in the reverb department. 

And finally I am most likely to get the Portico Tape FX Unit - it will be my first outboard piece of equipment but it looks really good and the reviews are good - and its the best possible price for such a unit.


These will be an 8-10 month investment probably. I cannot do all at the same time.



I must mention one more very important point that I am in most cases expected to deliver high quality pre-mixes with reverbs (or printed seperately) in India because of lack of general use of orchestral music as such in movies and when used - its not properly done. Also, mix engineers are generally completely unaware of how to mix orchestral music or even stage positioning.

I dont want to do this but I find myself in this extraordinary situation where I have been forced to become an expert so to speak - which I am not by a long shot. Still for the love of music and sound, I am looking into these things to really get the best out of my gear and sound. 


For when there is a budget for a live orchestra - I will be doing it abroad in Prague etc. because we have no orchestras in India which are really suitable for film work except string sections which mostly play in the Bollywood vernacular. 

In fact, we do not have a full orchestra at all. The Symphony Orchestra of India is 90% foreigners and they only come down to play for performances and do not take part in any film work - we dont have budgets most of the time as well. 

Its much better to go abroad and get it done because we dont even have the epertise to record an orchestra - let alone mix and master. 

A.R Rahman is the only Indian artist who has sucessfully done this. 


Best,

Tanuj.


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 27, 2011)

Hi John,

Mir does the trick better than anything else I've heard in realistically changing the tonality of sampled instruments. 

I did edit my post a couple of minutes ago so I hope that helps. 

Every one of the changeable parameters of Mir effects the tonality of each instrument - venue/room placement/mic selection/listener position/which direction the player is facing. Each one of these parameters are the ways that people psycho-acoustically judge the nature of incoming sounds. Each Mir venue has hundred of active IR's that take these factors into account. 

I wish I could share these demos files with you publicly but they were created by Dietz as a favor and include a non-VSL library. So he went a bit beyond the pale to provide these. Besides the file is 120MB. Perhaps he could help you out.- he's the head of Mir development for VSL. I have no problems if he wants to make these files available to you or to the public. 

Mir is definitely not a reverb. It is a room localization scheme via multiple convolutions. Also...it takes considerable computational resources (read: Big honkin' cpu). You have to figure out how it fits into your workflow. So it's been a large dollar and brain investment on my part. Also the advent of Mir Pro with its VE Pro-like LAN features will allow sample libraries from the other computers in your system (and even streaming audio) to enter Mir for processing. It can be the final output for your mixes or simply be dumped back into more inputs of your sequencer for adding to a mix. You can even shorten the effect of Mir and put it into your favorite hardware or software reverb. Just like mixers do with orchestral mixes normally. 

I'm just building my cpu now. It's a big PC with lots of RAM. It's replacing a Mac Pro VE Pro Slave I'm using now. For the time being I'll be using a hardware audio interface to get its multiple outputs back to my main Mac Pro running Logic. Once Mir Pro arrives I'll ditch the audio interface and simply use its LAN features.

HTH

.


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## Tanuj Tiku (Mar 27, 2011)

On VSL:


I am slightly confused about their future as well. As a customer who has invested thousands of dollars, I am concerned at why they are releasing so many different products.


For the longest time VSL have not released second violins. A first chair has not been released. They also claimed that for creating a section sound, you need multiple solo instruments - so they released additional download instruments on top of the existing solo instruments fully covered in Brass I and II extended (both of which I have).


Now they come up with Dimension Brass (demos of which have so far failed to excite me fully). They say its not possible to create a section sound with their other solo instruments and that is why we now need DB!!!! 

They release Vienna Suite and FORTI and SERTI but then they claim MIR is the ultimate Reverb engine. 


There are just too many products around and you keep paying for each one of them only to realise a totally new game-changer has been released. First you had Vienna Suite - then additional pack and then FORTI and SERTI and then you have MIR again.


There is also abosolutely no news on the release of new sample material. Cross-fading remains a major issue with VSL and there is not talk of improving that. 


They had VI player , now VI Pro (which is actually quite good). Time compression is not tempo locked. 



I dont know how all of this will come together in the end - and when will this end arrive?



Tanuj.


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 27, 2011)

Yeah, they are tight ...uhh... fisted in their control of announcements concerning upcoming products and direction. They are just the opposite of another major company that announces product up to a year in advance in order to stop sales of their competition. Which is more noble or correct? I'll leave that to history. 

I also agree that outwardly their direction has seemed to wobble a bit. One thing that hasn't changed in 9 years is the steady development and investment in Mir. Mir Pro is just about ready for prime time. 

I'd like to know more about what's going on in the board room of VSL. The castle walls seem very high. I don't know if that's ever going to change. 

I like Dimension Brass. I use it all the time. It's not the end of the search for Brass samples. I'll bet that Hollywood Brass isn't the holy grail either. We know even less about LASS Brass. But they probably will be fine tools. 

VSL is winning the software war. Can they re-emerge as sample champions? I don't think they are going away any time soon. But we can't know more until they tell us what's going on. 

.


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## Tanuj Tiku (Mar 27, 2011)

Very well put Jack.


I feel the same about VSL. I want to believe in them but they have to put some word about the future of samling in VSL. I still stand by that they still are the finest tools. I can think about augmenting VSL with another library but cant think of changing the core of it with another library!

I heard your last demo with DB - it was the most convincing one yet. Can you share more examples if you have any new stuff?


Thanks.


Best,

Tanuj.


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## jamwerks (Mar 27, 2011)

We’ll probably see a Dimension Brass II with more articulations. I believe Herb said that no "Dimension winds" were on the drawing board. Next up should be more strings, but being as there’s no blow-out on their current string packages, that might not be too soon.

As for MIR Pro, I’d love to read the required CPU specks!


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## P.T. (Mar 27, 2011)

I think the problem is that people don't put the time in to learn to play the samples like an instrument.
They expect to just press a key and it to sound good.

Even a real instrument has to be learned so that the player can make it sing.


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## Mr. Anxiety (Mar 27, 2011)

VSL Mir sounds very interesting, but I'm curious how do you get it to work if you use multiple farm PCs running Kontakt with the orch samples, running all of them into Pro Tools on a Mac to mix-make stems? 

It's PC only, correct?

Signed curious.........

Mr A

I hope this isn't hijacking the thread


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## midphase (Mar 27, 2011)

I'm pretty sure MIR works on Macs too...but I'm not sure if it's RTAS compatible.


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## Tanuj Tiku (Mar 27, 2011)

I think the true potential of using MIR is on a stand-alone computer.


You also need lots of RAM. To run a modest arrangement you need a minimum of 12 GB with the latest i7 CPU. You probably need 24 GB for a more realistic pro arrangement - or even more.

This was the case when I was beta-testing it but performance may have changed since then.


MIR Pro does sound very exciting and I would be interested in it. May be finally we will have a great sounding Convolution reverb with all the amazing workflow enhancements of MIR and then you some algo verb on the master!


I am just not sure how they will integrate all of this.


Best,

Tanuj.


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 27, 2011)

Each of you have it just a little skewed. 

Tomorrow when I have more time I'll go thru these things with each of your questions as I understand them. 

I had to go thru all of this trying to understand it myself. 

Tomorrow.... I promise. 

.


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## Mr. Anxiety (Mar 27, 2011)

Thanks Vibrato & Jack for the replies.

I'm still trying to understand how I could implement it with my set-up.

Farm PCs (4-5) -- MIR PC -- Pro Tools ????? That would require loads of inputs/outputs on the MIR PC.

Hmm......

Looking forward to your findings Jack.

Mr A


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## Ashermusic (Mar 28, 2011)

I am largely with John Graham here. "Life" in the sound is mostly a product of how it was recorded and tone the hardest element to change without destroying it, which is why it is my number one priority in choosing a library. MUCH more than how many articulations; MUCH more than round robin, "true" legato and all the other stuff that folks seem to care so much about. As Duke Ellington said, "It Don't Mean A thing If It Ain't Got That Tone."

OK, so he didn't say _precisely_ that. :lol: 

The other thing that is the key to making sample-based parts is more automation. Even subtle volume automations done somewhat randomly impart a sense of movement that is beneficial to samples, which are essentially snapshots.

I was however part of a test where they split stems out of the computer into a Dangerous 8 buss and then summed back into the box and it did add a lot of nice stuff to the sound. If money and time permitted it, I would be sorely tempted to go that route..

However, in the end, samples are samples and the best way to breathe life into them is to add even a handful of real instrumentalists. It is amazing how much a well recorded acoustic guitar for instance adds to a film cue that is largely sample based.


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## Mr. Anxiety (Mar 28, 2011)

Yea Jack, thanks so much for this overview. Way helpful in describing how MIR/MIR Pro works.

The only thing I'm still not clear on is with MIR Pro (if you even know this at this point).

So, if all the samples you want to go into MIR PRo, your whole orchestral palate, which resides on 4-5 slave PCs, you can either LAN connect the audio from all of these into the MIR Pro PC, then send it out to ProTools via LAN or audio interface, or send everything through the slaves' audio interfaces to the MIR Pro, then on to PT. The latter approach would require MADI or something like that to be the audio interface to accommodate all the inputs, and bump up the price tag on the MIR Pro PC.

If you are using audio over LAN, are we talking individual latency issues per each slave PC, or other issues when trying to port so much data across? 32-40 channels?

Thanks again for helping us understand this potentially cool setup!

Mr A


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 28, 2011)

Mr. Anxiety, 
 
With Mir Pro, all the audio from the slaves goes back to the Master via LAN. No audio interfaces b/w slaves & master required. 

Latency? Have you tried VE Pro? Does it work for you? If so, I'll guessing that Mir Pro will be pretty much the same.

.


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## Mr. Anxiety (Mar 28, 2011)

VE Pro........ I bought it, but I'm having issues with it behaving with my audio interface, Echo Gina24 at the moment. I have yet to try the audio over LAN. I just finished my film project and now have some time to look into it.
 
Sorry I'm not up to speed on the VSL software stuff........ I guess that's why I'm so inquisitive.

Thanks,

Mr A


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## re-peat (Mar 28, 2011)

Jack Weaver @ Mon Mar 28 said:


> (...) No algo or convo reverb will be able to do this - especially not on the stereo bus. If I thought otherwise I wouldn't be so gaga over Mir.(...)


Jack,

A completely silly idea probably, but from what you're saying about MIR (I know hardly anything about it myself, I must confess), it seems to me that Ircam SPAT — _"the most advanced and sophisticated tool for room acoustics simulation and localisation ever designed"_, according to its proud makers — is not entirely dissimilar. And I must say, I've been using SPAT for quite some time now and, honestly, I can't really think of any spatialization problem that can't be solved convincingly with this software (precisely the reason why I know virtually nothing about MIR: never felt the need to learn anything about it, ever since I got SPAT.)

Unlike MIR, SPAT is entirely algorhitmic. It consist of two seperate engines (rolled into one tabbed GUI): a spatialization engine and a reverb engine and each of these has a bewildering amount of parameters to adjust almost every conceivable parameter that defines a sound's presence and behaviour in a space, as well as the reflections that this presence generates.

I wouldn't say no to be allowed to hear a few of the most telling MIR-examples, to see how it compares with SPAT's capabilities.

_


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## Tanuj Tiku (Mar 28, 2011)

Jack,


Thanks a lot for your overview. Not surprised by the system spec as such. I dont mind investing in a sound card for MIR as work is really important and I dont want any latency or glitches. I have heard from some people that the LAN solution is great but can sometimes become lagging in VE Pro. 

I have complete faith in the VSL software team - they are some of the most intelligent guys in the industry. They are way ahead of the game.


You have more or less sold me on MIR. I had beta-tested it and generally liked the sound and more so, the approach. Its been long since MIR first came out and I was not aware of the extraordinary leap it had taken - MIR already has third party hosting. 

I currently only use *one *machine to do everything. In the next 6 months or so, I am definitely looking at adding another machine. I am also in the process of building my studio. 

Once done, I will be using LYNX AES cards to link all my machines going into an Audient summing mixer which is also a DAW controller. Its quite cool!

Perhaps, I can continue with my current core i7 machine with 24 GB Ram and buy another 8-core Xeon machine with 24 GB Ram. In the process, I might pick up Hollywood strings. 

All of this is great but _I really need to hear_ more demos of MIR from people who are working in the industry. I find, people who regularly work in the industry, get more realistic results because they are _time-bound_ and have a pro set-up and understanding of audio with experience. Their music is also_ broadly_ speaking - _more film like_. 

I will be *eagerly* looking forward to your use with MIR. It will be really, really helpful if you can post some examples. 

I really liked the sound and possibilities in the MIR video but so far I have mostly not liked the demos. This tells me that there is full potential but somehow the demos are letting MIR down. 

I was very enthusiastic about MIR when it first came out but naturally I am a little hesitant to move to MIR as it would mean _a major change_ in work-flow and sound and also waiting for MIR Pro. I will only be using the LAN feature for MIDI.

Of course, this major change will be hopefully worth my while!

Once I am on AES with the Lynx Aurora - I will have everything locked digitally with no hastles of latency etc. 

At most, I might use Aether or Breeze as a Master Algo verb as is typical with film music.


The only thing remaining would be writing good music - scary!



Best,

Tanuj.


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## doubleattack (Mar 28, 2011)

@re-peat

I've been using MIR for a few month now, so maybe I can tell about something.

A comparison to IRCAM SPAT I think is not useful since IRCAM is, as you said even not a algo reverb only, but also IRCAM Spat is reproducing spatially considered sound environments. MIR is working with real multi - sampled venues. That's a different like e.g. WIVI and any sample library.

The huge advantage of MIR is (beside the hudge possibilities of the Ambisonics concept) the Source-aware processing relying on instrument Profiles, especially Directivity Profiles. But these Directivity Profiles - they are really the cherry on the cake - can be used with instruments of the vsl-library only. (These profiles includes a lot of informations of the original recording of the samples.)

Third party instruments are sounding still awesome, but the advantage using vsl witò    ÐFI    ÐF§    ÐJ†    ÐJØ    Ðk     Ðk    ÐzË    Ðz÷    Ð{    Ð{Ë    Ð€U    Ð€‘    ÐR    Ð˜    Ð‚©    Ðƒ    ÐˆI    Ð‰W    Ð‰}    ÐŒ½    ÐŒà    Ð     Ð‘õ    Ð’P    Ð”o    Ð”ž    Ð¯h    Ð¯     Ð¯ï    Ð°N    Ð²Ü    Ð³;    Ð´ü    Ðµ    Ð¶=    Ð¶™    Ð¿Þ    Ð¿ù    ÐÀ³    ÐÀ÷    ÐÁ¤    ÐÁÏ    ÐÃ¢    ÐÄ1    ÐÄË    ÐÅU 


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## re-peat (Mar 29, 2011)

Frank,

Thanks very much for that. Very informative.

However, and with all due respect, I still don't understand why SPAT can't be compared to MIR, mainly because thusfar, I haven't heard any MIR-demo that appears to be generating something that goes beyond what I feel SPAT is capable of just as well. I mean, working with SPAT, I really can't think of _anything_ (with regard to the spatialization of sound sources) that it can't do. So, I wonder, what else is there?

Just like MIR, SPAT can position any sound source anywhere in any conceivable space (far-close, left-right, high-low, wide-narrow), determine its direction (towards or away from the listener and at any angle in between), determine the listener's position, define the character and presence of the source, as well as the type, size and reflectiveness of the environment, and a whole lot of other things ... So again, what else can there possibly be? And, even more importantly, what else is there that could be considered of truly musical benefit to sampled instruments?

Thanks again.

_


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## doubleattack (Mar 30, 2011)

Thanks for your kindly reply, re-peat!

My doubts about a comparison MIR vs IRCAM SPAT has been more in regard to the sound. I didn't want a battle about convolution vs algo - reverbs.

In regard to the spatalization of sound sources you are right - there will be no difference in that, what you can do and achieve with both tools.

Principally I think no tool can add something to samples what isn't still in themselfs.
But for the illusion to listen to a real record the concept of MIR - multi-sampling of real venues is - imho - a step forward. It comes really very close to the nature. But that's a statement only about the successful illusion. I don't want to say it sounds better at all for music production. (It's a hudge difference imho between live music and music production for two loudspeaker...) 

The sound of the 60's/70's/80' is the production style I've been listening when I'm growing up. So regardless of the new world of great sounds and illusions sometimes I prefer old fashion sounding mix styles and (algo-) reverbs - by psychological habitualness, I suppose.

What I really like using MIR is the workflow. It's very intuitiv and you don't have to care about a lot of engineering knowledge - it's all done for you before. You only have to listen and to care what is working best for the current production (means moving the instrument icons on stage, justify the among of wet and choose the right instrument to get the informations of the directivity profiles and if you like to add some eq, compression etc.). That's really made for musicians don't having engineers skills - like me. 

Hope I didn't carry to much coals to newcastle...

Best 

Frank


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## jamwerks (Mar 30, 2011)

I exchanged some emails with Felix from Flux (SPAT) and got the impression that 64 bit wasn’t for tomorrow, so I kind of lost interest (to say nothing of the price tag).

I was inticially interested by the sound though. o-[][]-o


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