# WIVI Brass 1 public beta/trial released



## Wallander (May 13, 2007)

WIVI is an advanced synthesizer that emulates acoustic instruments, by combining advanced behavioral modeling with extensive amounts of sound data extracted from acoustic measurements and recordings of real instruments. 

More info + public trial/beta download can be found at www.wallanderinstruments.com


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## Moonchilde (May 13, 2007)

Your new name made me wonder if someone beat you to it! This sounds pretty good so far. Nice interface, looks like all your hard work finally paid off


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## alanb (May 13, 2007)

Looks very nice -- and I'm looking forward to trying it out!!

.


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## IvanP (May 14, 2007)

Wow...I'm really impressed...Just tried a few notes, added breath control...awesome...the timbric variations are superb, not to mention the smooth transitions, I'd love to listen how the portamento works, though I'm sure it's gonna work fine!

Add just an option of instrument noises (valves, etc) and you got the most realistic, ram friendly playable instrument in the market...well done guys, can't wait to see what you do with strings.

Just three questions:

1) Are these samples? Is it everything synthesis??

2) will we be able, in the final version, to take out the reverb but maintain the spatial design? (in case we wanted to use our own reverb, or mix with other VSTis but keeping your instruments in the place we wanted?

3) Will it be possible to do some contemporanean fx in real time? (pitch spreading, multiphonics, etc...)?

Thks!


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

IvanP @ Mon 14 May said:


> Wow...I'm really impressed...Just tried a few notes, added breath control...awesome...the timbric variations are superb, not to mention the smooth transitions, I'd love to listen how the portamento works, though I'm sure it's gonna work fine!
> 
> Add just an option of instrument noises (valves, etc) and you got the most realistic, ram friendly playable instrument in the market...well done guys, can't wait to see what you do with strings.
> 
> ...


The portamento is already present on the horn (use soft velocities).

There are already instrument noises, breath noises, chiff noises, valve noises. They're not extremely loud by default (it can easily become disturbing) but it's customizable in the Professional Edition (you can see the controls on the Tone/Timbre panel, the 4:th panel on the right side).

Yes, you can integrate it with an external reverb. The _best _way of using it might actually be to use an external convolution reverb for the late reverb, and then keep direct sound/early reflections within the engine. You simply route the late reverb channel to a separate outport, and tell WIVI to output the raw signal. You can then apply external reverbation directly on the raw instrument signal. WIVI still maintains levels, timing and panning through the positioning engine. 

For pitch spreading, you can customize the pitch bend to do any pitch change, so if you use different pitch bend intervals for different instruments within a section, you can do perfect cluster effects, that are controllable in real-time.

If you mean multiphonics/player also sing while performing, this is not possible within WIVI. Only the audio produced by the body of the instrument is emulated, not the performer. Some woodwinds might allow overblowing, but I'm not sure to what degree I want this because it's pretty awkward when using electronic controllers (yes, I've tried it) since you lack the fine-control of an acoustic instrument.


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## lux (May 14, 2007)

Oh, finally something interesting on the horizon. I'm going to try this pretty soon. Good luck.

Luca


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## James W.G. Smith (May 14, 2007)

Awesome dude, really. The graphics are really glitchy in SONAR and it's really hard to use (usually just shows a gray box) but I finally got a french horn going after about 10 mins of blind clicking. I wasn't 100% on the verb but I figure I can change that after I get the pro version. It really does play beautifully, and this was just me clicking my mouse and drawing in a bit of CC2. Hell, I even made a very long repeated staccato line and didn't hear any of the machine gun effect. Do you have a DXi in the works? Or maybe my computer is just being a bastard (which is possible, I have graphic glitches in Audition 2 as well). Thanks a ton for this!

James


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

Revolutionary.


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

James W.G. Smith @ Mon 14 May said:


> Awesome dude, really. The graphics are really glitchy in SONAR and it's really hard to use (usually just shows a gray box) but I finally got a french horn going after about 10 mins of blind clicking. I wasn't 100% on the verb but I figure I can change that after I get the pro version. It really does play beautifully, and this was just me clicking my mouse and drawing in a bit of CC2. Hell, I even made a very long repeated staccato line and didn't hear any of the machine gun effect. Do you have a DXi in the works? Or maybe my computer is just being a bastard (which is possible, I have graphic glitches in Audition 2 as well). Thanks a ton for this!
> 
> James


Enter the 5:th panel on the left (Global settings). What does it say under "Graphics driver"? Direct3D, OpenGL or software renderer? You can always try opening WIVI settings from the same panel, and see if other graphics drivers work better for you. The software renderer is extremely slow, though. 

This should be a setting error, because the graphics runs extremely smooth and glitch-free for us even on some very old computers. Maybe it's a conflict with Sonar, but I don't see why that would be, since the GUI runs separately, and we've never had conflicts with other applications.

Yes, the reverb was designed to be extremely efficient. We wanted something that could be used while writing. When you have high standards for audio quality, your best bet will always be to use a high-end convolution reverb for the late reverb/tail.


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

> Yes, the reverb was designed to be extremely efficient. We wanted something that could be used while writing. When you have high standards for audio quality, your best bet will always be to use a high-end convolution reverb for the late reverb/tail.



Can this be done,while stil lkeeping the direction,listener position etc?


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon 14 May said:


> > Yes, the reverb was designed to be extremely efficient. We wanted something that could be used while writing. When you have high standards for audio quality, your best bet will always be to use a high-end convolution reverb for the late reverb/tail.
> 
> 
> 
> Can this be done,while stil lkeeping the direction,listener position etc?


Yes, you re-route the late reverb layer to a separate channel, and output it 100% raw (the way it sounds when it enters the internal reverb). Then you simply apply your external reverb to that channel. WIVI still takes care of levels, timing, panning etc. The engine was designed to be used with convolution reverbs, but a synthetic reverb was included because we wanted something efficient + the best convolution reverbs will always be made by companies that focus entirely on reverbs.


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

Right, cool.

When can it be bought?

It's a shame the demo does not include an Ensemble. I'm still not sure how that works/sounds. 

My experience just tells me that so far many single instruments do not sound like an ensemble playing. Yours might be different though! That's what I hope, but no real way of trying it out.


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## IvanP (May 14, 2007)

Thks, 

How much processing power will be needed for a full 16 instruments or more on stage (on a single instance)? (or how many instances and instruments will overkill a cpu?)

Does the engine calculates the absorption of the players / ambience, btw?

In case it does, would it be possible to "chain" several instances in order to get all the reflections properly done when using all the sections? (i.e. one instance for Horns, another one for trumpets, etc)

How many samples / synthesis is being used?

Thks again, I'm still a bit shocked


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon 14 May said:


> Right, cool.
> 
> When can it be bought?
> 
> ...


Sales will open as soon as compatibility with most hosts and setups have been confirmed. We're pretty much ready to accept sales, but we want to filter out any crucial problems with the player.

You can still open several instances to "preview" ensembles. Unison playing won't sound as nice, though, since it's the exact same instrument in both instances. 

Instruments are always added separately. If you want ensembles, you either give them the same input MIDI channel and play them unison (or re-tune the instruments to play chords etc) or you give them separate MIDI channels and control the voice of each instrument separately.

I'm confident you'll have no problems at all with the ensembles. They simply aren't capable of phasing, unless you drastically alter the behavior through the engine.


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

You say they wont sound as nice in multiple instances - what if I load them into one instance with your commercial version?

I want to do a test comparing them to VSL Epic Horns


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## zareone (May 14, 2007)

Hi Arne. I've got a question: imagine I want a 6 Horn section. Will I be able to load, for example 2 instances of Horn 1, 2 of Horn 2, 1 of Horn 3 and 1 of Horn 4? Of course When playing a chords, I'd not assing the same note to two instances of the same horn to avoid phasing. Is possible to make larger ensembles then?

Are you recording woods already?


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

IvanP @ Mon 14 May said:


> Thks,
> 
> How much processing power will be needed for a full 16 instruments or more on stage (on a single instance)? (or how many instances and instruments will overkill a cpu?)
> 
> ...



When you don't play, the instruments don't use any CPU, so you can see how much processing is needed on your system by comparing playing to not playing in the trial.

Roughly, one instrument uses 1/5th of what the acoustic engine uses. On this system (an old P4, 2 GHz) the acoustics engine uses about 2.5-3% CPU and one additional instrument uses about 0.5%. I can add 40+ instruments without glitches.

The engine doesn't calculate the absorption of players. This would be awkward, since an audience would make a much bigger impact. On an early reflections level, this is neglectable (some scattering, but absorption is much too low to make an impact).

It uses schoolbook additive synthesis, but huge measures have been taken to have exact tonal reproduction. The instruments contain huge amounts of instrumental data used to reproduce the sound. The Professional Edition uses about 200 mb, and that is 95% sound data. Remember that this isn't samples, so there's no redundant data. Most of WIVI isn't the instrument player, but the in-house software used to build the instruments.

You cannot chain instances, but as soon as the standard supports multiple MIDI inputs (VST3) WIVI will support all your instruments in a common instance. It's technically possible already, but not activated.


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

200mb? What cuases the huge leap in size from the trial edition? (not that it's a problem, just curious).

Also -please tell me it will be downlaodable?


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## zareone (May 14, 2007)

Another question: 
The way this VST is done makes me think it emulates an acoustic live listening, right. Yopu choose the listener and place it and the instruments. But for film scoring, they're multimiked. So would it be possible to replace the listener by mics, and place several mics, and be able to mix between them? 

Maybe this is a stupid question, if so, I apologize.

And other one. Maybe it doesn't make any sense, but is possible to make a percussion library for this audio engine? I already have True Strike Pro, but would be nice to have the whole orchestra in this engine and not use anything else. I like the low CPU, the instant loading.... just open Cubase and record!


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon 14 May said:


> 200mb? What cuases the huge leap in size from the trial edition? (not that it's a problem, just curious).
> 
> Also -please tell me it will be downlaodable?



Multiple instruments, but foremost the sordinos. The tonality of each mute/sordino is treated separately in WIVI (to get exact tone) and all instruments have all common mutes. Each Professional Edition trumpet uses about 20 Mb, although only the currently used mute is loaded into RAM. 

The software will ONLY be downloadable. We want the software to be sold without dongles or noticeable protection, so we've developed a custom scheme that fuses the registration information into the software before download. This way, the Professional Edition is as easy to install and maintain as the Trial Edition, but it requires all purchases to be done online. Also, updates are distributed automatically when available, and since all customers are registered we're sure to reach everyone. This is a big plus. Mainly because it allows you to install the software on any number of computers, and you will be able to run it in 20 years even if our company was closed down.


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

mama mia... perfect 

Today will bealong day for you 

So far i'm having slight issues with getting the attacks to sound more rough and staccatoish. Can this be changed? It would be really nice if it could be incoorprated that if I hit the keys with high velocity I get a harder attack. 

Also - will I be able to change from sordino to non-sordino in real time?


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

zareone @ Mon 14 May said:


> Another question:
> The way this VST is done makes me think it emulates an acoustic live listening, right. Yopu choose the listener and place it and the instruments. But for film scoring, they're multimiked. So would it be possible to replace the listener by mics, and place several mics, and be able to mix between them?
> 
> Maybe this is a stupid question, if so, I apologize.
> ...



It's not a stupid question, and we've considered the possibility of using microphones instead of a reference listener. The instruments and layering engine is already pretty advanced, so we decided the difference in sound wasn't enough to motivate the CPU demands and increased complexity. Perhaps in the future.

Our ambitions are to have a full orchestra in the WIVI player. Even though comparably efficient, you MUST have a player this efficient if you want 100-150 players on a high-end computer today. Percussion would be possible, but the technology would have to be customized, and my guesses are that it would use an approach more close to samples. The major concern would be to have expressive percussive sounds with correct acoustic properties. But to be honest, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it because we'll probably cover quite a bit of tuned instruments before going that way.


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## lux (May 14, 2007)

I think also nice things can be done in creating multis and mixed sections in Energy XT (Vst version) on a single track. And if controllers on engine are mappable one could really do most operations real time using a remote controller like the Novation SL or similar. Very promising.

Luca


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## zareone (May 14, 2007)

Maybe I could use one instance of the Engine with the typical instruments and listener distribution and other instance, with the instruments I want to "close mike" and the listener near them, and then mix and match those instances.


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## IvanP (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon May 14 said:


> mama mia... perfect
> 
> Today will bealong day for you
> 
> ...



Probably by doing the staccato or sfz with the breath controller...I thought about that too, but please, correct me if I'm wrong...or just post a snipett


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## zareone (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon May 14 said:


> So far i'm having slight issues with getting the attacks to sound more rough and staccatoish. Can this be changed? It would be really nice if it could be incoorprated that if I hit the keys with high velocity I get a harder attack.



Christian, I'm at work so I can't test it, (unfortunately I haven't a MIDI keyboard at workplace :( ) But I have seen a BC option in the isntrument general options. You can change the value to KEY, VELocity, PB (pitch bend I suppose, and so on) Maybe this maps the MIDI controller used to control dynamics. Have a look and let me know if it works.


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

I'm not using a brath controller, but rather the mod-wheel


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon 14 May said:


> mama mia... perfect
> 
> Today will bealong day for you
> 
> ...



As IvanP said, attacks are much better when using breath/wind controller. You can always sculpt the Breath CC data to incorporate an accent if it needs to be stronger.

Also, I'd say as a general rule, a fast attack isn't necessarily rougher and better with WIVI. Less is usually more, but it's not always noticeable in solo playing.

You cannot change between sordinos any way you like without accessing the interface (changing sordinos involves loading data from disc, and you don't want that in the middle of a phrase). However, sordinos that are dynamic by nature (like hand-stopped horns) have special modes where you can affect sordino in real-time using MIDI cc's. This is how the wah-wah sordinos are handled.

It would be possible to add special modes where you can change between all different sordinos in real-time, but it would require loading all sound data to memory, when using those modes that is.


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## James W.G. Smith (May 14, 2007)

Wallander @ Mon May 14 said:


> Enter the 5:th panel on the left (Global settings). What does it say under "Graphics driver"? Direct3D, OpenGL or software renderer? You can always try opening WIVI settings from the same panel, and see if other graphics drivers work better for you. The software renderer is extremely slow, though.
> 
> This should be a setting error, because the graphics runs extremely smooth and glitch-free for us even on some very old computers. Maybe it's a conflict with Sonar, but I don't see why that would be, since the GUI runs separately, and we've never had conflicts with other applications.



Well, it said DirectX so I changed it to OpenGL and it only made it worse (basically, I couldn't get the box to show ANYTHING, and it crashed SONAR whenever I closed it). Then I popped it on Software and everything works like a charm! As far as I could see there was no link to the WIVIsettings.exe in the start menu, so I would highly recommend adding one, as it was the only way I could get this working after I changed it to OpenGL. I think the problem might actually be because the GUI runs separately, considering that SONAR doesn't natively support VSTi's in the first place, so it's having trouble rendering through it's translator. If you made a DXi however, this wouldn't be an issue I'm sure. On the other hand, it could be my computer, I'm just not positive. Has anyone else had this problem?

For those who are having it, Open My Computer / C: / Program Files / WIVI Trial Edition / WIVIsettings.exe and select Software renderer.

James


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

James W.G. Smith @ Mon 14 May said:


> Wallander @ Mon May 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Enter the 5:th panel on the left (Global settings). What does it say under "Graphics driver"? Direct3D, OpenGL or software renderer? You can always try opening WIVI settings from the same panel, and see if other graphics drivers work better for you. The software renderer is extremely slow, though.
> ...


Yes, we'll probably add WIVI settings to the start-menu. Currently, we don't add anything because we don't want to clog up peoples start-menus, especially in the middle of beta, if anything is changed you might end up with duplicates etc.

Ok, then I'm confident it's the translator. All VST gui's run separately (as far as Windows concerned) since they're in a Window of their own, the only difference is that WIVI uses Direct3D instead of native drawing routines, but that shouldn't be a problem because it's integrated into Windows. The software renderer is a WIVI graphics driver that uses native drawing, just like any standard VST, but the performance of it shows why we've migrated to accelerated graphics.


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## zareone (May 14, 2007)

Arne, remember to notify KVRaudio mods about your release. I have readed your post in KVR forum, but if they add your product to the database and put the release on the front page (the news section, which they'd do sooner or later) there'll be a traffic increase to your site.


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## handz (May 14, 2007)

WOW this thing soudns really great!!! 
Im playing with it over 2 hours now


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## James W.G. Smith (May 14, 2007)

I have a request if it's possible, before I make my mind up about purchasing. Is there any way that you can put an audio demo up that doesn't use any reverb? I want to check to see how it will work with my verbs (and other processing), and I am sure many other people would be interested in it too. I'm just curious how close I can get it to the sound I really want. You could actually showcase different verb setting like this too, one dry, one symphony hall, ect. Also, think unison section demos will be requested quite often as well, because we are all curious of how that will turn out (but I have faith, this isn't stacking samples in the traditional sense so it might work great).

In any case, I'm still trying to figure stuff out in terms of techniques but everything else is working 100% fine. I love the random noises too, I was messing with a trumpet line and there they are! Really, really cool.

James


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## MacQ (May 14, 2007)

Wow ... I just spent a good 20 minutes with my eyes closed noodling around with that French horn ... stunning. So expressive. This is how I always hoped it could be with samples ... like playing a *real* instrument.

Great work!

~Stu


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

James W.G. Smith @ Mon May 14 said:


> I have a request if it's possible, before I make my mind up about purchasing. Is there any way that you can put an audio demo up that doesn't use any reverb? I want to check to see how it will work with my verbs (and other processing), and I am sure many other people would be interested in it too. I'm just curious how close I can get it to the sound I really want. You could actually showcase differnent verb setting like this too, one dry, one synphony hall, ect. Also, think unison section demos will be requested quite often as well, because we are all curious of how that will turn out (but I have faith, this isn't stacking samples in the traditional sense so it might work great).
> 
> In any case, I'm still trying to figure stuff out in terms of techniques but everything else is working 100% fine. I love the random noises too, I was messing with a trumpet line and there they are! Really, really cool.
> 
> James



Seconded...


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## IvanP (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon May 14 said:


> James W.G. Smith @ Mon May 14 said:
> 
> 
> > I have a request if it's possible, before I make my mind up about purchasing. Is there any way that you can put an audio demo up that doesn't use any reverb? I want to check to see how it will work with my verbs (and other processing), and I am sure many other people would be interested in it too. I'm just curious how close I can get it to the sound I really want. You could actually showcase differnent verb setting like this too, one dry, one synphony hall, ect. Also, think unison section demos will be requested quite often as well, because we are all curious of how that will turn out (but I have faith, this isn't stacking samples in the traditional sense so it might work great).
> ...



Thirded...


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## zareone (May 14, 2007)

Arne, could you give us some insight about future development? I mean some kind of roadmap of which librares are intended to follow. I hope you take the orchestral way first (woodwinds and strings) and after that you could expand with other winds (saxes, euphonium, wagner tubas, vienesse horns, ethnic winds...) I know you need to do lots of sales before thinking about strings, but I'm sure you're gonna sell lots of copies of WIVI. If you ask people, I'm sure most want a string package with this aproach. I suppose you'd have to approach strings in a different way: Maybe you can drop 18 violins for example, then select all them with a selection rectangle or by CTRL clicking on each and the have an option "make section", that makes those 18 violins to respond to the same MIDI channel. I think there will be no problems with auto-divisi on strings (if the section is made of 18 players, and you play a triad it will be 6+6+6, if you play a 7th chord it will be 4+5+4+5, if you play two notes 9+9... Of course there could be preseted string sections you just drag, drop and... play!

You have done an incredible work, I still can't believe it (and can't wait to have the money for it)


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

James W.G. Smith @ Mon 14 May said:


> I have a request if it's possible, before I make my mind up about purchasing. Is there any way that you can put an audio demo up that doesn't use any reverb? I want to check to see how it will work with my verbs (and other processing), and I am sure many other people would be interested in it too. I'm just curious how close I can get it to the sound I really want. You could actually showcase different verb setting like this too, one dry, one symphony hall, ect. Also, think unison section demos will be requested quite often as well, because we are all curious of how that will turn out (but I have faith, this isn't stacking samples in the traditional sense so it might work great).
> 
> In any case, I'm still trying to figure stuff out in terms of techniques but everything else is working 100% fine. I love the random noises too, I was messing with a trumpet line and there they are! Really, really cool.
> 
> James



I've been unsure on how to approach such a demo. If it should it be like an anechoic chamber, studio, completely dry, should it include direct sound and early reflections or not etc. Anyway, I turned off the early reflections and the direct sound layer, and recorded only the raw signal from the late reverb layer of the Also sprach Zarathustra demo, without further consideration. The .mp3 is on the front page, down by the text about IRs and raw output.


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

zareone @ Mon 14 May said:


> Arne, could you give us some insight about future development? I mean some kind of roadmap of which librares are intended to follow. I hope you take the orchestral way first (woodwinds and strings) and after that you could expand with other winds (saxes, euphonium, wagner tubas, vienesse horns, ethnic winds...) I know you need to do lots of sales before thinking about strings, but I'm sure you're gonna sell lots of copies of WIVI. If you ask people, I'm sure most want a string package with this aproach. I suppose you'd have to approach strings in a different way: Maybe you can drop 18 violins for example, then select all them with a selection rectangle or by CTRL clicking on each and the have an option "make section", that makes those 18 violins to respond to the same MIDI channel. I think there will be no problems with auto-divisi on strings (if the section is made of 18 players, and you play a triad it will be 6+6+6, if you play a 7th chord it will be 4+5+4+5, if you play two notes 9+9... Of course there could be preseted string sections you just drag, drop and... play!
> 
> You have done an incredible work, I still can't believe it (and can't wait to have the money for it)


We're a bit flexible, but basic woodwinds are definitely first. Then we'd really like some extended orchestral brass and woodwinds (like bass trombone, contrabasson etc) as they are extensively used. 

After that, it's a bit unsure. Let's just say that strings aren't the first priority, because it would involve quite a lot of development and would delay the development of more winds. We're more focused on winds now, because the wind/breath controller is already very established, and there's no equivalent for strings right now. If there was (and that controller was good) we'd be much more motivated.


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

I know there is nothing that can make you change your mind (God knows I have tried ) -but it is of no consequnce that there is no "bow controller" for strings - using a keyboard and midi cc would still be very, very attractive if the sound was right. 

On the bright side - loads of other developers wont be shaking their pants as much as they would if you did strings :D

Now they might still try develope somthing and release it while they still can! :D

Regarding winds... Ethic winds would also be very nice!


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon 14 May said:


> I know there is nothing that can make you change your mind (God knows I have tried ) -but it is of no consequnce that there is no "bow controller" for strings - using a keyboard and midi cc would still be very, very attractive if the sound was right.
> 
> On the bright side - loads of other developers wont be shaking their pants as much as they would if you did strings :D
> 
> ...


A controller would be very attractive to us during development, because we use advanced controllers in-house to fine-tune the behavior of the instruments. That said, you can of course control string instruments using a breath controller, even if it's not the same.

The difference for us between strings and winds is that several additional wind collections could be produced in a matter of months, while strings alone could be half a year but probably more. 

Of course, ethnical winds are also in there somewhere on the agenda.

And I forgot, the MAJOR priority is porting to other standards and to Mac. This has higher priority than any instrument collection, no matter what time it takes.


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## James W.G. Smith (May 14, 2007)

Wallander @ Mon May 14 said:


> I've been unsure on how to approach such a demo. If it should it be like an anechoic chamber, studio, completely dry, should it include direct sound and early reflections or not etc. Anyway, I turned off the early reflections and the direct sound layer, and recorded only the raw signal from the late reverb layer of the Also sprach Zarathustra demo, without further consideration. The .mp3 is on the front page, down by the text about IRs and raw output.



Oh man, perfect. The only thing that I scratched my head over was there seemed to be a little bit of stuttering volume wise. But yeah, sounded perfectly fit for what I need it to do. To be honest, I think that the Symphony Hall preset muddles the tone a bit too much, but then again, I'm used to film scores where everything is super bright brasswise, and I'm sure you probably have presets that are more akin to what I am used to. Thanks for uploading this man, I really appreciate it!

James

Oh, and I'm gonna be a pain about this for sure but when you record more brass, would you ever consider also doing 2 more horns and a Cimbasso? That would fill it out very nicely


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## Waywyn (May 14, 2007)

Wow, this sounds awesome, good luck and as you mentioned, please do MAC soon


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## Ned Bouhalassa (May 14, 2007)

I hope you'll be doing a Mac port before you finish all the different sections! :D


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## Waywyn (May 14, 2007)

Ned Bouhalassa @ Mon May 14 said:


> I hope you'll be doing a Mac port before you finish all the different sections! :D



... and by the way: Do strings next 
Because, if your strings sound like your brass, I would be more than happy!


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

James W.G. Smith @ Mon 14 May said:


> Wallander @ Mon May 14 said:
> 
> 
> > I've been unsure on how to approach such a demo. If it should it be like an anechoic chamber, studio, completely dry, should it include direct sound and early reflections or not etc. Anyway, I turned off the early reflections and the direct sound layer, and recorded only the raw signal from the late reverb layer of the Also sprach Zarathustra demo, without further consideration. The .mp3 is on the front page, down by the text about IRs and raw output.
> ...


Many real instruments are hard to control dynamically when playing very loud, like the french horn. It's not as apparent when you apply room acoustics, but it does add a lot to the character to the sound. It can be customized, and turned off, in the Professional Edition, if you find it disturbing. Also, the performance is far from perfect, as all voices was pretty much recorded in real time with some additional tweaking. The mistakes were just not apparent to me either until now.

If you look closely you'll see that the late reverb of the trial hall is low-pass filtered at 6 kHz, to emulate typical absorption of a symphonic hall, but this is also sort of a limitation of the trial edition. So the default hall is definitely a bit muddy. But you can get extreme brightness out of the Professional Edition.


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## JBacal (May 14, 2007)

Impressive!! Congrats on what will surely be a big success!

Best,
Jay


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## Hans Adamson (May 14, 2007)

Is there a way to control the sound other than with a breath controller? Neither velocity nor mod wheel works for me?? I' am probably missing something.

Congratulations to getting this project ready for release!

I should add all control parameters are greyed out on my interface.


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Hans Adamson @ Mon 14 May said:


> Is there a way to control the sound other than with a breath controller? Neither velocity nor mod wheel works for me?? I' am probably missing something.
> 
> Congratulations to getting this project ready for release!
> 
> I should add all control parameters are greyed out on my interface.


If you set the "Breath CC" parameter to "1", you'll have MOD wheel control. If you set it to "VEL" you get velocity control.

Yes, most parameters are greyed out in the trial edition. It's a demo limitation.


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

There is a place called "Breath Control" which is set to "2" - set it to 1 and it will be set to the Mod-Wheel.


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## handz (May 14, 2007)

Anyone was able to do some fast repetitive staccato line? Im still not abe to do it :(


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## Hans Adamson (May 14, 2007)

OK, got it. Big difference. Not very easy to find, though..

Sounds great.


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## José Herring (May 14, 2007)

Fast staccs are possible. They would be better without the boomy verb which I can't seem to turn down in the trial version.

Thing sounds great.


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

handz @ Mon May 14 said:


> Anyone was able to do some fast repetitive staccato line? Im still not abe to do it :(



Me neither... So far it seems to be the Achilles heel of this product. It is SO close to being utterly brain numbing amazing... But I have a feeling that the staccatos will never sound the way I would like them unless the attack time is reduced. But if I do that it will also be reduced when I play legato lines. 

What would be fantastic was if key-velocity would trigger a harder staccato sample. So the harder I hit the key the faster the attack. 

It seems kind of odd to assume that the same kind of attack/sample base used for legato lines can be used for staccato. Admittedly it may just be me not being able to use this software properbly, buuuut...


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## José Herring (May 14, 2007)

I get get the line moving but the attack isn't really stacc. It be good if they addressed this. The stacc in horns needs to be more bouncing in mf and more aggressive in f, and ff dynamics. Right now it's not really stacc but just a regular tongued note. And, when I try to make the notes shorter they just start to disappear.

I think that Westgate horns and this sample would make a great combination.


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon 14 May said:


> handz @ Mon May 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Anyone was able to do some fast repetitive staccato line? Im still not abe to do it :(
> ...


Well, as I've said. It's possible to reduce the reponse time both to breath data and to key velocity attacks, separately. And the key attack speed is also velocity dependent as it is now. 

You have to remember that WIVI isn't about samples. It doesn't know anything about staccato, but it's an instrument responding to what you input. A valid question would probably be, if you attached a machine to a real trumpet, and made it switch statically between zero and FFF statically, would it sound like a human player playing a staccato line? I'm pretty confident that it wouldn't.

I'd love to fine-tune the instruments to take all kinds of issues into account, but I don't want to use sampled instruments as a measurement. If you could point me to a real recording of a staccato that isn't possible to reproduce successfully with WIVI, that would be very much welcomed.


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## Waywyn (May 14, 2007)

I tried it right now and I definitely have to say, that this is the future.
200 MB to 1Gb sized libs with synthesis and samples combined.

To be honest I have to agree with Handz and Jose. Staccato sounds a bit weird. I would love to hear more life. Tone is cool and sometimes I wish to hear more legato up/dn action. Not just switching notes, but this may be available in the full version.

But again, I think that this is the future, "small" sized libs with some more technique rather than just having a 10 terabyte pool of samples.
Imo this sounds 1000% better than Synful, so I really hope that the full version will rock, that there will be a MAC version and that his next project might be strings 

EDIT:
Oh by the way. It seems that during the install process I get no .dll file in the vstplugins folder. I installed the plug on my desktop, took it out the folder and put it in the vstplugs folder. This way it worked without any problems.


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Waywyn @ Mon 14 May said:


> I tried it right now and I definitely have to say, that this is the future.
> 200 MB to 1Gb sized libs with synthesis and samples combined.
> 
> To be honest I have to agree with Handz and Jose. Staccato sounds a bit weird. I would love to hear more life. Tone is cool and sometimes I wish to hear more legato up/dn action. Not just switching notes, but this may be available in the full version.
> ...


Hmm, that installation error is very weird. If anyone else experiences this problem, I'd very much like to hear about it.

Yes, it looks like more than one person have concerns about the attacks, but I'm not fully convinced yet. I'd really like some examples taken from live performances. One of the key design principles of WIVI was to do everything according to strict theory, and never give in to what we "think" an instrument should sound like, and I really believe that payed off. We want a reference for everything we do, whether a measurement or a reference recording.


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## Moonchilde (May 14, 2007)

I found to get decent staccatos you had to turn the breath control up high and then hit the keyboard really fast. I think this works fine for brass and breath instruments since you can only blow into the instrument in so many ways.

I wasn't too sure if I was hearing "machine gun" style staccatos. The attack definitely doesn't seem to vary per hit, and since you don't hit the keys the same all the time there is little variation. However, it seems to be between un-natural and natural. 

If this gets into doing strings, there will have to be new "samples" since you can hit a string so many different ways with the bow to create new sounds.

Still, tech like this makes you say "AI who?" when you think wave of the future.


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## Hannes_F (May 14, 2007)

After trying this the first thing I did was to play it to my girl friend. And I know I am not the only one that wanted to share it with the life partner. I think this says a lot. It is a sensation.


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## handz (May 14, 2007)

Waywyn @ Mon May 14 said:


> Oh by the way. It seems that during the install process I get no .dll file in the vstplugins folder. I installed the plug on my desktop, took it out the folder and put it in the vstplugs folder. This way it worked without any problems.



Same problem here (I solved it same way as Waywyn)! 


I hope that staccs will be covered soon because this plugin sounds soooo goood. I have some work to do but every hour I must open Cubase for a while and play with it


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

If someone can think of some "live" examples of staccatos for Wallander i twould be great. I can't think of some good examples off the top of my head - but i will post if something pops up.


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## Waywyn (May 14, 2007)

Well .... uhm ... Star Wars main theme?
Especially the one from EP 03 which leads into that dog fight track. There is some heavy action going on!


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

Yep. Although I'm trying to think of something more isolated.


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon 14 May said:


> If someone can think of some "live" examples of staccatos for Wallander i twould be great. I can't think of some good examples off the top of my head - but i will post if something pops up.


However, I might rest my case when it comes to the french horns at least. I'm playing around with the PE now, and increasing the instrument's breath controller response speed does have a profound impact on the aggresiveness of fast staccatos, but unfortunately a bit on the expense of more expressive playing. We'll look into it. No matter what, it's possible using the Professional Edition, and it doesn't take more than a second of tweaking to increase the instrument speed.


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## tfishbein82 (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon May 14 said:


> Yep. Although I'm trying to think of something more isolated.


How about _Kijé's Wedding_?


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## Waywyn (May 14, 2007)

Wallander @ Mon May 14 said:


> Christian Marcussen @ Mon 14 May said:
> 
> 
> > If someone can think of some "live" examples of staccatos for Wallander i twould be great. I can't think of some good examples off the top of my head - but i will post if something pops up.
> ...



actually it is pretty cool that you care about our and other opinions anyway.

... and also i think Wallanders stuff, is way more promising for me than the AI stuff 
(not only in terms of price <-> product).


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## Jack Weaver (May 14, 2007)

Christian,

I think this lib will be a fine addition to a professional collection that should include several libraries. I don’t hear it being an ‘end all’ type of thing yet. The demos sound a little synthy to my ears still. I don’t feel as gushy as some on this forum. Of course I don’t get to try it out because I’m a Mac guy. However, I’m sure the manufacturer will be able to port it over in a timely manner. 

I do take a little umbrage at the manufacturer saying, “I'd love to fine-tune the instruments to take all kinds of issues into account, but I don't want to use sampled instruments as a measurement. If you could point me to a real recording of a staccato that isn't possible to reproduce successfully with WIVI, that would be very much welcomed.”

Well, guess what? The people who buy this will actually judge its merits against other sample libs. New products will invite comparisons. The manufacturer doesn’t get to set the bar for comparisons. We, the users will. 

Here’s a sampled solo trumpet (sorry if you've heard it before) that has some aggressive stacs on repeated notes and an ascending & descending line in a phrase about three-quarters of the way through – just before the trumpet section comes in. If WIVI can do this it would be very useful for many composers. 

http://homepage.mac.com/jackweaver4/.Public/Sketches%20of%20Tucson1.mp3 (http://homepage.mac.com/jackweaver4/.Pu ... ucson1.mp3) 

I’d like this product to sound as good as its technology will allow. I wish them all the success in the world.


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## tfishbein82 (May 14, 2007)

Jack Weaver @ Mon May 14 said:


> I do take a little umbrage at the manufacturer saying, “I'd love to fine-tune the instruments to take all kinds of issues into account, but I don't want to use sampled instruments as a measurement. If you could point me to a real recording of a staccato that isn't possible to reproduce successfully with WIVI, that would be very much welcomed.”
> 
> Well, guess what? The people who buy this will actually judge its merits against other sample libs. New products will invite comparisons. The manufacturer doesn’t get to set the bar for comparisons. We, the users will.


It's true that we'll compare this product against sample libs. But we will judge it on how well it replicates a real performance in comparison to how well the sample library replicates a real performance.

So I think it's entirely appropriate that Arne asks for a real performance. Why should he try to make his synth sound like a sample library instead of like the real thing.


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## Christian Marcussen (May 14, 2007)

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## Hannes_F (May 14, 2007)

BTW Arne it is great that you included Pythagorean and Just intonation. Middle tone would be a nice addition for ensemble playing.

And the root key for Just Intonation should be automatable.

Hannes


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon 14 May said:


> Wallander @ Mon May 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Christian Marcussen @ Mon 14 May said:
> ...


Setting the acoustic differences aside, do you really consider the staccatos of that first clip to be fundamendally different?

http://www.wallanderinstruments.com/audio/Staccato_test.mp3

First the staccato is played using default trumpet settings, and then with slightly higher response speed.

You wouldn't have to open the GUI to change settings to play legato. If you increase the breath controller response speed that doesn't mean transitions are ruined. Transitions are handled separately.


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## Hannes_F (May 14, 2007)

Christian Marcussen @ Mon May 14 said:


> Yes some of it is indeed double/tripple tougning... But my guess is that Wivi is supposed to be able to pull that off? Atleast I think it would be awesome if it could



What do you mean by "be able to pull that off"? Did not find it in the dictionary.


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Hannes_F @ Mon 14 May said:


> Christian Marcussen @ Mon May 14 said:
> 
> 
> > [www.marcussenmusic.com/stac1.mp3
> ...


Yes, this is how you do it. I always use TKT and TKTK.. when doing fast staccatos.

LSB is the "Least significant bit". Some advanced controllers can use two separate CC channels to send breath data, meaning you get 14-bit resolution instead of 7-bit. From the manual:

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## Hannes_F (May 14, 2007)

Wallander @ Mon May 14 said:


> The timbre is linked to breath, and cannot be controlled separately.
> 
> There are ways to manipulate the timbre, though. The most important is that you can shift the formants up/down (roughly equal to changing the size of the instrument) and you can also induce a pressure dependent shift. That way you can make your instrument darker when playing soft, or brighter when playing hard, for instance. These parameters are very nice to work with, because the instruments remain very musical and expressive.



Arne, thank you for your answer. Would the formants be automatable from outside by a cc?


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## zareone (May 14, 2007)

Arne, I think it would be ok to have a techniques demo section in the web. You could post mp3 showing some techniques lilke fast staccato lines, double and triple tonguing, clusters, adlib playing, random section textures and other special effects.

And... my vote for the strings (after woodwinds, but before anything elese). How many agree? :roll:


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## handz (May 14, 2007)

My staccato atempt... 

http://www.galerieskacelik.cz/pokus_stac.mp3


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## iocomposer (May 14, 2007)

I've been thinking that the attacks were OK, not aggressive like a lot of Hollywood brass players are... but I've been trying to reserve judgement until the full product is released. I wonder if this is a cultural thing.... Film score guys playing so aggressively and the guys who recorded the samples that Arne used not playing as agressively. I had a real problem with the brass players from Prague not playing as agressively as I wanted them to. I wonder if this is simply a problem in the "sampling" of these instruments and something that could be fixed if we got Wayne Bergeron in to give Arne new samples?

Cheers,
Jamey


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## James W.G. Smith (May 14, 2007)

I could be wrong but I think most of the staccato problems are due to the fact that in the locked verb settings for this demo the instrument is SO far away and of course lowpassed. I'm almost thinking it would be better for the demo to be locked with verb settings more akin to studios so that we can push the sound back and forth (with external verb) and see how it works with our mixes (personally, I can't actually test this in a normal setting because it's way too far back), not to mention have the full force of the instrument coming at us (meaning not lowpassed). I think it would get even more people jumping up and down about it since so many of us are used to samples that are recorded this way, so the transition would be much less jarring on first listen. I was a bit shocked at the sound at first, especially on the trumpets and trombones, because they just do not sound at all like I am used to them sounding (and eq didn't help much because of the lowpass), but your dry demo cleared that up a bit. I understand if you want to keep it as it is, but it's just a suggestion.

So before you jump out and say this sounds "fake", keep in mind that I really think it's the verb settings that just sound odd, NOT the instruments. It also might be a good idea to throw a bunch of demos up using different settings, everything that you can handle and even a few running external verbs, just to show what this can really do.

James


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## VonRichter (May 14, 2007)

James, I agree... I think the drenched verb setting on the trial are leading people to underestimate this things radness.

Incredible product otherwise! 

Personally, I would take a whole orchestra of these over samples any day.


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## neoTypic (May 14, 2007)

This is some amazing stuff here. I was just contemplating VI and now this entered into the mix....

Is it possible that there will be a standalone VST released? This would be amazing to play with linked to Finale (or insert notation program of choice).


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

Hannes_F @ Mon 14 May said:


> Wallander @ Mon May 14 said:
> 
> 
> > The timbre is linked to breath, and cannot be controlled separately.
> ...


No sorry, WIVI specializes in creating instruments that are inherently expressive. As it stands now, it's possible to add a static offset to formants, and it's possible to add an offset that is breath pressure dependent (or both).


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

zareone @ Mon 14 May said:


> Arne, I think it would be ok to have a techniques demo section in the web. You could post mp3 showing some techniques lilke fast staccato lines, double and triple tonguing, clusters, adlib playing, random section textures and other special effects.
> 
> And... my vote for the strings (after woodwinds, but before anything elese). How many agree? :roll:


Yes, we should really do that. As for the current demos, we just wanted to get the trial out.


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

iocomposer @ Tue 15 May said:


> I've been thinking that the attacks were OK, not aggressive like a lot of Hollywood brass players are... but I've been trying to reserve judgement until the full product is released. I wonder if this is a cultural thing.... Film score guys playing so aggressively and the guys who recorded the samples that Arne used not playing as agressively. I had a real problem with the brass players from Prague not playing as agressively as I wanted them to. I wonder if this is simply a problem in the "sampling" of these instruments and something that could be fixed if we got Wayne Bergeron in to give Arne new samples?
> 
> Cheers,
> Jamey


This isn't about samples, there's no sampling whatsoever involved in the attacks. Problem with samples is that once you start using them you're stuck with what you have, and we wanted something that could be sculpted and customized dynamically.

Everything that involves the attacks of these instruments are controlled by parameters within the behavioral model, and most of those parameters are accessable (but in a more friendly fashion) from the WIVI GUI.

As you said, you need to hire players that specialize in aggressive playing in order to get that sound, but that doesn't mean that it's beneficial for them to use that kind of tension during "normal" passages. The same applies to the WIVI instruments. By default, they've been customized to fit standard orchestral literature (at least that's the ambition). If you want to go beyond that, you might want to do some behavioral tweaks on your own.


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

James W.G. Smith @ Tue 15 May said:


> I could be wrong but I think most of the staccato problems are due to the fact that in the locked verb settings for this demo the instrument is SO far away and of course lowpassed. I'm almost thinking it would be better for the demo to be locked with verb settings more akin to studios so that we can push the sound back and forth (with external verb) and see how it works with our mixes (personally, I can't actually test this in a normal setting because it's way too far back), not to mention have the full force of the instrument coming at us (meaning not lowpassed). I think it would get even more people jumping up and down about it since so many of us are used to samples that are recorded this way, so the transition would be much less jarring on first listen. I was a bit shocked at the sound at first, especially on the trumpets and trombones, because they just do not sound at all like I am used to them sounding (and eq didn't help much because of the lowpass), but your dry demo cleared that up a bit. I understand if you want to keep it as it is, but it's just a suggestion.
> 
> So before you jump out and say this sounds "fake", keep in mind that I really think it's the verb settings that just sound odd, NOT the instruments. It also might be a good idea to throw a bunch of demos up using different settings, everything that you can handle and even a few running external verbs, just to show what this can really do.
> 
> James


I see your point. 

But remember, you won't setup WIVI to sound as a studio and then add external reverb. You'll want WIVI to output the raw instrument signals, because that sounds so much better when you use convolution reverbs (since they add coloration to the signal).

Not to sound cheap, but external reverbation with WIVI is for many the major reason to upgrade to the Professional Edition. I realize it becomes cumbersome when you want to try the software, but we wanted the trial to be useful in educational facilities, too. So instead of adding heavy noises or time limitations we decided to reduce functionality.


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## Wallander (May 14, 2007)

neoTypic @ Tue 15 May said:


> This is some amazing stuff here. I was just contemplating VI and now this entered into the mix....
> 
> Is it possible that there will be a standalone VST released? This would be amazing to play with linked to Finale (or insert notation program of choice).


There might be actually. The major reason why we want a standalone version is that we want multiple MIDI inports, so that all instruments can be controlled through a single instance. But Mac has higher priority. The nice thing with having a universal player is that you always have an incentive for improving/porting it, since it affects all sales. So while benefiting current customers, it also benefits us.


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## Christian Marcussen (May 15, 2007)

Not bad! 

Please try with the horns.

Also - you may want to consider either having the short attack settings be activated by key-switch or have the program do it based on velocity key. Entering the Gui whenver you want to go from smooth legato to harsh staccato is not very user freindly.


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## wqaxsz (May 15, 2007)

handz @ Mon May 14 said:


> I remember that someone posted here a good link to symphony orchestra that have many sound examples of instrument playing techniques on their web site... but I don´t remember link:(



Hi Handz,

Do you mean this one ?

http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange/sound_samples/sample_libraries/

Laurent


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## Hannes_F (May 15, 2007)

Wallander @ Tue May 15 said:


> This isn't about samples, there's no sampling whatsoever involved in the attacks. Problem with samples is that once you start using them you're stuck with what you have, and we wanted something that could be sculpted and customized dynamically.
> 
> Everything that involves the attacks of these instruments are controlled by parameters within the behavioral model, and most of those parameters are accessable (but in a more friendly fashion) from the WIVI GUI.
> 
> As you said, you need to hire players that specialize in aggressive playing in order to get that sound, but that doesn't mean that it's beneficial for them to use that kind of tension during "normal" passages. The same applies to the WIVI instruments. By default, they've been customized to fit standard orchestral literature (at least that's the ambition). If you want to go beyond that, you might want to do some behavioral tweaks on your own.



As far as I know trumpet players that are specialized in playing hard and high use different mouthpieces with a smaller air volume in it. So it seems to be OK for me to open the GUI for setting some parameters. I still hope that parameters can be accessed from outside. But since this is so light on the CPU it would be an option to run two versions of each instrument.


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## Hannes_F (May 15, 2007)

Wallander @ Tue May 15 said:


> Hannes_F @ Mon 14 May said:
> 
> 
> > Wallander @ Mon May 14 said:
> ...



Arne,

in case you head to strings someday a 2D-array of volume and timbre would be a must IMHO. This would not hinder it from being inherently expressive (with other words a straight line through this array with the timbre knob being fixed should sound expressive already).

EDIT
I think all parameters should be automateable anyways for various reasons (tuning etc.)

That said I am looking forward to order this. :D


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## billval3 (May 15, 2007)

> Well, it said DirectX so I changed it to OpenGL and it only made it worse (basically, I couldn't get the box to show ANYTHING, and it crashed SONAR whenever I closed it). Then I popped it on Software and everything works like a charm! As far as I could see there was no link to the WIVIsettings.exe in the start menu, so I would highly recommend adding one, as it was the only way I could get this working after I changed it to OpenGL. I think the problem might actually be because the GUI runs separately, considering that SONAR doesn't natively support VSTi's in the first place, so it's having trouble rendering through it's translator. If you made a DXi however, this wouldn't be an issue I'm sure. On the other hand, it could be my computer, I'm just not positive. Has anyone else had this problem?
> 
> For those who are having it, Open My Computer / C: / Program Files / WIVI Trial Edition / WIVIsettings.exe and select Software renderer.



I had the same problem (running Sonar 6 Producer). It only works with the software renderer. Thanks for the fix.


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## Wallander (May 15, 2007)

Since a lot of people have had questions about reverbation, I added a quick and dirty demo showing what WIVI sounds like with a typical studio IR:

http://www.wallanderinstruments.com/audio/Studio_dry_instruments.mp3 (http://www.wallanderinstruments.com/aud ... uments.mp3)


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## Leandro Gardini (May 15, 2007)

Arne,

I think after you release the woods and strings you should consider a choir...it´s been a long time all of us are dreaming with a choir that no sample libraries will ever make!!!
Despite for the fact that the new upcoming Synful sounds way much much better and realistc (as much as you product), Eric is not considering a choir soon...than I think you could provide such a quality for voices!!!

Edit:the trills don´t sound bad at all, but not as realistic as all the rest I´ve been testing...could you post a demo for trills???


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## Rob Elliott (May 15, 2007)

Wallander @ Tue May 15 said:


> Since a lot of people have had questions about reverbation, I added a quick and dirty demo showing what WIVI sounds like with a typical studio IR:
> 
> http://www.wallanderinstruments.com/audio/Studio_dry_instruments.mp3 (http://www.wallanderinstruments.com/aud ... uments.mp3)




I have to say as the owner of most of VSL's stuff - this demo shows real promise. Looking forward after this dealine to DL this trial. A second vote for strings and choir.


Rob


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## neoTypic (May 15, 2007)

Wallander @ May 15th said:


> neoTypic @ Tue 15 May said:
> 
> 
> > This is some amazing stuff here. I was just contemplating VI and now this entered into the mix....
> ...



Wonderful. I can see that this would be a very powerful combination with Finale's automation/HumanPlayback since most of the controllers can be assigned to what is already being used.


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## synthetic (May 15, 2007)

A vote against choir. :? That has to be the hardest thing to synthesize. The human voice is, well literally in our heads. Unless you're mute, then it's in other peoples' heads. 

But seriously, woodwinds makes the most sense since it's an extension on your brass research. Who knows if strings are even possible with this technology. I would vote for ethnic winds after that (duduk, harmonica, etc.). Get some cash flow with those three libraries, then spend R&D time on strings, percussion or whatever else. It's a better business strategy, IMO. 

As far as reverb, what many guys are doing lately is to add early refections reverb only to each instrument, then they have a general room that they apply to everything for the tail. If you could create an early reflection reverb (perhaps by quickly fading out your existing reverb impulse if it's using convolution), that would be useful. Of course, you could already do this using Altiverb or whatever. 

This is a very interesting project and I've been following it since your first early experiments. I hope to load up the demo this week.


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## Wallander (May 15, 2007)

synthetic @ Tue 15 May said:


> As far as reverb, what many guys are doing lately is to add early refections reverb only to each instrument, then they have a general room that they apply to everything for the tail. If you could create an early reflection reverb (perhaps by quickly fading out your existing reverb impulse if it's using convolution), that would be useful. Of course, you could already do this using Altiverb or whatever.



WIVI already contains a ray-tracing ER reverb (first order reflections). It's processed separately from the late reverb and the direct sound, and can be routed to its own outport.


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## Pando (May 15, 2007)

I was playing with the demo last night well past midnight.

Dude, this is stunning. There is no brass library out there that even comes close.

The harmonics are dead on to a real thing, and it doesn't sound like some filtered down and heavily EQd sample set. I even tried to play the instruments at the same time a real orchestra was playing in my headphones (JW with either Potter or SW soundtrack). At times I couldn't tell whether that was me playing or the real instruments in the soundtrack. Amazing experience.

By putting some instruments into a corner (esp FH works well) and getting the person directly in front cuts down the built-in reverb, so by adding some convolution to the mix really made a difference. This is awesome.


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## zareone (May 15, 2007)

Finally, my Yamaha BC 3 has arrived today. I wasn't able to plug the jack into my CME UF8 keyboard, so I have had to take the back plastic panel out and make the hole in the bigger with a knife. After that, everything was OK.

The only problem I have is that I can'tòÎ   XÇ»Î   XÇ¼Î   XÇ½Î   XÇ¾Î   XÇ¿Î   XÇÀÎ   XÇÁÎ   XÇÂÎ   XÇÃÎ   XÇÄÎ   XÇÅÎ   XÇÆÎ   XÇÇÎ   XÇÈÎ   XÇÉÎ   XÇÊÎ   XÇËÎ   XÇÌÎ   XÇÍÎ   XÇÎ


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## Wallander (May 15, 2007)

The trial edition has been updated with slightly less reverb time, less filtering and a normal amount of direct sound.

Since some issues with the old installer have been corrected (for instance, it now finds your regular VST folder and Program Files folder) I suggest that you uninstall the previously installed copy first.


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## Leandro Gardini (May 15, 2007)

My question was ignored :?: !!!






zareone @ Tue May 15 said:


> leogardini @ Tue May 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Despite for the fact that the new upcoming Synful sounds way much much better and realistc (as much as you product),
> ...


I don´t know much about the new update, but heard some samples...now I´m sure that samples will be retired soon!!!


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## Leandro Gardini (May 15, 2007)

synthetic @ Tue May 15 said:


> A vote against choir. :? That has to be the hardest thing to synthesize. The human voice is, well literally in our heads. Unless you're mute, then it's in other peoples' heads.


I´ve heard many times the same thing mainly about brass many years ago...today, technology never stop to impress us!!!
And actually, what´s in people head is the human voice speaking (what we hear everyday) and not a voice singing and even less a choir  !!!


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## Wallander (May 15, 2007)

leogardini @ Tue 15 May said:


> Arne,
> 
> I think after you release the woods and strings you should consider a choir...it´s been a long time all of us are dreaming with a choir that no sample libraries will ever make!!!
> Despite for the fact that the new upcoming Synful sounds way much much better and realistc (as much as you product), Eric is not considering a choir soon...than I think you could provide such a quality for voices!!!
> ...



Hehe, sorry I missed it (I've had other questions lately).

Choirs are very interesting, but as was noted very complex. Especially if you want word building. We'd love to do it, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Vocal singing would be much easier, however.

It's possible to change the character of trills quite a lot since the transitions are velocity dependent. I might post a demo for it. Other than that, my personal opinion is that trills are one of the things that WIVI handles effortlessly.


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## Leandro Gardini (May 15, 2007)

No problem  ...I can guess how you are now replying tons of questions in foruns and emails...I´m just curious, how many years have you been developing this technology???

Please consider a choir...before hearing your brass I´m sure everything can be simulated :wink: !!!


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## artsoundz (May 15, 2007)

I think you've re-defined the phrase "creating a buzz'. It's really fascinating to watch this being born and I'm very happy for your success thus far. The whole thing- very cool.


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## Hannes_F (May 15, 2007)

So when can we buy it? Today? Tomorrow?


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## navidson (May 16, 2007)

This is really, really exciting stuff. It's hard to believe how good it sounds... there's no trace of 'synthetic artifacts' you tend to pick up on with say Synful and Arturia's Brass, it's totally convincing aurally and the meager ram and processor loads are an absolute dream come true.

It's almost too good to be true!


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## Waywyn (May 16, 2007)

leogardini @ Tue May 15 said:


> Please consider a choir...before hearing your brass I´m sure everything can be simulated :wink: !!!



No way! Strings first! 
It is about time for a very cool sounding string lib with cool articulations.


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## BH (May 16, 2007)

...


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## Leandro Gardini (May 16, 2007)

Waywyn @ Wed May 16 said:


> leogardini @ Tue May 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Please consider a choir...before hearing your brass I´m sure everything can be simulated :wink: !!!
> ...


Yes sure...this is what I said, woods, strings and than chior :wink: !!!
I´m, like everyone here looking forward for the sales...when???Wheeeeen???


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## zonobono (May 16, 2007)

when is your first groupbuy?

:?


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## tfishbein82 (May 16, 2007)

_when is your first groupbuy? _

I don't want to speak for Arne, but I belief he previously stated that he doesn't want to run a company that constantly changes prices. He wants all his customers to feel as though their being treated fairly. So, he's setting what he feels is a fair price, and that's what it's going to be.

Downside: don't expect a sale price.
Upside: don't expect to be pissed because you bought it June 30, and in July there was a 40% off sale.


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## Frederick Russ (May 16, 2007)

Very cool you're offering this! I don't own a PC (3 macs) so I'll have to wait to join in on the fun. Congrats on what appears to be a fine offering.


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## zonobono (May 16, 2007)

tfishbein82 @ Wed May 16 said:


> _when is your first groupbuy? _
> 
> I don't want to speak for Arne, but I belief he previously stated that he doesn't want to run a company that constantly changes prices. He wants all his customers to feel as though their being treated fairly. So, he's setting what he feels is a fair price, and that's what it's going to be.
> 
> ...



this was meant to be ironic, tishfishbein... :lol:


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## Ned Bouhalassa (May 16, 2007)

I wonder though, as this sort of technology advances, do you think it'll get so intricate that we'll have to learn how to play each instrument bòÎM   XÙcÎM   XÙdÎM   XÙeÎM   XÙfÎM   XÙgÎM   X


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## Wallander (May 16, 2007)

Sorry, we haven't had time responding to all questions. We're working hard on the Mac port.

Some quick responses. 

We hope to begin sales next week. 

We've been working on it for 2 years, but the last year was _really _tough. 

It's true that I'm not very fond of irregular pricing, especially when it's not motivated. If a product is becoming a bit outdated I think it's pretty fair to lower prices, have sales etc, but when new products for no reason are sold through group buys I think it's pretty insulting to earlier customers. I'm sure a lot of people would disagree, but isn't that like selling a piece of software for $600 and then say a couple of weeks later that it was really only worth $200. You won't see a lot of examples of this phenomenon in other markets.


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## gamalataki (May 16, 2007)

Being on a Mac, I can't try this, but it sounds very expressive so far. Good to see that you're working on the Mac port. Will there eventually be a Mac demo? 

Some have questioned the staccatos, but this may be just a limitation of the demo.

One of my benchmarks for brass staccatos has always been this famous pic trp line, 
http://homepage.mac.com/scottpettigrew/STSE/FileSharing31.html (Lip Hertz)
which I have given up trying to reproduce with the brass I have. This example is so bad I didn't even bother to tweak it with controllers, filters or verb, but so far it's the best sound I own for this type of situation. Maybe there's a brass lib that can do this already, I don't know. Maybe I just haven't learned enough about tweaking, in which case maybe someone can offer some tips.

Can someone do this line convincingly? Then I'll be sold on the staccatos 

I think this falls under fair use, but mods please delete this if you think it doesn't.


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## Wallander (May 21, 2007)

Niah @ Sun 20 May said:


> Listening to the demos some questions came up:
> 
> 1) How does the background noise/microphone noise work, and is it adjustable?
> 
> ...


The rumble and microphone noise can be adjusted, separately. It's fixed to -50 dB in the trial edition, but that's nowhere near as noisy as the demos.

All instruments are monophonic (the same as in the Professional Edition). The normal way to write polyphonic music would be to place the instruments on separate channels. If you really need to play real-time chords, you can retune the different instruments so that pressing a "C" gives you a specific chord instead of a unison tone, but then you need to decide what chords to use before the performance.

There's no limit on polyphony in the trial edition, per se, but you're limited to one instrument per instance.


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## zareone (May 21, 2007)

Hey Niah, maybe you find this interesting: http://www.midi-plugins.de/mplug/mplug-splpol.html It's a set of MIDI tools that work on Cubase and Sonar (maybe in some other sequencers too) It can split the notes of a chord and send them to different MIDI channels, so you could play chords with WIVI. I'd download the demo and give it a try. In the pack, there's also some other interesting MIDI tools.


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## Niah (May 21, 2007)

Thank you Wallander and Zaroene !


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