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80% off IK Multimedia Miroslav Philharmonik 2, now $99.99 instead of $499.99

How's the melodic perc?
Great question, honestly I haven't delved into that territory in Miro2 at all, and melodic percussion is not my forte, it all sounds good to my ears :) But I decided to throw another quick piece together for a comparison, so see link below. Spitfire Percussion (widely regarded as one of the best) vs Miro2... glockenspiel!

I tried to match the volumes and spaces as best I could. So Spitfire has close mics with a little Tree mic, and Miro2 is their patch (sounds very close) with a little built in algorithmic hall (10%).

I played the piece using Spitfire and then copied the midi over to Miro2, so there may be some inconsistencies with playability with Miro2, hard to tell since it's just a quick comparison. To my ears it sounds decent, but I will let you be the judge.

Sorry for my irregular keyboard playing.



0:00 Spitfire Percussion Glockenspiel
0:38 Miro2 Glockenspiel
 
in the same spirit here's another example, with various strings patches chosen almost randomly, two slow bits and one to show spic/staccato...
[edit] disabled the internal reverb, put some LexiHall on

Thank you for posting this. Did you have to tweak the factory patches extensively to get this output?
 
Thank you for posting this. Did you have to tweak the factory patches extensively to get this output?
you're welcome, premjj! two things I almost always do to adapt patches to my way of playing (BC)... assign macro 1 and lowpass filter (6 db) to cc 11 and reduce the vel/volume response
 
I've had Miroslav for a long time and go back to it every so often. I really like the tone, and the newer MP2 is improved overall. The Choir from MP1 has a wonderful tone, except the low male voices. It takes a bit of work to make it fit with modernly programmed orchestral packages (e.g. EWHO and Spitfire), but can be worth it.
 
For $99 the whole shebang is a gem, especially if you're missing lower brass and woodwinds. I like to collect these things at $99 so have this, Symphonic Sketchpad, Complete Orchestral Collection, VI.ONE (the best all-around as it's not limited to orchestral acoustic), Personal Orchestra, Instant Orchestra (who says I have a collection problem?). I like them all. That said, none of them have the polish and presence of East West Gold, but what does?
Last time I was doing full-orch stuff was a decade ago with EWQLSO Gold! Would you say it's still a credible option?
 
Complete Orchestral Collection has plenty of very nice sounds despite the age of the content
That library (orchestra and choir) was a work of love, made by excellent musicians. You can still hear how good they sound. It can't be the main library, but it is still full of wonderful colors.

Strings Essentials seem to be much more modern, and have all the niceties of a modern library. And it sounds very well.

All the above seems to also apply to Miroslav. These are libraries to be owned for the additional beauty they give.

Paolo
 
That library (orchestra and choir) was a work of love, made by excellent musicians. You can still hear how good they sound. It can't be the main library, but it is still full of wonderful colors.

Strings Essentials seem to be much more modern, and have all the niceties of a modern library. And it sounds very well.

All the above seems to also apply to Miroslav. These are libraries to be owned for the additional beauty they give.

Paolo
Yes, I agree. I actually still find myself using Advanced Orchestra occassionally. Especially useful for layering. You can tell a lot of love, passion and work went into recording these samples (both from Peter Siedlaczek himself as well as the musicians).

I actually found myself using the Vibraphone from Advanced Orchestra just yesterday, preferring it over a much more modern library simply because of the sound. It's easy for us to get so caught up in technicalities these days (how many layers, how many RRs, does it have recorded legato), and as time goes on I unfortunately find myself fall victim to this more and more, and sometimes the first thing I do when a new library is announced is read about its technical details, rather than just listen to the demos.

I hope to change that and again use my ears more than my eyes when picking out libraries.

Anyhow, I see some say Miroslav is priced unreasonably for a modern library. If we just look at the set of features, yes of course. It's not a modern library, it's far more expensive than it would've been had it been produced today.

But what you're getting is the sound, and some of these older libraries still have merit today. I probably won't get Mirsolav because my shopping list for October is already quite full. But, I'm sure if I did, it would find use for sure.
 
My “go to” oboe is the expressive oboe from Moro 1, sampled and imported into Kontakt, WIPS added, then add a compressor and top it off with the reverb in Logic. Very realistic and a beautifully expressive tone.
 
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The Bassoon is quite nice (and it's fairly hard to find a good one, so this is not insignificant), and surprisingly (this is a deliberate joke; Miroslav himself is a bssist), the Double Bass is amongst the best available (both the orchestral one and the special jazz one that you might not at first notice is in the library).

V2 includes the V1 patches, which means you also have some nice Breath/Wind Controller support with those older patches. There's also a choir library included, which isn't up to the quality of new dedicated libraries but for many years was the only one included with a full orchestral package.

I just sold mine for peanuts last week, not knowing about this sale. In my view, it is one of the two best budget orchestra libraries available and well worth $100. The other one that has some similar characteristics and value, is the one from Peter Siedlaczek from Best Service (I also sold mine, but you can still find it on sale frequently, including recently).

Overall, I feel the woods are a bit stronger than the brass, but that's because my western ears are used to the western tradition of playing brass sans vibrato. In much of central and eastern Europe, the tradition is to play with vibrato.

The melodic percussion (and timpani) are also decent in this library -- especially for the price.

I'm kind of shocked that it normally goes for $500, as the CE version is now included in SampleTank 4.
 
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