Rubens Tubenchlak
Member
Me too!
MIR 3D vs Berlin Studio
- Thread starter Markrs
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Dietz
Space Explorer
There are complete Venue Presets for more than half a dozen Venues, with so-called "Roles" for each individual Dimension instrument as well as the respective ensembles as a whole. (However, I suggest to replace the legacy "MIRx"-type 1st-Order Output Setup for the Main Microphone with one that uses the possibilities of HOA, e.g. "Stereo - MIR 3D HOA Downmix" from 7.1.2).
Yes, leaving these two parameters "off" can be considered the typical use case. Especially using the Directivity Filter for the dry signal is comparable to turning an instrument away from an otherwise perfectly positioned spot microphone. (... of course, the directivity filter will always be "on" for the sound radiation of the source into the room, unless you assign an "omni" shaped "General Purpose" Instrument Profile). - Air Absorption simply rolls off the upper frequencies depending on the distance between the source and the Main Microphone. This can sometimes help to differentiate between similar-sounding instruments, but it's by no means a must; you wouldn't do this with spot mics from a real recording in most cases either.
Dietz,
When I connect my DAW to MIR Pro 3D, the secondary microphone is set to the "Stereo - MIR 3D HOA DnMx" format by default. But why does this format not appear in the Edit Output Format Window for Secondary Microphone when I open it? It only appears in the Edit Open Window for Main Microphone.
When I connect my DAW to MIR Pro 3D, the secondary microphone is set to the "Stereo - MIR 3D HOA DnMx" format by default. But why does this format not appear in the Edit Output Format Window for Secondary Microphone when I open it? It only appears in the Edit Open Window for Main Microphone.
Nando Florestan
Senior Member
Although right now scrolling is necessary to compare the 2 best examples in the previous page, I AB'd them. Browser tabs help.
First of all, the sound of VSL strings ALWAYS strikes me as too bright; most real recorded strings I hear in the wild are darker. The same thing happens here; the MIR example sounds brighter than the BS example. And Psycho wants the darker strings. Maybe an EQ would remove this difference entirely.
The stereo field is wider in the MIR example, but BS is deeper in the other axis and there seems to be more happening in terms of reverberation.
The sforzati in the music sound gorgeous in the BS example and sound generally attenuated in the MIR example. It's as if the musicians gave a worse performance inside MIR.
Not relevant, but please let me get this off my chest: That the MIDI performance here is horrible, no attention was paid to legato or detaché. I believe I have seen this MIDI file before, decades ago on the web, so this is not the fault of the kind soul who uploaded these tests.
Now MIR deserves another try, because as things stand right now, I prefer BS. And MIR has every right to win this contest in the end.
First of all, the sound of VSL strings ALWAYS strikes me as too bright; most real recorded strings I hear in the wild are darker. The same thing happens here; the MIR example sounds brighter than the BS example. And Psycho wants the darker strings. Maybe an EQ would remove this difference entirely.
The stereo field is wider in the MIR example, but BS is deeper in the other axis and there seems to be more happening in terms of reverberation.
The sforzati in the music sound gorgeous in the BS example and sound generally attenuated in the MIR example. It's as if the musicians gave a worse performance inside MIR.
Not relevant, but please let me get this off my chest: That the MIDI performance here is horrible, no attention was paid to legato or detaché. I believe I have seen this MIDI file before, decades ago on the web, so this is not the fault of the kind soul who uploaded these tests.
Now MIR deserves another try, because as things stand right now, I prefer BS. And MIR has every right to win this contest in the end.
Nashi_VI
Senior Member
I am giving a go at MIR Pro 3d with the trial license, so far, the major difference in results from libraries with with BS, OT libraries and libraries with Mir Pro and Teldex, is that the presets in MIR don't match the typical position/seating of the intruments that the OT libraries and BS's IRs captured, and trying to replicate them with MIR is much harder than just plopping the samples in BS and adjusting the mic levels.
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Dietz
Space Explorer
Of course not. There is not one single "typical" seating scheme. When we recorded Teldex Studio for MIR Pro back in 2010 or 2011, the senior staff provided us with the following "typical" setup:
... but then, there are many occasions where it's preferable to have the 2nd Violins on the right, opposing the 1st, and the basses closer to the center axis, which led me to the following suggestion for MIRx (now included as "Vienna Standard" in the factory settings of MIR 3D):
(... scroll down this page for the other instrument families.) Should be not too hard to take it from there, if you like or need other setups.
I for one prefer the "landscape" orientation for modern scoring anyway. The "portrait" setups shown above tend to be a bit narrow, especially in stereo - hence the inclusion of the so called "wide" version in MIR:
(... the yellow-ish overlay depicts the "allowed" area for signal sources.)
HTH!
Dietz
Space Explorer
Hmmm .... are you sure that the Secondary Mic shows this format? Usually the Secondary Mic serve very special purposes in MIR Pro, hence its specific Output Formats.
ChickenAndARoll
Senior Member
Hey Dietz,
For rooms that don't have Vienna Standard presets, do we need to handle EQing to correctly affect the depth of an instrument, or is MIR doing that automatically when we move the icon around? For example, if I'm using Recording Studio Weiler and put an instance of MIR on a dry trumpet, piano, and saxophone, do we need to tailor the EQ settings manually to make it sound accurate? I'm paranoid that I'm not doing enough work here since I literally will just drag the icon and adjust the width until it sounds good
I guess a better way to ask this would be: What exactly do the Vienna Standard Presets do? Is it just giving you an idealistic location of where a particular instrument normally goes within the room?
For rooms that don't have Vienna Standard presets, do we need to handle EQing to correctly affect the depth of an instrument, or is MIR doing that automatically when we move the icon around? For example, if I'm using Recording Studio Weiler and put an instance of MIR on a dry trumpet, piano, and saxophone, do we need to tailor the EQ settings manually to make it sound accurate? I'm paranoid that I'm not doing enough work here since I literally will just drag the icon and adjust the width until it sounds good
I guess a better way to ask this would be: What exactly do the Vienna Standard Presets do? Is it just giving you an idealistic location of where a particular instrument normally goes within the room?
Nashi_VI
Senior Member
Yeah, i am using the VSL site to help me better understand MIR, since, when i decided to try it out, that since the site always has so much documentation about pretty much anything (from the VSL VI to orchestration) i figured it would have a lot of stuff about Mir as well (i also looked, and i am stil looking at various videos on the vsl channel to learn even more).Of course not. There is not one single "typical" seating scheme. When we recorded Teldex Studio for MIR Pro back in 2010 or 2011, the senior staff provided us with the following "typical" setup:
... but then, there are many occasions where it's preferable to have the 2nd Violins on the right, opposing the 1st, and the basses closer to the center axis, which led me to the following suggestion for MIRx (now included as "Vienna Standard" in the factory settings of MIR 3D):
(... scroll down this page for the other instrument families.) Should be not too hard to take it from there, if you like or need other setups.
I for one prefer the "landscape" orientation for modern scoring anyway. The "portrait" setups shown above tend to be a bit narrow, especially in stereo - hence the inclusion of the so called "wide" version in MIR:
(... the yellow-ish overlay depicts the "allowed" area for signal sources.)
HTH!
I was just commenting on the fact that trying to match the sound you would get with Orchestral Tools's libraries and with libraries passed throught Berlin Studio, with libraries passed throught Mir Pro with Teldex can be decieving, since Orchestral Tools usually has similar seating positioning for most of their libraries (the Arks and the Times are some of the exceptions because of the different sizes of the sections recorded), and the people at Samplicity claim to have the same set up of mic that Orchestral Tools use for their recordings, so the instruments match their sound and positioning very well, also i do agree that Teldex sound very good in "landscape", but, once again, i have never seen Orchestral Tools record that way. (maybe they did with some library i am not sure)
So, all in all, my post was just about the side by side comparison, not the quality of the sound or the plugins themselves.
Rubens Tubenchlak
Member
Hi Nashi,
are you planning to provide a fair comparison between MIR 3D and BS?
Curious about your findings so far.
Dewdman42
Senior Member
I for one, think this is a very difficult comparison to make because MirPro is so entirely configurable and flexible, BS pretty straightforward, it is what it is, but with MirPro being so flexible...how would expect to objectively compare them? You can most likely be making apples to oranges comparisons very easily regardless of the fact that you use Teldex room in both cases. From what I have heard, they can both sound great in the hands of the right user.
Nashi_VI
Senior Member
yeah, as @Dewdman42 said, and what i was also implying with my posts, was that comparisons are pretty hard to make, one would be very good at MIR PRO (i am not) to be able to, first of all get the instruments in the right positions as they were recorded in BS (or in the Berlin Series for example), then there is the issue of the mic positions, i think that the "easiest" way would be to just compare the Decca Tree and nothing else, but with MIR you can for sure "fake" or replicate the other mic positions with how much control you get with the plugin, however, it would require a lot of guess work, a lot of tweaking and knowledge of MIR istelf and also a very good pair of ears, to even try to accomplish that.
Living Fossil
Senior Member
lol, the point of Berlin Studio is exactly that it's not just the Decca Tree, so why would one make a comparison that leaves out the core of the concept of the plugin in question?
I think for those who really want to decide between one or the other it's the best thing to wait until Berlin has a demo available and then decide for themselves.
Nashi_VI
Senior Member
That is exaclty the point i was trying to make with all of my messages.......... to make the comparison "fair" it would either take a lot of time, effort and expertise, or it would be "just" a lower effort one with only the Decca Tree (and, as i said in my various posts about it, even that would take a lot of time and guess works sice you would need to emulate the actual seating positions of the BS/OT recordings).the point of Berlin Studio is exactly that it's not just the Decca Tree, so why would one make a comparison that leaves out the core of the concept of the plugin in question?
Rubens Tubenchlak
Member
Sorry for the misleading. Maybe the comparison term isn't appropriate, especially if you take it literally.
What I was proposing based on the Psycho mockup "comparison" isn't an orange vs apple thing. For me, it does not matter the technicality at all. My concern is only with which one I can get the best results. As Nando pointed out, about the Psycho mockup, with MIR it seems you get a better stereo field image, with BS more depth, and more "energy". From that, any MIR 3D user could propose objective directions to add depth and energy to the mockup without losing the stereo field image?
Dewdman42
Senior Member
define "best results"
I disagree with such a categorical statement that BS has more depth or more energy. Based on what? MirPro is very configurable and flexible. That user was apparantly not able to get as as much depth and energy as BS; according to them. it is not objectively honest to categorically say that MirPro has less depth or energy then BS.
richhickey
Senior Member
You certainly haven't seen it decades ago. I made it myself recently, and extensive attention was paid both to the markings in the score and the bowing used by the orchestra whose video it was originally synched to.
Let me instead get something off my chest. Sample library developers are nearly completely negligent in their support for basic bowed onsets. It's all about legato and spiccato. Maybe you get one staccato (looking at you SF) but rarely do you get the tools needed for connected bowing of notes, which happens a lot in real string scores. And no, the brushed-onset artics often labeled 'detache' are not it. Not until Synchron Elite Strings has there been sufficient attention paid to this - its 'performance detache' is exactly what's missing from most libs, and is much needed.
I've rendered this piece now with several libraries, and they all fall down in many ways.
I'm happy to hear a better mockup of this - have you got one?
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Living Fossil
Senior Member
You could also ask why modern orchestral recordings are done the way they are done, with a multiple mic setup, instead of just capturing the orchestra with one stereo microphone from one position.
The strength of Berlin is exactly that it lets you work with samples as if you would record an orchestra, thus providing energy, a detailed sound and yet lots of depth. (have I mentioned that I love this reverb?
)
David Kudell
Senior Member
Tom Holkenborg Brass was recorded in the wider arrangement. Also it looks like Ark Zero as well, based on this video:
Dewdman42
Senior Member
What makes you think MP3D is using one stereo mic position? That is a misunderstanding of how it works.
The strength of Berlin is exactly that it lets you work with samples as if you would record an orchestra, thus providing energy, a detailed sound and yet lots of depth. (have I mentioned that I love this reverb?
I think BS is the one that is recording from one or two fixed positions. MP3D is COMPLETELY configurable in this regard. It can represent one or two mic positions placed anywhere around the venue you want and also with a variety of mic techniques.
