Welcome to VI-Control!
Welcome to VI-Control
To one and all, welcome to our community! If you’re wanting to learn and grow as a composer and producer, VI is the place to be.
VI has tens of thousands of composer members –– some of who are the biggest names in film music –– and many Game Audio professionals and those who score regularly for television series and film trailers.
We also have a large and dedicated membership of budding composers and students learning and growing into their craft of music production daily. Our motto is “Musicians Helping Musicians” and we have witnessed many starting out go onto the scene in their careers professionally through the help they’ve received at VI Control.
VI Control is also fertile ground for a developer of sample libraries and virtual instruments to flourish. VI focuses on the exact market you’re addressing as a developer of fine sample library instruments for composers who need fresh new sounds to stay competitive when creating music for film, games, and television.
We are currently getting 10.5 million hits per month and 114K unique visitors per month.
Check us out and give us a whirl! We would love to have you with us.
Best always and thanks,
Frederick Russ
Vi-Control Community
Vi-Control Community
V.I. Control Forum is a virtual-instruments-applications-oriented-community that has some of the most highly experienced post contributors in real time. Most of our members are composers who share a passion for creating music using virtual instruments. VI Control Forum has become an important resource for thousands of musicians and composers all over the world. Many of these contributors are experts in their field.
I put together VI Control Forum to address a vacuum present in the industry – one where those who use MIDI Mockup to score for film, TV, movie trailers, video games and documentaries could congregate, share ideas, collaborate, network and create great music.
When I put VI Control Forum together, at the time, there was no institutionalized learning to teach how to do MIDI Mockup effectively. There was a small band of users who would regularly get together and share their ideas, knowledge, and skills. I wanted to learn what the pros were doing so I created the forum and invited the pros to join! I began to learn that way – many did. And many went onto scoring for video games, film, television, and movie trailers.
Historically, VI has been a composer-based community. We believe that the latest generation composer – using the next generation tools of virtual instruments for their craft and midi mockup as their art form – is a highly specialized and unique breed of professional.
Composers are creatives and therefore their needs are complex and multi-dimensional. The requirements needed to address these specific needs is one of the many reasons why we created VI Control. Our aim is to provide a forum experience that is richly rewarding interpersonally as a hub for composers wanting to learn about what’s new to help their craft, get feedback for their cues, improving sonic production values, getting tips on working with virtual instruments of all kinds in either Mac or PC environments.
V.I. Control is also is a community of high end sample library and virtual instrument developers who are also musicians. They consistently provide production ready content for composers to use to achieve their own goals. V.I. Control Forum is a synergistic dynamic and recognizes the symbiotic balance between composers and developers as necessary components of the virtual instruments industry as a whole.
V.I. Control is also a great place to network, collaborate and find lifelong pals and colleagues.
V.I. Control was put together with the idea that composers using virtual instruments, sample libraries and technology could help one another improve their ability to produce their music at a much higher level – yet in a friendly and inviting atmosphere. V.I. Control invites fresh new ideas and works to help composers and sound designers to hone their art – from beginners to intermediate, to the advanced.
V.I. Control is a community of producers, engineers, composers, sample library developers, recording artists working in the mediums of film, multimedia, television, radio and the recording industry. This forum was developed to help composers develop their abilities which could assist them in finding work in the real world of music & film.
At V.I. Control, it’s really about musicians helping musicians.
Enjoy the forum!
Sincerely,
Frederick Russ, founder
VI-Control – A short history
VI-Control was founded in 2004 by Frederick Russ as a place where people could speak freely about composing and sample libraries. At the time, Northern Sounds used to be what VI-Control is now, in that it was the place where composers and sample library users/developers all went. It was a great forum.
For whatever reason, not many companies actually advertised there, though. Probably because the rates were insanely high. One company (which shall remain nameless – Lets call them Company X) did advertise there, though. They also had their own sub-forum, which I’m guessing they paid extra for. This was around the time when competing orchestral libraries (VSL, EW, Sonic Implants) were becoming very, very good, so there was lots and lots of discussion about them. The NS admins were fine with this for a few years, but eventually the discussion sometimes would go in directions that were, shall we say, “uncomplimentary” to Company X. Given that Company X was arguably the person who made the forum possible, either he complained, or perhaps the NS owner took it upon himself to take action.
It started with the deleting of negative posts about Company X. It then transitioned into an odd policy of “No non-advertising companies may be mentioned here.”
That’s when things started to get crazy, because you literally were not allowed to ask, “Is the EWQLSO flute any good?” People started getting banned if they broke those rules. Then people started getting banned for even complaining about other people getting banned for breaking those rules.
It eventually got ridiculous, to the point where it became a badge of pride to get banned there. (Got my badge right here!) Being clever people that we were, people just created new profiles. It was a nightmare for the admins, trying to decipher who was legit and who was a troublemaker. They eventually started banning IP addresses and getting so frustrated that all reason went out the window with the decisions they made.
Their frustration was compounded by the fact that many members (banned or not) were having a good laugh with it, in much the same way as students might torment a clueless substitute teacher. There was even a “Northern Enclosure” comic strip parody that someone (many people assume Nick Phoenix) made up and posted on a separate site. (Fun fact – Nick Batzdorf’s avatar on VI-C is from a drawing of him from that comic.)
VI-Control was not the only forum to come out of all this. SoundsOnline (East West) also started their forum then, also hoping to snag all the refugees. I, for instance, joined there before I joined VI-C. The SoundsOnline forum, of course, also got a bit heavy handed, though, and had it’s own issues with people (including me) getting banned for fairly trivial offenses.
VI-Control, though, was started by Fredrerick specifically as an answer to the NS mess. This is why the moderation here is ultra-light. With a few exceptions, you can say just about anything about any company. You can even mention other forums. Frederick never considered that “competition.” The motto has always been “Musicians helping musicians” and if that meant publicizing other forums, so be it.
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