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  4. MIR Learning Curve and Workflow

  • MIR Learning Curve and Workflow

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    Just curious how difficult people are finding the learning curve of MIR at the moment and also if you feel it has sped up your workflow time or increased how long it takes you to get the job done.

    I have only myself just gotten around to starting to learn the Vienna Suite and the Reverb in it but am getting great results.  Just wanted to know if once I master the process of using reverb in the "standard" way we do it through plug-ins, if MIR will actually speed up the process or slow it down.  I have two careers at once going on and so I am limited on time so for me the value comes in time saved.  Others would consider value the end results over time saved.

    Any thoughts on your experiences so far please :)?

    Thanks!

    Maestro2be
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD

    Hi Maestro2be,

    I doubt that there will be many replies at the moment (apart from the MIR Beta-testers and ourselves) as Vienna MIR has only been available for a short time.

    Ideally, MIR should speed up your workflow _tremendously_  as soon as you have integrated it into your setup - and your way of thinking, of course! MIR is _not_ "a reverb", it's a fully integrated, highly optimized spatial mixing engine for virtual orchestral music.

    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
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    Thank you Dietz.  I really look forward to DL'ing my demo once I upgrade to Windows 7.  It looks just stunning.  I think my machine can handle it (2 3ghz dual core server processors and 16GB RAM) and I only do small orchestral pieces, nothing larger then 5-10 instruments at the moment actually.

    Would love to hear from anyone else who's using it.  If this speeds up my process I will be buying the premium version of it.  To me as stated, I would rather trade some money for time saved and more time to live life (and make music).

    Maestro2be
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    Maestro, I will let you know within a week. I purchased MIR last month, but unfortunately could not install yet, since the beast that should be able to handle MIR hasn't arrived yet.
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    Awesome thanks Hose!  I can't wait to hear your results, thoughts and findings!  Knowing this and VE Pro is coming I can't seem to get away from my studio.  I think about music 24/7 now and what I am going to be able to do with all this stuff.  I spend hours a day preparing for these two in my studio in the future.

    I also want to take advantage of the introductory offer.  That's a very nice savings on those additional rooms. 

    Maestro2be
  • Beat KaufmannB
    Beat KaufmannB
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    @Dietz said:

    Hi Maestro2be,

    I doubt that there will be many replies at the moment (apart from the MIR Beta-testers and ourselves) as Vienna MIR has only been available for a short time...

    Hi Maestro2be

    I was such a Beta Tester.

    First of all:

    I never had a problem to understand MIR and its possibilities. And...

    I never had a problem to place instruments on the virtual stage and choose a listener position.

    But there are 2 possible "Trouble Fields" in my view:

    1. Connecting-DAW-MIR

    I had some problems to reach a new  technical standard to work with MIR first (beside Vista 64, enough RAM and CPU-Power).

    MIR works outside of the DAW. So if you are using MIR and Cubase on the same computer the Audio-Interface has to share Audio-Outputs. > Good to have more than 2 In-/Outputs.

    This took some hours to understand > Ahh I need an AudioInterface with more than two channels.

    Midi-Signals must leave the DAW and should reach the input of MIR. >

    This took some hours to understand > Ahh more than one midi in-/output could be helpful. Ahh, I need a Virtual- or Hardware- MIDI -Interface with more than 1 in/output.

    so ... A "total" beginner needs a very good support and very good answers for these questions around connections.

    Soon on my WebSite [H]

    2. The possibilities of MIR

    The easy positioning of instruments enhances a fast workflow in an extreme way. Once - when you have saved your orchestra setups in different concert halls - it will be easy to play the next piece. Load your Chamber Orchestra in the MOZART-Saal and play. Fantastic!

    More: You are  able to adjust a lot of parameters (too much?) such as wet/dry and other effects for each instrument. Further, you also can choose between several different microphones, EQ-Setups and so on.So the final result can be more natural than ever.

    But - and that's the 2nd "Trouble Field for a total beginner": It can be as bad as ever without any knowledge about these adjustable parameters.

    Best

    Beat

    - Tips & Tricks while using Samples of VSL.. see at: https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/ - Tutorial "Mixing an Orchestra": https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/mixing-an-orchestra/
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD
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    Thanks for chiming in, Beat!

    @Beat Kaufmann said:

    [...] But - and that's the 2nd "Truoble Field": It can be as bad as ever without any knowledge about these adjustable parameters.

    That's why we made the (still preliminary) manual available as free download:  -> [URL]http://vsl.co.at/en/68/428/709/239.htm[/URL]

    I  tried to cover most of the conceptual background in plain English in its "Think MIR"-chapter.

    HTH,

    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
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    Thanks Beat.  You continue to be so helpful to this community.  I have an RME soundcard on my DAW, and then an M-Audio firewire soundcard for my VE3 machine (future MIR machine).  The firewire card sits there turned off though because at the moment I have no need for it since VE3 and pro don't need it.

    With MIR I should be able to use the M-audio soundcard and pipe out it's digital output into my Logic DAW.  I am going to run my Midi keyboard to the RME card on in Logic, then run the MIDI out to my M-audio card on the Slave machine (which will host MIR).  Then pipe out the digital output back to the RME.  This is how I run my Gigastudio setup right now whenever I need it so it should work.

    I can see what you mean Beat.  MIR used wrong or misunderstood could really cause problems and produce bad results.  Although from what I seen in the demo videos it didn't look extremely difficult (I hope I am right lol).  The biggest problem I see for me at the moment is that quite a bit of the time, I am stuck on the road so I make music (or try) when I am away from my home studio.  So I won't have the mobile power to run MIR for a while (until mobile machines are strong enough to run it).  I still could do all the preliminary music and processing like EQ and dynamics on the road though and use space designer until I get home.

    Dietz, I didn't even think to look for the manual because I hadn't done the demo or purchased it so I didn't realize it was there.  I am going to read it.  I can't wait to hear peoples music and the feedback others have on how MIR is helping them.

    Maestro2be
  • Beat KaufmannB
    Beat KaufmannB
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    @Another User said:

    The biggest problem I see for me at the moment is that quite a bit of the time, I am stuck on the road so I make music (or try) when I am away from my home studio.  So I won't have the mobile power to run MIR for a while (until mobile machines are strong enough to run it).  I still could do all the preliminary music and processing like EQ and dynamics on the road though and use space designer until I get home.

    There are no "preworks"  to do (ne effects, no panning) apart from arranging the key switches within the DAW for the planned Vienna Instruments.

    Simply produce a midifile with the necessary keyswitches. Within MIR you choose later on the vienna instruments with all your planned articulation. The Vienna Instrument (1st violins for example) you shift on its place on the stage and you repeat this process for all instrument sections of your orchestra. Volà. Doing these placements of all the vienna Instruments on the virtual stage you have done all the pannings, depths etc. And of course you will be able to add Suite Effects for every Vienna Instrument but I recommend to do this within MIR togehter with the selected room.

    Best, Beat

    - Tips & Tricks while using Samples of VSL.. see at: https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/ - Tutorial "Mixing an Orchestra": https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/mixing-an-orchestra/
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    Any more responses from anyone as to whether you are finding MIR to truly increase workflow time?

    I am wondering if you all still find you have lots of "volume" tweaking to get things right as well.  The manual says MIR does all the panning, etc for you, but what if an instrument is to loud?  Are you still correcting that in your DAW?  I mean if you send all instruments from your DAW at the same level, MIR will probably do an amazing job at "mixing" that sound IF what you want is a complete blend of all instruments.  What about when you want sections to really stand out?  Are you adjusting it in your DAW or in MIR?

    If I hook-up the midi output from my DAWs soundcard, to the midi input of the MIR soundcard, how many actual midi channels can I send over that connection?

    Thanks,

    Maestro2be
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD

    Hi Maestro2be (... I _really_ like your screen-handle ;-) ...) -

    People are in the midst of building their new DAWs for Vienna MIR, or they are just getting their feet wet, so don't expect too many answers right now.

    To keep things in perspective: While MIR has a lot of "built-in" intelligence and knowledge about the instruments used on its stages (more than any other system or mixing console ever built), it can't anticipate what _you_ are after as a composer/arranger/conductor. In other words: It is very easy to get a usable result with MIR and Vienna Instruments, but it is still your artistic decision to do those decisive final tweaks.

    We took every effort to make this tweaking as musical and intuitive as possible, though. If an instrument is too loud or too weak, too close or too far away, too smooth or too bright - every change is done directly on stage, in direct interaction with one dedicated icon. I would consider the actual learning curve close too none-existant, once you have a running system.

    Regarding your MIDI-question: The number of possible MIDI-channels depends only on  your system. Using MOL (MIDI over LAN), the number is more or less unlimited (was it 64 ports with 16 channels each, or something like that ..?), with "old-school" MIDI it will depend on the MIDI-connectors of your interfaces.

    HTH,

    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
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    At this point it would be wonderful to have some of the top-demos of the VSL website remixed with MIR.  (I know they are coming!)
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    Thanks Dietz.

    I have initiated my demo this weekend and been getting it up and running which took most of the weekend and still some tweaking to do.  I am demoing MOL with it as it seems to be the best solution for it right now.  The learning curve to me seems much more simple the the multi auxilary bus sending etc I have to do in Logic and adjusting the 8 million parameters there.  Also it sounds superior in every way.  Now to get the bugs worked out though so I can actually use it to its potential (or should I say to the potential of my computer LOL)!

    I am having an issue with it where if I move an instrument around the convolution never stops trying to adjust, the sound distorts into static and won't quit.  I end up having to close MIR and stop Logic 9, relaunch MIR and then restart the project in MIR.  Then once I adjust the "position" it does it again.  So if I either move the icon from its position to another spot on the stage OR if I simply rotate the icons direction, it does the same.  It happens about 9 out of 10 times.  Let me say the 1 out of 10 times it does work, it goes into static mode (where the reverb is adjusting and reloading the samples maybe??) which is what you clearly say it will do in the video.  But it does stop and actually let me keep working 1 out of 10 times.  All the rest of the times I have to reload MIR and of course that doesn't save my work or new position.

    It does not mess up when I am playing with the gain control or sliders built on the instrument icon, it only happens when I try to reposition the instruments direction, or position on the stage.

    Christian said that he could get me in touch with support specifically for MIR if I had issues.  Perhaps I could get someone or yourself to help me out.  I would love to get this working to see how much my machine can handle.  My specs are in my signature but I can give you any spec you need that is missing if you let me know what you need.

    EDIT - Actually let me give some more very specific information for the programmers and techie nerds like myself :).

    1.  I am currently using my RME Multiface 2 on this MIR Box with the PCI interface card and it's working fine.  I am sending the midi information from my MAC using Logic 9 using MOL which is also working.  I figured I would put my best soundcard on this box for the demo.  The driver is the most recent up to date.

    2.  I am running Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit.  This was a fresh re-install, not a crap ass upgrade :).

    3.  I have a Supermicro H8DCi motherboard with 16GB of RAM, two Opteron 290 processors.

    4.  I have a NVIDIA 7900GT Video card.

    5.  All samples and OS are on internal 7200RPM Seagate drives (OS and Samples are on seperate drives).  MIR is loaded on the OS drive and so is the room pack.

    6.  Internal soundcard (onboard) is disabled in the bios.  I have an M-Audio PCI soundcard which is disabled in Windows 7 Device manager.  (It's actually not even installed because it's not Windows 7 certified yet, no drivers).

    7.  Memory is all the exact same (Crucial).  DDR PC3200 • CL=3 • Registered • ECC • DDR400 • 2.6V • 256Meg x 72 •.

    Thanks!

    Maestro2be
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD

    Hi!

    Thanks for the report - that's of course not what MIR is intended to do. Sorry to hear about your problems.  It's a real pity that you miss one of MIR's most decisive features right now ... :-/

    Does this also happen when you rotate an icon not "on stage", but on behalf of the faders in the Instrument Channel? Did you try to change the graphical settings in the Preferences? Try to use a lower resolution for the venue map and see if it helps.

    Do you control the MIR-PC directly, or via some type of remote desktop? If the latter is true, try to work directly on the PC, just to see if it was the culprit.

    What's you system latency? Did you allow the RME-driver for larger latencies already?

    You didn't see any error messages, did you? I have to admit that I can't say from the distance what makes your system crash so often, without going through the drill: Version numbers (software, OS, drivers), system specs (down to the type of RAM and graphics card), system settings (audio latency, buffer settings etc.). 

    EDIT: Looking at your specs again, it _might_ be that you're facing a WinXP-related problem. We strongly suggest Vista or Windows7 for the use with MIR.

    EDIT 2: I just saw that you edited your message while I was editing mine 8-) ... forget about the XP-statement, as you're on W7, obviously.

    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
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    Sorry Dietz I accidentally forgot to update my signature with Windows 7 (just installed it this weekend).  I edited the post above with a lot of details.  I will answer the rest of your questions here.

    1.  Yes, "rotating" the instrument causes it to do the same thing as stated above (1 out of 10 times it will actually stop distorting and go back to normal.  However using the faders does not cause this.  They work perfectly.  It's only when I physically move the instrument in some way (rotate or physically move it to the back of the room etc).

    2.  My hardware revision number on my RME card is 17/55 (most current) and the driver version is 3.081 which is the most recent August 21st, 2009.  It plays media files and everything else perfectly.  VE Pro and VE3 also work perfectly.  I installed them to be sure that it wasn't the soundcard.

    3.  I have not tried lowering the resolution.  As a matter of fact, I notice that I cannot even see all of the MIR window (the bottom of the window is missing and cut off).  I have the window maximized, but it still is chopping off the bottom and there is no way for me to scroll down and see the rest of the window (such as changing the venue, I have to literally hit tab and "guess" how many tabs until it's on the "ok" button which I cannot see).

    4.  I first tried doing Remote Desktop from my MacBook Pro and that didn't work to well (I was getting a huge white screen for a stage and nothing I did would get it back except reloading).  This would also happen when using the PC locally but not nearly as often.  As a matter of fact, I think it was always a result of me going into the other room, connecting with Remote Desktop and then it would screw up MIR's window.

    5.  My video card driver is NVIDIA version 191.07, dated October 5th, 2009.

    6.  System latency is set to 512 samples on the RME Card.  Thenin MIR, I left the "default" which is literally what MIR says for the setting.  It doesn't say 512 or 1024 etc, it literally says "default" which I assume means use the settings from the RME control panel?  I have not tried raising this but I can certainly try going to 1024 and 2048 samples.  I really don't care about latency for playback.

    7.  I see absolutely no error messages.  The thing is, it doesn't crash per say.  It just goes into a never ending static distortion and I have to kill it because it's driving me insane.  It actually is still responding.  I can continue to move instruments, change venue, etc.  I can do everything!  I just can't get the static to stop and then I begin hearing all the little voices in my head as I want to dig and claw at them!  LOL.

    8.  The OS Version is "Windows 7 Enterprise" and I will get you the build number later as I am not in front of it.  I can tell you though that it is the most recent build as I literally just downloaded it on Thursday from Microsoft as part of my SA Agreement.

    Anything else?

    Maestro2be
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD

    Uhhmmm ... you can't see MIR's window as a whole? 8-/ ... what is your monitor able to display, pixel-wise? - Just to make sure: I wasn't talking about lowering the monitor-resolution in Windows' control panel, but the option to decrease the details of the Venue Maps within MIR (it's in the Preferences). Leave Windows' color-bit depth at 32 bit under all circumstances, BTW!

    Still, I have the strange feeling that your problem is somehow related to issues with the GUI more than the actual engine.

    I will ask our developers if they can chime in. In the meantime, please just try one little workaround: Do the clicks (and thus the voices in your head ;-D ...) stop when you switch off the engine on behalf of the START-button on the top left of the main window, and then on again after a few seconds?

    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD
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    @cgernaey said:

    [...] 6.  System latency is set to 512 samples on the RME Card.  Then in MIR, I left the "default" which is literally what MIR says for the setting.  It doesn't say 512 or 1024 etc, it literally says "default" which I assume means use the settings from the RME control panel? [...]

    Exactly. Just to be sure - try 1024 samples in the driver panel and listen if it changes anything (... although I don't think so - personally I can run MIR with 128 samples latency and a handful of VIs without problems).

    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
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    I am running at 1024x768 with 32bit color and 75hz refresh rate.  That is the max for the monitor.  (it's a standard monitor CRT, not an LCD).  Compaq V710.

    I believe I tried hitting the START button (which turned it black/off) and then restarted it (turned blue and it reloaded all the reverb files as I seen it doing so along the bottom blue progress bar in MIR) and it didn't help.  I will try it again anyway to let you know for certain.

    Maestro2be
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD
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    @cgernaey said:

    I am running at 1024x768 [...]

    I see - that's a bit too small.

    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
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    Well I can certainly purchase a new monitor for the machine no problem.  But it will be at least 1-2 weeks.  So, even though I can't see the entire screen, the only issue I am really having is the nonstop distortion.  So with that said, do you find "replacing the monitor" an aboslute critical step of troubleshooting this sound problem?

    Could it be being caused by the low resolution?

    Maestro2be