Vienna Instruments PRO Player

[Andreas S.]

Hello VSL team,

I am looking for some hope.

Will there be a feature in the Vienna Instruments Pro Player that might be called an "automatic volume smoother"?

That smoother would playback notes from different patches with the same volume, when the notes are triggered with the same Midi Velocity.

In other words, switching between patches while keeping the Midi Velocity would result in a musical phrase with constant volume.

And this automatic volume smoother would also work within a single patch, when different notes are triggered with the same Midi Velocity.

Within e.g. a legato patch you would get a smooth musical line when playing notes with the same velocity.

Before you answer, would you please write how you would describe that smoother in your own words, so I can see whether I was able to express my idea clearly?

Many thanks,

Sebastian

[registration_1655]

I see in various posts the mention of the "Vienna Instrument Pro" but cannot find any official announcement or hint from VSL. Where can I find that? Any details?

[veetguitar]

http://vsl.co.at/en/65/71/1877/1528.vsl     [:)]

[registration_1655]

Thanks for the link.

I'm not sure but I get the feeling that some of the new features are going into "overkill" territory. 

The feature I like the most is the colored keyboard (high on my feature wish list since the beginning)

No word on 64bit, I guess it is standard now, not worth to mention

No word on the topic vibrato however, especially for woodwinds

My biggest concern: User interface in Logic!

I really hope (and I can't imagine that they wouldn't ) that they finally get rid of that awful interface debacle in Logic. Having that extra VI window that violates simple OSX interface rules and kills any workflow is the biggest drawback for VSL in Logic (besides the pathetic eLicense procedure), at least from my point of view. So I assume the good news is that they could finally fix that, the bad news is that we have to pay for it. The "moderate" price tag could be $20-$50 ior $100-$400 when think in VSL numbers. We will see.

I hope VSL doens't use the Apple calender interpretation where a summer release date means (LastDayOf)Summer, therefor end of September.

[Dietz]

@Edgar Rothermich said:

[...] My biggest concern: User interface in Logic!

I really hope (and I can't imagine that they wouldn't ) that they finally get rid of that awful interface debacle in Logic. [...]

The "debacle", that allowed you to access more samples than with any other canonic OSX-plugin back then, was addressed:

-> [URL]http://community.vsl.co.at/forums/t/25207.aspx?PageIndex=2[/URL]

[Dietz]

@Edgar Rothermich said:

[...] I'm not sure but I get the feeling that some of the new features are going into "overkill" territory. [...]

If you think it's overkill, the good news is: You can simply stick to the original Vienna Instruments player! 😊

[MS]

@Edgar Rothermich said:

My biggest concern: User interface in Logic!

I really hope (and I can't imagine that they wouldn't ) that they finally get rid of that awful interface debacle in Logic. Having that extra VI window that violates simple OSX interface rules and kills any workflow is the biggest drawback for VSL in Logic

VI Pro will behave like a normal (32 and 64-bit) plugin on Mac. No more "Show Window" button.

[registration_1655]

@MS said:

VI Pro will behave like a normal (32 and 64-bit) plugin on Mac. No more "Show Window" button.

Whoa, that is the best news, thanks

Paul says on a different post about that extras server window: "...the whole system of our software is based on a server based concept - there needs to be an application that connects to this server, at least as long as this technology is the backbone."

Does that mean that the PRO version doesn't rely on the server anymore and uses the RAM space of the host?

[MS]

Since there are now 64-bit hosts on Mac, we have indeed decided to move aways from the server concept, since this also introduces a level of complexity (another thing which can break). During the times everything was 32-bit, it was required for optimum memory usage. For those who still prefer to keep their samples in a separate process space, there is Vienna Ensemble Pro.

[whlederman]

Hi martin, Will Vienna Ensemble Pro gets an Vienna Instruments Pro update,too?

[Raymonde]

I'm not that familiar with Logic, I had v. 4.1 for the PC back when, but Cubase 4.5 does seem to allow some controls for linking and making your own interface that only work with hardware or FX instruments. I've often been curious why the loads of Midi features available with Cubase cannot be used with Vienna instruments. It seems that the only way a lot of the standard  midi controllers can be used are with the Midi Edit window and then drawing a seperate track for each velocity, sustain and modualtion change-then the control is very tight and fully satisfactory. The lack of very sensative midi response that I experience on the keyboard controller  is especially noticable for me in comparison to the response capable with my old E-Mu Proteus 2000 which at times offers sublime control on the scale from ppp to fff. I can only really only obtain get tight midi control in Vienna instruments  if I very carefully draw in each controller feature with the pen in the Midi edit. Then as you say, the seperate interface window has to be brought up each time a different articulation is chosen -here I'm imagining myself in the creative mode where I'm pushing around several choices and not quite sure what articualtion to chose. Supposedly Cubase 5.0 makes that easier by allowing chocies of articulations to be chosen in the Midi Edit window so some of the workflow issues should be ironed out but only to a limited extent.I really yearn for the Midi grouping that is bulit into most hardware synths and the likes of the Proteus 2000 where a Midi channel could be assigned to a bank (library) of sound groupings, each bank could hold up to 128 instruments. With the Proteus, each instrument could be edited and saved and loaded into the sequencer as another track and then easily selected by going into the drop down box on the track listing in the sequencer.  I look forward to an approach to this basic Midi implementation being brought out in the new Vienna Instuments Pro.

An underlying complexity is emerging here, and can probably on be really appreciated by anyone who has considered some of the depths of SysEx Midi programming, the Vienna Instruments current interface is a vastly simplified, high level SysEx editor and to me does seem somewhat limited although with all of the articulations available from Vienna instruments , what are we really looking for anyway?! But I can't agree that the new interface really goes into overkill; I'm looking forward to the editable velocity layers. I wish that someone would start a Midi Museum as often times stuff gets lost in the move towards consolidation of resources by the major players in the sound, music and entertainment industry. A few years ago the folks at Logic owned and operated their own company (e magic) independent of Apple and had products for the PC users. Apple sucked up the company, the Windows users were thrown into the nearest ditch and several fine products were lost including something called SoundDiver-talk about overkill! The closest library editor today that matches the amount of controllers is made by Midi Quest, it now looks like Vienna Symphony Library  will finally move into the major leagues of sound library editing and catloging with Vienna Instruments Pro!

[registration_1655]

Maybe a few more question the VSL team can answer regarding the VI PRO:

1) After loading a Preset into the current VI, The Preset name isn't displayed anywhere. Is that oversight been taking care of? Maybe with an indication if the loaded Preset has been modified

2) Right now the Performance Parameter is stored with the Preset and not with the individual Matrices. This limitation was often criticized by the users. Will that change in the Pro version?

3) Hopefully the new interface straightens out some terminology inconstancies regarding Patch, Cell and Slots. Right now the "Edit Cell" should be labeled "Edit Patch"

4) With all those extra "overkill" features will there be finally a Preference page where I can change the "Middle C" reference from Roland-c4 to Yamaha-c3?

[inwinterhesleeps]

Yes, I hope they improve a lot of the nomenclature issues, but I fear this will be ignored to maintain backwards compatibility.

I am very comfortable with computers, but I have found it difficult to work through the Vienna manuals because of a preference towards computer programming terms rather than musical (and to me logical) names for aspects of the VI and VE.

I mean why call it a cell? Why not just call it an articulation? Or articulation cell. I believe the manual talks about loading an articulation into a cell anyway so why have this extra layer? To create a whole new paradigm really does not help the learning process.

Why call it a matrix? Would Instrument not be more suitable? We all know intuitively that a classical instrument consists of several articulations.

Why call it a viframe? Who know what that is without reading a manual? Could it simply be called an ensemble as the software title suggests anyway?

Why call it a metaframe? We are not computer programmers. How about calling it an orchestra or ensemble set or something that makes immediate sense.

I really, really hope there is a way to change the midi assignments easily (copy paste). This is important for example when you have a large orchestral template and wish to reassign the way the individual instruments handle midi (cell crossfade, attack, etc).

I also hope the navigation of instruments and matrices is improved to allow quicker access.

Tom