Thanks Philippe. Was that audio output solely MIR PRO's? How many other tweaks were involved to create your sound?

As MIR was so wonderfully conceived (simulating the real experience very closely - stationary listener vs multiple positions), I'm trying to find out what users' experiences have been like in practice. Has MIR basically merely replaced their reverberation concerns in their sequences, or - due to its high standard of realism - has it also made a lot of the customary plug-in tweaks redundant? And to what extent? What in everybody's opinion is still necessary to do (even to that lesser extent), despite MIR's wonderful achievements?

In my limited experience so far with the trial, it does do away with a LOT of tweaking, and I mean about 98%. You still want to use EQ, and you still want to tweak MIR itself, moving instruments etc, and like the previous post just said, using different instances / rooms for certain instruments to achieve a desired effect. Like the manual says it doesn't matter what the stage layout looks like, but how it sounds, so if you want to place a certain instrument in the far rear corner because it sounds right even though you would never do that in real life, go ahead and do it. I still use some eq, but only very simply, to shape the sound, and find that yes, MIR so far, is definitely doing 98% of the hard work.

Of course you can get into all kinds of creative engineering with MIR, like an engineer would when recording from a real room. But the point is that for most people it was simply a task to use EQ, compression etc, as a way to try to fake the realism - so now you don't have to do that - it's automatically (more or less) there. If you want to get into more creative things, that's another story. For many composers I think a set and forget approach is now within reach - concentrate on writing and programming the parts. For others who want to take it to the next level, you can absolutely do that too.

The funny thing is that the best fun I have had with MIR so far was with a loop of a shaker, haha, and I used the audio input feature to send it to a spot on the stage, and it just made it work.

@Errikos said:

Thanks Dietz and mpower88. Of course MIR, as sophisticated as it seems to be, remains a reverb in concept and a user should treat its output accordingly, that is proceed to further enhance it by multi-compression/limiting/etc. which is what Vienna Suite is. Have I got this right, or is it a general concensus that MIR's output could possibly be bounced as final audio (save for some initial E.Q. on the instrument tracks)? I guess it was interesting for me to hear the same user's two mixes from the two different products.

MIR output is in this case a VE5 output and can be recorded as a complete single-file mix.

It is very important to understand that MIR really isn't just a reverb (Dietz' "propaganda" is actualy an acurate description of what MIR is capable of doing beyond the "reverb"-part), but actually a highly intricate and sophisticated collection of virtual concert halls in which you can very intuitively set the finest differences in spatial position and playing direction of any given instrument completely independent of any other instrument (or section). The impact this has on the realism and depth of spatial setups for orchestra arrangements is stunning - you can take a listen to Williams done with MIR here or a Mendelssohn done with MIR here,

I love MIR but unless they will get more venues (TODD AO??) I won't use it...a real shame for such a great tool!

Hey Dietz, are any of the MIR audio demos straight outputs of raw VI sequences through the software, so that one can hear what MIR sounds like reverberating the almost unechoic VSL instruments on its absolute own, free of any other plug-in/parametric adjustments? [And I mean other than the single snare-drum or Paul's voice used in the video examples]

P.S.: If you permit me, I think you locked that other thread a little prematurely; I so wanted to contribute a couple of things over there, regarding realism and musicianship... Always in good taste, naturally... [li]

@Ramu said:

I love MIR but unless they will get more venues (TODD AO??) I won't use it...a real shame for such a great tool!

 Does TODD AO actually exist any more?

What don't you like about the current venues?

DG

@Ramu said:

I love MIR but unless they will get more venues (TODD AO??) I won't use it...a real shame for such a great tool!

Hmmm ... you could use MIR Pro right now _and_ with new Venues later. 😉

BTW - Todd AO scoring stage is history since several years: -> http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117970664?refCatId=2650

Apart from that: There are eleven Venues available for MIR / MIR Pro right now, with over fourty different Main Microphone positions, built from a total of (roughly estimated) fourtythousand individual impulse responses. This you could keep you busy for a while. 😉

Of course we have plans for new Venues, but there are quite a few things to consider (... I've tried to sum it up in a short section of the "Think MIR!" manual addendum: ->  http://dl.vsl.co.at/downloader.aspx?ID=7629 ). It's not as easy as going in, clapping your hands three times, and you're done. 8-]

Another problematic point is that many (if not all) of the anglo-american "scoring stages" seem to look at MIR as some kind of evil competition, not as a vehicle for spreading their fame, so they don't want us to sample their halls - plain and simple. While this is an (ambivalent) compliment for the realism achievable with MIR, it doesn't help a lot to swiftly increase the number of Venues with names that are known to you.

Kind regards,

@gjdolphin79 said:

It's breathtaking!

:-))) Thanks a lot!

Hi Dietz!

I didn't know about Todd AO but if I mentionned them it was to avoid mentionning Altiverb.

I have always and ever been a big VSL Fan. MIR was for me a great tool for one of my project. But a felow composer once showed me how to setup Altiverb and I had to admit the color (using Todd AO) was (is) much better.

The first thing I did when MIR PRO came out was to try different settings (mics, EQ) to get a great color but it was not as good...I'm sorry to say so...

Despite this, I'd like the people reading this to know that MIR is great...no INCREDIBLE! The tool is now much better now being linked to VE pro using network. Soundwise it's much more a matter of taste than anything else!

@Ramu said:

Hi Dietz!

I didn't know about Todd AO but if I mentionned them it was to avoid mentionning Altiverb.

I have always and ever been a big VSL Fan. MIR was for me a great tool for one of my project. But a felow composer once showed me how to setup Altiverb and I had to admit the color (using Todd AO) was (is) much better.

The first thing I did when MIR PRO came out was to try different settings (mics, EQ) to get a great color but it was not as good...I'm sorry to say so...

Despite this, I'd like the people reading this to know that MIR is great...no INCREDIBLE! The tool is now much better now being linked to VE pro using network. Soundwise it's much more a matter of taste than anything else!

The colour of Todd AO was certainly different from some other studios, but I don't think it was better. Certainly there are real problems with the Altiverb sampling of this once great studio that none of the MIR rooms suffer from. Have you tried the Teldex in MIR? This has a nice colour as well. Perhaps not as dark as Todd, but actually more usable to my ears.

DG

Hi everybody,

I've been using VSL:SE for quite some time now since summer 2007, but I've never posted anything to this excellent board, so I guess first thing should be a friendly "Hi!" to everybody and a big warm "thank you" to all at VSL for creating this amazing software.

I'm not a pro, and I only use VSL:SE as a hobby project, but nevertheless I enjoy working with it very much.

When I read about MIR PRO I was curious to learn more about it, but I was not sure if my machine could handle it (i7 CP 930 @2,8Ghz with only 12 Gigs of RAM), but so far, my demo is working just fine (I don't have that many tracks, though, just about 20-24 tracks / instruments usually).

What can I say? I'm blown away, it's an amazing piece of software, very easy to use, and it sounds great even with just the one demo-licence-roompack.

I was seriously thinking about buying Vienna Suite soon, but now I think I should just invest a little bit more money and buy VE PRO 5 / MIR (bundle) and get Vienna Suite later.

Like I said, I'm not a pro, but in my opinion, it's definitely worth its money.

Greetings from Bremen, Germany,
Michael

Hey!

Yes I did try and was about to get something quite close to what I like. Actually, what do I like?

Sample libraries have a dry recording. VSL is one of the most dry ever :) It is great so you can tweak the sound as much as you want. But without a good reverb and knowledge in audio engineering it's quite complicated. When MIR came out I saw it as my solution for all the troubles I had and truly IT IS! I spent 1 day setting up my VSL orchestra and wrote  60 minutes of music straight without touching anything. Perfect!

Then...This friend of mine came and tried to tweak the settings...with every venues from MIR. It sounded already better! I was amazed. Finally he told me, "why don't you try Altiverb to check if you like it better?". I argued a lot talking about the space MIR has and how fast I can get it. He plugged 4 altiverb (Todd AO), made some presets of his and played the same music. I was blown away...The sound was not as spacious as MIR, that is for sure but the color was so much...alive! Everything was blended into a perfect warm sound, something I like a lot.

Today, more and more libraries come with their own IR and positionning. It bothers me because I feel that if I buy strings from a different company than brass then the 2 won't sound in the same room because of positioning presets and reverb but I have to admit, when you listen to the samples into their own reverb it sounds just incredible...

A suggestion would be to get from VSL orchestra presets (positionning, EQ, premix) for each room...

@Jacen said:

When I read about MIR PRO I was curious to learn more about it, but I was not sure if my machine could handle it (i7 CP 930 @2,8Ghz with only 12 Gigs of RAM), but so far, my demo is working just fine (I don't have that many tracks, though, just about 20-24 tracks / instruments usually).

It will work perfectly!

@Errikos said:

Hey Dietz, are any of the MIR audio demos straight outputs of raw VI sequences through the software, so that one can hear what MIR sounds like reverberating the almost unechoic VSL instruments on its absolute own, free of any other plug-in/parametric adjustments? [And I mean other than the single snare-drum or Paul's voice used in the video examples] [...]

The closest thing to "raw material" we have to offer right now are the so-called Venue Previews. These are simple, standardised musical phrases for every Main Microphone position in every Venue. They are both available in MIR Pro's Venue Selection dialog as well as online from the MIR RoomPacks' sub-sites.

... of course these Previews are just meant to give an approximative idea of what to expect from a certain Venue - they can't do full justice to its sonic potential. And I have to admit that they are made with "legacy" Vienna MIR [A], so they might sound even better nowadays (... sorry, haven't found the time to re-do them).

Please find them here:

Venue Previews - RoomPack 1: Vienna Konzerthaus (a.k.a. Standard RoomPack)

Venue Previews - RoomPack 2: Studios & Sound Stages

Venue Previews - RoomPack 3:  Mystic Spaces

The idea of having a raw "MIR-only" mix for demo purposes might sound enticing, but I'm sure they would just provoke a new thread of comments on _how bad_ VSL demos sound. 😛 ... you know, not many people like to eat their cakes without sugar.

Kind regards,

PS ... I should add that there is nothing like "the sound" for a Venue. A simple change of MIR's Main Microphone setup and/or Reverb Time will lead to a  (maybe even radically) different sonic impression.

@Ramu said:

This friend of mine came and tried to tweak the settings...with every venues from MIR. It sounded already better!

This is not my experience at all.  I have Altiverb, used it for years, know the Todd AO sound and do not like it.   Altiverb does not even approach MIR.   You must understand something about ALtiverb - it is extremely limited compared to MIR, not the reverse.  Altiverb offers a lot of venues, but they are all only a few impulses sampled.  Those are then tweaked to fake the movement of sound sources around the stage.  This has nothing to do with MIR which has hundreds of sample impulses for just one venue and allows total realism of placing a sound source within a space. 

ALtiverb does not do convolution correctly for orchestral use.  Because the first thing that must be done is to have multiple sound sources with one microphone placement.  That is what MIR does.  Altiverb is the reverse.  It has multiple miking with one sound source on almost all the impulses that were sampled.  So you must FAKE the differential placement of the instruments.   It is mainly useful for film sound FX because of its many different locales - such as an aircraft hanger, etc.  Though of course, yes,  a good engineer can make it sound great.   A good engineer could probably blow you away with a $200 hardware reverb box because he knows the tricks.    But the idea behind MIR is to create a reverb as well as sound environment that is designed specifically for orchestral sound and can be used by musicians themselves to create a great mix.  It actually can do that which is pretty amazing. 

I am not debating the good of MIR, it is a really great tool and much more sophisticated and polished than any reverb out there. I'm just making a point about sound. You can explain to me every aspects that are better in MIR it won't change the sound...

Once again, MIR is great and combine with VE Pro it is the best tool ever for reverb...

I'm sure that if I post 2 waves without naming the reverb this could be endless as it is a matter of taste :)

I insist to VSL team, if they could come up with some presets like Izotop does for Ozone 5 it would be amazing!

@Dietz said:

PS ... I should add that there is nothing like "the sound" for a Venue. A simple change of MIR's Main Microphone setup and/or Reverb Time will lead to a  (maybe even radically) different sonic impression.

Well, I guess it's the venues...