MIR Pro and DAW Templates question - Multiple Stages

[cgernaey]

Sorry for what I think is a repeat, but I can't find the thread we discussed this in.  I am creating some new templates because of some nice improvements in Studio One Version 2.  However, I have some questions please.

1.  What is the actual problem with having many different stages in one template?  Example: VSL Appassionata Strings in a big room, the orchestral and chamber in a medium room, then solo's in a small room.  Then blending them all in the DAW.  Because I prefer the sound of the instruments in different rooms I am finding (just my personal preference at the moment).

2.  What is the problem with having many of the same stages in the same template?  Example:  VSL Appassionata in big room, LASS and Symphobia in a seperate instance of the exact same room (because I do not always layer them and do not want to sit around waiting 10 min for a template to load all instruments).  I want to call upon the 3rd party layers when only needed, but they will use the same room type as my main VSL instruments.

3.  Same as number two, only mimic this for all the smaller rooms when they layer with Orchestral, Chamber and solo's of VSL.  So maybe in this template I will have 2-3 huge rooms (Grosser Saal), 2-3 medium rooms (Mozart Saal) and 2-3 small rooms (Schubert Saal).

Lastly, this may make you want to choke me to death Dietz hahaha but I also imagine the idea that I don't always want brass, or winds.  So I might have a seperate room of the exact rooms listed above, for the different instrument groups (Strings, Winds, Brass, Percussion).

Does this make you want to bash your face with a rubber mallet?  :)  Does it sound humanly possible to design a way for us to create a complete layout of instruments (all 4 groups on one stage) and then have the ability to "add" it to the current opened instance as needed?  So I can just recall "PARTS" of the layout within the room?  This way I could load up my VSL Strings 100% of the time in my templates, but when I need LASS and Symphobia to layer, I just click "add" and pick that layout and it adds those channels and settings into that same room (which is where they were setup originally).  Then can do the same for projects I want "brass or winds".

Thanks,

Maestro2be

[Dietz]

ad 1: Nothing wrong with using different Venues as long as you don't aim for a realistic acoustic impression of a room. "If it sounds right, it is right." ;-) Mixing pop-music we do similar things all the time (e.g. bone-dry bass drum, snare drum in a room, main vocals with an echo effect, backing vocals with a huge reverb ...)

ad 2 +3: Again - nothing wrong with it as long as you can stand the confusion. ;-) ... MIR was actually made to simplify things for virtual orchestration, but when your personal workflow and/or artistic ideas asks for several instances - go for it!

ad "PARTS": You can save and load so-called "Channel Sets" by means of the right-click context menu in VE Pro's Mixer. That's the way to have readily mixed sections of an orchestra (or whole setups) available with one simple command.

HTH,

[cgernaey]

Thanks again Dietz, you are such a helpful process to my (our) music making.  I will apply my template ideas today in a new tempate (1 to test your approvals) and let you know the results.  For some reason, I thought I remembered someone saying something about getting phasing or something similar by using the same room more than once.  That could merely be my parallel universe evil twin brother sending me those signals :).

EDIT - Dietz, I found the thread (it was the one we had going about multiple mic's in MIR PRO).  On the top of page 3, is where I am confused if this is a problem for me or not with what I am trying to do.

http://community.vsl.co.at/forums/p/31623/201334.aspx#201334

Maestro2be

[Dietz]

Maybe I didn't express myself good enough.

I wrote: "[...] you would run into problems when mixing the wet _and the dry_ signals from different Venues. "

... this was written in the context of sending the _same_ instrument to different Venues at the same time (or mixing recordings from different Venues). Due to the different geometry and size of each stage, the _dry_ signal's positioning would get obscured. For example: On one stage, the perceived angle of a signal from the position of the Main Microphone is 20° to the left. On the other stage, it could be 40° - a mixture of both would obviously obscure the achieved virtual positioning.

That said, mixing MIR's results from different Venues is clearly against its underlying principles. But OTOH, the first guitar amps weren't built to distort the incoming signal either. Maybe you're creating a new style. ;-)

Kind regards,

[Bas10]

@Dietz said:

ad 1: Nothing wrong with using different Venues as long as you don't aim for a realistic acoustic impression of a room.

.......

That said, mixing MIR's results from different Venues is clearly against its underlying principles.

To be clear, I think Dietz means with "a realistic acoustic impression of a room" is the impression you would have of the acoustics of the room when physically standing at the location of chosen mic position. At least that's the impression I get from the superb acoustic simulation MIR offers. It comes really close to the sound as if you are on that posistion in a hall. However, this is often not the realistic impression of a room you hear on recordings, in which more often than not multiple mic positions are mixed. And mixing those mic signals is more of an art than a science.

Since my original post starting the thread mentioned here, I am getting some pretty pleasing results with 3 and even 4 mic positions from MIR Pro. Dietz was indeed right about mixing the mutiple dry signals, so take care of activating "wet only" in the extra MIR instances. Mostly I take the dry signal from the conductor's or 7th row (or equivalent) position, the others all "wet only". One trick that allows me to blend the wet signals from different mic positions, or even different venues, without muddying up the mixed reverb signal, is tweaking some delay plug-ins, one for each "wet only" MIR. In fact this is close to the underlying idea of what Deutsche Grammohphon was doing with its legendary 3D and 4D CD recordings, sliding the multiple mic signals in time to optmize for clarity and localisation.

[Dietz]

[quote=Bas10]To be clear, I

[Y] Exactly.

[cgernaey]

I tell you what, I am really having a lot of fun making these templates right now but man, they also can be agonizing.  The problem I have is that no matter what room I put these instruments in they sound so good.  Right now I am making a solo orchestra and chamber orchestra seperate seating template.  When I put the solo violin inside the chamber template (for first chair and layering) I swear that it sounds just as good in this bigger room as it does in my schubertsaal template.  It is not 100% the same sound, I can adjust the wetness down and get it to almost the same detail, but yet it's not the same.  The room affect on it is certainly noticeable, but it's not completely drowning it in reverb.  I am not a fan of globs and globs of reverb.  It's hard to describe.

It makes me really wonder this whole idea of having so many rooms, or just pick the larger one and dial down the wetness and EQ and go with it.  This is exactly WHY I have so many templates using all the rooms at one time.  Because I simply cannot 100% get the same sound from room to room.  And when I want a solo violin to sound a certain way, my mind simply won't let me have it any other way.  The more I learn about orchestration and instrumentation, the more my templates change also.  Sure is nice to have so many options with these rooms.  But again, I simply don't know which one I like best.  One day I say it's Teldex.  Then tomorrow it's Schubertsaal for a quartet.  Then it's Grossersaal for a huge appassionata mockup.  I am striving to get one consistent sound I love most, but I find my mind changes every dam day...

Dietz, this is your fault..  Accept the blame and give me words of wisdom please lol. ;)

Maestro2be

P.S.  Oh and when is the update coming with multiple MIC positions so that I can get even more engulfed in this process....?  :)

[Dietz]

Hi Maestro2be,

what you describe is exactly the reason why I'm so hesitant to support "pre-fabricated" setups that claim to be the all-encompassing solution for any piece of music. That's much like expecting a "final" setting on a mixing console that will fit all upcoming productions (... after mixing about 250 albums and an almost uncountable number of other music and audio productions during the last 25 years, I can assure you that it didn't happen - at least not to me 😉 ...)

I think the solution will be to make use of VE Pro's "Channel Sets", which will allow for adding a pre-set group of instruments to any MIR Venue by a single mouse-click.

@cgernaey said:

[...] P.S.  Oh and when is the update coming with multiple MIC positions so that I can get even more engulfed in this process....?  :)

If we don't encounter any show-stopping bugs anymore, it should be a matter of weeks. I created more than 100 "Venue Presets"  during the last few weeks, and many of them make use of the Secondary Microphone already. -... used in the proper context, the results are _amazing_, really. 8-]

HTH,