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Ok, just to clarify, when positioning french horns in MIR, the direction indicator points in the direction the sound is comming out of, right? Should the direction pointer point to the back of the stage since the bells point in that direction in a live performance?
Aric😳
The Directivity Indicator of MIR Pro's Instrument Icon (which also serves as volume control) should be considered as the "player's nose". :-) In other words: MIR Pro's unique Instrument Directivity Control takes care for all relevant aspects in case of Vienna Instruments. Just make sure that the virtual player looks into the "right" direction (... and be aware that sometimes unusual setup sound better than the seemingly "proper" ones: Now you could listen to a horn player who turns his back on the conductor ... ;-) ...).
... the situation might be different in case of 3rd party signal sources, as MIR has no "knowledge" about the original recording and its peculiarities.
BTW: All instruments emanate sound into all directions, just with different volume and frequency distribution. This is what MIR's instrument-specific Directivity Profiles are all about. :-)
Kind regards,
Instead of presenting just some information snippets, please allow for a quote from MIR Pro's manual, p. 26:
Instrument Profiles
Understanding the concept behind MIR's unique Instrument Profiles is almost as IMPORTANT as having some insight into the variable Output Formats described above, if you want to make use of MIR Pro's features to their full extent.
As you may remember, MIR's impulse responses are not only taken from a multitude of sources and main microphone positions. MIR Pro handles directionality (i.e., “room”) both from the listener's perspective (the microphone) as well as from the signal source's perspective (the instrument).
This is why we implemented detailed, individual Instrument Directivity Profiles for almost every Vienna Instrument. The underlying data were gathered over (literally) years of extensive research and development, and are now saved within so-called Profiles. Measured with the aid of our newly developed method (based on sectorized microphone swarms), we gathered an enormous database of spatial frequency profiles for all kinds of instruments and other sources. Taking into account these directivity-dependent changes in sound, we can now supply MIR Pro with a direction-dependent acoustic fingerprint. This is made possible by the way we recorded the multi impulse sets of each room: The impulses were sent into the room in the same sectorized way we used for measuring the instruments – in 60° steps, plus the room’s ceiling and floor.
Instrument Directivity Profiles are not directly visible to the user, but selected from a list in accordance with the required Vienna Instrument's samples. Apart from directivity information, Instrument Profiles contain data about other aspects, too:
- Natural Volume
- The Stereo Width inherent in the original recording Instrument and / or ensemble size
- Natural timbres and possible changes to them
- Typical playing techniques and ways of sound production
In combination with all these aspects saved in an Instrument Profile, the directivity patterns greatly enhance the possibilities of MIR, and thus the achievable realism of a virtual orchestral performance.
Please select the appropriate Profile from the pull-down menu below the Instrument Display in the Instrument Channel. Virtually every Vienna Instruments is listed here. (IMPORTANT: This is NOT a list of the valid Vienna Instruments licenses on your computer!) In addition we supply “General Purpose” Profiles for use with any source MIR Pro is able to process.
CAUTION: Assigning an Instrument Profile does not mean that the respective sample data gets loaded in an Vienna Instrument. This has do be done manually.
Dry Directivity filtering uses the Directivity Profiles not only for the signal emanated into the virtual room, but also for the direct signal componenet (which is left unfiltered under normal conditions). That way you can achieve the effect of an instrument turning away from you with even greater realism (while sacrificing a bit of its sound, of course).
By enabling the new Air Absortion FIlter, increasing the distance between an Instrument Icon and MIR Pro's Main Microphone will not just dampen the dry signal's volume, but it will also soften its high frequency range according to the natural dampening behaviour of the air. This may or may not be what you're after, so it's usage is completely up to you.
Kind regards,
