Good work chaps. Any of you able to comment on any of the following:

i) Stability of the VI VST

ii) RAM/CPU performance whilst playing/recording - esp JBacal's single midi track sounds like it had the world's largest patch sat behind it.

iii) Ease of use/learning curve

iv) Your PC/MAC setup used

If you're under NDA still then not to worry, but perhaps Herb will let you comment anyway....

Cheers

Tim

@edhamilton said:

Would it be possible for the demo creators to post the midi files?

It would tell us all alot about what the work flow will be like with the VI.
It's hard to fully wrap my head around how many midi tracks will be needed, how many key switches .. etc.
In other words how PLAYABLE are the patches.

The midi files would answer a lot of questions.

thanks!

I can't believe it; Ed and I actually agree on something [:D]

Without MIDI files the demos are not much use to me, as what I need to know is "Can I program it faster than I can record myself playing it?".

A lot of the new features sound great, but there are still things that I can do better with Pro Ed. However, it remains to be seen whether these will work better in VI or if they will still be a kludge.

On a sidenote, the chord changes in the Mozart Concerto are in the wrong place, unless this is a version I am not familiar with.

DG

@DG said:

Without MIDI files the demos are not much use to me, as what I need to know is "Can I program it faster than I can record myself playing it?".
DG

The demos are completely useless AFAIC.

That's not to say they sound bad - they sound good.

But all this could have been done before with current technology.

Speed and playability - particularly with regard to things like repetition is what's needed - it's not how good anything sounds anymore.

It would be interesting to know how much time you save rendering the same piece (and, of course, getting the same musical results) in SC and VI...

Herb has my midi file. If he wishes to do so, I have no problem with him posting a link to it here.

However, other than seeing that the entire solo was done on one midi track, I'm not sure precisely what you will be able to discern about the new VI from it.

As I mentioned earlier, because of my keyboard skills (or lack thereof), I was not able to take full advantage of the many playability enhancements. Perhaps version 2.0 will include a "Horowitz" filter for me. [:)]

PaulR-- as far as repetition is concerned, the new VI handles this automatically. If you play (or program) the same note (or notes) in a row, the VI automatically switches between multiple repetition samples. You don't have to think a whit about it. And I think many (all?) of the non-repetition articulations now cycle between FOUR different repetition notes. Of course, the actual repetition articulations have up to 9 repetition notes that are triggered automatically(and you can now play these articulations at ANY speed). And the new performance trill articulations have "zillions" of possibilities. I will let the tech people speak to the actual specifics about the new performance trill instruments.

Tim-- there is a great new ram reduction feature in the new VI. You simply play your midi track, the VI "learns" what samples you are using and then dumps all the unused samples freeing up a HUGE amount of ram. That said, I didn't need to take advantage of this feature for this demo. My single P4 computer with 2GB of ram handles this demo without breaking a sweat.

I am convinced that composers will find many features to make their programming chores simpler, faster and more automated.

But for me personally, the greatest advantage of the new VI solo violin has been the wealth of fantastic new sounds! My demo makes use of only a small subset of the new articulations including Zigane (gypsy), progressive vibrato, marcato (piano), portamento (piano), harsh, and artificial harmonics. I didn't even the touch the new Tasto, Ponticello, performance trills and MANY others.

Cheers,
Jay

Confused now.

What's the point of of beta testers that have no keyboard skills?

Don't understand and getting more than a little irritated now.

I've added Jays midifile in the first topic (thanks a lot for the permission Jay), and also added Craigs demo ((sorry Craig, I simply forgot to post your demo)

best
Herb

@PaulR said:

Confused now.

What's the point of of beta testers that have no keyboard skills?

Don't understand and getting more than a little irritated now.

With all due respect Paul, I'm sure you can be a competent musician without having a lick of keyboard skill. In fact I'm positive this is the case.

Now, I'll give you that there should be at least one person beta testing who has decent live chops, but I don't think its a pre-requisite to being one.

@Another User said:

Now, I'll give you that there should be at least one person beta testing who has decent live chops, but I don't think its a pre-requisite to being one.

Yeah - and it should be someone with no history or affiliations and all the political crap that goes with sample developers spread out all over the forums. [[;)]]

For an extra $6000 I would have thought that was reasonable.

Paul, our best "tester" regarding live performance is our chief developer Christian Teuscher himself. He is one of our best and well known live keyboard artist here in Austria.
One of the main aspects in developing the Vienna Instruments, was his wish to perform live with VSL as advanced as possible.

By the way, there are a lot users which are working succesfully with the repetition content. Ok, more sequenzer related and propably not at live gigs.

best
Herb

PaulR--
First I never said I have no skills at the keyboard. I can play Beethoven’s entire Sonata Pathetique from memory and at a level good enough to entertain the family and three cats.

But because I have very specific ideas about how I would like a part to be played, I prefer most often to program the nuances. It's quicker for me, and I have more control. In order to achieve the same results, I would have to practice the parts I am entering before I sequenced them. And besides many orchestral instrument parts are just not very idiomatic on the keyboard. Also I imagine there are a number of composers out there who's primary instrument is not the keyboard and they may find my methods to be of some interest to them.

There was a famous piano teacher who had very little patience for discussing piano technique. When asked how to best approach a certain difficult passage he replied, "Play it with your nose for all I care as long as it sounds!" Unlike this teacher I am happy to discuss my methods, but I agree that "how it sounds" is in the end the most important consideration. I think all of us will have different methods to achieve that "sound."

I'm not sure how Beat approached his demos, but Craig I know has chops to spare and will talk I'm sure about his experience as soon as his demo is posted.


Best regards,
Jay

@PaulR said:

Confused now.

What's the point of of beta testers that have no keyboard skills?

Don't understand and getting more than a little irritated now.

I have limited Keyboard skills (I am a guitarist first), but do play almost everything in. the convience in sequencing with this VI is unprecedented. I can honestly say this has been the best sampling sequencing experience I have had. One track, everything available. One can use the intelligent tools to get off and running, but there are always a plethora of other options quickly available. One of the problems I encountered was allowing the intelligent tools to dictate my choices. what I mean by that is if you let it choose for you, you get a really good result, but you may accept it without checking out other options.

another way of looking at the VI is by really thinking of it as an instrument. Like any instrument you need to know where things are, but once you do, working becomes much easier. Also the VI is of course custom so you can create each VI to suit your needs. The difference in using this as opposed to using GS or Kontakt is actually not comparable as the sequencing experience between them really is not relevent. this is a whole new animal.

also if anyone would like to see my midi file, i can make it available.

its often been a concern of mine that keyboard players would not be best placed to interpret individual instrumental lines and that piano technique will throw up many limitations in achieving a convincing solo instrumental line. I understand that thats the way the industry has been todate, everything developed by and for keyboard players. But that's not necessarily the best way. I hope that the VI's will make life a lot simpler for notation driven music.

Jay how did you input the individual notes?

(I haven't listened to the demo yet)

@herb said:

Paul, our best "tester" regarding live performance is our chief developer Christian Teuscher himself. He is one of our best and well known live keyboard artist here in Austria.
One of the main aspects in developing the Vienna Instruments, was his wish to perform live with VSL as advanced as possible.

By the way, there are a lot users which are working successfully with the repetition content. Ok, more sequencer related and probably not at live gigs.

best
Herb

Herb - great respect to you as always. I'm not trying to get one over on you or anyone here. Therefore I will ignore Jay's post for the nonsense that it is.

What I would like to see is this - because, let's be honest here - $6000 plus bucks is a fair investment, ON TOP of any previous ones. I think that's fair.

Christian Teuscher is AFFILIATED to VSL.

For this kind of dough, you should maybe think of getting hold of a keyboard player who has NEVER seen or heard of VSL and ask him or her to test this thing. It would be from absolute scratch. Any feedback from that would be more relevant than from anywhere else imo. And ask the same new tester to use the old style Repetition and see how that comes out.

All the beta testers here know what they're doing. I may as well go to a Ferrari garage and ask to listen to a recording of the car's engine.

Paul, it is apparant you need a test drive.[;)]

Warning, once you try it, you may have trouble driving something else....also no speed limitations.

@DaveTubaKing said:

its often been a concern of mine that keyboard players would not be best placed to interpret individual instrumental lines and that piano technique will throw up many limitations in achieving a convincing solo instrumental line. I understand that thats the way the industry has been todate, everything developed by and for keyboard players. But that's not necessarily the best way. I hope that the VI's will make life a lot simpler for notation driven music.

Jay how did you input the individual notes?

(I haven't listened to the demo yet)

Look - I've already said I don't want a debate about whether it's fair or not that keyboards are the universal midi controller. And as for pianists technique viz a vis solo instrumental lines - that's friggin brilliant coming from a tuba player.

...

I think we just have to accept that PaulR is having a tantrum and let him get on with it [*-)]

@herb said:

Paul, our best "tester" regarding live performance is our chief developer Christian Teuscher himself. One of the main aspects in developing the Vienna Instruments, was his wish to perform live with VSL as advanced as possible.

Could we listen to a short full orchestra demo played in real time? A work as simple as The Rite of Spring played live would be perfect to demonstrate...

[[;)]]

@PaulR said:

Therefore I will ignore Jay's post for the nonsense that it is.

Paul-- please send me PM explaining why you are so apparently upset with my postings.

If others feel my statements are "nonsense" please tell me, and I will make this my last post on the subject.

--Jay

Look. for Christ Sake! I don't need to PM you or anybody else on this Jay. IT IS NOT PERSONAL! The fact that you can play Bach's D minor fugue by blowing farts at a keyboard from 20 paces is neither here nor there.

You don't get it. Previously on Twin Peaks.

Users were told that when they bought into the original VSL that things like repetition etc were tested and on and on. Regardless of what anyone says, a great deal of what's required in terms of orchestral writing is repeated notes - i.e. repetition. Either most users are dumb - or repetition, and there is gigs and gigs of it - is unusable in it's present form - particularly time-wise.

Now call it naive or just wanting to see a fair deal for thousands of users. Why the hell should they have to pay all over again to be able to use these gigs of repetition? $6000 plus doesn't mean that much to me although I am beginning to draw the line in terms of principle here.

So far, the way I see it - the basic premise of this VI tool is repetition. There are other cool features about it on paper of course - but mainly it's about repetition and people have ALREADY bought into that. They're not getting a fair deal and I am now convinced of that.