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  3. MIR Project ... free for PRO users ?

  • MIR Project ... free for PRO users ?

    S
    S
    Hello Herb,

    I would like to have an information about the (wonderful) MIR Project : will it be free for Pro users ? or, at least, a VIP price ?

    Thank you,

    Mathieu Laprise
    Sonomax inc.
  • H
    H
    Wow, I dindn't expect this question so early.
    To be honest, we didn't think a lot about this issue.

    I don't think that "MIR" could be completely free, but our PRO and later SYMPHONIC Cube users will of course have a major price benefit.

    best wishes
    Herb
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD
    Maybe there will have to be some dedicated hardware for the MIR-engine, so I can't imagine a really free version. - Anyway: let's wait and see how fast computers get when we're ready ;-]

    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
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    @Dietz said:

    Anyway: let's wait and see how fast computers get when we're ready ;-]/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library


    In anticipation of Giga 3.0, the Giga systems Truespec is building now are a P4 2.4GHz with an 800FSB using the new DDR 400 RAM memory. Please consider for your development that the majority of Giga users are still on PIIIs.
  • N
    N
    A GE845 motherboard with a 2.4GHz P4 runs $189 at Fry's! Surely that can't be a factor to someone who's spent $3-5K on a sample library.

    Sorry that I'm always arguing with you, Peter! It's not antagonism, just heated discussion.
  • P
    P
    Nick,

    First, at Truespec, we don't do cheap motherboard/cpu combos. Our stuff is mission critical and so we build systems with the best parts with the highest reliability. So wwhat a motherboard costs at Fry's is a meaningless discussion for us.

    Second, you cannot "just" swap out the motherboard on a P3 and make it a P4. Everything has changed, from the motherboard to the processor to the RAM, and the kind of RAM depending on the motherboard/cpu selected, and now, even the kind of RAM. The BIOS has changed, and the IRQ concept under XP has changed some from 98SE. So the bottom line, is that to upgrade, the customer can keep his case and maybe his power supply. And depending on how old the system is he's upgrading, he may even have to buy brand new hard drives.

    Third, maybe you and a few others who are more technically driven like building systems, but most don't, especially those writing and producing full time, like our customers. . So if you're going to create an R&D marketing plan for a totally new product, you had better decide TODAY how backwards compatible it's going to be. There are pros in LA making money with Gigastudio on PIIs.

    Fourth, did you see the AMD study results I posted at Northern Sounds? The study clearly found that people WORLDWIDE were HOLDING BACK on technology purchases because of language issues. It was too complicated and not simply stated enough so they could understand it enough to make a purchase.

    If people are holding back because of language/comprehension issues, do you think they're going to suddenly run out to Fry's and update their computer by themselves?

    Even with synths, the number 1 concern is that the customer will spend too much time learning the equipment and not making music. This is a universal concern.

    Now we have MIR coming. Here are three features as listed in the release:

    a. Highly specialized impulses in up to seven direction, horizontally and vertically

    b. several hundred user applicable impulse-responses for each room, according to instrument and position

    c. intuitive graphic Interface

    Read these three sentences in light of the fact that most people use the presets on a reverb unit because they don't understand how to program reverb, nor have they spent the hundreds of hours required over time to develop an ear for programming reverb.

    In Synthland, we now we have physical modeling. Let's see, that means we have FM, analog, additive synthesis, and physical modeling.

    Are you getting it yet? Technology has gone WAY beyond the purchasers, and they're not buying the way they could be if things were simpler.

    Just because someone owns GS doesn't mean they're a computer maven or geekhead who loves to build systems. And yet, the first person to be "attacked" by the Mavens are those who don't want to build their own system. On Northern Sounds, one of our esteemed colleagues said that a person who wasn't willing to build their own computer was lazy!

    Well! Let's really beat down potential customers! So not only are they lazy (in the Opinion of the Mavens) but according to 99% of all retail music stores, they're also MIDI Idiots!

    Read the subscriber stats for EM. Male, 25-54, working professionals, buying VSL to fulfill their music creation desires, limited free time. If they have Giga on an older machine, you expect them to run down to Fry's and start upgrading because it's so cheap? You want they should take away from their music and run to a 2000 page Windows book when they'd be better off putting their nose into a Ravel score?

    FIfth, when I make such suggestions it's certainly not to help me sell more computer systems, because I can't make and sell a PIII-600!
  • K
    K
    geeez

    I think MIR will be simple to use, thats the point. It WILL take horsepower tho. Nothing can be done about it. So if they need a new machine, they'll buy it/build it whatever.

    Having all the ptions is one great thing, but I have a feeling it will also come with "presets" [[[[:)]]]]

    I think Nick's point was that upgrading or getting a new computer surely cant be an issue for someone who can spend money on this stuff, especaially one who has to buy prebuilt machines. And if it is, they need to jsut get over it, or the prebuilt machine makers will have to make them cheaper [[[[:)]]]] Whatever circumstance keeps them from building their own machines (lack of know how, time, whatever) is their own fault and they need to accept it.

    Its like cars. Gotta go to a mechanic if you cant do it yourself. You'll pay, sometimes through the nose, sometimes for stuff you dont need, and you might even go to a dealer that will use more expensive parts that you dont need, oh well. Thats life.

    And that was meant to be no offense Peter, its jsut an analogy that I consider pretty close. I undedrstand that you take pride in your work and your company and products, as you should. Its more about an analogy with the POV from a user aspect.

    Of course the best part of this analogy is, if you've got a friend thats a mechanic he might be able to do the job for you pretty cheaply [[[[:)]]]]

    Also if you dont fix the carm you dump it and get a new one, or it jsut sits [[[[:)]]]]
  • E
    E
    Is it possible to build a new system using windows 2000, and obtain a motherboard that will hold four gigs of RAM?
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    just builded one with an asus P4C800 - unfortunately i've got only 4 x 1GB at 333 MHz for the moment, runs W2K/XP as dual boot for tests
    christian
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
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    @KingIdiot said:

    Whatever circumstance keeps them from building their own machines (lack of know how, time, whatever) is their own fault and they need to accept it.


    Cut to the chase, King, and just call everyone a MIDI Idiot since they're not like you, because that's the attitude that keeps people out of this market regardless of who they get their computers from.
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    @esperlad said:

    Is it possible to build a new system using windows 2000, and obtain a motherboard that will hold four gigs of RAM?


    Yes. There are both Asus and Intel motherboards with that feature.
  • M
    M
    i got the asus p4c800 running w2k and 400 dual ddr - i'll upgrade
    to XP and max out the ram at 4 gigs and enable hypertreading
    when 3.0 arrives. BTW also there are super micro xeon boards that run up to 12 gigs!! i hope 3.o allows us to go RAM crazy. right now i can only get 7- to 12 perfromance instruments with a gig.

    mh
  • K
    K
    Thats BS Peter because I dont think that.

    I think people CAN learn this stuff, otherwise I wouldn't even post how to do these things.

    And my attitude in "this industry" has always been one of helping people, not putting them down.

    I'd always considered myself the idiot, the one that had lots to learn. I only learned what sampling really was right before gigastudio came out. It jus goes to show that the information is out there and can be learned.

    but thanks for putting words in my mouth [:)]
  • J
    J
    Hi all,

    Dietz mentioned the use of some dedicated hardware. Could the TC Powercore be a potential host for the MIR engine or, perhaps an option in the same way that TC have a native VST version of their surround reverb and a version for the powercore. This would allow the 'native' version to do lower quality 'preview' + high quality off-line rendering, but powercore allow full quality realtime use.
  • N
    N
    Peter, I wasn't talking about Truespec machines, and I actually agree with some of your points. You're right that it's not completely trivial to upgrade a board, and you do have to replace the memory as well.

    Understand that Macs are my frame of reference. You can pay several hundred dollars for a third-party upgrade card that still doesn't bring a machine up to the latest specs. That's why I say the expense of upgrading a PC is insignificant in this context.

    So even if you have to pay someone to upgrade a Giga computer so it can run an advanced reverb (and I probably would, since I've never built a PC), I don't see the expense as being a deterrent to anyone in this market. I know of people who bought extra Macs just to run Altiverb, and that's a much more expensive proposition.

    By the way, the $189 combo I saw at Fry's isn't junk, it's a name brand board (Asus, I think?) with Intel 845 chips and an Intel P4. I was curious to find out how much it would have cost me to build my Giga machine instead of ordering it built, and it turned out to be about $50 less - hardly worth it for your first Windows machine.

    Anyway, I don't understand why people bother buying cheap PC components. The difference between mainstream and obscure components (motherboard and processor) seems to be less than $100 in a standard machine.
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    @KingIdiot said:

    Thats BS Peter because I dont think that.

    I think people CAN learn this stuff


    The study said they were reluctant to buy, not because they COULDN'T learn it, but because the language is intimidating and they DIDN'T want to put their time into learning that aspect of technology. People want a need-to-know approach so they can focus their time on MUSIC, not the box, not physical modeling, not 2000 page Windows books, not programmiing, but making MUSIC.
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    @Nick Batzdorf said:

    That's why I say the expense of upgrading a PC is insignificant in this context.


    My original comment, which was just a suggestion, has a realistic sales/R&D imperative behind it.

    1. The largest base of GigaStudio users own PIIIs and PIIs, followed by P4s. How many? Unknown. Tascam who through their registration process pulls in this data, hasn't released it. Thus, any new product/R&D development must guess at the size of the Giga install base, unless, however, Tascam chooses to release the data.

    2. It is a known fact in the software industry, regardless of the area, that the majority of owners do not always update. Therefore some of the sales/R&D questions are:

    a. Will Giga 3.0 operate on both PIIIs and P4s, or P4s only?

    b. Will Giga 3.0 operate on Win98SE, Win2K, WinXP?, or XP only?

    c. Not knowing how many Giga installs their are with each Windows OS and the number of PIIIs vs. P4s, should MIR be designed to work in a P4 system only, or PIII? How many customers would be eliminated with a P4-only version vs. a PIII/P4 version? Should the P4 be the final selected platform, how many PIII users would upgrade and at what cost for the upgrade PLUS MIR?

    d. What would the proposed performance differences be between a PIII and a P4?

    e. Now that Kontakt imports the vast majority of VSL, will MIR work with Kontakt? Giga only? How about EXS24?

    What you've seemed to miss, for the sake of having a passionate discussion, are the number of REAL factors involved with R&Ding a product that will potentially operate in a limited set environment.

    YOu can't base your view for R&D on a few friends and contacts who are at the high end. YOu have to read the entire market from low end to high end, plus consider sales growth rates. That's how you need to approach it, from which you create a base of numbers that determine breakeven, etc. And then, you go from there.
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    for me it sounds unreasonable wasting breath on PIIs, although i've also still two running, but if one of them will fail someday, it probably would be more expensive to buy a new one instead a new system - similar thing with PIII imho, not to mention EDO-RAMs (they cost you a fortune ourdays).
    remember not so many years ago a unit as big as a desk full of electronic was needed for a simple color-correction, ourdays it's done in software or by more or less sophisticated PCI-cards. the hard- and software showed up significant improvements over the years.
    every 18 months the number of transistors per square-mm doubles, so does the speed of processors. when the cycletime of a PIII went from 500 to 1000 MHz this has been significant, but you don't need to think about it considering the step from 2 GHz to 4 as we notice now.
    you simply can't run specific tasks on outdated hardware, independent how good it worked and still works for other jobs. next year we will discuss 5 and more GHz, multiple processors on a chip and the fairly long neglected crossbar-design - so imho thinking too much on backward-compatibility is honourable, but a handicap for groundbreaking new technologies.
    just my two bits, christian
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
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    @cm said:

    so imho thinking too much on backward-compatibility is honourable, but a handicap for groundbreaking new technologies.
    just my two bits, christian


    Well, as we say in LA, "You da man!" So here's the R&D gamble (e.g., where opinion + market research confront $$$$$$$).

    1. IF the development and implementation DEMONSTRABLY shows that the new technology works best with a P4 x.xxGHz or faster, or it is absolutely HANDICAPPED without it, then you must go P4, with the lowest entry point a P4 2.4GHz

    RISK - How many current VSL customers are on a P4? How many are on a P3? How many have P4s fast enough to run the new technology? How much effort is involved to upgrade current systems, even P4 1.8GHz if the new technology requires faster speed? How many VSL owners will do this AND order MIR in light of what they've paid so far for the library? Who would be your competitor if the majority of VSL customers couldn't afford to buy it right now?

    2. IF the development and implementation shows that a good amount of use can be had from the PIIIs (Minimum specified requirements) what is the result of running on a PIII vs. a P4, and how big is the sonic difference that would cause the customer to upgrade?

    3. Is MIR for the GigaStudio computer or for the sequencing computer (working with the final mix vs real time? If for the Giga, and the customer has 2 or more, how many must be purchased to achieve the desired result? One per system? If one per system, how much (projected) would a customer have to spend to upgrade 2+ systems to have MIR on every machine?

    RISK - the price of upgrading isn't just about parts and money. It's about the time to make the upgrade, resetting up the system and testing/checking it out, and a point rarely discussed, changing one's work flow to accommodate the change. For the professional writing music FULL TIME, this is a problem. For the person doing for fun, self-satisfaction, semi-pro, time won't be a factor.

    Of course, these are lots of questions for just one press release!

    BUT!

    At the end of the R&D day, you still have to sell enough to make back R&D costs plus and create enough sustainable sales to show a profit (you know, steady employment....)

    Another question.

    Will it only work with VSL? How about other libraries that were also recorded in stereo and not panned to position?

    Basically, the decision path for DSP in aerospace often goes like this:

    Do we use a known chip with a proven performance record or try a newer chip that doesn't have the performance track record.

    For example, most communications satellites, pretty advanced technology, use PI chips.
  • H
    H
    Will it only work with VSL? How about other libraries that were also recorded in stereo and not panned to position?


    MIR will work with all samples which don't have too much ambience.
    Of course we will optimize the setups for our sounds.
    It's a great advantage to "tell" the hall engine how the samples are recorded to get best results. So we won't miss this option.

    But as Dietz mentioned, there will be an interface which allows to adjust the parameters.

    The important thing for me is, that our customers will get an intuitive and a perfect out of the box sounding solution for VSL sounds:

    Composing
    selecting your favourite concert hall,
    place your instruments in this hall,
    select the output format (mono - stereo - surround)
    Press the "Do it" button.

    Done.

    best wishes
    Herb