Thanks for the links Goran and Dietz; I did get an idea - if vague - of what straight passes of VI samples into MIR should sound like. It's useful to know how much more sugar I should be expected to add to the cake...

As far as the "MIR-only" demo mixes and how that could lead to "how bad VSL demos sound" comments, I prefer it when a company allows one to guess what their products sound like 'right out of the box' - something that some less effective demos here afford, rather than just flaunt 2-3 master programmers' achievements, thereby making me suspicious and curious as to what MY mix will sound like, at least initially. The instruments' demos over the years have been very informative in that regard, in that the programming skills of the many users that have been allowed to submit their tracks have been disparate enough for one to gauge both the raw, as well as the potential, qualities of the VSL.

Further, I have to tell all those people who rave about EW's, Spitfire's, and other libraries' realism over VSL's, that their repertoire gamut is exhausted somewhere between the soundtracks of Batman and Inception and the latest adolescent-vampire/sword-fought-battles trailers crap. 

Find me La Mer, Pictures, and The Rite demos from other companies' products, and let's compare them to the ones here. Who knows? You maybe right, but you're not going to prove it by citing orchestral examples such as the typical generic cloned drones that (dis)grace the demo pages of most other sample libraries.

Let's have some EW Brahms! And while we're at it in terms of realism, let's throw some rival companies' chamber music offerings for good measure... (pun intended)

Ozone? I mean, I'm comparing this to a TC6000, or a 960L. Ozone? 

I have been critical of the sound of convolution reverb, which I still respectfully (very respectfully) think MIR does suffer from at the end of the day, but it does what it promises, it's *realism*. Caveat to that sentence: Just put another reverb on the tail - VSL's hybrid reverb, or one of the above or their stereo brethren should you be working in stereo like me - and voila. You really do have the best of both worlds.

The time saver in MIR, is truly a remarkable breakthrough that can't be spoken about enough. There is so much less work, for such a much better result. (now that it's for mac!) (did I say that before?) hehe :-P

Anyway, MIR is a mix engine for any studio even if they don't use VSL, IMO, and it's here to stay.

@mpower88 said:

Ozone? I mean, I'm comparing this to a TC6000, or a 960L. Ozone? 

I was talking about the presets Ozone provides for mastering...It is really helpful, not the reverb in Ozone, but of course 😊

@mpower88 said:

Ozone? I mean, I'm comparing this to a TC6000, or a 960L. Ozone? 

I have been critical of the sound of convolution reverb, which I still respectfully (very respectfully) think MIR does suffer from at the end of the day, but it does what it promises, it's *realism*. Caveat to that sentence: Just put another reverb on the tail - VSL's hybrid reverb, or one of the above or their stereo brethren should you be working in stereo like me - and voila. You really do have the best of both worlds.

The time saver in MIR, is truly a remarkable breakthrough that can't be spoken about enough. There is so much less work, for such a much better result. (now that it's for mac!) (did I say that before?) hehe 😛

Anyway, MIR is a mix engine for any studio even if they don't use VSL, IMO, and it's here to stay.

MIR Pro comes with the special integrated MIRacle plugin, which is a surround capable algorithmic reverb. No need to use the Vienna Suite Hybrid Reverb for sweetening. You can of course, but MIRacle has been designed for the purpose and is included in the package to begin with.

Yeah no offense to Ozone, it's great for what it is, but just saying...

@Animus said:

I bought it.  I think it is great and worth it.  But I think it's also too expensive.  :-)  They should take out all the stock venue impulses and make them all a la carte and make the MIR Pro engine cheaper.  That way you can buy what you want, and make it within range of more people's budgets..  I only really wanted the Teldex.

 1+

One thing I always think about impulse recordings is that they record empty halls, but all halls sound better when full, with people adding some sound absorption.

Of course, coughing, shuffling real people would be no use, so perhaps you should fill your halls with 2,000 rotting pig carcasses before the recordings? Or maybe not.

:) 

Most halls will sound different without audience, no doubt - but the most prestigous venues have taken precautions to minimize the effect. The chairs in Vienna Konzerthaus for example are equipped with upholstery on their lower surface, too, so they will act quite absorptive when folded up.

It isn't even an unanimously accepted "rule" that empty halls sound worse for orchestral recordings. See this recent discussion on Gearslutz, for example: - > http://www.gearslutz.com/board/6843340-post37.html

... food for thought ... ;-)

I have waited for something like VI intruments Pro and MIR Pro since I started with giga-sampler and then gigastudio, saving money and upgrading year after year and now I have found the senses peace.

I can't imagine nothing better and, as maybe  Italy  goes bankrupt, I hope for some times there will be nothing as good as this in the music world to buy [8-|]

Sergino

@Dietz said:

Most halls will sound different without audience, no doubt - but the most prestigous venues have taken precautions to minimize the effect. The chairs in Vienna Konzerthaus for example are equipped with upholstery on their lower surface, too, so they will act quite absorptive when folded up.

It isn't even an unanimously accepted "rule" that empty halls sound worse for orchestral recordings. See this recent discussion on Gearslutz, for example: - > http://www.gearslutz.com/board/6843340-post37.html

... food for thought ... 😉

Actually I have more problem with solo instruments recorded in an empty hall (or a studio for that matter), than an orchestra. I know from personal experience that recording a solo instrument in a hall or an ambient studio sounds nothing like recording it when there are swathes of orchestral musicians polluting the air, even if they are not playing....!

This is one reason that to my ears any sample libraries that have been recorded in an ambient settings have real problems with solo instruments.

DG

There was a request for "raw" MIR sound - here is a mix I just finished that is straight MIR SE with nothing done to it except adjusting wet/dry ratios and volume:

www.williamkersten.com/page5.html

@William said:

There was a request for "raw" MIR sound -  here is a mix I just finished that is straight MIR SE with nothing done to it except adjusting wet/dry ratios and volume:

www.williamkersten.com/page5.html

An impressive result, congratulations! Did you do EQ-ing on instruments? Which venue did you use?

Thanks a bunch Bill, that is what I have been asking for, and I'm sure a lot of other people would appreciate. MIR is definitely special. Nice piece too! The aesthetic took me back to the late '70s-'80s; last golden age of soundtracks.

 Thanks Goran and Errikos!   I did no EQ at all.  It is the Vienna Konzerthaus 7th row.  The only mixing work I did was:

1) place the instruments on the stage

2) change the dry/wet controls in MIR to taste

3) adjust the levels a little here and there

I thought I would mention I did some layering of strings, and wonder how that sounds to others.  It is debatable whether you should do it I guess, but I like to experiment.   It is mainly Appassionata, but on violins and violas I layered in slightlly randomized solo and orchestral, and on cellos I layered the solo. 

William, out of sheer interest: Was this mix done  with "legacy" MIR, or with MIR Pro? Did you use any of the Character Presets?

Kind regards,

Wow that was a cool piece of music.  William, you said you did no EQ'ing or anything eh?  That's impressive.  A very emotional and grand finish by the way.

I know I very much love MIR for what it can do.  To me it was worth the money because of the time it has saved me.  An interesting thing that I like to do is sit at my DAW and import a live recording of string symphonies, load up a venue of MIR and then try to achieve that sound (this means sometimes lots of changes of the venue and the string sections I choose since I own them all).  I will tell you that it is scary how many times I have been able to reproduce it so perfectly, that I have to drive the modwheel (velocity crossfade) up to the maximum just to make my Appassionata Strings and Orchestral strings scream at me to know they are there.  They blend so absolutely perfectly with the real recording, that I am baffled how people come on these forums saying the strings don't sound like real strings.  Either my ears are completely gone at this point or those people are truly brain dead and tone deaf.  It is simply a lie to say these strings don't sound real.  The key understanding I have to try to adjust to is that they don't always sound like "live strings", they sound like "recorded strings".  There is a difference.  It takes much more ability than I posses to create that true live sound.  Beat does it magically with Chamber Strings.  I just don't have the understanding yet to do what he does on those (even with MIR).  It's not the application, it's the dummy who's driving it...

I own all the Symphobias (which I use the least of all), LASS and many others and I can tell you that 8-9 out of 10 times, in every case VSL strings were the ones that matched the recordings to a perfection.  Sometimes, when I find a string section that seems to be "brighter" and my Orchestral Strings are not quite bringing out that added brightness, I layer one section of LASS on them and viola, perfection.  I could probably do this with the Vienna Suite I own but I have to be honest that I am completely lost as to why or how to apply the plug-ins.  I am 90% musician, 9% moron, 1% sound engineer.

Thank God for MIR.  Takes the complication out of my templates, but I am still trying to learn how to create a much more dry experience (while removing the blips in between the notes to create that much closer intimate dry sound but still lush and smooth).

Maestro2be

 thanks maestro2be!        Agree totally about MIR - it is a work of software genius. 

Hi Dietz,

No, this was done with MIR SE, the latest build, no character presets besides  the "pure"  setting except for on the basses, where I used the "bite" setting to get them a more aggressive    

Sincere congrats William. That was truly a great piece of work. You wrote that you adjusted the levels a bit, so was your starting point before this the natural volume levels? Then I was wondering, at some point, should you happen to have the time, could you write down the dry/wet ratios you used? If the work is not too big.

I started this thread because I was toying with the idea of buying in to MIR, and the positive reactions had got me as far as adding it to the next shopping list.

However (see my other thread elsewhere), it turns out that if your USB key fails and it's over 2 yrs old, VSL charge you €20 per license for a replacement. If you have 50 licenses, that's €1,000 just to use the software you've already bought. So in view if this awful policy, I'm certainly NOT buying anything else by VSL unless I really feel that there's no alternative.

(This hidden policy came to light when my USB key recently failed).