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).

How much will it cost to me with all the licences I have, SE, SE + Appassionata, 99 % of all the instruments download, MIR, VEP 5, VI 2 ????

@Cyril said:

How much will it cost to me with all the licences I have, SE, SE + Appassionata, 99 % of all the instruments download, MIR, VEP 5, VI 2 ????

well who knows whether they charge €20 for separate instrument licenses, I have no idea. They asked for that for my VE PRO and VI PRO licenses. either way I think someone from VSL ought to say hello and explain exactly what people have to pay for what, so they can make an informed decision what to do instead of getting caught out ...!

In a nutshell: you better believe its worth the money.

@goran_tsch said:

In a nutshell: you better believe its worth the money.

+1 - best investment I've done during the last few years!

Marco