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From another thread:...
But unfortately that sheds no light on the issue of this thread: How to set VI Pro Volume (CC7) so that it doesn't work against MIR's Natural Volume adjustments.
Any wrong CC7 setting will defeat the purpose of MIR's Natural Volume adjustments. In order to avoid wrong CC7 settings, we'd need to know which CC7 settings are right. For that, we'd need VSL's cooperation, and that's what's missing here.
The volume of amplification does not impact timbre, though, for starters.
As if I claimed it did?
* In fact there are in every recording studio. LOL! Where in your experience does this dogma derive from?
[Rhetorical Question]
In fact there are in every recording studio. LOL! Where in your experience does this dogma derive from?
Does your experience in recording studios entitle you to tell me which chords and notes to compose too, or only how I should adjust my volumes in my own compositions?
The "dogma" you're railing against is all in your head. I'm just asking how to operate this computer program in order to get it to function as advertised. Your music isn't important enough to me for me to care how you set your own levels; please understand that. You took my request for customer support, and you made it about your own music, in your mind. It's not really about you and your music. I've never given a moment's thought to your music; understand now?
I'm not interested in you, as your point seems only to take offense from my request for customer-support on a company's customer-support website.
Come on guys, no need to bicker. The question as I understood it is simply: how do the volume faders in VI Pro have to be set to use the natural volume feature of MIR correctly. Indeed a clarification from VSL would be welcome, and I'm sure they will give an answer once they get aware of the question. Their support is really great and they are as helpful as you could wish. So, I'd simply write an email to their support aksing the question.
Meanwhile, the logical solution would be to set the volume sliders in VI Pro to the same value for each instrument. Maybe try this and listen if it gives you meaningful volume correlations? If something is way off that way you should be able to easily hear it. Otherwise you have a working solution until VSL answers your question.
By the way, the Dynamic Range slider in VI Pro will have an influence too. I guess this one too should be set to the same value for all instruments when working with 'Natural Volume'.
I guess this one too should be set to the same value for all instruments when working with 'Natural Volume'.
I'll refrain from speculating, and wait for VSL to clarify. It also raises the question which Dynamic-Range setting gives the natural amount of dynamic compression/expansion, and which ranges result in unnatural amounts of dynamic compression or expansion. (OT provides this info about BST in their manual, and I for one appreciate it greatly.)
Thanks for your constructive input on this.
Let me interject as well. I will agree with BachRules that achieving a natural sound is really science, and my motivation in buying MIR Pro is that I wouldn't have to worry as much about volumes, EQing, and mixing in general. After I downloaded a demo version of MIR Pro, I realized that I actually do have to worry about these things. For example, in regards to natural volume, I was doing a piece with a timpanis, and strings, and I set everything to "Natural Volume", but the natural volume of the timpani sounded way too load to even be considered natural to my ears (my VIPRO volume was set to 127 for all). I'm talking loud! I had the same experience with the Epic Horns (8 horns). Too loud to be considered natural to my ears. If the Timpani is usually placed in the back, shouldn't the natural volume be lower? In both cases I was forced to lower the volume.
Anyway, I ended up buying MIR Pro because I think it does a great job that is close enough to natural. Maybe this feature will be refined in future versions. For now, I see it as a guide really.
///
For example, in regards to natural volume, I was doing a piece with a timpanis, and strings, and I set everything to "Natural Volume", but the natural volume of the timpani sounded way too load to even be considered natural to my ears ///
A single Timpani player is quite capable of being heard over 40 string players, a forte Timpani is loud.
The solution is not to turn the Timpani down in volume, but to play with softer dynamics,
A forte struck Timpani at a reduced volume level is not going to sound right.
Just tell the Timpani player not to hit the Timps so hard !
I looked at the natural volume fader for the timpani and it is the highest compared to the other instruments. This seems wrong considering that a Timpani is really in the back. I tend to prefer softer dynamics for all instruments and the timpani simply sounded too load to be considered natural. I will send an example later.
Have you ever looked at the last page of the MIRx Manual? All values used for Natural Volume are listed there. Timpanis, Gongs, Piatti, Tamtams, Bass- and Snaredrums are the instruments with the smallest volume-offsets (read: By comparison they are the loudest ones.)
HTH,
I respectfully disagree. When most of your strings have large offsets, and your timpani has very little (even none), it sounds abnormally unatural! Think about it. The relative balance is distorted. I will send an example so you can clearly hear it. There is something wrong with this formala. The relative levels between timpani and other instruments is too large. For example, if the timpani has a large sound by itself, and you are not adding any volume offset, you are further making it even louder. The patch I was using was the timpani roll. This was for the Hollywood competition a few months back. I will send it in a few hours.
Interesting discussion. The art and science division is not so hard and fast as implied here. There’s a blend of knowledge useful to the artist and scientist drawn from acoustics, psychoacoustics and perception at work that are all useful in guiding the actions and decisions of the composer/orchestrator. There’s always an interaction at work between the objective, measurable aspects of sound and their subjective, perceptual outcomes. For pretty much every aspect of what we do this division between measurement and perception exists and that’s where science and art blend — a useful blend to keep in mind, and pretty powerful too when you start to leverage that interaction in the making of well-crafted art, which is anything but "anything goes".
From my own experience in both audio engineering, music production and composition, I can add a further ‘rationalization’ of how Natural Volume works in relation to ensemble balance. When the sound of an instrument is captured in recording, the general goal is to record it at the highest level possible without distortion. This gives us the best quality sample with the highest dynamic range and lowest signal to noise ratio. But, as a consequence, quiet instruments, when played back at full level, will sound unnaturally loud in comparison to loud instruments, for which the recording level has to be lowered so as not to overload the recording system. This reveals the logic behind the ‘Natural Volume’ system. If you take a look at the table of Natural Volumes for the VSL instruments Dietz referred to, you can see that the quieter the instrument or ensemble is, the more reduction in its level is applied as ‘Natural Volume’. Instruments in the violin family are among the quietest in the orchestra, which is one of the reasons one need so many in a section to strike the desired balance in an orchestra in which almost every other instrument is significantly louder. To achieve a doubling of perceived loudness you need to increase the level by about 6 dB. Simply doubling the number of instruments won’t do the trick because adding t wo sounds of the same intensity only results in a 3 dB increase in level. So there’s a counterintuitive relation at work here between the number of instruments and their perceived loudness that also need to be taken into account. Art informs science.
The timpani is, indeed, an instrument with a huge dynamic range and can generate among the loudest sounds in the orchestra when played hard. Anything with that size of vibrating diaphram and corresponding resonator is gonna be loud! This is fundamental orchestration technique. Things get complicated in the age of electronic recording and mixing. The technical aspects of electronic/digital audio production can cause these real-world details to be lost. Before the age of audio production the two basic controls over balance were the interaction of the acoustics of the concert hall and the group of players under the direction of a conductor. Now, in the age of audio production, if you want the timpani to be present at lower levels a judicious application of EQ can help bring it out without resorting to playing it louder and overwhelming the ensemble of quieter instruments. This may not necessarily be ‘Natural’ according to the laws of acoustics that determine the sound an instrument in a particular hall, but may sound more ‘Natural’ to the ear. Where does one draw the line?
In addition, players will naturally modulate the intensity of their playing based on the acoustics of the room they play in. If you recall, all the VSL samples have been recorded in one and the same neutral acoustic environment. That’s not the acoustic environment you’re composing, arranging, and orchestrating for. We put our samples in one of several virtual spaces based on either the venues provided by MIR or some other spaces based on impulse response recordings, or even algorithmic simulations of resonant spaces. The loudness of each and every instrument is altered by the resonant characteristics of the particular space it’s being sounded in. They *will* sound different in relation to each other in different spaces depending on the relation between the frequency content of each instrument and the resonances specific to the space they’re sounded in. In this sense Natural Volume really is only a starting place, based on the ‘ideal’ acoustic of the silent stage, an acoustic space that’s been treated to minimize such resonances and their ability to alter the overall presence of an instrument.
Two cents worth of the art of science, or is that the science of art?
Best,
Kenneth.
... This may not necessarily be ‘Natural’ according to the laws of acoustics that determine the sound an instrument in a particular hall, but may sound more ‘Natural’ to the ear. Where does one draw the line?
In this thread, the topic draws the line by saying: This thread is about objective levels and has absolutely nothing to do with how those levels are percevied by any human's ear. Pretend an asteroid killed all the humans, for this thread. We're just talking about sound waves in a hypothetical world with no humans.
As people continue to misunderstand this topic, I'll continue to clarify that it's unrelated to human perception. It's just about numbers in DAW's and pressure-waves moving through air, not about humans. If I could make that clear using fewer words, I would.
Kenneth,
Thank you so much for your detailed explanation concerning natural volume. I had some misconceptions about it, and I now have a better grasp about why it's there. I dug my piece where I experienced this issue concerning natural volume and realized it was not a timpani but rather a bass drum. Here are the two snippets (bass drum comes in at 20 seconds).
NATURAL VOLUME BASS DRUM
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33556625/Music/Sample_Nat_Vol_Bass.mp3
-8db VOLUME BASS DRUM
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33556625/Music/Sample_Less_Vol_Bass.mp3
MIR PRO WINDOW
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33556625/Images/wm.jpg
You will hear the -8db most likely sounds more natural than the Natural volume one. Please note, velocities are 100 for both.
Maybe this equation needs to be refined, because really, if someone doesn't know what natural volume is, the impression he or she will get is "Oh, let me click this to get a natural sound, natural balance).
Thanks again for your thorough explanation!
Cheers,
-Nektarios
... the impression he or she will get is "Oh, let me click this to get a natural sound, natural balance).
That impression would be correct, assuming "natural" means the resultant air-pressure waves would be objectively the same as the air-pressure waves generated by a live performance in the real physical world.
If you confuse -- as Kenneth does -- "natural" to mean "artistically preferable", of course there's no button that can read the minds of your listeners to find what they prefer to hear.
