MIR Pro: Instrument Profiles and VI Pro Matrices

[DaddyO]

While sometimes from a practical standpoint it seems useful to construct VI Pro instances with Matrix Presets that include multiple instruments (and matrices), it occurs to me that this could present problems with MIR Pro.

Example: Say I want to keep all my Violins (Solo, Chamber, Orchestral, and Appassionata) on one track in Cubase. I can construct a VI Pro instance with a separate matrix for each and add each matrix to a Violins Preset. Using keyswitches I can then select which Violin I want to play at any time in the track. 

But there are different MIR Pro instrument profiles for the different violins, and yet so far as I can tell I can only set one profile in MIR for each VI Pro instance. So that if set up the instance with an instrument profile for Solo Strings (with a narrow width) but later select Orchestral Strings (with a more extensive width), the Orchestral Strings will play with too narrow an instrument profile.

So I have abandoned doing this with Strings. The problem is obvious.

But let's say I want to put all my Oboes in one instance, with French in one matrix, Viennese in another, d'Amore in another, and Oboes a3 in another. The a3's clearly will not match the right profile. What about the different single oboes still have problems because, thought the widths may be similar, there are other aspects to MIR instrument profiles that are tailored to each type of oboe? Is this a problem, or are the profiles primarily just width, something that would be similar for each oboe?

[Dewdman42]

Thanks for bringing up this topic..its definitely an interesting problem and I think a common one..how to get one track for an instrument, that feeds to multiple different sample products in VEP one way or another.  The VIPro matrix is very useful for that kind of situation, but I think as you have pointed out..this will not work well with MIRPro.  Ironically I think it would work out ok with MIRx since MIRx integrates into VIPro better.  But I don't have MIRx to comfirm that.

I think the only work around is to avoid the VIPro matrix for that kind of use.  Put each instrument into VEP on seperate channels, each one using a different midi channel.

There are other solutions for directing a single track in your daw to different channels, essentially doing the matrix concept, controlled from your DAW.  

I see you're using Cubase, so unfortunately I can't help you with that, but you want to look into Expression Maps that can channelize rather then inserting keyswitches.

[DaddyO]

Thanks for your comment, Dewdman. I think you are right. And I think your conclusion that MIR Pro precludes the approach of multiple instrument matrices in one preset is correct, as well as your suggestion to try using Cubase Expression Maps.

The trouble with Expression Maps is that the list is already too long. I could tack on at the end expression maps for each channel, but it could make the whole approach unwieldy.

Also, having a separate VEP channel for each instrument makes VEP more unwieldy, especially if you're trying to keep the number of instances practical. Basically you'd have to either have HUGE instances or one VEP instance for each instrument. That's a lot of instances to work with.

I'd really like to see some comment from Paul or someone else from VSL, just in case I'm missing something. I don't think there is anything that solves this problem without creating other sorts of problems, but I thought aking the question was worth a shot. There's always a chance that some genius somewhere has figured something out.

Again, thanks, Dewdman.

[Paul]

Hi,

The MIR PRO instrument profile is selected from the instrument loaded in the  first slot of the first cell of the first matrix in a preset.

The idea behind our instruments is to use one virtual instrument for each section or solo instrument. 

One idea would be to organize the different instruments in FOLDERS in VE PRO (all on the same MIDI Channel) and automate either the MUTE/SOLO buttons or the whole channel (activate/deactivate) according to your wishes. 

Best, 
Paul

[Dewdman42]

Well you don’t neccessarily need one instance per instrument. I use LPX and we are unable to do an orch mock-up through one single instance, but i think one instance per instrument is also overkill and pita to work with. It you can have a half dozen or so instances and it can all work out. But from cubase you don’t need to. You have up to 40 ports with 16 midi channels each and you can use folders to organize them. I hear you that I think you’re mostly just not wanting to see 5 or 10 mixer channels representing a single instrument you’d rather see all that messiness kept inside vipro so that your mixer view is cleaner. I would propose to you that this makes sense for articulations of one instrument or section, but might not make sense for entirely different sections that would require a different mir profile. You’d probably want to mix those different things in a different way through the mixer also so having them broken out to separate vipro channels kind of makes sense. What I would do is use the matrix for sets of articulations within a single cohesive sounding instrument that can basically be mixed as if all the articulations are being played by the same player on the same instrument. Whenever you need to change to something that is essentially like the player changing or the player swapping instruments, then use a seperate vipro channel. Most likely that will make mirpro profiles line up 1:1 for each vipro channel. If you still want those different virtual players to have only one daw track then do that from cubase expression maps, you’d only need one midi channel per virtual player, but the expression maps would be bit more complicated because they need to send keyswitches for the articulations, and channelizing for changing which virtual instrument the virtual player is playing. Or like Paul said you could use direct automation to mute/solo a vep folder for choosing the player, and just use expression maps for the articulations.