To give you quick answers:

Q: "Is is possible to simulate 2 mic positions per instrument in MIR PRO, like a Tree & Close ?"
A: Yes, this already happens. The "Dry/Wet" slider defines the relative amount of Close to Main microphone. The "Dry" signal is already altered, but without reverb, so it is not really dry but represents the close mic-position already correctly placed in the room. MIR has not a Decca-Tree mic-setup, but you will get really good results with the main-mic presets (or make your own). I mostly use "Blumlein" (great for capturing the room) and "Triple-8 Coinsident" (if I need good room and stereo impression, but need more center for choir or solo-instruments).

Q: "Any maybe be able to automate the amount of close mice?"
A: Yes, either do it be altering the Dry/Wet Offset parameter, or if you need more control of each individual instrument, use VEP to route the "Dry" and Wet signals seperatly and automate the amount of these.

Hope I could help you. Here are some additional information:
- If your music sounds too muddy after adding MIR, use the Room-EQ (add a High-Pass)
- Shorten the reverberation time by half or even less and add MIRacle to the Wet signal for a hybrid reverb approach.

@bbelius said:

To give you quick answers: Q: "Is is possible to simulate 2 mic positions per instrument in MIR PRO, like a Tree & Close ?"A: Yes, this already happens. The "Dry/Wet" slider defines the relative amount of Close to Main microphone. The "Dry" signal is already altered, but without reverb, so it is not really dry but represents the close mic-position already correctly placed in the room.

As a matter of fact, the dry signal component of MIR Pro is perfectly aligned with the position of the IRs captured in a hall, by means of Ambisonics decoding.

This might be less obvious in stereo, where the effect boils down to a glorified left/right panning. It can be easily grasped in surround, though were the dry/direct signal's position can be anywhere in relation to the Main Microphone (provided the so-called HotSpot area of the Venue reaches that far, which is the case in all studio venues, for example).

You can even hear a difference in the dry component when just switching between the Main-Mic presets.

Dietz, please clarify again then, I thought we had determined on that other thread that the dry close mic signal, or one of the two, have been time aligned to avoid phasing problems..yes...fine...but that is not the same as inferring depth on the stage.  I thought you said, the dry signal doesn't have ambisonics info in it other then directivity to the close mic...  the wet signal does have stage depth info in it, ...the wet signal has been stripped of the dry signal to avoid the time alignment issue...

Surround panning, when mixing to surround is interesting and good to know info...but still I believe we had estabslished that the dry signal should best be thought of as a close mic, that has been pre-panned in the mixer by the audio engineer...LR for stereo...and 3 dimensions of panning for surround mixer... ok...  This is very much emulating a real recording situation but I just feel its important to clarify that the stage positioning magic of MirPro will not completely reflect the front-to-back positioning of the player, in a stereo mix......only LR position...in the dry signal.  The wet signal will reflect that position via ER's and other information that was captured in the ambisonic stuff.  Or so I thought, and if I thought wrong, then I need to edit my final post on that other thread to be accurate. If the direct sound to the main mic, minus all the ER's and everything, is actually what is present in the dry signal...then that is not really a close mic emulation either.  That is actually what I thought it was before we had that other thread dicussion.

Please clarify and I will go back and edit my posts on that other thread to make sure it is accurate.... 

This is the part from that other thread that I might still be confused about, and should go back and edit that other thread (because I think its a very useful thread), for accuracy...  The last list I posted, see point #10

@Another User said:

If that is all correct as stated, then that about covers it I think. [...]

*two thumbs up* 😊

So, if the dry signal is originating from the main mic...then the direct part that was stripped out of the wet signal, but is present in the dry signal, should already have proxmity information in it...ie...depth on stage.  If so then my point #10 above was not actually accurate and needs to be edited on that other thread.

Admittedly, when you start talking about ambisonics and all that, it can become very confusing for me and for others that aren't intimitely familar with ambisonics technology.  But anyway from that above discussion somehow I got that idea that the dry signal should be thought of more like a close mic that has been panned, and optionally the directivity stuff messed with.

However if the source of the dry signal is actually the direct signal in the main mic...then I would say the proximity EQ aspect of that direct signal *IS* encoded in it and my point #10 above should be deleted.

Nice to read all this info.

There is of course a wet/dry setting in VIP for MirX, but I'm finding that's not enough for me. Doesn't the dry signal of the Main-Mic position still have the supposed distance (say 3-4 meters)? Where'as a true close mic has very little distance. Since the mic's on the Silent-Stage Woodwind resemble close-mic distances (to my ears) I was hoping there might be some kind of real spit signal.

I could just download the demo, but I'd rather not spend the half-day discovering, if it's not going to be enough.

Aren't there any video's showing exacting what I'm talking about? I didn't find any!

Many thanks!

@jammusique said:

Nice to read all this info.

There is of course a wet/dry setting in VIP for MirX, but I'm finding that's not enough for me. Doesn't the dry signal of the Main-Mic position still have the supposed distance (say 3-4 meters)? Where'as a true close mic has very little distance. Since the mic's on the Silent-Stage Woodwind resemble close-mic distances (to my ears) I was hoping there might be some kind of real spit signal.

I could just download the demo, but I'd rather not spend the half-day discovering, if it's not going to be enough.

Aren't there any video's showing exacting what I'm talking about? I didn't find any!

 

Many thanks!

I could be wrong about this and if so I'm sure Dietz will correct me, but I think the dry/wet slider in ViPro via MIRX would do as you are suggesting, that would be brining the raw sampled sound in the instrument more to the forefront, which must be a true close mic.  And I have no idea what MIRx does in that case in terms of mixing its own notion of dry and wet and bringing that into ViPro as the combined "wet".  

What we're talking about here and that other thread, is not the wet vs dry in ViPro, but rather the wet vs dry in MirPro...   When you use MIRx into ViPro and use that wet dry slider...the wet portion is what is coming back from MIRx, the dry portion is the raw instrument as sampled.   However, inside MirPro/MIRx, there is another level of wetness and dryness and a good deal more control over it in MirPro.

Normally when you use MirPro, the entire instrument is inserted into MirPro, the original direct sound from the instrument is cut off...only the MirPro notion of wet and dry is passed on....  

I have no idea whether ViPro's wet/dry slider works the same way, but my intuition would be that the ViPro slider would allow the original completely raw originally sampled sound to be the dry signal, and the wet signal to be whatever MIRx cranks out..

Dietz....????

@Dewdman42 said:

This is the part from that other thread that I might still be confused about

Sorry, must be a language thing. 

What I'm trying to say is that the dry signal component in MIR is placed perfectly in the three dimensions*) of the virtual room, as defined by the Ambisonics output format (a.k.a. "Main Microphone" setup in MIR Pro). The distance of the source in respect to this Main Mic is reflected by "panning" and stereo-width (which will get narrower when the distance between source and Main Mic increases). When activated, the HF-filtering of the air and the rotation filtering of the source will affect the dry signal component, too. This is what I would consider as the "readily placed direct signal" I was talking about.

There are no remenants of the Venue's IRs whatsoever in _that_ part of MIR's signal flow, so it _this_ is what you have meant to say, then you're right. 

*) ... right now, we're only decoding to 2D, actually.

@jammusique said:

Doesn't the dry signal of the Main-Mic position still have the supposed distance (say 3-4 meters)? Where'as a true close mic has very little distance. Since the mic's on the Silent-Stage Woodwind resemble close-mic distances (to my ears) I was hoping there might be some kind of real spit signal.

Well, there's only so much we can do with the input signal. 8-/ ... MIR's concept is based on the idea that we treat the dry signal as a perfectly time-aligned virtual spot mic, which replaces the direct signal components of the impulse responses to avoid phasing and unwanted colouring. That's as "real" as it gets.

BTW: That's a bit like the "Holy Grail" of main-mic-array plus spot-mic-support audio engineers have been trying to achieve for decades in the Real World. 😉 

Maybe I'm conflating ambisonics and IR's.  Are those two different things?  

@Another User said:

*) ... right now, we're only decoding to 2D, actually.

Not sure I understand this...

So if I'm understanding in Mir Pro, we're still just dealing with one set on mic's at a time. That still migh be enough for me since I could seeminjgly vary the distance of the main mics, to simulate bring-up the close mic in a true multi-mic configuration.

@jammusique said:

So if I'm understanding in Mir Pro, we're still just dealing with one set on mic's at a time. That still migh be enough for me since I could seeminjgly vary the distance of the main mics, to simulate bring-up the close mic in a true multi-mic configuration.

MirPro has the possibility of secondary mics also, by default they are usually off, but you can setup another mic array in the room also.

And though I feel like we are still establishing exactly what *IT* is, I think the wet/dry slider in MirPro does provide a dry vs wet component that comes close to approximating what a close spot mic would be picking up as well..but I think that might be slightly different result then what you would get from the ViPro wet/dry slider.  The ViPro version of it would sound "closer" and warmer on the dry end more like a true mic in front of the player.......the MirPro one...I think....would have a bit more distance since it has originated from the main mic, not from actual close mics when encoding the ambisonics...but I need Dietz to verify that.

@Dewdman42 said:

MirPro has the possibility of secondary mics also, by default they are usually off, but you can setup another mic array in the room also.[/quote]Oh, so it does? Guess I'll have to check it out then. I'm surprised there's no VSL video, showing this very think off!

MirPro also comes bundled with an algorithmic reverb called "Miracle" and you can use that in addition to add just a bit more reverb tail to everything to suit your tastes and glue it all together.  

So basically, with Mir Pro...

1. you have source sampled sound inserted into MirRoom
2. MirRoom produces a dry sound and a wet sound, The dry sound has been extracted out, eliminating any reflections.  The wet sound contains all the early reflections and long reflections too that arrive at the main mic array.
3. the wet sound can include two mic arrays, so you could thereotically use the closer main mic array at the conductor stand..which will already have quite a lot of room ambience in it...then mix in some of the other array further back with more ambience.
4. Then you have miracle to add just a touch more of algorithmic reverb tail, if desired on a track by track basis.

What you're using with MIRx, is more of a preset...I have no idea what MIRx gives you for the wet signal in terms of combining all those things I mentioned above that are possible in MirPro...but it gives you back something that sounds wet and ambient, which you can then mix in viPro with the wet/dry slider against hte totally bone dry close mic samples of the instrument itself.

Need confirmation or denial from Dietz about that last sentence whether the dry signal in ViPro is totally bone dry or if ViPro is giving you access to the same wet/dry slider we have in MirPro, but I doubt that.

Sorry, but aren't we re-hashing the same topic over and over again? I have to admit that I begin to lose track of what this thread is about, actually ... 8-/