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  4. Difficulty with mixing VI instruments in MIR Pro

  • Difficulty with mixing VI instruments in MIR Pro

    P
    P

    I don't know if other have the same problem, but I find it very difficult to match my MIR Pro instruments to other developer's libraries. I know that these have, in general, some processing going on.

    Here is the issue:

    If I have my volume of my iMac very high, everything is fine, the dry/wet ratio and all that stuff. If I reduce the volume it feels like the "room" of MIR Pro vanishes, that there isn't enough "power". Does this makes sense? I also use the "Natural Volume" feature, but it's not the solution to the problem. It makes it even more difficult. :)

    So actually I have either to raise my volume back up or I have to make all other libraries drastically quieter... what I don't want. 

    Some ideas:

    • Is this because the original silent stage recording have no or very few processing?
    • Do I need a compressor or a limiter?
    • Do I have to drastically reduce the volume of the silent stage recordings first before I put them into MIR Pro and then raise the volume again after MIR Pro? So has this something to do with gain?

     

    Any suggestions are welcomed!
  • civilization 3C
    civilization 3C

    Your primary problem is using natural volume, which is IME rather _comparatively_ low gain, while the other libraries are doing no such thing as that. I do use other things (which have other room sounds which is something else to content with; eg., if you're using Orchestral Tools most of it is in the Teldex hall, so for MIR if you have the Teldex venue you're golden. However I find that Synchron Stage blends very well with those things; Teldex is not wide but deep and Synchron Wide is not deep, so one may have some Berlin in the back), and I never use natural volume. It appears to me that natural volume is made for pure VSL work and a classical kind of orchestral sound.
  • civilization 3C
    civilization 3C

    and, yeah, you might want to make some things appear more prominent with a compressor before MIR. The Vienna Suite contains a fair amount of presets for VSL instruments and ensembles, and then there's the MIR profiles.
  • P
    P

    Are you sure with Natural Volume? In my opinion, it's very useful and I'm very happy with it. Except in some cases where it's quite low. Of course, natural volume reflects as if the instruments were standing side by side without any positioning in the room. As every library, i.e. every room / hall it's recorded in, is different as well as the microphones being used, especially in combination with various spot microphones drastically change the balance.

    OrchestralTools, for example, is balanced, so this natural volume is already applied (plus the positioning which additionally changes the balance). The silent stage recordings were recorded at the same volumes. So natural volume is really needed.

    As said: I'm very happy with the result at high volume on my iMac. It matches the other libraries. But my problem is only that other libraries sound the same no matter with what volume I'm listening to them. The output from MIR Pro "vanishes" at lower volume (in lack of a better term). Maybe this resembles the natural dynamic range. Maybe I need a compressor then? I don't know. :)
  • DietzD
    VSL Team
    DietzD
    last edited
    last edited

    @civilization 3 said:

    [...] It appears to me that natural volume is made for pure VSL work and a classical kind of orchestral sound.

    ^^^^^^^^^  This!

    Natural Volume is a hand-crafted collection of settings for Vienna Instruments. The goal is to bring _all_ instruments (ranging from a Violin flautando to a fff-hit on a Tamtam) on the same virtual stage, which means that the headroom has to be huge - thus the seemingly quiet individual volumes.

    -> https://www.vsl.info/en/manuals/vienna-instruments-mirx/natural-volume-overview

    Don't use Natural Volume when you work in a hybrid setting and/or with 3rd party libraries unless you know very well what you're trying to achieve. 😊

    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library