I know odes don't help anyone, but I have to vent my joy about the purchase of MIR Pro 3D I made in September 2023, but let me start from the beginning:
Prologue
From September 2017 to August 2023, I studied film music (I won't say where at this point, as I haven't yet decided how anonymous I want to be in this forum) and graduated with a Bachelor of Music. This official degree programme had been preceded by an unofficial two-year pre-study programme in which I had acquired basic music production skills with a focus on MIDI programming, among other things; it was virtually tailor-made for the Bachelor's degree programme. Before these two years of preparation, I had never heard the term "DAW" or "sequencer", let alone touched such software. Ironically, I had already heard the name "Cubase", because this software had once been mentioned, resp. shown in an old documentary about Hans Zimmer, but I had not known what the general name for such a programme is. Since the main lecturer of the preparatory course was a fan of Pro Tools, which was still available for purchase at the time and not just for subscription, he recommended that all his students buy this DAW if they weren't already using (another) one. I followed this and his recommendation to buy Native Instruments' Komplete bundle to get started. He, who was also a big fan of VSL, always said that one day we should buy libraries from this company as he thought they were the best on the market. We naïve beginners seriously thought he was kidding us because we kids of our time adored the sound of Spitfire Audio and Orchestral Tools, which we thought sounded the most "Hollywood". How embarrassing one can be...
Main story
For a long time during my studies, five years to be precise, I continued to think along similar lines, but in the meantime I bought the piccolo trumpet, the solo Wagner tuba, the concert guitar, the bass waterphone, as well as the timpani, gongs and tam-tams. I bought the first two libraries because I really like the timbres and am particularly fond of the Wagner tuba. Strangely enough, the purchase of all the products just mentioned made me doubt the quality of VSL even more, because I struggled to get them "wet". To anticipate: only after those five years did I realise what the important (!!!) difference between algorithmic and convolution reverb is! How stupid can one be? Is that even legal? Until then, I had always thought that the only difference was that the latter corresponded to real rooms. It only dawned on me so late that you can't get the "dryness" out of samples with algorithmic reverb. How much can one live under a rock and ignore reality? But back to the time before the enlightening realisation: out of desperation, I even bought the pro version of Vienna Instruments (yes, you still had to pay for it in the old days), which of course didn't help because I didn't buy MIRx due to the aforementioned, but not yet received realisation and lack of budget. This led to a frustration that made me angry at VSL and inwardly accuse them of lying and making false promises. Fortunately, I never wrote an email to the poor souls at support because it would have been a hate-filled tirade. I never blamed myself because other developers' libraries sounded good when I used them... Oh boy, was I NAÏVE: how arrogant can one be, just because one can get a good, not necessarily very good, result faster with those doesn't mean one has mastered the craft!
Well, when I finally realised that convolution reverb is needed to place dry samples/instruments in a room, I lost faith in myself. Several times I facepalmed myself because I realised my own idiocy. Accordingly, since I didn't have a convolution reverb plugin, I used to go to the university studio to add wetness to VSL's dry samples with AltiVerb. Being brought down to earth so hard made me research convolution reverb extensively. As a result, I knew that one day I would buy MIR Pro 3D, especially as I tried out the 30-day demo just over a year ago. The day of purchase was 4 September 2023.
Ode
After about half a year of intensive use and experimentation, I came to the conclusion: MIR Pro 3D is the best software I have ever purchased! I love the flexibility so much that I prefer to buy VI Series, "SYNCHRON-ized" libraries (can be turned dry) or both versions, although the Synchron series is also very exciting. Both samplers (Vienna Instruments Pro and Synchron Player) have their pros and cons each, but that's another topic. In the meantime, I have bought quite a few instruments and bundles. Of course, MIR Pro 3D doesn't eliminate the need for careful composition, orchestration and MIDI programming, but it "gives you the space" to achieve a perfect sound. My next goal is to purchase all the room packs one by one, since as a recent graduate I'm typically strapped for cash and could only treat myself to one as one is included for free. Making the decision here was really hard, because on one hand I think the sound of the Wiener Konzerthaus is phenomenal, on the other hand I have some libraries that were recorded at Teldex (hmm, which ones can those be🤔): do I want the fantastic sound of a world-renowned concert hall and its foyer, or do I want the VSL libraries in the same room as the others? In the end, I decided in favour of the "Studios & Stages" pack, which includes Teldex. I'm happy with the decision, although I'm still weeping after the Wiener Konzerthaus, as it also includes a few other studio rooms, which means sonic diversity.
I love the freedom of placement, the customisation options right down to the directional characteristics of the microphones, the preset system, the parallel use of different rooms and so much more that I could go on and on here. I'll just say this much: MIR Pro 3D invites you to experiment as much as a sandbox, so that the possibilities seem endless. From a purely objective point of view, buying a DAW (then Pro Tools, now Cubase) is my most important and best purchase, because nothing works without one, but with a good portion of subjectivity and joy factored in, MIR Pro 3D is my best, most important and favourite purchase!
