Miroslav Philharmonik 2

[HCMarkus]

I remember my great uncle playing sounds on the big organ (not sure it was mighty or a Wurlitzer) he had set up in the living room. He'd manipulate the stops and exclaim, "Now THIS sounds EXACTLY like a clarinet… Now THIS sounds EXACTLY like a bassoon…"

To my young ears, it all sounded exactly like an organ.

[bayswater]

I remember my great uncle playing sounds on the big organ (not sure it was mighty or a Wurlitzer) he had set up in the living room. He'd manipulate the stops and exclaim, "Now THIS sounds EXACTLY like a clarinet… Now THIS sounds EXACTLY like a bassoon…"

To my young ears, it all sounded exactly like an organ.

We must be related. When I was maybe 10 or 12, my uncle bought a huge organ and spent a huge amount on it, and told us how realistic the sounds were. I tried it out and asked undiplomatically, why everything sounded like an organ. Decades later, his granddaughter tried out my K2000 and asked me the same question.

[mikehalloran]

I remember my great uncle playing sounds on the big organ (not sure it was mighty or a Wurlitzer) he had set up in the living room. He'd manipulate the stops and exclaim, "Now THIS sounds EXACTLY like a clarinet… Now THIS sounds EXACTLY like a bassoon…"

To my young ears, it all sounded exactly like an organ.

We must be related. When I was maybe 10 or 12, my uncle bought a huge organ and spent a huge amount on it, and told us how realistic the sounds were. I tried it out and asked undiplomatically, why everything sounded like an organ. Decades later, his granddaughter tried out my K2000 and asked me the same question.

Are you certain you're not talking about my grandfather? I think he bought a Baldwin. I must have been 6 or 7 years old when he sat us down and demonstrated all the instruments. I rarely found him boring but that afternoon was an exception.

[HCMarkus]

Seems like I struck a chord. Maybe that was the problem… clarinets and bassoons are monophonic.

Interesting comment from the young relative Bays. Just goes to show how important playing style is when emulating instruments. I guess that's why just switching patches from "piano" to "strings" never quite does the job.

[bayswater]

Interesting comment from the young relative Bays. Just goes to show how important playing style is when emulating instruments. I guess that's why just switching patches from "piano" to "strings" never quite does the job.

Exactly. I find it comforting that you still can't really make music by simply triggering samples and changing patches.

[Shooshie]

I remember my great uncle playing sounds on the big organ (not sure it was mighty or a Wurlitzer) he had set up in the living room. He'd manipulate the stops and exclaim, "Now THIS sounds EXACTLY like a clarinet… Now THIS sounds EXACTLY like a bassoon…"

To my young ears, it all sounded exactly like an organ.

My family had bought a Conn theater organ with dozens of stops. I loved playing on it, but was disappointed that it didn't have all the instruments like clarinet, saxophone, violin, etc. It DID have oboe, and that was pretty nice, but it didn't sound like an oboe, exactly. At least, not like the oboists that I liked. Instead, it had "brass, reeds, diapason," and other general terms. It also had tuba and string bass.

I tried to do Saint Saens' Carnival of the Animals, on it, but it just sounded like... you guessed it... an organ!

But man-o-man... what a Nazard 2 ⅔! Sounded just like one!

Shooshie

[Michael Canavan]

This always perplexed me about organs and synthesizers VS "real" instruments?
Why? organs and synths can sound like nothing else, why emulate something halfway?

With samplers I get for sure though.

[mhschmieder]

There are no pure anagrams that work, but here are a couple that add or remove just one letter:

larme(s) vois -- I (or you) see tear(s)
voir mal -- have poor judgment
mal voir -- see evil

Hopefully none of these pseudo-anagrams will come to describe this product once released.

[mhschmieder]

I found a positive review of Miroslav 2, finally. Mostly, this library is being raked through the coals.

Of particular interest, the reviewer points out that there is a specific set of jazz bass patches, separate from the pizzicato symphonic bass patches.

I hadn't noticed that when quickly running through the library, so I'll be comparing those to my preferred VSL Upright this weekend.

So far (and I own a LOT of upright libraries), VSL is the only one that sounds like an actual upright to me, played in the jazz fashion.

With the exception of the rather flexible one from Orange Tree (which might find its way into any non-jazz upright tracks I ever wind up doing), most of the other libraries sound like piezo pickups to me, vs. well-miked acoustic basses. And maybe that's what some people want (but not me).

[Shooshie]

Mostly, this library is being raked through the coals.

You got any links? I don't trust bad reviews of old products. Usually, the reviewer either has a bone to pick with someone, or he/she is young and does not understand where to look for quality in old things like Miroslav. I used to trash Miroslav, too, in the days when I used it in my Kurzweil, but these new libraries were making it seem so passé. Then Frodo showed me the error of my ways, and I came to realize that Miroslav was actually a pretty good library by any standards. It's more a matter of how you use it and how you get what you need from it. After that, I used it instead of GPO or MOTU Symphonic Instrument (this was a number of years back) when I wanted quick-and-dirty mockups.

You have to go with what you like, so I can't say that'll work for everyone, and maybe this new version managed to find a way to screw up the remaining value of Miroslav, but I'd like to read the review and see if he/she makes any sense.

Shooshie

[yamguitar]

I just wanted to say that I'm with you, Shooshie --- it might not have been the fanciest or the "best" library by the standards of some, but I got an awful lot out of the first Miroslav Philharmonik. My dad was the principal horn in the NC Symphony from the time I was born until I was in my 30's, so I feel qualified to say I know what an orchestra really sounds like... onstage, offstage, up close in a rehearsal room and far away in a grand hall... and I remember thinking that most of the other libraries I auditioned back when I initially tried Miroslav --- including many that came highly recommended --- sounded utterly, truly awful to me. Like garbage, to be honest. To be fair, that was a long time ago, and there are many more options now. Still, Miroslav usually had something pretty close to what I needed, enough that I could make it work even if it wasn't perfect. I used Miroslav until it plain stopped working as my OS upgrades, etc., passed it by. I have other stuff now, but I'd be very keen to hear this new one. It might be great for blending with the other libraries I own.

[mhschmieder]

Shooshie, it's a brand new product released just a month ago, as are the reviews.

The positive review -- first I've seen so far -- is WAY more detailed and useful than the negative reviews (of which I've seen more than for any product I can ever remember!).

I printed it out, because there are so many useful tips on how to get the best out of it, along with accolades for the oboes and a few other instruments that the reviewer feels can give better timbre and more organic phrasing than some of the top libraries out there (including VSL -- the reviewer fortunately owns ALL of them so doesn't have a bone to pick).

[Shooshie]

Shooshie, it's a brand new product released just a month ago, as are the reviews.

According to what I read, it's still got Miroslav Vitous' original samples at its heart. Did I read that wrong? Did they resample everything? It's hard to read through the PR stuff, but it seemed like they were implying it was built upon the tech of the old versions. I should go read that stuff again; I may have misread.

Shooshie

[cuttime]

Shooshie, it's a brand new product released just a month ago, as are the reviews.

According to what I read, it's still got Miroslav Vitous' original samples at its heart. Did I read that wrong? Did they resample everything? It's hard to read through the PR stuff, but it seemed like they were implying it was built upon the tech of the old versions. I should go read that stuff again; I may have misread.

Shooshie

Seems to be a mix of old and new samples the way I read it. From the IKM site:

Every new sample has been expertly recorded and optimized for playback from a keyboard — they’ve all been hand edited and voiced by musicians so they retain that same emotional and musical characteristics and quality that made the original Miroslav Philharmonik such a mainstay classic.

Miroslav Philharmonik 2 also contains all of the samples from the original Miroslav Philharmonik virtual instrument that provide additional strings, brass and woodwinds but also choir, keyboard instruments, chromatic instruments and percussion.

[mhschmieder]

It's 100% new. The old content is shunted to the side as Miroslav 1, and isn't even the entire instrument as it's missing the all-important breath control patches that made that library so unique. So I advise keeping your Miroslav 1 or Miroslav CE (including the versions imported to SampleTank's latest version).

It does, however, appear that Miroslav himself was involved with the new project (although they don't really get into that), as the string bass pizzicato set has one patch called "Bass Pizz Vitous Style" which is their cue that this is the jazz version of pizzicato bass.

I have just evaluated that specific patch (but no others) in the context of my jazz project, and can't use it for two reasons: the reverb appears to be baked-in (I can only find EQ settings to edit), and they didn't put a hip-shot on the bass so it only goes down to "E" (I need it to go down to "D" for several songs, and might eventually need it to go down to "C", which is pretty common for hip-shot extenders).

The timbre is quite nice, and that specific patch takes a bit over 70 MB in memory when loaded, if that says anything about the depth of sampling (in other words, not on the level of VSL, but not what you'd get on a Korg M1 either ).

I am able to tame the resonance and darkness of VSL's Upright Bass Jazz Library (separate from their orchestral bass pizzicato patches) pretty easily using Vienna Suite Pro plug-ins, so it's no big deal, and their bass does sound almost identical to my own upright bass, so it would even blend well if I did a mixture of live bass and MIDI bass.

The Vitous bass is quite warm but is miked properly and played well, unlike most so-called jazz upright bass libraries out there that seem to be recorded by people who have no exposure to the genre (especially in its breadth and history).

At any rate, the room ambience of the recordings was a criticism in that positive review; that there was more control of ambience in the original edition. Yet it isn't an echoic space overall; just not what I'd want for an intimate jazz recording. So it's really only a problem for the Vitous pizzicato bass.

Overall, this is a warm library, not at all bright, but without the vibrato that was common in the original edition. Possibly they felt the market was mostly western and not familiar with eastern european preferences for vibrato on orchestral horn and other instruments.

I also suspect -- based on some limited tracking with flute, bass, cello, and a few other instruments -- that it will make for a more realistic sounding "first mockup" sound source, and with way less trouble, then many other libraries.

So I tend to think the positive review that I found, has correctly identified this library's strengths and that it is worth the upgrade cost but maybe a hard sell for fresh buyers given the competition.