AudioMidi no-brainer: Miroslav Philharmonik CE for just $15!

[Killahurts]

Plus I have the Thommasini/Lucato Stradivari Solo Violin and Gofriller Cello, which are amazing solo instruments (Garritan versions). Really and truly amazing. All the Garritan stuff runs in Kontakt 4 Player;

Hey Shoosh, I've got the Stradivari Violin and Gofriller Cello too. I didn't think they were supported anymore, but if you say they work in K4, I want to give them a try on my new computer. I really miss these. IIRC, you had to install the Kontakt player that came on the CD, regardless of whether you would use the full version of Kontakt.

So, will it work just like it used to if I load it into K4? I remember I had to work the mod wheel, keyswitching, sustain pedal and the expression pedal all at the same time to make it work, but with a little practice I actually got pretty good at it.

Sorry for hijacking the tread a little

[Shooshie]

I last used them about 6 weeks ago. Maybe two months. I don't know what changes we've had since then, but assuming that the latest version of OSX didn't knock them out, they should do just fine. Come to think of it, I played the Strad only a couple of weeks ago. I don't think you'll have any trouble.

[Tritonemusic]

Okay, first I must admit that I was careless when installing the sounds. They ended up on my System Drive. I'd like to relocate them to my VI/Sample Drive. Is it as simple as moving a folder from one place to the other, or do I have to uninstall and reinstall to my preferred location?

Thanks for any tips or info you may have to offer.

[Killahurts]

Okay, first I must admit that I was careless when installing the sounds. They ended up on my System Drive. I'd like to relocate them to my VI/Sample Drive. Is it as simple as moving a folder from one place to the other, or do I have to uninstall and reinstall to my preferred location?

Thanks for any tips or info you may have to offer.

I believe you can just copy/move them where you want.. then launch the stand-alone player, go to "prefs" which is on the bottom of the "instruments" side of the screen. There, you will see a browse button, where you can navigate to the library's new location.

[mhschmieder]

Yes, that is correct. You don't have to form an alias as you do with MOTU VI's. It's a simple matter of re-finding them in the prefs, and this then persists to the next session. The G-Force plugs work the same way.

[Armageddon]

Hey Shoosh, I've got the Stradivari Violin and Gofriller Cello too. I didn't think they were supported anymore, but if you say they work in K4, I want to give them a try on my new computer. I really miss these. IIRC, you had to install the Kontakt player that came on the CD, regardless of whether you would use the full version of Kontakt.

So, will it work just like it used to if I load it into K4? I remember I had to work the mod wheel, keyswitching, sustain pedal and the expression pedal all at the same time to make it work, but with a little practice I actually got pretty good at it.

Sorry for hijacking the tread a little

I had severe volume/velocity problems in K4 with both sets, though that could just be how the instruments themselves were set up and I just don't get it. I got severely frustrated and just got rid of them.

[Killahurts]

Here's a question, maybe for Shooshie:

My partner plays a Yamaha WX5 wind controller. I'm wondering if there is a way for us to optimize the wind instruments in this set for use with it? I'm particularly interested in the oboe.

Armageddon:

Those were not easy instruments to master in any event. You can't really get a workable sound from them until you know how the various controllers and velocities affect them. Even then, it takes a good deal of practice to make them sound real. I would work for long periods on them, then get to that "ah-ha!" moment, where I was really making it work, only to take a break and come back and realize I had lost it. They are worth it, I suppose.. but lately I've been getting great sounds out of the solo instruments in LASS with far less effort.

[Shooshie]

Killahurts, using a WX5 is not all milk and honey. It's actually a challenge for me even after all these years. The challenge is in the pitch, mainly, but partly in the strength of the Expression/Breath Control signal. These are controlled by two pots each (four pots) in the neck of the instrument. One of those pots is so often adjusted that it has a knurled thumb-knob on it. The others require a small screwdriver.

The pots are for Wind Zero, Wind Gain, Pitch Zero, and Pitch Gain. I think they call it "Lip" as opposed to "Pitch," but that's what it means. The hardest to set is the pitch. You have to play the instrument a while and get comfortable with where you hold your pitch. If you play with a bite -- or a "tight lip" as some people call it -- you may as well turn off any response to pitch. You've got to train yourself to play with a loose embouchure so that the pitch is relaxed and centered. This is actually the "right" way to play a sax, but I could count on one hand the number of people I've seen actually do this. (I'm one of them, and it took a lot of retraining to learn the right way) Once you are comfortable keeping the pitch open, and not tightening up when something technical comes along, set the Lip Zero so that your natural pitch is on the zero line. Vibrato, then, will consist of up and down motion, rather than just down motion. If you don't do it this way, the pitch will be sharp -- way sharp -- and the vibrato will be an annoying "yah-yah" downward hyperbolic motion rather than a perfect sine wave with a zero crossing.

That takes a little practice, so I'll leave you with that part.

As for the wind, watch your input on the MIDI Graphic Edit window. When you blow hard, you want to be able to hit the 127 mark for BC or Expression. But you don't want to be able to hit that without some effort. At the same time, you want it to be fairly easy blowing for the average of 64, so it takes some adjusting of both the Wind Gain and the Wind Zero in order to find the perfect combination. Too high on the Wind Zero and it will always produce a sound, even when you're not blowing it. Obviously that's the wrong extreme. But you still want it to respond to very light breaths for the lowest level dynamics. Then adjust the gain till you find the best balance for you. If you set the gain too low, you'll run out of breath all the time. Set it high enough that you can play long phrases, but not so high that all your phrases look like someone slapped a limiter on there and made them all "plateau" at 127 with very little in between. Try to eliminate those plateaus completely.

Once you do these things, you'll have mastered the wind and pitch control over the WX5, but I don't want to make it sound easy. I'm always having to do little exercises to find my center again. I've been known to paste in a good vibrato in desperation, when I just couldn't get it to center. I don't have to do that anymore, but I'm just saying it takes patience and practice. This thing is a real instrument with real technical issues of its own.

Once you've established this, the next move is to get your sounds to respond realistically. In some VI's, like VSL, you can achieve very fine control, but it takes learning just how each of the features works in VSL, and setting it up that way for each instrument. This involves four or five settings in the "performance" area of the matrix setup, and I dread it every time I use VSL. In Wallander's WIVI interface, it requires a number of settings, also. Most of those involve the envelope settings. You're basically setting it so that it doesn't follow the envelope very much at all, but you may have to soften the attack a little to avoid certain undesirable noises or tendencies.

I haven't played with Miroslav enough to know just the right settings for each instrument yet. I've gotten pretty good results just setting the Volume knob to respond to BC. TO do this you have to click on "Control" at the top-left of the interface, between the info and registration buttons and the Miroslav name. With it highlighted, you then click on the Volume knob, and a dialog comes up. Beside "Volume," it has the letters n/a as default. Click there and DRAG upward to change it to a controller number. Kind of tricky if you don't know the secret. It won't respond to typing.

In K4… well, it's been too long since I've done any alteration there. I can't remember how I did it. But I was able to get all the instruments to respond to either BC or Expression. I think I was able to eliminate velocity in some if not all of them, but the Cello and Violin by Thommasini and Lucato were pretty much ready to go out of the box, if I recall.

Some instruments respond best to Expression, which is why there is a dip switch for that on the WX5.

Believe it or not, this all gets to be second nature after a while. I don't want to discourage anyone from using a WX5; I'm just saying that it takes practice and a little determination to use it. The result is SO worth the effort that I can't imagine trying to create realistic playing without it. I just wish that all developers would give us a button that changes all the defaults to those which work best for BC instruments. That would be such a big help. Of course, it's not going to happen. They figure that the few of us out here actually using these things must be determined enough that we'll do all the work anyway, and they're right. You can't use these if you don't do the work.

Shooshie

[Armageddon]

Armageddon:

Those were not easy instruments to master in any event. You can't really get a workable sound from them until you know how the various controllers and velocities affect them. Even then, it takes a good deal of practice to make them sound real. I would work for long periods on them, then get to that "ah-ha!" moment, where I was really making it work, only to take a break and come back and realize I had lost it. They are worth it, I suppose.. but lately I've been getting great sounds out of the solo instruments in LASS with far less effort.

Well, I have a few high-end bass and electric guitar sets for K4 (not to mention, Symphobia) that have a tremendous amount of key, wheel, legato and velocity switching involved, so I'm used to the complexity, but they are all at least playable right out of the box. In the case of the Garritan instruments, however, when I first loaded them, they sounded too loud and lacked any velocity control right up front. Again, I'm not sure what I was doing wrong -- and based on the million or so rave reviews about them, I have to assume it's me and not the product -- but they were both completely unusable.

I haven't played with Miroslav enough to know just the right settings for each instrument yet. I've gotten pretty good results just setting the Volume knob to respond to BC. TO do this you have to click on "Control" at the top-left of the interface, between the info and registration buttons and the Miroslav name. With it highlighted, you then click on the Volume knob, and a dialog comes up. Beside "Volume," it has the letters n/a as default. Click there and DRAG upward to change it to a controller number. Kind of tricky if you don't know the secret. It won't respond to typing.

The way the SampleTank instruments are set up initially threw me for a loop, since none of the controls are set up for MIDI automation and have to be manually set (they're ALL set to "n/a" by default), but you can assign any control to respond to any MIDI control number. I guess that makes it much more versatile, but also a lot more alarming when you arm a track for MIDI playback in DP and none of your commands, like volume or panning, have any effect on your SampleTank VI instrument. Also, bear in mind that you not only have to do this for the SampleTank VI global controls, but also for each instrument's controls.

[James Steele]

It may come as no surprise that iPhone and iPad apps are the biggest gold mine in the business right now. My son, a programmer, was hired away from the old-line programming that he did for Hewlett-Packard to work for a company that makes apps for the iOS. He just happened to have experience with it, and found that programmers who know this platform are so in demand and so hard to find that they are being paid top dollar. That will change as the market gets saturated, but that's where it's at for now. Personally I find it odd that music/audio companies are trying to do so much on these platforms, outside of remote controls and that sort of thing. But if there's a market, who am I to judge?

Sadly, one major reason for this may be because it's so difficult to PIRATE an iPhone or iPad app, so software developers aren't getting screwed over like they are on titles that run on computers. Again, the lower price point of many of these iOS apps makes me wonder if similar price points might be viable in the desktop world if we had ample competition and very little piracy.

[Killahurts]

Killahurts, using a WX5 is not all milk and honey. It's actually a challenge for me even after all these years. The challenge is in the pitch, mainly, but partly in the strength of the Expression/Breath Control signal...

Wow Shooshie, very informative, so cool of you to post all that! I'm going to copy your text and email it to my partner (she's in the other room). She will appreciate all this.. some we already knew, but some we didn't.

What we have learned is that the little screwdriver is your friend. Sometimes we don't have the luxury of making it as expressive (i.e. potentially out of tune) as we would like, so we tighten it up enough to get the job done.

Why do I feel like the older I get, the less practice is possible? It's like play the damn part and move on, anymore. Recording spoils us that way.. you only have to get it right once.

Armageddon, I think I do know what you were doing wrong with the Garritan instruments- Both the Strad violin and the Gofriller Cello require that you use an expression pedal for bowing. That's right, pedal goes down for a down stroke and up to go the other direction. And just like a real stringed instrument, if you don't bow, no sound. I know, right?

[cuttime]

Please don't forget the "Change Velocity" MIDI plug. It can be indispensable in taming those weird velocity/layer VIs. I keep a bunch of presets for each VI, and yes, I rave about the Garritan instruments. You just have to get used to using CC#11.

[Tritonemusic]

Thanks a lot, Killahurtz and mhschmieder. I will try this in a couple of hours.

[Tritonemusic]

Just to follow up; I took the "Instruments" folder and relocated it (also deleted the one on the System Drive) and everything worked. Thanks again.

[mikehalloran]

Alas, the $15 sale appears to be over. I got mine...

Hmmmmm..... that $99.99 special on the full version of Miroslav Philharmonik is mighty tempting for this Finale user.
http://www.audiomidi.com/Miroslav-Philh ... P8352.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I just downloaded and installed Amplitude 3.5 (the free version). Essentially a virtual pedal board with 24 amp and stomp box modules included in the free version.

Compared to downloading and installing SampleTank and Miroslav CE, this was a snap. I logged into my User page, found Downloads. Once I downloaded, the Authorization Manager came up, flipped back the web page for my serial number, entered and was done.

Click on the boxes to bring up various amp and stomp box modules - easily done. This is not something I will use much but, again, I cannot knock Free!!!!