Miroslav Philharmonik Discussion

[Rellik]

Now that people have Miroslav Philharmonik, I wanted to start a thread for discussion among people that already have it

Yes, I received it today! That was faster than I expected. I've bee going through it for a little while now - I definitely hear a lot that I like, and the rest, I can't tell yet. I'll have to try to do something with it when I get back from vacation - for the next two days, I'll just be playing with it

One thing that I admit confuses me are the combi patches - not combis, but actual patches. Alot of these are really nice, but I don't really know what they are . Anyway, off to do some more testing - I find the solo strings really great! Oh yeah, and what's up with the volume CC response - quite odd, eh?

[Joseph Burrell]

Yes, the solo strings are particularly beautiful in this library. As is the English Horn and the Flute. The harp is excellent and the organ screams Dracula. There's a lot to love here and it just gets better every time I open it up and work with it.

[Rellik]

Yep

Wait, just a second. The bug I told IK about, and which they confirmed and said they fixed, where the automation is not rendered... is still there. WTF. That's so terrible...

I don't have time to be really frustrated right now, but either sometime soon or after I get back from vacation, I'm probably going to be pretty pissed off... unless there's a patch soon (within the next few days).

EDIT: sent off an e-mail, asking for a timeframe for the udpate - hope it's this week

[SimSam]

So I got this today and installed it, but I had a question. Weren't we supposed to receive some special combo discs if we preordered from eSoundz? Or is this being shipped seperately?

[nexussynth]

So I got this today and installed it, but I had a question. Weren't we supposed to receive some special combo discs if we preordered from eSoundz? Or is this being shipped seperately?

I believe they are going to be a download (small?) from SR.

ANYWAY....


..I've been playing and going through the presets of this thing and I must say up front that these sounds are beautful. They posess something that you cannot get at present from the other libraries (I can't speak for VSL because I don't own it but I'm sure it's fabulous--with a price to match for the pro edition!!:shock: )

I love the full orchestras..they are what I wanted and why I bought this product. I like to play the orchestra and 'conduct' so to speak but I'm not a good player at all..in fact I stink!

The choir is beautiful and lush. I won't need to get a choir library for awhile!

I can't seem to find brass presets where the loud and soft layers velocity switch. I'm sure they must be there but there is just so much...

The organ is a surprise, nice and balsy with a sound that fits well with the orchestra. Think Saint Saens.

The woodwinds are quite lovely. I don't remember them being this well tuned and playable in my old Vitous.

I feel that the solo strings are simply the best you can get in any of the libs except VSL, I guess. A cellist who is a friend of ours here, had a shocked look on her face when I let her play the solo cello. She said it sounded so real it was scary. I will say that is makes you want to play it...A LOT.

In fact all these sounds make you want to waste many hours noodling when you get it. I thought that was bad with EWQLSO Gold but this is even worse!

Now I did encounter one bug in the solo tenor trombone portato patch. When you play to the end and hold the key, a repeating short snippet of the sample sounds like it keeps repeating forever. It is only on the low A and Ab notes though. With this many samples there is bound to be a bug or two in a first release.

The CSR sounds great. I don't think release trails are needed anymore with reverb this good. You can crank all the send levels to the reverb up full and with about 3.2 secs decay on the 'verb you don't get that swamped 'swimming in reverb' sound you get with all the plugins and especially those convolution reverbs. Very nice.

The full version of CSR might be next on my list!

Well boys and girls, thats all I can say about it for now...must sleep

[Caleb]

A cellist who is a friend of ours here, had a shocked look on her face when I let her play the solo cello. She said it sounded so real it was scary. I will say that is makes you want to play it...A LOT.

Very happy to hear it.
The cello is my favourite instrument and even now I'm finding that the only one in my collection that I really like to use is a freeware soundfont.

VERY MUCH looking forward to finally retiring this one in favour of a better one.

Caleb

[Mr. Tunes]

In fact all these sounds make you want to waste many hours noodling when you get it. I thought that was bad with EWQLSO Gold but this is even worse!

you have to set a schedule for yourself and map out how you will get through a library this one, it's the only way. this is the biggest problem with sonik synth 2- the juice is so good it's hard to get anywhere when you browse. you could say i have ADD or you might say i love to play keyboard.

hope to try this finished "philharmonik" plugin you guys speak of eventually. i'm so jealous i could stab you in the right pulmonary now.

"da juice is good ahhhh, you like-eh-de juice ah?"

name the show

[Caleb]

Ooooooooh - got it this morning.

Installation was only a touch confusing with one instruction telling me not to insert the iKey until installation was finished - but was prompted halfway through to insert the iKey.

However, other than that everything was quite simple and time-consuming for all the right reasons (7GB ).

It sounds quite amazing at first listen - although I really don't know what I'm doing yet.

I really need to get to work though because I'm late.

Look forward to trying this out on a real tune (must read the booklet so I can understand what's going on).

Oh ... and by the way ...

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Caleb

[Rellik]

I'm leaving tomorrow on vacation, so I'm not going to go into troll mode over this inexcusable lack of bug-fixing-that-I-told-them-about-previously-and-they-said-they-fixed-for-later-versions until I come back (giving them a chance to do something about it first - I've contacted support) (when I say troll mode, I mean I'll probably start a thread about it, or something... I don't mean ACTUAL trolling I just mean intense lobbying and perhaps mild anger and related action born out of righteous frustration).

Ok, so some more Philharmonik talk:

I have discovered that the sounds are fantastic, first of all. Great . Yes, the aggressiveness I was asking for is there - not in all the patches, but in enough of them to be considered "there". The attacks are definitely faster than the crappy attacks I'm used to with what I used to use - it's all very nicely normalized and the sound is, as mentioned, great .

There are a few problems that are hindering me in the use of this library, some of them major - I'm not going to list all of them, but here are a few:

1. Not enough samples to cover the range - it's not a huge problem, just in certain patches there are stretches where it's WAAAAAY under-sampled.

2. Needs more velocity-sensitivity. Obviously there aren't as many velocity layers as would be ideal, but even in the velocity programming, not much seems to change except the attack and the overall volume. You can obviously program in some velocity stuff yourself, if you want to - but nothing of that sort seems to be included (why these crescendos which won't get much use, and not some well-thought-out-useful velocity programming child patches?).

3. Can't load multiple combi's at once. This really reduces the utility of the included combi's - some of them are really great, and it's really nice to have the DYN ones as a replacement for better velocity-sensitivity. But do you want to have to load a whole new instance every time you open a new combi?

Yes, I'm focusing mostly on the problems in this little mini-review (not even really a review at all, I haven't used it enough to even begin to think of reviewing it, I still don't know how everything works, and I don't have a MIDI controller that lets me use Philharmonik to its fullest) but I think we all already KNOW how awesome Philharmonik is I thought I would hopefully get some discussion going as to what could be improved in the next update (ability to load combi's IN ADDITION to the current setup, perhaps some extra child patches which are set up for better velocity sensitivity (we know SR is good with this stuff ) etc).

All in all, my pre-not-even-rating for Philharmonik is a 10/10 although that Bug really pisses me off...soon when I get back from my trip.

[Caleb]

Just dropped in to say.....THE STEINWAY!!!
I love it!



Caleb

[Beardedone]

Nice to hear all the positive reviews. How are you guys finding the dongle? I want to get over my prejudice regarding this but it will take a lot of convincing - perhaps a few months without a report of someone being locked out due to a faulty key will reassure me that my fears are unfounded.

Cheers,
Gordon

[Rellik]

Personally... I can't see the dongle. I forgot it was there until you mentioned it. So yeah, I certainly don't mind it we'll see how it fares next year being in a laptop, though.

[Squids]

Can you email me a back up of the documentation of the bug you are describing? Incl what system you have, host and versions etc. Thanks. I am curious about it myself.

Try the "AMV" patches for more fancy programming especially with velocities. But, you can also mess with the macros and velocity settings to your liking as well. We can't account for the difference in everyone's controller as well so... at some point if you are smart enough to know these things then we assume you are skilled enough to be able to tweak it how you personally like it. We did it how we like it.

On the note sample stretching, keep in mind that at minimum we are using the original Miroslav full version sounds (not even the lite versions, we left those out) from the previously released libraries. In a lot of cases we added new material that had more samples across the keyboard but not in all. There will be more Miroslav material released in the future though and many more things will be explored. As feature filled and content packed as Philharmonik is this is just the beginning!

The articulation combis are cool. I too would like to see it possible to load more than one combi in a single instance but it is also not hard to just open up another instance.

[Caleb]

Gordon - the whole iKey thing was relatively painless. Other than the initial confusion I had with the installation instructions, it just did whatever it was supposed to do in the background.

The key itself is also quite small so it's not like you have this big clunky thing sticking out of your computer.

I think I'll only really notice it again when I run out of USB ports.

I'm actually feeling a bit more positive about the whole concept actually. The ease of moving from computer to computer or windows installation to windows installation almost make me feel like requesting the same setup for ST2 and SS2. I haven't actually tested the portability of course having only installed it for the first time today - but if it really is as smooth as just sticking the key back in I have to say I'm sold. I prefer that to the existing "request another licence number from the website and live in fear of having to do it more than three times" method.

Of course, it would be easier if it was just a simple serial number - but we already know where that kind of argument goes.

The other thing is that it's just a simple fact that IK/SR products are my prime movers so I'm going to want them as a priority wherever I go and with whatever setup. Seems to me that the iKey is a pretty neat device for that - it's pretty simple to just shove in the USB key and go.

This is a pretty massive about turn for me who would previously have vomitted acidic bile all over the place just contemplating such a device on my system. However, currently I am without ST2 and SS2 because I'm hesitating to waste another install on this computer when I'm likely to buy another music computer in the near future. That's why I'm beginning to wish those products had the iKey.

Back to actual Philharmonik talk....

I really like the Steinway as I've said in a previous post. I did notice though that it was very difficult to play a very soft note. It was almost as if there was a minimum velocity that the notes could play at that was a bit higher than I would have expected. Maybe I'm just being daft there. Has anyone noticed anything like this with the Steinway?

For some reason Squids. I don't know if there is anything in this but it actually "feels" like there is less latency playing the Steinway in Philharmonik than playing "The One" in SS2. Am I imagining this? It might just be that I really liked the tone of the samples and my head is tricking me into thinking the response is better somehow, but my non-music computer (which I am using) isn't that magnificent with latency etc.., but I almost feel that I could play the Steinway live. It's a beautiful feeling actually - I could just mess around for hours.

Caleb

[Squids]

I love that piano too. It is a perceived thing though.

The low velocity thing has to do with your controller most likely. It responds to the full 127 midi range. You can adjust the velocity parameters to your liking though.

The Ikey is cool and I like it too. I have my Cubase auth on the same one. I pop it in and out of different computers and I really like the idea of the authorization not being tied to the computer. Now I can freely refresh the OS, wipe the drive or whatever else and not have to re-authorize again. Nice! (Not that I want to start talking about the key again! )