Studiophonik????????

[dgkenney]

One of the things that really makes the library so good is the variety of great acoustic spaces we used and the particular gear that is CHOICE! Avalon, Neve, Manley, API, Great River and top quality and sometimes rare mics... There really isn't anything like Studiophonik. But, we didn't want to just toss it out there. It's a work of art and something I would like to use a lot myself for creating the instrumentation of a virtual band with production style in the fastest way possible.

If it is as good as you say it is (and based upon past experience I have no reason to doubt you.) I will publically retract all my neggy, neggy comments regarding the delay from announcement to delivery.

Till then, I will join the others in Casablanca and wait...and wait...and wait.


Dan

[Squids]

Haha. Cool. Well, you'd be right to be critical of our announcing it too early. It is hard to estimate what projects like Miroslav Philharmonik and Studiophonik will take. They are such mammoth projects but in the end I think they are worth the trouble. I know, for myself, I use these all the time. When Studiophonik is done I will be able to dial up whatever I need (mostly) to be able to do a virtual band. This is great for me as a producer because even though I will be working more and more on producing real bands, I tend to work with the singer and songwriters first and it is nice to be able to mock up the band sound (and sometimes parts end up becoming the track). The other thing I would use Studiophonik for is jingle work and TV scoring cues. They don't pay enough to hire a full band all the time so this is the ticket. Oh and even if they do, it is a lot easier to get an authentic flavor of a band (especially from the 60's and 70's) with this than anything (unless you're Jack Joseph Puig that is).

[kronkite]

I hope the sounds will sit nicely in the mix. I find that a lot of sample players these days have instruments that sound great in isolation (super snappy kick drum, ultra plucky bass) but compete with one another when you put them in a real mix. These things should sound real, but not too real to be real. If you know what I mean.

[Squids]

I hope the sounds will sit nicely in the mix. I find that a lot of sample players these days have instruments that sound great in isolation (super snappy kick drum, ultra plucky bass) but compete with one another when you put them in a real mix. These things should sound real, but not too real to be real. If you know what I mean.

Oh, I DO know what you mean. I can tell you more or less why that is. It is either because the sound is overproduced at the sample level so it sounds good in isolation (which is tempting because you get a good superficial impression from listeners... which lasts until they are making music with it!) and then the other reason is some people record things wrong and have a "fix it in the mix" philosophy which is not a good way to sample. I mean, in music production it is GOOD to be ABLE to fix things up with EQ and other processing. But, in sampling you want to present an ideal, versatile, well recorded instrument. Well, at least we do. One that sits well in the mix because it is very naturally like what it would sound like with the real thing in your studio.

So, Studiophonik has direct outs going into tube DIs, incredible mics on acoustic instruments as well as tube and class A mic pres like Neve, Manley, API, Avalon, Great River and really musical acoustic spaces. You have to be REALLY into this stuff to bother to go to the extra trouble of finding choice instruments, getting great players, engineers... there's really a lot to it. But, one of the things that SR is known for is sounds "sitting well in the mix". These are some of the reasons why.

[Kim Lajoie]

One of the great things about Studiophonik is that because it's based on the ST2 engine, it will have great tube EQ, compression, amp simulation, etc from T-RackS and Amplitube, so there's no need to heavily pre-process the samples. However, the presets can be processed in many different ways, but you always have the opportunity to take the processing off and redo it to your liking. How many other sample libraries let you do that? That's one of the reasons why Studiophonik is going to be far beyond a regular "sample library + sample player" package. It will be an integrated virtual band.

-Kim.

[Mr. Tunes]

But, one of the things that SR is known for is sounds "sitting well in the mix".

That's probably one of the top reasons SR has a devoted following, from past experience and reading others on the forum. Aside from the sounds being wicked to jam individually you can do a lot with them when getting down to bizness with your tracks. Mixing is hard enough as it is, but the SR sounds really ease a lot of that pain a lot of the time. I know that when these guys come out with a new product that they've taken the mix into consideration from day one on that project.

[Squids]

The main thing is to capture something musical and sounding good to start with (good instrument, good player, good room, good mics, mic pre, A/D...). Then to resist the temptation to try to process it so it sounds IN YOUR FACE. I mean, if you do that with built-in effects in an ST2 engine (secret #1 of why SR loves ST so much ) then that's okay because as Kim was saying you can always take those effects off or change them how you want! But, if it is done at the sample level which so many sound developers do then what might sound good when being played on its own could stick out and be hard to lay into a mix well later when in a musical context. Visa versa, what might not be a WOW patch as you flip through say Sonic Synth's parent sounds (which btw were intentionally meant to be more raw and the effected patch variations of it are the "child" patches underneath) you may be surprised sits REALLY well sonically in a mix! A dull electric piano you may find warms up a track very nicely and any unusually hyped bright tines are not competing with your hihat or acoustic guitar tracks.

So, a big part of Sonic Reality is the "reality" aspect of offering a sound like say a Mellotron or Chamberlin WITH some of the flaws of it included (such as noise, wow, flutter) because that is part of the beauty of that instrument. An amped electric guitar may have some noise in it because a real amp does too! Kicks and toms may have snares rattling (and the rest of the kit resonating) because that is what drum kits do! Well, we tend to offer both a natural and slightly cleaned up (or no snares rattling) version of certain instruments for the best of both worlds. But, a lot of our stuff is meant to be tweaked to your production tastes anyway and that flexibility is what gives our products longevity I think. You never get tired of a Wurly, a Clav, a B3 etc.

[Mr. Tunes]

well i guess since this thread is touching on a lot of engineering concepts, i was wondering if you could share with us a bit about when you're engineering a session dave, do you use any gear to jam the best SNR out of your players(maybe this is in your neve ormanley mic pres or some compressor? or do you like to record people at generally lower volumes and boost it later on? just curious how you deal with it, i find recording live players to be one of my weaker links.

also do you find recording players for samples to be much different than when you're producing albums in terms of volume and clipping, SNR?

[Squids]

There are differences in doing a sample session vs. a session for a music production. You have to remember that if it is a multisample then whatever noises or consistent artifacts are going to be multiplied when played with more than one note. That is something you have to think about in the session. When playing a piano for instance there is a certain "knock" sound of the wood in the mix and it varies depending on how you hit the note. So, you want to hit the note with the right balance of tone vs. consistent wood knock noise because you know that it is going to be increased in volume when it is played back as chords (chords are really multitrack recordings essentially).

In music recordings a lot of times you can use a good compressor/limiter to get a strong signal. Products like the DBX165A are good because you can do light compression but have a brick wall limiter prevent peaks. Neve compressor is also good as are Ueri 1176s. Well, there are a lot of nice compressors for tracking although I like to use them more for mixing (at least for its effect). However, for sampling I don't use compression at all. Too much coloration potentially and I like to capture the sound as pure as possible so any degree of compression, limiting, EQ and other processing can be added later. So, that means, unfortunately, that the engineer (and it isn't always me btw on SR sample sessions although I am almost always there producing and making the decisions... I USED to engineer them alone years ago but now I get help usually) has to watch the levels constantly and be readjusting them to get a good mean, a good balance.

I like to preserve as much as possible the instruments natural dynamic range so we get a peak level and then work from there. There's a lot that has to be done by ear and isn't a science that can be explained (different techniques for different instruments). But, overall a sample recording session is not really that different than a music recording session. Just more clinical and boring!

[Mr. Tunes]

thanks for that, a really nice insight into the process. i can imagine the whole thing is especially boring for your session musicians that aren't very familiar with samplers so they're repeatedly hitting the same thing over and over again. i can also imagine they are a beeotch to edit when it's all over. you'd probably have to take meticulous notes during the session to help your editing afterwards.

[textoaster]

Are you all going to be demoing Studiophonik at Winter NAMM this year?

[Squids]

Are you all going to be demoing Studiophonik at Winter NAMM this year?

Yes, but it won't be the focus of the show since it isn't ready to ship yet. We'll have a preliminary version to check out at one of the pods.