Questions about Philharmonik

[telebunke]

None of the various sites representing MPO say one word about the type of protection it will be using.

All the internet sites of german music stores state that clearly on their product sites. So None is a little too strong a word.

tele

[mike85021]

None of the various sites representing MPO say one word about the type of protection it will be using.

All the internet sites of german music stores state that clearly on their product sites. So None is a little too strong a word.

tele

I stand corrected. I was only aware of IK Multimedia and eSoundz carrying the information.

eSoundz has now put up the info.

Point is, for most of us here in the US, disclosure came late.

[Squids]

Remember that esoundz operates as a dealer with dealer's rules. It can only put information when the manufacturer has announced it. So, as soon as it was announced by IK it was added to esoundz.com I think the only reason IK didn't announce it sooner is that this was one of the last stages to confirm if it was in fact going to use this method or not.

As far as esoundz pre-orders go, we opened it early for the benefit of our customers to be first on the list to get it. Remember that even the CSR reverb was an addition only toward the end. It was never going to have such an awesome effect section when it was first announced. Also, when the pre-orders were open it was to originally have 500 sounds and 5 gigs of samples. It now has over 1,200 sounds (actually over 4,000 counting child patches) and is 7 gigs so people who pre-ordered it before must be THRILLED! They are getting even more than they thought. If anyone doesn't like the new additional information about the product and wants to cancel their pre-order before it ships they can! Sorry if specifications are subject to change but most of them were undeniably in your favor. We were pretty generous with the VFM.

To be honest, we could have just included the original orchestral and choir collections as they were alone (without the gigabytes of additional unreleased material and extra features, CSR etc.) and it would have still would have been a bargain at this price.

[Squids]

getting back to the key (sorry) for one more time:

as far as i understand, the steinberg key stands out from lots of other dongles in the way that cubase sx3 accesses the key really frequently, as if lots of the code was either decrypted on that key, fetched from its memory or something like that. it made the crackers' lives much harder and i know that other dongles like ilok and xskey have (unfortunately) been supposedly compromised much faster and with less work.

this and the suspected resulting performance decrease claims should of course be taken with a grain of salt since the sources and rumours might not be reliable... but the point is that no other software besides cubase sx i know of has reported to be causing performance problems by accessing the key frequently - maybe the usual practise is periodical checks to make sure that the key is still there and is a real one, maybe fetching/decrypting a bit or two of code every now and then, whatever.

bottom line is that because of that i believe there shouldn't be any performance problems with ikey. sorry for the long rambling.

Okay, the last thing I really want to say about the key unless I can not have to repeat myself... Not only is the source of that information from hackers and just by their nature how could one really rely on information from them? We don't know even who they really are? Maybe they are out to get somebody. They certainly don't have a problem causing damage to other companies (this we know for sure!). So, who knows what their intentions are and all of the true details? But, all I know is that, for one thing, my Cubase SX3 runs darn fine! No problems for me. I love it. But, even still, this is a different type of product anyway that we're talking about here. The key does not affect performance. I've said it several times. It certainly isn't noticeable if it was. You'll see for yourself (just compare it to SampleTank). As I said before, Philharmonik even has the possibility to be MORE efficient on the CPU via it's new effects architecture. That would be the main concern right? If your CPU usage was taking a hit? Look, you've got plenty of things that take up CPU like using advanced Stretch mode for its awesome capabilities or big articulation multi-channel combis to use one at a time because most people's CPU couldn't handle several instance of them. The last thing you're going to be concerned with regarding performance would be the key. It's a mouse vs. an elephant.

Okay, I don't want to go round and round in an endless loop. If you have any NEW questions about the IKey then please ask. If you don't then please just read what I've said and make up your mind about it. There's not much to read into. No bad intentions. Plenty of love and care was put into this product for the user's benefit and it has unprecedented value for money for an orchestral product. So we protected this product better, that's all. Anyone who wouldn't buy a great product like this because it has a key is missing the point... ie. you buy these things for the importance of the music you can make with it. If you think a USB key is inconvenient then try lugging around a drum kit some time or a B3 or a CP70!

I have an idea. Let's stop talking about the key and start talking more about the product itself. Please understand that some of us here just got done working on this non-stop for about a year. We put way more man hours than we were initially supposed to and were fueled by the passionate to make it great. Imagine if you made an album of music that you thought was a masterpiece and people were focusing on what plastic you used for your CD case! Can we talk about the product itself? Thanks.

[Rellik]

I would very much like to talk about the product itself

As much as I sympathize with the people who, because they hold the idea of a dongle in contempt either morally, practically, or both, feel that standing up and letting their views be known is their only responsible course of action... it's getting boring

Here, I've got a Philharmonik question: how much timing adjustment did the Badinerie demo take? By which I mean, how closely aligned is the MIDI data which was fed into Philharmonik to produce the demo to the actual score, as it would appear in concept?

To put it yet another way, how much "nudging" was necessary to create that crisp, articulated sound in all of the instruments?

Another Philharmonik question: we know that Philharmonik is excellent for the "classical" sound (assuming that the Badinerie demo was representative), and we know that Philharmonik is excellent for its sweet tone (as evidenced by all common knowledge about the original Miroslav libraries). So how good is Philharmonik for your generic, cinematic orchestral action sequences? You know the type . I'm sure this type of question will be answered by the riffs when they come, but I'm assuming they might not be out before Philharmonik ships, so I'm curious!

[Squids]

James, once again your post has been deleted. You admit that you never want to be our customer therefore you have no reason to post in our COMPANY forum. Do I show up at your gig and shout "I would never buy an album from this band!"? No, it would be rude. If you should happen to become interested once again in our products then you are welcome here. This place within KVR was created for people who use or are interested in using our products or at least don't blatantly intend to cause damage to us with their posts. We accept our user's positive and negative opinions but there is a line one can cross where it is potentially libelous and can be considered "forum sabatoge". Luckily it is very rare that I have to use my moderator buttons much around here but if I have to then I will. None of us want this place to get ugly. We're friendly and respectful here. People love this forum which happens to be one of the very first company forums here on KVR. If you can't show some respect to those that would like it to continue to exist, then please move on. As I said, if you or anyone else personally doesn't like the company or the products we make then just don't buy them. There isn't much else to discuss here at that point.

On top of that the previous poster said that it was getting boring to discuss the key still and I know that many of us agree. Let's move on to other aspects of the product guys.

[Squids]

I would very much like to talk about the product itself

As much as I sympathize with the people who, because they hold the idea of a dongle in contempt either morally, practically, or both, feel that standing up and letting their views be known is their only responsible course of action... it's getting boring

Here, I've got a Philharmonik question: how much timing adjustment did the Badinerie demo take? By which I mean, how closely aligned is the MIDI data which was fed into Philharmonik to produce the demo to the actual score, as it would appear in concept?

To put it yet another way, how much "nudging" was necessary to create that crisp, articulated sound in all of the instruments?

Another Philharmonik question: we know that Philharmonik is excellent for the "classical" sound (assuming that the Badinerie demo was representative), and we know that Philharmonik is excellent for its sweet tone (as evidenced by all common knowledge about the original Miroslav libraries). So how good is Philharmonik for your generic, cinematic orchestral action sequences? You know the type . I'm sure this type of question will be answered by the riffs when they come, but I'm assuming they might not be out before Philharmonik ships, so I'm curious!

Relik, to answer your question, I will have to ask the person who did that demo. I didn't do that one. But, I don't think a ton of time was spent having to create it. Some classical tunes translate with samples easier than others, some people making demos are better at it than others and you just never know. But, sure, the more time you spend on it nudging volumes/velocities, timing, articulation switching etc. the more realistic it can sound.

The riffs should be coming soon plus a lot more demos. Don't have too much faith in the riffs as they will not show nearly what each instrument is capable of. They merely give you a short taste of the flavor of that sound. A 5-10 second little line or couple of chords. This was a technique I picked up from a few hardware workstations that let you audition sounds that way and also it used to be something I'd do if I was showing off a keyboard to someone. It has this sound and this sound and this sound etc. so that the person would get an overview of the sounds quickly. So, that's what this riff thing is (if you want an example just check out the riff demos on www.esoundz.com for other products like Sonik Synth 2 and then you'll know more or less what to expect).

I am doing another demo for each "section" though and that should show some articulation switching, choirs switching syllables and all kinds of stuff. Some of these demos probably will be up before it is shipping. It will be out in about 2 weeks, maybe a little earlier. We need to receive all the pieces of it from different parts of the world.

[Derek up North]

Another producty (it's a real word honest!) question re. the choirs - is each syllable a discrete patch or are the syllables available for each choir sound sort of zoned along the keyboard? I was wondering how I'd go about reproducing something like the choir demo that has been posted - would the best bet be to create something I'm happy with from a melody, timing and feel point of view and then just insert patch change commands in my sequencer to vary the syllables.

Note - I'm not expecting to be able to program real lyrics here, I just want to know how to introduce some variety into the syllables used. By the way - what syllables/sounds are available for the choirs? I assume we get the usual "ooh" "aah" "la" kind of stuff but the demo seems to have a few more interesting sounds than those too.

Regards,

Derek.

[sirbellog]

I have an important (at least for me) question about the infamous "machine gun" effect :
do the samples(especially in stac and short articulations) come in several variations for each sample, in order to play the same note repetitively while avoiding this dreadful effect ?
or are there built-in programming tricks like in GPO (timbre and pitch variability via controllers) to cheat with this, allowing to play the same sample several times in a row without making it obvious that this is in fact the same sample ?

[Squids]

Another producty (it's a real word honest!) question re. the choirs - is each syllable a discrete patch or are the syllables available for each choir sound sort of zoned along the keyboard? I was wondering how I'd go about reproducing something like the choir demo that has been posted - would the best bet be to create something I'm happy with from a melody, timing and feel point of view and then just insert patch change commands in my sequencer to vary the syllables.

Note - I'm not expecting to be able to program real lyrics here, I just want to know how to introduce some variety into the syllables used. By the way - what syllables/sounds are available for the choirs? I assume we get the usual "ooh" "aah" "la" kind of stuff but the demo seems to have a few more interesting sounds than those too.

Regards,

Derek.

You can load up the articulation combis for instant variety between male or female ensemble choirs doing either staccato or portato: aahs, uhhs, mmms, Do, Fa, La, Mi, Mu, Oh, Re, Si, So and others. It's a lot of fun to play them switching them up. There are different ways you can do that. But, one of the easiest ways is to load up the MUL combis (multichannel) and perhaps play the part with just one of them and then move your notes around in your sequencer to other tracks that correspond to the articulations pre-setup to different midi channels. There's also a clever way to do switching on the fly too which is a trick I will show some people as well. But, really the best way to lay it in on your track is the way I just described. More control of it.

I am doing a new choir demo with articulation switching soon.

[z15]

squids,

yep that's why i mentioned that all that info should definitely be taken with a grain of salt - even hackers do probably know a lot, they have their own agendas none of us probably knows about. and sorry again about the post, i was just trying to make it clearer to people that the key would most probably not cause any problems i don't have anything against the protection system myself (except for my laptop only having two usb ports and one of them being used by xskey already, hehe) and i agree, it's a boring subject, let's stop it here.

i'm still holding myself from buying an orchestral lib before i decide which one to get first - philharmonik is definitely on the list with two or three other contestants - and i'm eagerly waiting for more demos myself.

one real question i have that was probably answerred in one of these threads is about the controlling of articulations. i've understood that sampletank2 engine wouldn't support keyswitching by default, but is it implemented in philharmonik or is there some other clever way to slide from one articulation to another, other than loading a combi with several articulations and splitting the part to several channels?

[Squids]

I have an important (at least for me) question about the infamous "machine gun" effect :
do the samples(especially in stac and short articulations) come in several variations for each sample, in order to play the same note repetitively while avoiding this dreadful effect ?
or are there built-in programming tricks like in GPO (timbre and pitch variability via controllers) to cheat with this, allowing to play the same sample several times in a row without making it obvious that this is in fact the same sample ?

For those that know the original Miroslav libraries, this was not something that was included. Philharmonik IS mainly based on the released orchestral and choir collections although we extended it further with additional material but not necessarily just with this in mind. In order to give variety of the sound of attacks we have a combination of various options. Sometimes there ARE additional versions of the same articulation. Sometimes there are velocity switching samples and sometimes you have advanced modulation of envelope attack from velocity, sample start from velocity (both controllable amounts by the user via the macros) and other programming tools to get more variety in the attacks and sound more like the real instruments/ensembles that would have some variance too. If you play accenting different bow strokes or alternating style then you also get more realism using these methods. The more "samey" your playing is in terms of velocity amounts, timing and other controlling then that also contributes to a stiff/mechanical vs. a fluid/realistic sound.

So, it isn't a mondo-sized round robin switching streaming-required type of product. But, we did quite a few things that take up less resources and hard drive space but still give you important results that we're looking for. I guess you can say there is a bit of both and some flexibility for the user to try things as well depending on the piece of music.

[Yossarian]

one real question i have that was probably answerred in one of these threads is about the controlling of articulations. i've understood that sampletank2 engine wouldn't support keyswitching by default, but is it implemented in philharmonik or is there some other clever way to slide from one articulation to another, other than loading a combi with several articulations and splitting the part to several channels?

Hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes but there's a freeware utility called KeySwitch from Yellow Tools that will let you do key-switching with up to 8 trigger keys in SampleTank (and Miroslav and other multi-timbral apps). You will also need something like Midi Yoke to get the midi data through KeySwitch and to your sequencer but once you have it set up you only need to load one extra app (KeySwitch) to run alongside your sequencer and you've got key-switching in SampleTank.

I've been using KeySwitch with AMG's Kick-Ass Brass VSTi (which lacks key-switching) and it works like a charm. Just tried it with ST2 and had no problems.

Edit: I should add that KeySwitch unfortunately is Windows only. There are solutions for Mac but they seem to be a bit more complicated.

/Yoss

[Squids]

squids,


one real question i have that was probably answerred in one of these threads is about the controlling of articulations. i've understood that sampletank2 engine wouldn't support keyswitching by default, but is it implemented in philharmonik or is there some other clever way to slide from one articulation to another, other than loading a combi with several articulations and splitting the part to several channels?

There are many ways to go from one articulation the other. You can set them up with splits or velocity ranges pretty easily with the new engine. But, you also have mute and solo now as destinations for the midi controllers. It may not be the same thing as key switching but there are some things that can be done in a similar way.

[Squids]

one real question i have that was probably answerred in one of these threads is about the controlling of articulations. i've understood that sampletank2 engine wouldn't support keyswitching by default, but is it implemented in philharmonik or is there some other clever way to slide from one articulation to another, other than loading a combi with several articulations and splitting the part to several channels?

Hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes but there's a freeware utility called KeySwitch from Yellow Tools that will let you do key-switching with up to 8 trigger keys in SampleTank (and Miroslav and other multi-timbral apps). You will also need something like Midi Yoke to get the midi data through KeySwitch and to your sequencer but once you have it set up you only need to load one extra app (KeySwitch) to run alongside your sequencer and you've got key-switching in SampleTank.

I've been using KeySwitch with AMG's Kick-Ass Brass VSTi (which lacks key-switching) and it works like a charm. Just tried it with ST2 and had no problems.

Edit: I should add that KeySwitch unfortunately is Windows only. There are solutions for Mac but they seem to be a bit more complicated.

/Yoss

That's great. I like it when you guys mention cool utlities that can do more things with your ST set ups. I think Energy XT might be able to do some cool tricks as well. I will try the two you mentioned Yoss. As you say, there isn't always a solution for both Mac and PC and every format. But, sometimes there is a cheap or free add on that can do some cool tricks. There was some cool midi modulation host on Mac OSX as well that I bet can do some cool stuff. Sure, anyone who wants to post about gadgets feel free! npi