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Post by winknotes on Jul 25, 2012 7:57:06 GMT -5
I don't know of any specific tutorials. I know it took me quite a while to get comfortable with the player and I asked a lot of questions. Here are a couple of threads on the MakeMusic forum that might help. Some of the info might be relevant to you and some not perhaps: forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=6&m=283077&g=365406#m365406forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=5&m=359141&g=360910#m360910 (This thread is someone thinking about buying VSL, but I think there is some good info there.) The thing that got me started that wasn't obvious at first is you need to use Vienna Ensemble (multi-instrument host) inside Finale rather than Vienna Instrument (single instrument). If you have specific questions, don't hesitate to ask. |
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Post by David Gaines on Jul 27, 2012 12:34:56 GMT -5
I own the VSL Special Editions but have yet to find a clear tutorial on how to use them in Finale. I am used to the Kontakt and Aria players but the interface with VSL is different enough to make it confusing to me. Any ideas? Welcome to the pain. :-) That is exactly why I created this user group and why the VSL thread at the Finale forum gets so active. I didn't want any other composer to have to go through what I and others have gone through just to get simple, minimally problematic playback inside Finale using VSL SE instruments. It took me a lot of trial and error and reading of message board posts to latch onto the simple concept of opening Vienna Ensemble (VE) as a VST plugin inside Finale. I couldn't even find a simple explanation in clear English of exactly what VE is and what the difference is between the Vienna Instrument (VI) program and VE. Basically VE operates the same way as Kontakt or Aria - it's a sample player into which you can load multiple instruments (i.e. multiple instances of VI - one for each of your instruments) for playback by Finale. It's more complicated than that and I'm leaving out a lot, but that's fundamentally what we're dealing with. So (just to get really complex for a moment), if your score requires an ensemble consisting of 10 VSL instruments, 5 Tapspace Virtual Drumline instruments, and 8 Garritan instruments, you'd load one VST plugin instance of VE into (for example) Finale's Bank 1 for the Vienna instruments, one instance of Kontakt 4 or 5 into Bank 2 for the VDL instruments, and one instance of Aria into Bank 3 for the Garritan instruments. The next step is to tweak your Human Playback preferences to accommodate the different idiosyncracies & MIDI command defaults of the different sample libraries. This is something most of us have been tearing our hair out over. Winknotes has given up entirely and simply exports his Finale data to MIDI and imports it all into Reaper. I'm close to doing the same thing myself (with Cakewalk Sonar X1). Since the tutorial you (and all of us) would like to see doesn't exist yet, the best thing to do is to do a keyword search at the Finale support forum (with which I assume you're familiar - let us know if you're not) on "VSL," "Vienna," "Vienna Symphonic Library," or any other phrase you can think of that's relevant (this is what I did when I was starting out and was in your position) and read everything you find. The posts over the last couple of years from user A.S. are legendary and some of us would literally find the VSL instruments unusable inside Finale without his tips and his Human Playback Preferences guidance. Also, read through the Notation Programs section of the support forum at the VSL website for everything related to Finale (there's a lot less traffic there than there is at the Finale forum). Andi over there, who is the official "point man" at VSL for notation program issues, is extremely helpful. Make sure you download the Finale 2009 Or Later Human Playback Preferences file that he posted to the "Needful Things" section (you need to create an account there and log onto it in order to access that section). Import that into one of your scores and study it carefully. Or come to think of it, I've uploaded it here so you should be able to download it from this forum. Watch the VSL tutorial videos several times - they're at the VSL website but (like a lot of things there) are hard to find at first. They're much easier to find at the VSL official channel on YouTube. Watch them several times. If you can't find them, shout and I'll post links here. I wish VSL would take the hint and combine all of Andi's forum responses and the suggestions from A.S. at the Finale forum, along with simple step by step instructions for beginners, into exactly the kind of tutorial you're talking about. dg |
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Post by winknotes on Jul 27, 2012 13:27:20 GMT -5
I'll try to whip up a "How to get started" tutorial on using VSL with Finale. It's really not too bad, but as David pointed out the sources of information are scattered and not always the clearest explanations.
I'd be curious to know if you've made any headway since you posted though? I'll still work on a tut though even if you're getting along fine.
I'll also mention that using GPO and VSL in the same file may not work. The reason is VSL uses expression (CC#11) for dynamic control while the Garritan libraries use modulation (CC#1) for volume control. At this point you can only define one or the other in the Human Playback preferences. What would be great is if you could define that sort of thing on a more granular level than is currently allowed. Then the sky would be the limit as far as mixing and matching libraries. For example I don't have any of the brass mute samples from VSL so I'd love to at least load those from Garritan when I might need them. So this is one example of what I might do inside a DAW.
I digress......
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Post by David Gaines on Jul 27, 2012 16:18:12 GMT -5
I'll also mention that using GPO and VSL in the same file may not work. The reason is VSL uses expression (CC#11) for dynamic control while the Garritan libraries use modulation (CC#1) for volume control. At this point you can only define one or the other in the Human Playback preferences. Except that you can set any parameter on the Vienna side to be controlled by any controller number. I played around with this inside VI so that my string orchestra piece with five staves of Garritan Instruments For Finale (1st Violins through Double Basses) and five staves of VSL SE string sections (also 1st Violins through Double Basses that are just copies of the Garritan staves) is playing more or less OK with the default dynamic/volume controller setting inside Human Playback. I forget exactly what steps I followed, but I can recreate them and post it all here along with a .MUS file and an MP3 example for those interested. I agree with you about having more robust control of these parameters inside Finale. It's really ideal if you only work with Garritan instruments but I'd have to think that the segment of their user base that mixes libraries (i.e. us) is growing. IFor example I don't have any of the brass mute samples from VSL Yes, you do. :-) This is another one of those things that I had to discover almost by accident (and it's in the VSL Special Edition manual, actually, but I only noticed it on maybe the umpteenth time I read through it). Along with VSL Special Edition Standard Level, you also get all of the Extended Level instruments, and they're completely useable, but only under demo conditions - they expire after some number of uses. I forget how many but I do remember that it's more than enough for several compositions' worth of work. I've used their alto flute and chamber strings this way, for example. This makes it a lot easier for you to upgrade - you don't have to download the extended instruments because you already have them. They just need to be unlocked. Same concept as Windows 7 if you want to upgrade from, say, Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate. dg Check out your list of licensed instruments the next time you open up VI and you should see them in there. dg |
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Post by dave1173 on Jul 27, 2012 18:57:38 GMT -5
I finally did get VSL to work in Finale by doing just what you said about working within Finale with Vienna Ensemble as a player. I also downloaded the latest Sound Set but have found with just a couple of days of working with it that the control of VSL is very erratic. Without any reason my legato strings will switch to pizza and the double bass will sound two octaves too high! It makes you want to go back to pencil and paper.
One issue that I had when Mountain Lion came out on Wednesday was that when I committed the cardinal sin of not downloading a fresh upgrade until the bugs have been worked out, both Xsample Chamber Ensemble and VSL refused to be recognized by Apple on their downloads on my laptop. Have any of you had issues with incompatibility? Any suggestions on a fix?
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Post by winknotes on Jul 27, 2012 20:02:12 GMT -5
Hey David G. that's a good trick to be able to use GPO and VSL in the same file. I never would have thought of that. Genius!! Dave1173, I'm on a windows 7 machine so I can't help you with that incompatibility. You might check the VSL forum to see if anyone else is having problems. In fact I just now looked and there's one thread where a user simply asks if Lion and Mountain Lion work well with VSL and the feedback from one user said they both work well. In fact here's a quote from Paul on the forum on another thread: Hi, New products and updates will always be optimized for the newest OSs. Mountain lion 10.8 is already released... So no particular or urgent reason to upgrade (yet). Best, Paul |
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Post by David Gaines on Jul 30, 2012 7:45:16 GMT -5
Hard for me to believe that I came up with something in terms of pounding the square VSL peg into the round Finale hole that has eluded everyone else (A.S. included, apparently), but maybe I did. ;D
Re: Apple.......can't help anyone there, unfortunately. But thanks for reminding me that anything that goes on here should be done with that perspective in mind, i.e. some of us are on one OS, some of us are on another. Although Finale works essentially in the same way now on both platforms, there are still many hardware as well as software differences.
dg
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Post by David Gaines on Jul 30, 2012 7:51:56 GMT -5
have found with just a couple of days of working with it that the control of VSL is very erratic. Without any reason my legato strings will switch to pizza and the double bass will sound two octaves too high! It makes you want to go back to pencil and paper. Welcome to the pain, part II. :-) This is exactly the problem that I've been having with Vienna randomly skipping around the matrices to random cells for no apparent reason. And it doesn't happen consistently. I get sustained artificial harmonics when the score is simply showing normal notes covered by a slur, for example. Or staccato when there's not a staccato mark in sight. I've literally spent hours poring over Human Playback and each cell of each matrix on the VI side and the only thing that I've discovered is that other people are having the same problem. LOL dg |
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Post by winknotes on Oct 12, 2012 22:12:31 GMT -5
I finally had an occasion to try mixing GPO and Vienna. I'm working on a large orchestra file and Finale kept crashing on me. In the course of troubleshooting with MM, I decided to load all the winds, percussion and harp under Aria and strings under Vienna Ensemble. I had to revert back to the default HP preferences and hard set the "Dynaic Approach for Sustaining Instruments" to CC#7+velocity. Then of course I changed expression in VE to CC7 and even turned on velocity Xfade and set that to CC#7 as well. I have to say I'm encouraged by the results and the mix is really pretty good. Here's a short 30 second snippet of what I'm working on so far. It's not perfect and in fact I still have an issue where the last measure of this is marked pp but the slider for expression jumps up to 95 for some reason. Mixed GPO and Vienna SE strings |
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Post by bill on Oct 13, 2012 10:44:08 GMT -5
Hi Steve,
Nice piece!
I assume you were using the 64bit version of VE?
The difference in quality between the VSL and Garritan is quite pronounced!
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Post by winknotes on Oct 15, 2012 9:43:24 GMT -5
It is the 64bit version of VE.
Yeah there's no comparison on the quality of strings between the two libraries. I like all the VSL instruments, but I really don't have a problem with the woodwinds and percussion in GPO. At some point I may load the VSL brass too and see how those mix.
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