Miroslav Philharmonik versus GPO...

[AndreasvanHaren]

I started to get interested after using a Miroslav Philharmonik demo for a while, so I listened to all the demos I could find ont he web with this library. The sounds are promising in this library but the real results I hear aren't that much... Why is that? The GPO real results I hear are much better in sound. Does this mean that the Miroslav Philharmonik is too old by now to make good sounding results? Anyone has experience with this? I am using GPO with great result and would not exchange it, but I am curious what others think.

André

[Haydn]

Miroslav is quite an old library. Many of the samples are stretched across quite a few notes whereas GPO is mostly chromatically sampled. This can really affect the tone quality.

Jim

[AndreasvanHaren]

Miroslav is quite an old library. Many of the samples are stretched across quite a few notes whereas GPO is mostly chromatically sampled. This can really affect the tone quality.

Jim

probably that is what made it sound less. I am sure it must have been a great package when it came out, I read it was the first like this on the market.

When I read the description on the site I was excited: Recorded in real seat position and within the Dvorak Hall. Sounds like a great idea. This seat position is especialy what I like, I assume the same efect can be reached with the pan option. But does this affect the depth in the hall as well? They have a nice reverb in the that gives depth. I am very curious what GPO 5 will bring, Creverb would be great, as I understand this gives this depth position in the room, right?

[Steve Johnson]

probably that is what made it sound less. I am sure it must have been a great package when it came out, I read it was the first like this on the market.

When I read the description on the site I was excited: Recorded in real seat position and within the Dvorak Hall. Sounds like a great idea. This seat position is especialy what I like, I assume the same efect can be reached with the pan option. But does this affect the depth in the hall as well? They have a nice reverb in the that gives depth. I am very curious what GPO 5 will bring, Creverb would be great, as I understand this gives this depth position in the room, right?

GPO 4 tries to do the same thing with Stereo Stage you can set for each instrument. I assembled my virtual orchestra with this, and there is some impression of depth positioning. Perhaps not the best, but I think a big improvement over the reverb in previous versions of GPO.

Thanks to DPDan's recommendation, I'm looking with great interest at Altiverb for true convolution reverb. Unfortunately, it is very expensive -- US$500! I downloaded a demo version, which I'll be trying soon. Even with the high price, I'll probably buy it sometime next year. Yes, it would be nice to have something like Altiverb in GPO 5, but I don't think I'll be able to wait that long.

André, best wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. May 2011 be a year of musical inspiration and creativity for you!

Steve

[bionicbub]

I'm looking with great interest at Altiverb for true convolution reverb. Unfortunately, it is very expensive -- US$500!

Steve...

Before you invest money, have you tried the [free] Freeverb3 convolution reverb? It is based on Freeverb, from the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University. IMHO, it is quite impressive.

[Steve Johnson]

Steve...

Before you invest money, have you tried the [free] Freeverb3 convolution reverb? It is based on Freeverb, from the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University. IMHO, it is quite impressive.

Actually, when DPDan got me fired up about Altiverb, I took a look at what else might be out there and found Freeverb. After a cursory glance it looked promising, but I wasn't sure about how "user friendly" it is. I'm a techie at heart, so learning curves don't intimidate me, just more of a question about whether Freeverb places nice with ARIA, Finale, and Sonar. Based on what you're saying, sounds like it does, so I think it's worth pursuing.

I'm on a learning curve with Sonar 8.5 right now. My first priority is to render my WIPs in GPO 4. Then as soon as that's done, my next one will be to give Freeverb and Altiverb a test-drive for comparison purposes. Free is always good, so if Freeverb stacks up favorably against Altiverb, guess which one i'll use ?

Thanks much for encouraging me in the direction of Freeverb, and my best wishes to you for a merry Christmas!

Steve

[bionicbub]

Steve--

Best wishes to you as well for this holiday season.

Just wanted to insure that you make a distinction between Freeverb (which is NOT convolution, as far as I can tell) and Freeverb3 (which IS convolution). They are not the same, but Freeverb3 is derived from Freeverb and works as a normal VST plug-in. I'm not very familiar with Altiverb, but I have looked into it somewhat. Freeverb3 most likely does not have all the bells and whistles or a fabulous GUI like Altiverb has, but if you're a techie, then that point is moot. I understand there are more than 500 impulse response files available for Freeverb3. (I may stand corrected, but I also believe that all impulse response files are usable by all convolution reverb software, since there is supposedly only the one format for them.)

I'm a techie, too, and I love to have printed manuals, which are becoming more rare today. But I have found that the printed manual for Sonar 6 is quite up-to-date for use with Sonar 8.5 except for a few obscure areas that I never use anyway. Printed manuals are far more convenient for me to jump around in without disturbing anything on the computer when I need to look something up. The same is true for Finale 2011 -- the printed manual (about 2,000 pages) for Finale 2002 is surprisingly up-to-date for Finale 2011. These major software packages actually change very little over the years. I'm working with Sonar X1 right now, and the only changes I can find are in the user interface, which is what they were aiming for in order to attract more European customers. The actual inner workings of Sonar are still very much the same as they have been for about the last 10 years.

I don't know why I spouted that out about the manuals just now... must have been something you said that triggered those thoughts, but it was an interesting discovery to see how the older manuals still hold up in everyday use with the latest-and-greatest versions of the software.

And Andreas, I'm not ignoring you, but you appear to have realized that the old Miroslav libraries are, in my opinion, too old now and too worn out from being "stretched" into doing things that they were not originally intended to do. They were certainly top-of-the-line in their day (mid-to-late 1990s), but Garritan put an end to that once and for all when the Garritan Orchestral Strings were first released (2001?) about 10 years ago.

And with that, I'll bid everyone a most Merry Christmas and a creative and abundant New Year!!!

Arvid

[Peter Jeffrey Gale]

Steve

If you can afford it and just want a bit of kit that just works, Altiverb is possibly well worth the money.

But I think that even Altiverb must just imitate the known physics of sound and psycho-acoustic responses of the ear to simulate the human perception of sounds in a 3D space.

Those effects could also be simulated just as well, albeit with more effort, mostly using just the plugins in almost any daw (or otherwise freely available)... that to me is the much more interesting route to take.

Peter