Francois2010 wrote:Good! Thank you again!
Glad to help! THOUGHTSWith the caveat that at present all the IK Multimedia virtual instruments are 32-bit only, Miroslav Philharmonik is surprisingly deep and rich once you understand how the SampleTank engine works and what you can do with it, where you will note that you can tailor specific articulations in the standalone user interface for Miroslav Philharmonik by adjusting the parameters on the right side of the "parts" and "channels" section, as shown in the following screen capture, where among other things you can change polyphony, panning, volume, and output channels . . .
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NOTE: On the Mac the way you change the parameters is to move the mouse pointer to the parameter and then click and hold down the left mouse button followed by moving the mouse upward or downward, which causes the numerical value to change. It probably works the same way on a Windows computer, but I cannot verify it, since I do everything on the Mac . . . ]
There are even more parameters and controls in the advanced section, as shown in the following screen capture, where you can do fine-tuning and apply a virtual festival of effects, and one can devote a week or more to making sense of all the stuff you can do in the advanced section, where the key is to save your changes as a user-defined preset or "COMBI", which you can recall at a later time, noting that the various controls and parameters of the advanced section apply specifically to each "part" or "channel" on a per instrument basis, where changes you make to the first part apply only to the first part, and so forth and so on . . .
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NOTE: To see the full image, you can click on right-click on the image and select "View Image" if are using the Firefox web browser. And there are similar commands for other web browsers . . . ]
As an example, consider that you have three trumpets where one is at the far-left front of the stage; one is at the front center of the stage; and the third trumpet is at the far-right front of the stage. You want to switch from one to another and hear them at their specific locations. You can do this by having three "parts" or "channels" for the exact same solo trumpet instrument articulation but for each one you change its panning location, respectively. Then in the music notation you can use "Switch Instrument" to select which of the three otherwise identical solo trumpets you want to play and since each one has a different panning location, this is handled automatically by Miroslav Philharmonik without requiring you to do anything specific with the NOTION 3 Mixer panning control for the instance of Miroslav Philharmonik. Whether this makes sense for a solo trumpet is another matter, but it could make sense for voices in an opera where the singers move to different locations on the stage . . .
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NOTE: Based on the specific musical genres for which I compose (DISCO and Pop), I like to have a bit of FUN with panning . . . ]
You can specify different instruments as well as voice articulations and can switch between them as the song moves from one section or phrase to another, which can be very useful when you have a set of instruments that never need to play simultaneously, where as an example there might be solos for a piccolo trumpet, baritone saxophone, and oboe but only one needs to play at any give time, so you can put these three instruments in the single instance of Miroslav Philharmonic as "parts" or "channels" and then switch among them as needed by doing a "Switch Instrument" command in the music notation. And you can do this with as many as 16 different instruments, voices, or articulations, where for example you might need five articulations for the piccolo trumpet solo; five articulations for the baritone saxophone solo; and six articulations for the oboe solo. The switching can be done on an individual note basis, but overall it is better to do it at a higher granularity (measures or sets of notes rather than on each individual note), since there is some overhead involved in switching "parts" or "channels" . . .
You can watch what happens by switching to the NOTION 3 Mixer and clicking on the name of one of the Miroslav Philharmonik instruments, which launches the Miroslav Philharmonik standalone user interface. Play the song and then watch as the "parts" and "channels" change in response to various articulations specified in the music notation for the instrument. You also will see the notes "played" on the mini-keyboard, which is interesting to watch . . .
Another useful bit of information is that you get the best and most realistic sound for a Miroslav Philharmonik instrument when you specify the matching sound sample played by the musician in the actual articulation you specify in your music notation, since this ensures that the sound sample is real rather than emulated by some type of algorithm . . .
This is a bit complex to explain, but if the articulation is staccato and there is a staccato articulation available for the instrument in Miroslav Philharmonik, it will sound best if you specify the staccato sound sample. The NOTION 3 presets and mapping for Miroslav Philharmonik do this in a practical way, but in some instances you might want to specify an articulation that is available in the sound samples for the instrument but is not mapped in the NOTION 3 presets and mapping for the particular instrument. In this case, you can create your own "COMBI" with the specific articulations you desire and use the "Switch Instrument" technique with an instance of Miroslav Philharmonik done via "VST Instruments" in NOTION 3 score setup, which you also can do in NOTION 4, with the caveat that at present all the IK Multimedia virtual instruments are 32-bit only . . .
This technique works for Kontakt 5 (Native instruments), MachFive 3 (MOTU), and so forth and so on, where the primary requirement is that the engines for the various VSTi virtual instruments support "parts" or "channels", as well as switching among the various "parts" or "channels" via the "Switch Instrument" notation in NOTION, which basically sends a specific MIDI command to the VSTi virtual instrument engine telling which "part" or "channel" to use . . .
The general rule here in the sound isolation studio is that sample sounds for instruments and voices are the most realistic when you select the specific sampled sound where the musician or singer actually is performing the particular articulation, which makes excellent sense if you think about it for a while . . .
If you want the most realistic legato, then select the specific articulation where the musician or singer is performing legato, and if there are different types of legato, then select the sampled sound that best matches the type of legato you desire. This way a real musician or singer was recorded playing or singing in the specific articulation you want to use, and this will be the most realistic sound . . .
Continuing with the legato example, there are ways to emulate legato when it is not available as a specific real sound sample, and some of the emulation algorithms can be very realistic, but there are differences among (a) computed articulations using mathematical and geometrical algorithms and (b) articulations played or sung by real people and then recorded, digitized, and made available as specific sound samples . . .
Lots of FUN! P. S. If you need any help with this, let me know . . .