Audio Impressions: Another Orchestral VI Library

[jamwerks]

Looks very promising !

Welcome | Audio Impressions, Inc.

[Gemylon]

Very interesting.

thumbsup


G

[synthetic]

They've been "announcing" that vaporware for the last three years. Looks like it's finally ready to ship, but still no demos? They had demos but pulled them because people were so underwhelmed. I've played with it at the last two NAMM shows and the sound quality was not great. I hope they can turn it around.

[Geoff Grace]

Off-Topic: Hey, Jeff, it's good to see you here.

Are you still at TASCAM? How's life treating you? It almost seems like Gearslutz has more MusicPlayer posters than MusicPlayer these days!

On-Topic: I got a chance to check out the DVZ Strings at NAMM and then again at the audioMIDI Film & TV Composer Clinic a couple of months ago. I also got to talk with Chris Stone for over two hours after the audioMIDI Film & TV Composer Clinic. Man does that guy know his stuff, both as a developer and as a composer! He shared a wealth of information about scoring methods, the business of composing, and of course DVZ. Immediately after the event, I called my machine and left four voicemails full of rapid fire notes!

I was impressed with the intuitive way in which the product was constructed. You can click on string icons to increase and decrease the size of your sections and grab microphones with your mouse and move them around the room. The divisi feature -- that assigns the number of instruments on the fly depending upon how many notes are played -- is another intuitive aspect that not only adds an element of realism that other libraries lack, it helps to trump the competition at meeting the imperative needs of working composers for speed and flexibility. thumbsup

I've been fortunate to follow the product's development process a bit during the last couple of years, and my hat's off to Audio Impressions for waiting to release DVZ until they felt they had it right. As a working composer, DVZ seems very promising to me -- both in terms of its design and its sound -- and I'm looking forward to sitting down with it in depth.

Best,

Geoff

[gsilbers]

i think i saw them at namm. it was 16k for that libary. a bit much. but it was recorded at 192/24.

[joris de man]

Originally Posted by gsilbers

i think i saw them at namm. it was 16k for that libary. a bit much. but it was recorded at 192/24.

16k? I would never buy it

I think some of the ideas behind this product sound great, esp. the divisi aspect.
However, I remember hearing a demo a year ago or so and not being that impressed by the sound, but that's just me.

I'm also hesitant of non-kontakt based libraries; I've had too much hassle with custom players that don't allow enough editing if any and have just been programmed badly.
Obviously not saying that this is at all, I haven't played it

If they'd release an 'LE' version in 48khz/24 or even 16 bit, with the ability to buy sections as opposed to the whole library, I would be very interested, if the sound and playability was right.

Cheers,

Joe

[Dr.Wu]

the thing that i found odd about it is that theyclaim that their Divisi technology would prevent the builtup that you normally get when you play chords with sampled stringsounds basically by doubling the amount of players with every note in the chord.
But anyone who is serious about working with strings always plays the lines for every section seperately anyway, no?
I mean playing strings in realtime with chords on a keyboard never sounds realistic because thats not the way an orchetra works.
On top off that they didnt sample certain keyarticulations like portamento etc at least i couldnt find those in their marketing materials-instead they are trying to mimic some of them thru midi scripting.
I listened to their demo when it was still up on their website and it didnt impresss me at all in terms of realism.
maybe they improved the concept in the last 2 years-but anyway-i already put my money into VSL, Synful and Wallander for my classical gas.

[noiseflaw]

I too have a problem with the sound of this library I heard it and was not convinced - espaecially for $16k!

I have some VSL stuff and I am convinced about that, plus you have a whole range of options regarding the choice of Libraries and articulations.

As for playing string chords on a keyboard... well that always sounds fake and corny.

[Solar]

Who's gonna pay 16K for this library? I mean with 16K i know exactly what i can do with that amount of money damn!! Will just hire the players man!!! Peace out and as many said here before, heard the demo a little ago and was not really impressed. This price is just some hype just like remember the famous very expensive EQ from Genwave or something like that? Where are these guys today? But i must say that its a very good trick for marketing because it attracts everybody's attention when the price tag hi very high!!

Thanx for sharing the link!!

Cheers!!

[Geoff Grace]

Guys, I saw DVZ again today at the Composers Expo in LA, so I have the latest information. I'm not sure where the notion of a $16,000 price came from, but that's a lot more than what I was told. I suppose if you wanted to use the 192 kHz samples on eight turnkey computers that you purchased in addition to the library instead of the 48 kHz samples on one or two PCs you already own, you might spend that kind of money; but the software alone won't cost you nearly that much. Similarly, you could spend that kind of money on VSL or EWQLSO systems, if you wanted more horsepower to run them with.

What you get with DVZ is unique in that you're not playing sampled sections, you're playing individually sampled instruments that are combined into sections. In a normal library, if you play two or three notes at once using your Violins I samples, then you're effectively doubling or tripling your violin section unrealistically. But if you do that on DVZ, it divides the section on the fly appropriately using several individually sampled violins on each note. This also allows you a unique flexibility to do other things, like choose how in tune the players in your sections are with each other, or how big or small the sections are -- from a quartet to a 70 piece orchestra, or anything in between. And you can do it while playing because all of the samples are always loaded.

This divisi feature is just one of many unique ways in which the product was created. It deserves our attention for its innovativeness alone. If you really take the time to get acquainted with it and dismiss it, that's one thing; but if you dismiss it out of hand, then you'll be doing both Audio Impressions and yourselves a disservice.

Best,

Geoff

[joris de man]

Geoff,

Thanks for the update. I think some of us on this thread were already aware of the divisi aspect of this library; it is actually one of the main things that interests me about it.

I was one of the early adopters of Wallander Brass, which has a similar feature, and I find it is one of its strengths, however, that library isn't sample based.

In the end, what it comes down to is the sound, playability and finally, the price.
The ideas are great, and the interface looks good, but the price has to be right as well.
And some of us lesser gods don't need 192khz

I'd love to hear some mp3 demos of the various techniques and playing styles in this library, as I think it will do it more justice than a namm video.

You might have talked to the guy and gotten a chance to listen more closely, but all we've had to go on so far have been two namm videos and murmerings of a hefty price tag...

Cheers,

JOe

[jamwerks]

Originally Posted by Geoff Grace

Guys, I saw DVZ again today at the Composers Expo in LA, so I have the latest information.

Great, so doen't be stengy with the info! Tell us more (payability, sound, price, weak points, etc.......).

[JH4music]

Very interested, still waiting to hear about the price too. I've heard a lot of good things about the current version of DVZ from people who went to the 2008 AES show.

Not necessarily related to the product, but It's worth a look at Chris Stone's personal site, his music is pretty cool...

Composer Chris Stone

It definitely shows that the right guy is behind this.

[JH4music]

It looks like it's now available. The software retails at $2399, but can be had for $1999.

You need at least two PC's to run it, but no audio interfaces.

The pre-configured PC's can come from 2 different companies, or you can build your own.

[noiseflaw]

Originally Posted by gsilbers

i think i saw them at namm. it was 16k for that libary. a bit much...

Originally Posted by JH4music

It looks like it's now available. The software retails at $2399, but can be had for $1999.

[JH4music]

Well here's the link:

News - DVZ Strings 2.0

[astronmr20]

Looked on the site hoping to scope a demo;

They said they need to finalize the masters before demos are posted. Do they mean "finalizing the masters" of the string library, or the demo?

If a company needs to "have the masters finalized" of their demo, then something's not right...



I'll be deciding on a string library/ interface/ VI very soon, and so far, i don't see anything that beats Vienna Instruments.

Will still check this out, though.

[feck]

No Mac support for the main instrument apparently, at least not yet. If that is the case, with a pro level app like this, I consider that a big mistake.

[JH4music]

You can run a mac as your sequencer(assuming your sequencer has VST or AU support), but yeah, the two sampler computers(one being the main controller for the library) have to be PC's... at least for now. Pricewise, I think that was a smart move. They spec out that you need a minimum of a core 2 quad processor for each PC, the only macs that currently meet this spec is the mac pro. If you build your own PC's, the price is a fraction of buying two mac pros. They kind of hint though that if and when they develop a mac version that it may be possible to run from a single 8 core mac pro. The current bottleneck is the FSB speed, but with every new version of the Mac Pro this has increased.

For me, the biggest question is if I'll be able to get this to work with Pro Tools. Using the FXpansion VST to RTAS adaptor I know it's possible to make muse research's uniwire plugin work, but there are many VST plugins that won't necessarily work with this. I can think of a few workarounds, but they would add more complexity and expense to my already complicated and expensive studio.

[JH4music]

I've dug a little deeper through their online manuals, it looks like you also need to buy Kontakt 3 to be able to run this. I guess if you look at the current $400 discount they're offering on the DVZ software, the discount covers the expense of a kontakt 3 license(You only need one license for your two pc's).

So assuming you already have a sequencer computer that works with VST or AU you need:
1. DVZ software $1999
2. Kontakt 3 $399(price grabbed from sweetwater.com)
3. 2 PC's, minimum specs:
each needs XP pro or home, SP2
intel quad core Q6700
motherboard - Intel® DG45ID Desktop Board or equivalent
3GB 240-pin DDR2 533+ MHz DIMM memory(no benefit to use more than 4GB)
2 hard drives, one for OS, one for sampes
2 ethernet ports, at least one needs to be gigbit.

Pre built systems that meet these specs retail for around $1300, but can be had for much cheaper if you put them together yourself.

It looks like if your budget is $5000 you should easily be able to set one of these systems up if you buy the computers from a third party. The two turnkey system providers they recommend, visionDAW and pcaudiolabs don't have prices published on their websites.

[VitaEtMusica]

Wow. That sounds like a really hard sell. The sounds would have to be pretty amazing to warrant that kind of investment. East West and Vienna can't be ignored that easily... and you don't have to buy two additional computers to keep up. That's where EW and Vienna have really shone- they've kept it simple and the sounds are outstanding.

[JH4music]

The high end of vienna is actually more:

Vienna Symphonic Library Vienna Instruments Symphonic Cube Extended Library | Sweetwater.com

Not really a fair comparison because I'm sure the Vienna library includes a lot more content, but if you compare it to what libraries and the hardware to play them cost in the samplecell days it doesn't look as bad.

I did one more calculation for DVZ, that was buying the components for the two PC's seperately and building them yourself. It came out to about $750-$800 per machine, which would bring the total price down to around $4000. Of course someone who builds and resells PC's also somehow manages to be about the same price. The markup on those parts must be insane.