Good SD Impulse Responses for adding space and depth to VSL Pro Edition

You can saved yourself a lot of editing time by using the Midi Cha setting in EXS to switch articulations. You can read more about this on the VSL forum.

Hello,
Welcome to the all engrossing world of VSL using Logic.
I spent a considerable amount of time researching whether I wanted to use the single midi channel/single Logic track method that you are using or going with the multiple articulataion method mentioned by the first responder to your question.

I decided to go the same route as you have gone. After all the time I spent trying to figure out how to do the same thing Beat Kaufmann does with Sonar inside of Logic I came to realize that I would end up with Arrange tracks with keyswitches and controller information that would become meaningless if I switched articulations. It seemed to be too much information that would become unclear during the course of a long session or multiple sessions.

Perhaps Ryan has some insight that might change my view of how that might work. However I find copying and moving tracks easier within the Arrange window then trying to stump my mind figuring out what all this information was originally about.

With the advent of VI it looks like the only way to go is something that probably approaches Ryan's method. The fellow who originally showed me VSL is the person who suggested the multiple track method to be more intelligible. He is now a Beta tester for VI and say that with the new virtual instrument everything works incredibly faster. So perhaps this issue is only temporary. But even with VI you won't have to spend the time to figure out how to get an entire instument on a single track - it will be pretty much automatic.

Regarding IR's, within Logic I use Altiverb for ambiances and Space Designer mainly for reverb/delay effects. You can go to Altiverb's web site for more information regarding IR's.

My plan is to go to NAMM in January and hope that MIR is there and see if that's the way to go before I spend any more money on reverb.

Best regards,
Jack

hmm. this thread has 2 thrusts.

key switching or articulation changes:

you can do it with midi channel, but obviously that means you are limited to 16 per instrument, and then you can run into problems if you want to use the midi channels for display purposes.

key switching is unwieldy because if you start the sequencer without having the note really extended you will get unpredictable results. also, how do you hide the notes in the score?

my solution is to use program changes to activate the articulation switching. you can have all the articulations for one instrument in one esx instrument, each articulation set to respond to, say, midi cc 1. in environment there is an instrument -> transformer -> audioinstrument combination, which allows the program change to be converted to cc1 to switch the articulation, the instrument being brought up in arrange (rather than the audio instrument). very simple.

the upshot is, my scores reflect what is being performed and they look exactly right, all ready to be printed for the session. the mock-ups are extremely convincing and very quick to put together. if you follow similar rules for changing articulation: eg _ 0 = arco, _ 1 = detaché/stocc, _ 2 = pizz etc you know your own articulation changes and can assign them quickly with out problems.

regarding reverb.

i think it is essential that you have an overarching reverb, something common to the whole band to "glue" the sound together. then you can have individual reverbs on sections though judiciously. i often find it sounds better without. the other thing is to be quite ruthless with low cut, particularly on winds and percussion. what you are trying to do is put instruments that have been much more closely miked together in a bigger space and the frequency dissipation will be quite different had they been recorded like that. most of the VSL library has way too much lower-mid, which is fine so long as you cut it out.

some really good IR's are concert hall, deep orchester hall, and scoring stage. i know some people who have had great success with your PCM91 on everything and EMT plate on the brass.

good luck