who would buy Vitous lib still today if price were reasonable?

[Lux]

I would.

I'm just curious to know if I'm basically alone or not.

Thanks
Luca

[Joseph Burrell]

I'd be more apt to buy it if it didn't cost 2,000+ dollars. I just don't think its viable anymore at that price. I know others that feel the same way.

[fgrittner]

IK Multimedia and Sonic Reality announced today that the Vitous libraries are being repurposed into a Symphonik plugin based on the Sampletank 2.1 engine. It will include choirs and some unreleased stuff. Dave Kerzner disclosed this over at KVR this morning. IK and SR bought the library from Vitous, which probably didn't have much value left, as is.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

That library always was worth the money. It's like anything else. Was the pill that saved your life ten years ago less valuable than the different, more technologically modern pill that saves your life today?

Miroslav did some remarkable things. I have many, many pieces which feature Miroslav libraries which are still in production in theatres. I have re-orchestrated many of them as the years have gone by. Some of the Miroslav material, I have replaced with more technologically modern library materials successfully. Other parts, I have chosen not to replace because I can't see the value in it.

The reason, I think, is that I'm a good musician, and I wouldn't have been content to release something that sounded bad, no matter what the tool. Whether that means I favored some types of writing over others, in order to make the parts sound good, the bottom line is that they did sound good. And in many cases it is difficult to come back in, even with presumably "better" libraries, and get the same feel.

I think it's great that someone has purchased the rights to the Miroslav material and seeks to reprogram it. Smart. I'll bet they do some great work, and wish them a lot of success.

[Seq]

I think the price quoted by Dave was about 1/4 of 2k.

So at that price it might be a good alternative for some getting their first library and maybe even a good addition to those looking to add on to their existing collection.

[bosone]

why not to continue to sell it "as-is" at a *very* low price?
i think that the library largely paid itself and brought a lot of money to the producer.
so, reprinting it in a budget format would mean a little investement and some more earned money.
why not to apply this concept to akai libraries which are more than 4-5 years old or were "outdated" by a "2.0" version?

[josejherring]

Just my opinion.

In doing a lot of research on what library to buy recently I ranked the library's in order of quality vs. price. I think that anybody who plans to release this library in another format has to take into consideration the following. EWQLSO silver and GPO at $250-$300 are better sounding librarys to me than the Miraslov. Sure for its time it was the best. But in todays market it hardly even ranks with the lowest priced of the finer library's.

That being said. I do think that the woodwinds sound pretty good. The strings okay and the brass a little less than passable for today. With some good engineering I think these samples will sound fine, but never better than what they are.

Yes I'd like to have them maybe partly for nostalgia and party for background song arrangements where the modern trend of recording in a concert hall may not be the best for record arrangements ( probalby better for records is KH and Dan Dean libraries). But, when push comes to shove and there's money on the line and you have clients to please, you'd want the best, most realistic samples which unfortunately isn't this library anymore.

So for Miraslov. In order for me to buy it, it would have to be priced slightly below silver and GPO and slightly above the old roland library samples which I think go for $60 a section.


Like I said. Just my opinion.

Jose

[Seq]

Jose, a very valuable opinion. It's interesting to hear different people's takes on these sounds and contrasting them against what else is available.

[fozzy]

Agree. I would only consider the purchase if the price were in the range you suggest. It'll be interesting to see how much more music can be gotten out of this library once it's revamped.



So for Miraslov. In order for me to buy it, it would have to be priced slightly below silver and GPO and slightly above the old roland library samples which I think go for $60 a section.


Like I said. Just my opinion.

Jose

[Yossarian]

The price announced is $499 but remember you’re not just getting the Miroslav Vitous samples (which includes some previously unreleased material), you’re also getting Sonic Reality programming and the SampleTank engine. If they’ve been able to use the Stretch feature of ST on the solo instruments it could turn out to be very cool.

For people who already own an orchestral library this may not be a high priority but for ST owners (who most likely will be eligible for a cross-grade discount which will put this library in GPO/Silver territory) looking for orchestral sounds this could be just the thing. I recently bought EWQLSO Gold in the group buy but as a ST owner I’m still interested in this library.

/Yoss

[Lux]

The price announced is $499 but remember you’re not just getting the Miroslav Vitous samples (which includes some previously unreleased material), you’re also getting Sonic Reality programming and the SampleTank engine. If they’ve been able to use the Stretch feature of ST on the solo instruments it could turn out to be very cool.

For people who already own an orchestral library this may not be a high priority but for ST owners (who most likely will be eligible for a cross-grade discount which will put this library in GPO/Silver territory) looking for orchestral sounds this could be just the thing. I recently bought EWQLSO Gold in the group buy but as a ST owner I’m still interested in this library.

/Yoss

sold!

I dont agree with that Gpo/Silver comparison. We're talking about really different things.

Many libs that came out in the last 2 or 3 years are fullfilled of exagerate programming (waves attack totally changed artificially, outrageous releases, outrageous long notes recorded also for instruments that never had written anything for that lenght, flat note playing).

What Vitous and some few other libs still have (I permit to include also SI stuff into that) is that you have mainly the entire played note experience from attack to decay.

I got Sonic Implants SS mini sf2 and its greatly playable without any programming just because the "notes" are recorded as they would be. It demonstrates also that fullfilling my Ram with terabytes of data cannot substitute the right playing feeling in recording each note.

in my very honest opinion

Luca

[Yossarian]

I dont agree with that Gpo/Silver comparison. We're talking about really different things.


What I meant was that with a cross-grade discount for ST owners (which would be consistent with IK/SR:s normal pricing policy) the price would be comparable to GPO and Silver.

/Yoss

[Lux]

Sorry Yoss, I know, I was referring to Jose's comparison.

Luca

[Jimi]

Are you the same Bruce who wrote the drooling fanboy review of the Miroslav library some years ago? Not that I blame you, there wasn't much else at the time, and aside from the absurd price, there really were some cool sounds. I personally think the Miroslav sounds were (are?) useable in more contexts if you tweaked them. I messed with the string envelopes to get rid of those ridiculous 5 minute crescendos (slight exaggeration but surely everyone knows what I'm talking about and gets the joke), and I used the mod wheel to bring in a bit of the detache samples. This made them more general-purpose and lessened the need for AO, which always sounded too synthy for me. Some of the Miroslav brass and wind section patches were (are) highly realistic, that is, they sounded like the real thing, and too many people with big mouths have no idea what real instruments sound like. Unfortunately, the lack of dynamic levels and goofy "expressive crescendo!" envelopes limited it's usefulness. Still, I have yet to hear anyone top the heart-breakingly poignant bassoon section sustain patch. I was always fond of that sound in my real-life scoring, and was suprised to find it the first time I tried Miroslav.

I still think the best strings until the newer libraries were in the older Roland sound library. I wish they would re-release those discs, NOT the newer grab-bag "string and percussion" disc which is not the same. In some ways the Roland samples haven't been topped. There is a robust FF violin section patch that can pull extremely convincing octave lines in a way that nothing else can, not even VSL or Platinum. I don't know why, something about the attacks on some of the Roland strings allows good legato playing without "sucking" artifacts.

Peace out


That library always was worth the money. It's like anything else. Was the pill that saved your life ten years ago less valuable than the different, more technologically modern pill that saves your life today?

Miroslav did some remarkable things. I have many, many pieces which feature Miroslav libraries which are still in production in theatres. I have re-orchestrated many of them as the years have gone by. Some of the Miroslav material, I have replaced with more technologically modern library materials successfully. Other parts, I have chosen not to replace because I can't see the value in it.

The reason, I think, is that I'm a good musician, and I wouldn't have been content to release something that sounded bad, no matter what the tool. Whether that means I favored some types of writing over others, in order to make the parts sound good, the bottom line is that they did sound good. And in many cases it is difficult to come back in, even with presumably "better" libraries, and get the same feel.

I think it's great that someone has purchased the rights to the Miroslav material and seeks to reprogram it. Smart. I'll bet they do some great work, and wish them a lot of success.

[Jimi]

With a good programmer and a street price of $299, they could make a tidy profit. Some of the sounds on there haven't been surpassed yet. Although the solo winds are kinda outmoded at this point. You would be better off with Westgate etc.

I'll let you guys in on a trick: play with broad high EQ boosts on Miroslav. Boost the hell out of the horn section sustains for example. With a good room reverb (Miroslav does NOT need long hall reverbs, it's already pretty distant and ambient) you will like what you hear. Also, program your envelopes to clamp down 10 or 15 DB, after a decay time of 0.6 to 0.8 seconds. This will make 80% of the library much more useful.

Now that I'm thinking about it, some other good things about Miroslav that come to mind: the brass section SFZ patches (they call them "staccatos" but they are useless as staccatos) are nice and crunchy, especially the trumpets SFZ which are nice, sharp and brassy. The pizzicatos have a nice ambience to them, the soft trombone section is awesome in chordal passages, the soft trumpet section is good for slow "calls" at the interval of the 5th etc.

Just some ideas.


I would.

I'm just curious to know if I'm basically alone or not.

Thanks
Luca

[josejherring]

I guess that proves a point. In today's market place we're all winning.

It's a matter of choice and how you like to work with samples. If there are composers and programmers out there that can make the library sound fantastic-- great!

I personally am from the live performance side. Only recently decided to take samples seriously (after a while of not working on anything). For me, the built in ambiance and the "sounds great out of the box" experience is vital to my survival. I've now done 3 films in the last 4 months. So I'm very happy with the new stuff. Though Yoss' discussion has me looking at Miroslav in a whole new way.

[Frunobulax]

I too am interested in hearing how the Vitous samples stack up against the newer libraries. I appreciate everyone's comments in this thread and I hope others having experience with these samples will chime in as well.

I did want to point out that the announced list price of $499 for the Philharmonik Vitous plug will be the same list price as Sampletank 2XL, and ST2XL's street price is around $375, so we might see a similar street price for Philharmonik Vitous. Plus IK/SR seem to have a pretty generous upgrade/crossgrade policy (e.g., if you own ST2XL you can crossgrade to Sonik Synth 2 for around $200, and vice-versa). So as Yossarian pointed out, the crossgrade price is likely to be in the GPO price range, perhaps even less.

BTW, if anyone is interested, you can listen to demos of the Vitous libraries here:

http://www.esoundz.com/default.php

[JonP]

I still use the Vitous samples from time to time. Vitous got his people to perform and you can hear it throughout the library. The midi manipulation we have available today didn't really exist back then.

I've owned them for about 7 years now and they've paid for themselves a gazillion times over. Sure, they need a lot of tweaking but its worth the effort. The cor anglais, the unison bassoons, the strings (which I find really blend well with more recent releases) and even some of the percussion are all still useable - and I know there's plenty more I've forgotten in this list. If the re-programming is effective and the suggested price accurate then I reckon its a bargain.

[Lux]

I too am interested in hearing how the Vitous samples stack up against the newer libraries. I appreciate everyone's comments in this thread and I hope others having experience with these samples will chime in as well.

I did want to point out that the announced list price of $499 is the same list price as Sampletank 2XL, and its street price is around $375, so we might see a similar street price for Symphonik. Plus IK/SR seem to have a pretty generous upgrade/crossgrade policy (e.g., if you own ST2XL you can crossgrade to Sonik Synth 2 for around $200, and vice-versa). So as Yossarian pointed out, the crossgrade price is likely to be in the GPO price range, perhaps even less.

BTW, if anyone is interested, you can listen to demos of the Vitous libraries here:

http://www.esoundz.com/default.php

Damn...on Ezsounds Vitous libs are way lower price than I expected. Cool!

Luca

[dpasdernick]

I think companies need to start lowering the price of some of the older libs. There are so many good libraries out there now. EWQL Gold is one such powerhouse. All of the sounds fit so well together and each articulation is very well done. PLUS you have an upgrade path. I just can't see anyone forking over money to buy an old orchestral library that has so much competition today.

Kirk Hunter's virtuoso strings once commaneded $1000 and recently he just blew them out for $99. Because even HE himself has released a bigger, better, cheaper alternative.

With all this said, I don't want to see the old libraries go away. Good sound never becomes obsolete. Just lower the prices to get a little more "real" with the current trend of the new sound sets.

IMHO.

Darren

[kitekrazy]

IK Multimedia and Sonic Reality announced today that the Vitous libraries are being repurposed into a Symphonik plugin based on the Sampletank 2.1 engine. It will include choirs and some unreleased stuff. Dave Kerzner disclosed this over at KVR this morning. IK and SR bought the library from Vitous, which probably didn't have much value left, as is.

Sonic Reality does some nice programming. I remember getting the orchestral strings for ST1. They didn't sound like the top notch libraries but for $80 they were quite useful.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Are you the same Bruce who wrote the drooling fanboy review of the Miroslav library some years ago? Not that I blame you, there wasn't much else at the time, and aside from the absurd price, there really were some cool sounds.

They were indeed excellent. I am all for supporting great effort, and Miroslav is an extremely talented and gracious fellow whose effort was praiseworthy.

The price was not absurd, compared to what else was on the market. At the time, AO and Roland were the other primary go-to collections, and the Miroslav collection came in at about what one would expect for its earning potential. It had also benefited greatly from the conversion to GigaSampler format, and Miroslav was one of the earliest contributors to some of the concepts which carry on in the current soft-samplers.

Some of my analog synths (that could play only one timbre at a time) cost a lot more than Miroslav's library did. It's all relative to time and place.

[ed hamilton]

agreed that miroslav lib is excellent and worth the price in its day.
I was mo broke back then so i only bought the miroslav mini in kurz format and I miss it dearly (sold my kurz stuff).
If they were releasing it in either kompakt or M5 (ala atmosphere) format i would buy it at $400.
In Sampletank.......er......samplecrash...... nope.

Just for kicks tonight I loaded my old Roland Orch lib into M5.
I agree with an earlier post as to the usablility of this old lib still.
Compared to some of the newer budget libs...... well.... roland knows how to sample things thats clear.
And the Roland saxes still hold up very well.
I gotta spend some time tweeking this old lib back to life in M5.

[FV]

Hi,


If they were releasing it in either kompakt or M5 (ala atmosphere) format i would buy it at $400.

Maybe I'm reading things wrong or misunderstanding the point of this post but it doesn't look to me like it's $400 for the set but just for the String Ensembles. When you go to the Strings Ensembles, it's listed as $400. Go to Solo Instruments and each volume is $329 and so on. Once you add everything up you're up around $1500.

I agree that there are some special sounds in the Miroslav set but, unless the programming is great, it is not really great value considering the other offerings available today. In it's time, definitely worth the price if you could afford it.

FV

[ed hamilton]

FV - $499 seems to be the price for the new plug in version of miroslav with sampletank engine.

You are right about the price of the old akai version still being high.
Bet that can't last for long once the vsti version is out.

If they were to drop the price of the old akai version to parody with the sampletank set .......
$400 for the sampletank version vs $400 for the akai ?
I might go for the akai set and import to kontakt.

[Yossarian]

Some more info from IK Multimedia about the acquisition of the Miroslav Vitous library and the new Philharmonik plugin:

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/PressReleases/IK-SR-Miroslav-05-01.pdf

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/PressReleases/PLK-05-01.pdf

/Yoss

[PolarBear]

I don't think drastic price reduces should be made, because there's always the last 10 or 20 purchasers that will be annoyed that they bought it for the old price.

However I think developers could consider making different prices for commercial and aboslutely non-commercial use (read for hobbyists) - the second don't have any projects to get any of their investments back with what they bought. And it's a good working praxis in the software area doing exactly that, seperating commercial use from non-commercial. That will definately help the sales. Perhaps we could discuss that non-commercial prices are introduced only after a year the product is on the market, so the pro's will buy it for full price anyway just like now.

On topic, Miroslav Strings for 310 euro is considerable I think, the whole orchestra set for sections (strings, ww ensemebles, brass and percussion) as QLSO Gold/VSL Opus equivalent is around 900 euro, not cheap though in the same range, but you have other possibilities if you want a cheap sample set these days.

Just my 2ct,
PolarBear

[moosethree]

the msrp is $500 ...it will sell in guitar center for less I am sure.

This collection has a unique sound and if the programming and performance
features make it even more usable it will be appreciated for some time.

[Hardy Heern]

That library always was worth the money. It's like anything else. Was the pill that saved your life ten years ago less valuable than the different, more technologically modern pill that saves your life today?

Miroslav did some remarkable things. I have many, many pieces which feature Miroslav libraries which are still in production in theatres. I have re-orchestrated many of them as the years have gone by. Some of the Miroslav material, I have replaced with more technologically modern library materials successfully. Other parts, I have chosen not to replace because I can't see the value in it.

The reason, I think, is that I'm a good musician, and I wouldn't have been content to release something that sounded bad, no matter what the tool. Whether that means I favored some types of writing over others, in order to make the parts sound good, the bottom line is that they did sound good. And in many cases it is difficult to come back in, even with presumably "better" libraries, and get the same feel.

I think it's great that someone has purchased the rights to the Miroslav material and seeks to reprogram it. Smart. I'll bet they do some great work, and wish them a lot of success.

Steady on Bruce, let the forum and public decide!!!http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Frank

[Seq]

Hi,



Maybe I'm reading things wrong or misunderstanding the point of this post but it doesn't look to me like it's $400 for the set but just for the String Ensembles. When you go to the Strings Ensembles, it's listed as $400. Go to Solo Instruments and each volume is $329 and so on. Once you add everything up you're up around $1500.

I agree that there are some special sounds in the Miroslav set but, unless the programming is great, it is not really great value considering the other offerings available today. In it's time, definitely worth the price if you could afford it.

FV


Two different things... you must be looking at the individual libraries at esoundz. Just announced is the Philharmonik plugin based on a sampletank platform that in my understanding combines all of these libraries into a single product. So... what he was selling for just under $2k will be less than $499. Which at that price makes it of interest. Plus the plugin will contain many many new programs using that material.

[Jimi]

Absurd from the perspective of a starving musician! It was cheap when viewed as a "license" that could be turned into profit by some type of production company.


They were indeed excellent. I am all for supporting great effort, and Miroslav is an extremely talented and gracious fellow whose effort was praiseworthy.

The price was not absurd, compared to what else was on the market. At the time, AO and Roland were the other primary go-to collections, and the Miroslav collection came in at about what one would expect for its earning potential. It had also benefited greatly from the conversion to GigaSampler format, and Miroslav was one of the earliest contributors to some of the concepts which carry on in the current soft-samplers.

Some of my analog synths (that could play only one timbre at a time) cost a lot more than Miroslav's library did. It's all relative to time and place.

[FV]

Hi Seq,


Two different things... you must be looking at the individual libraries at esoundz.

I see now. Thanks for the clarification.

FV

[FV]

Hi,


Absurd from the perspective of a starving musician! It was cheap when viewed as a "license" that could be turned into profit by some type of production company.

It was certainly not absurd from my perspective. At the time, it was priced accordingly considering where it came in for an orchestral set. Nothing else touched it IMHO. I certainly was not able to afford it but its price came in where one would expect it to at the time. It also was not targeted at starving musicians but at professionals who could earn back their investment in short order. It also cost quite a bit of money (and still does) to produce a quality orchestral library so that they could sell a "license".

I can't afford VSL Pro Edition, but I also don't find it's pricing absurd - just out of my reach at this point in time.

Best regards,
FV