Members blueshoes22 Posted November 30, 2011 Members Share Posted November 30, 2011 I've been around the traps the last month blathering on about a super horrendous customer service experience I've had - which has amounted to outright theft to date - but we'll see if I get my money back yet. But today I had a really good one, that was such a contrast I thought it deserves a mention. Honestly, I mean it's well known that people will jump to and tell 1000 people when something goes wrong, but rarely do we take the trouble to recommend when something goes right. The company I'm thanking here is Waves. I have an old ilok key which I think I've had since as early as 2001 if they even had those then - still working, but it had version 5 waves plugins on it, which can't be moved. I figured it was about time to take care of that or risk losing them. So I wrote their support and they said, you have to upgrade your waves update plan for $200 then you get version 8, and you can move the licenses then to your new ilok. So I thought ok, then I get the new version (I haven't been using them for a while). I did the upgrade (I have platinum bundle). Only then did I notice there was an upgrade path for me to Platinum + the LL3 multimaximiser for just $160... I wrote to their customer service casually and said, look that was bad advice! you could have told me I would get a better result for less money. I paid $40 more and didn't get the LL3 multimaximiser. (Yes both options were available at the same time, not after I upgraded the WUP). Today they promptly wrote back, have refunded me the $40, and sent me the license for the LL3 multimaximiser automatically. So I'm so happy with that result and the honesty and decency on the part of Waves - (they could have been a cold ass company that didn't give a rats behind) - that I thought this deserves a big thank you from me and a shout out to Waves - thanks. So refreshing and relieving to deal with a company that doesn't rip you off. On that note, other companies I can recommend 100%: Vienna Symphonic Library Bricasti Design Synthogy Metric Halo Solid State Logic (for software - although I don't like the fact they don't use ilok and make you buy another USB dongle) All of which I've dealt with their customer service for one reason or another and found them to be right on, ie. fast response, honest and courteous, fair attitude and treatment. I must say also Steinberg has also gotten much better in the last couple of years and was very concerned and helpful when I had a problem with a license earlier this year. Thank you Waves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators daddymack Posted November 30, 2011 Moderators Share Posted November 30, 2011 accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 1, 2011 Members Share Posted December 1, 2011 accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative... well... Vienna Symphonic Library The whole library was recorded in a wrong stereo microphone technique which can not be narrowed at all in stereo width without introducing comb filter artefacts. not even talking about what happen when you do that with a full orchestra from piccolo down to Contrabassoon. Nevertheless they also wanna sell you an additional player software with a pan knob which does exactly that, and that not even all... That was wasted (stolen from me) another $10.000 for unusable bull{censored}. About the other product you seem to like, I don't tell what is wrong with it, or you get totally frustrated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blueshoes22 Posted December 1, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 1, 2011 Well, I'm a huge fan of VSL. You have to understand the philosophy that they recorded with - I was also critical years ago of this stereo issue until I did more looking into it - the recording technique is not flawed, on the contrary, it's actually a brilliantly flexible and future proof way of doing it, but there did not exist the technology to deal with the technique they used until now. I used to complain on their forum about problems dealing with the stereo effect and I could clearly see in meters lack of stereo coherence when mixing many instruments together and using things like altiverb. What fixed that for me was to not use convolution reverb to start with especially altiverb, no disrespect but I found that it massively added to the antiphase material in the mix - maybe one instrument no, but as soon as you had half a dozen or more instruments, it was clearly there - and their stereo panners that is built into their Ensemble software, which appears to treat the stereo in their files properly, if that makes sense. I recently tried out their MIR mixing engine and hooked that up as a short reflection / direct placement mixer with a hardware reverb on the end for the tail and then checked the coherency using Waves analyser, and I found it was a very coherent image, which was matching what I was hearing, by the way. None of these mixes are on my website BTW, I left those as they are until I got my treatment products and remix everything. The VSL library was always designed to be future proof in that it was not recorded in a room per se and was always designed to be used with some kind of placement technology that did not exist at the time (like MIR). However, even so, I have gotten a sound I am happy with using Bricasti and VSL (I will get MIR when I can afford it). You're probably a 960 or TC man from the sounds of it? I like those but for me for my aesthetics, the Bricasti was a no brainer. I also like the yardstick, but the Bricasti won out for me in the end although I'd love both, and a TC. BTW my post was to comment on positive customer service experience I had, not to discuss the merits of their gear, but you said VSL is unusable bull{censored}, I strongly disagree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 1, 2011 Members Share Posted December 1, 2011 ... you said VSL is unusable bull{censored}, I strongly disagree. Stereo microphone technique with interchannel-level and interchannel-time differences can not be panned nor narrowed in stereo width. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blueshoes22 Posted December 1, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 1, 2011 Yes I thought so too at first but check out the technique they used in more detail, this problem doesn't apply when you deal with the material properly. Yes it is a different approach, in fact you could say it's the only library that is done like this, the others are libraries, this is in fact a virtual orchestra - modular and a work in progress, something quite different. http://www.vsl.co.at/en/65/72/103/20.vsl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORTF_stereo_technique If you pan with your host panner or a desk, yes, I have found the same thing as you, but if you use their power pan software, and especially their MIR software, the ORTF recording method is ideal and allows for maximum flexibility in panning. I don't recommend ever going completely to mono, except you can mute one channel and use it like a mono recording (one mic) for single instruments if you want to, but I never need to. I confirmed this with Waves analyser which I think does a good job of showing visually coherency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 1, 2011 Members Share Posted December 1, 2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORTF_stereo_technique "The result is a realistic stereo field that has reasonable compatibility with mono playback." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blueshoes22 Posted December 1, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 1, 2011 As I said, when you run it through MIR, the combination seems to result in a very coherent result, and I've been very critical of VSL in the past also - but I think they have really nailed it and I believe they had a long term vision all along which has paid off. If you want to make something future proof there are always going to be some short term sacrifices. I just think with the size of the library, they looked at it long term and I think that was the right thing to do. In fact I always thought that but I did not understand how it worked technically. Also I find their powerpan seems to treat the material well also, if you don't want to buy MIR, just use that. But remember, it was always advertised and promoted up front that the library is recorded more or less on a silent stage (yes there are key early reflections but not much else) for the specific purpose that you would not be stuck with a particular room sound. Again I put forward the point that it is a virtual orchestra, not just a sample library, from that point of view it is something very different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 1, 2011 Members Share Posted December 1, 2011 power pan is one pan law, and works the same in all digital audio production which have this option, do you really believe a movie producer would accept cues in the sonic quality one can achieve with vsl sounds? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dcodr Posted December 7, 2011 Members Share Posted December 7, 2011 Its a shame that good customer service is the exception rather than the rule these days. I remember when we were still publishing the Music Phone Book, one of our reps came in and said a guy called looking for a number because he lost his MPB when his house burned down. The rep asked if we could send a replacement to the poor guy which we did. To this day the guy speaks well about the MPB even though we havent put out an issue is years. Cost us like $10 of product, but to us it was worth it. Props to Blueshoes for posting a positive experience here. As he pointed out 99.9% of people speaking out only happens when something goes wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blueshoes22 Posted December 7, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 7, 2011 power pan is one pan law, and works the same in all digital audio production which have this option,do you really believe a movie producer would accept cues in the sonic quality one can achieve with vsl sounds? You have to know how to use it to get the sound that you want. From memory there are plenty of successful movie composers who use VSL for mock ups and composition. I personally for my taste find the sound much better than anything else I have heard. You can use it as a final track in a lower budget production, it's also very functional for composition, both for quick / broad mockups and if you want to get really detailed. Again, I'm going to say it more clearly, the panning issues when used with MIR do not exist. They were unduly exacerbated by Altiverb processing especially when using the stereo placement feature, for some reason. Using MIR I have found they are very coherent and you get a really flexible placement. Look, I get that you aren't a fan, so lets not argue - but I am calling you out now on the panning problem - it does not exist with MIR / and or proper treatment. Again, I believe their vision for the future paid off, and now we're not stuck with the sound they thought was best at the time, but something much more flexible. I find their samples very expressive / emotional as well yet so flexible. I don't know how they did it - that's just a performance comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blueshoes22 Posted December 7, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 7, 2011 Thanks Dcodr. I want to add two companies to the list: Real Traps for bass traps & acoustic treatmentand GIK also for bass traps & acoustic treatment I have purchased from Real Traps recently after another vendor, I will not again name here, I believe tried to rip me off. Won't go into again here, but bottom line is that I did not post Real Traps up there because I don't want people to think I'm a shill, bagging one guy and promoting another company. But the police got involved, and now that thread over at GS has been taken down after I got my money back, so I won't go into that again here. I post GIK because although I haven't tried their products I dealt with their customer service and I they seemed really good to me also. Real Traps were patient, gave good honest advice, their production was fast, their prices reasonable, and I can report the construction is excellent. I also live overseas, and everything arrived in perfect condition - everything was well packaged, and they work great. The last one I forgot is Spectrasonics, also a great company to deal with, and that tops off my list of recommendations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members A. Einstein Posted December 9, 2011 Members Share Posted December 9, 2011 None of the spaced apart stereo microphone technique can be narrowed in stereo width. Every recording engineer knows that. Panning of a spaced apart recording introduces comb filter artefacts. Blumlein for example can be spanned as much as you like, because the acoustic signal arrived at the same time at the two microphones capsules. This comb filter artefact may not heard on none-high resolution monitoring. However there is one method where the stereo balance of a stereo signal recorded with a spaced apart pair can be re-balanced, that is when you have a stereo signal on two faders, which is anyway the best way to balance stereo tracks, respectively how it was done before all virtual consoles had only stereo faders. That's not even the real problem with VSL samples, what's missing is the most important ambience factor: EARLY REFLECTION whichis a pain in the ear, and can not be recreated with artificial reverberation. If you don't think so, go to the VSL website and listen to the creepedy crap siounding demos, then compare to a movie soundtrack which was produced with other sound libraries. You have to know how to use it to get the sound that you want. From memory there are plenty of successful movie composers who use VSL for mock ups and composition. I personally for my taste find the sound much better than anything else I have heard. You can use it as a final track in a lower budget production, it's also very functional for composition, both for quick / broad mockups and if you want to get really detailed.Again, I'm going to say it more clearly, the panning issues when used with MIR do not exist. They were unduly exacerbated by Altiverb processing especially when using the stereo placement feature, for some reason. Using MIR I have found they are very coherent and you get a really flexible placement.Look, I get that you aren't a fan, so lets not argue - but I am calling you out now on the panning problem - it does not exist with MIR / and or proper treatment. Again, I believe their vision for the future paid off, and now we're not stuck with the sound they thought was best at the time, but something much more flexible. I find their samples very expressive / emotional as well yet so flexible. I don't know how they did it - that's just a performance comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blueshoes22 Posted December 9, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 9, 2011 Yes which they did on purpose - if they would have recorded a specific room then you would have been stuck with that specific room. They recorded them dry (there are early reflections technically speaking but they are fairly neutral if that makes sense) so you can place them into other rooms, with convolution of the day (which I didn't like) or other reverbs, or with their new mix engine, which I think works great. VSL is not only a virtual orchestra but also a composition tool and for that there is no equal - for that reason many name composers use it for mockups, composition etc. You're free to dislike it of course. Have you listened to the star wars demo on VSL's site? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blueshoes22 Posted December 9, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 9, 2011 Go to their site check out the "top five" in the demo's section. The one by Rob Elliot is really good as is the mockup of John Williams. Being able to have more flexibility with the early reflections means the library is much more flexible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blueshoes22 Posted December 12, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 12, 2011 Hey man, tell me what's wrong with this - strings? brass? What? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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