Vienna Symphonic Library’s MIR Pro
Company: Vienna Symphonic Library GmbH
Serious music composed and/or played on your computer can still risk sounding squeaky, scrappy… just plain artificial.
MIDI files can be all very well; but there’s a danger that every instrument sounds like a tin bassoon!
Digital Audio Workstations (DAW’s) and notation software like Finale and Sibelius have made great progress towards realism in recent years. But they still need to reach into the real acoustic world in two long and deep ways in order to pass muster.
First, they must have credible-sounding professionally-sampled virtual instruments (VI’s). But just as importantly, there must be a sense of acoustic space: reverberation, three-dimensionality, distance from (perceived) source – and, ideally, the very essence of a venue’s “personality”.
Such sampling technologies are areas in which Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL) leads the field by a long way. The Austrian company of dedicated musicians and acoustic, technical and audio experts produces MIR Pro – recently upgraded to become, without doubt, the front-runner of a tiny clutch of similar products.
By co-incidence, the MIR Pro range is also on sale for the whole of this month, April 2013.
Sibelius 7 Music Notation Essentials (Avid Learning Series)
by James Humberstone
Course Technology PTR; 1st edition (February, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1133788823 ISBN-13: 978-1133788829
Paperback: 458 pages
$49.99
Avid’s Sibelius 7 is new enough for there still to be a dearth of supporting materials. But James Humberstone’s substantial new book in the Avid Learning Series, Sibelius 7 Music Notation Essentials, sets very high standards and is a welcome resource.
Ivory II Grand Pianos
North American distributors: ILIO
Price: $349 + $49.99 iLok Key from ILIO
Continuing our look at the very best music software, Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs), sequencers and samples/Virtual Instruments (VI’s), Synthogy’s Ivory II is found firmly to earn a place at the top of the list.
Sibelius 7
Avid (North American distributors)
Price: $599 ($149 upgrade)
Review by Mark Sealey dedicated to the memory of Steve Jobs, 1955-2011
When Sibelius 7 was released recently, its appearance was sufficiently different from that of Sibelius 6 to have thrown some (long-time) users. Avid was criticized on those listservs and forums which do such a sterling job of supporting Sibelius owners and prospective owners. Since so many creative professionals and enthusiasts have so much invested in a piece of software which they use for extended periods each day and to the ways of which their muscle memories had become fully used, change seemed particularly hard.
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VSL's Solo Strings
Vienna Symphonic Library Solo Strings Bundle
North American distributors:
ILIOPrice: $660
Virtual Instruments (VIs) allow you to work with lifelike sounds in sequencers and Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) like Apple’s Logic and notation packages like Avid’s Sibelius. (Avid has just announced Sibelius 7: watch for a review here shortly.)
VIs are collections of acoustic/sampled and/or electronically synthesized sounds with varying degrees of realism and flexibility of use. Formerly hardware-based, VIs are now available almost entirely as software. They range from the cheap, barely tolerable and tinny to… well, to those produced and sold by Vienna Instruments.
Xsample Chamber Ensemble
Winkler und Stahl GbR
Xsample
Amselweg 6
32756 Detmold
Germany
BestService
Sound on Sound
Price: $738.33
Resources for Avid's Sibelius 6
Sibelius 6 is far and away best-of-breed as the gold standard of music notation software. The main review examines this latest version, its strengths and what makes it so successful. But the resources to which most users will want to turn have musch to recommend them as well.
Sibelius 6
Company: Avid
Price: $599 (Sibelius 6 Educational: $295; upgrade: $169)
Sibelius 6 from Avid
There are standards, industry standards – and gold standards. Sibelius 6 is all three. It’s certainly the most comprehensive, robust, easy to use, well-designed, flexible, and satisfying score-writing/notation package available for the Mac (or indeed any platform) currently available. Sibelius 6 has several major enhancements: it’s hard to believe it’s even better. But it is.
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