IK Miroslav Philharmonik?

[chibear]

Hi all, I received my copy of Miroslav Philharmonik last week from IK Multimedia and have been putting it through its paces. I'm very impressed with the warmth and personality of some of these samples but there are also some turkeys. I'll post a full review here and put the practice composition up on Mixcraft Live when I'm finished. In the Fall I'll pick up the EastWest bundle but will explore MP for the summer.

MP uses a version of the IK Sample Tank player. All reviews I have read on MP say that it performs with no artifacts. I am finding it quite the opposite and at strange times. Currently I am running 17 tracks of MP (I am running a 3ghrz duo core 4 gigs RAM with M-Audio Audiophile 192 w ASIO drivers and a WD 7200rpm drive on Windows 7 64 bit). My last demo using the stock Acoustica synths was 64 tracks and had 0 artifacts To IK's credit MixCraft's CPU usage even in the most dense sections is below 20% with system below 30%. I have also reduced polyphony in the Sample tank players where it makes sense. Yet I get bubbling artifacts not in the loud dense sections but in the soft transparent sections. Freezing the tracks removes the problem but to anyone familiar with Miroslav Philharmonik or Sample Tank, any other suggestions?

[chibear]

Dropping the sampling rate from 48K to 44.1 and increasing the buffers from 256 to 384 helps but does not totally eliminate the issue.

Edit the next day:
I stand corrected. The above has no effect on the 'bubbling'. The problem doesn't happen every time or in the same place of the track every time. Also tried going to Wave RT and fooling with that with the same result.

Edit the third day:
After fooling with all the alternatives I could think of, the best result is when I mix the offending track(s) down to an audio track. Apparently this is a CPU issue that doesn't register on the Mixcraft
CPU readout as artifacts were still appearing when CPU usage (both MC and System) were below 10%. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than I could enlighten on this, but at least I have a workaround.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

Are you using Mixcraft 5.2 build 152? Have you tried it in Mixcraft 6.0 build 178?

Make sure you've got the latest drivers from M-Audio.

Greg

[chibear]

Thanks for answering. Yes I am using 5.2 build 152 and checked my drivers about a week ago. I'm a little leery of trying 6 again until 6 Pro is released officially as I tried an early release and when I uninstalled it, it also uninstalled about 2/3 of my VSTs which was no problem back then but with IK's complicated validation process it could put me out of commission for a couple of days while I try to re-register Philharmonik.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

Do you have all the latest updates for IK Miroslav Philharmonik?

Mixcraft 6.0 build 178 shouldn't uninstall your VSTi plugins for Mixcraft 5 now, and you could always just leave it installed until you're ready to upgrade officially if you were really worried.

Greg

[chibear]

Yes. When I installed it last week it updated itself. I'll try 6-178 when I get a chance then

[chibear]

I doubled check and MP is up to date but (blush) the M-Audio driver wasn't. However it made no difference in the situation. I've been examining it a bit closer and I get the artifacts when there is voice crossing between 2 tracks with instruments of similar registers, the first a dialogue between 11 violins and oboe, the second a flute solo over a violin tremelo if that rings any bells. Like I said earlier, mixing the offending tracks down to an audio file eliminates the problem.

The Mixcraft 6 trial has been delayed because of satellite internet, exceeded download limits and dropped packets. I'll try again first thing tomorrow.

Edit next morning:
Xplornet finally let me download MC 6-178 and the issue is still there albeit reduced slightly. I also tried routing the offending tracks to their own channels via Lanes and the result was still the same. Mixing each down to wave still works the best.

That being said, WHAT A PROGRAM YOU FOLKS ARE ABOUT TO RELEASE!!!! I've poked around a bit and the thought that has been put into it is impressive to say the least. Something I was not expecting was an improvement in the sound. I had been working in 5.2 while 6 downloaded and when I switched over, WOW! Clarity! I can only compare it to the time way back when I switched from normal speaker cables to the thick multi-strand wires on my audio system. Congrats!

[wen]

I doubled check and MP is up to date but (blush) the M-Audio driver wasn't. However it made no difference in the situation. I've been examining it a bit closer and I get the artifacts when there is voice crossing between 2 tracks with instruments of similar registers, the first a dialogue between 11 violins and oboe, the second a flute solo over a violin tremelo if that rings any bells. Like I said earlier, mixing the offending tracks down to an audio file eliminates the problem.

The Mixcraft 6 trial has been delayed because of satellite internet, exceeded download limits and dropped packets. I'll try again first thing tomorrow.

Edit next morning:
Xplornet finally let me download MC 6-178 and the issue is still there albeit reduced slightly. I also tried routing the offending tracks to their own channels via Lanes and the result was still the same. Mixing each down to wave still works the best.

That being said, WHAT A PROGRAM YOU FOLKS ARE ABOUT TO RELEASE!!!! I've poked around a bit and the thought that has been put into it is impressive to say the least. Something I was not expecting was an improvement in the sound. I had been working in 5.2 while 6 downloaded and when I switched over, WOW! Clarity! I can only compare it to the time way back when I switched from normal speaker cables to the thick multi-strand wires on my audio system. Congrats!

chibear,

What do you mean by 'mixing the tracks down to an audio file." Do you mean that you take each track, mix it down to a wav file, then re-load them all before doing a final master mix?

Is Miroslav a bunch of orchestral samples? I've not heard of it. Do you do mostly orchestral stuff, or what?

Thanks!

Wenda



What do you mean by "

[chibear]

@ Wen:
Right click on the track and choose "Mix to New Audio Track. This produces an audio file of the track and mutes the original track.

I've been in contact with support at IK about my problem and they have never heard of it before. They suggested trying another DAW to see if the problem is duplicated there. As I don't intend to move to another DAW I'll see what I can come up with with a little help from my Acoustica friends

[wen]

@ Wen:
Right click on the track and choose "Mix to New Audio Track. This produces an audio file of the track and mutes the original track.

I've been in contact with support at IK about my problem and they have never heard of it before. They suggested trying another DAW to see if the problem is duplicated there. As I don't intend to move to another DAW I'll see what I can come up with with a little help from my Acoustica friends

Hey awesome tip!! See it pays to ask dumb questions. I'll try that.

I've been shopping computers and told them your specs as a comparison; the guy said, well that one only has dual core processor; the computer I was looking at had 4. Then I found that it might not even matter if Mixcraft isn't designed to work with dual core or more processors.

Is the M-Audio a USB device? I tried switching my US122 to another USB port.

[chibear]

To answer your other questions:

Philharmonik is samples taken from the Czek Philharmonic. Yes my focus is mainly orchestral and orchestra & synths. I'm an old retired symphony musician so I have to remain in my comfort zone.

The M-Audio Audiophile 192 is a sound card. It has made a huge difference in MC performance on my machine.

From what I've read on this forum, MC is only able to access 4 gigs of RAM. I don't know if it can make use of the second core or not. That's a question for someone more savy than me.

[wen]

I played harp in an orchestra. Now I play electric harp and record.

I did some troubleshooting last night with my device. It MAY have worked.

I clicked on Troubleshoot device / DEVICE MANAGER / and found a program that was not activated (a red X in a yellow circle) for PCI Simple Communicator or something like that. I remember having problems with this thing before; anyway, the Troubleshooter suggested activating any inactive programs. This was against my instinct, but I did it; it found a driver, and activated a modem. So far my recordings have been ok.

Sorry this is all so vague, but the point is, did you try the Troubleshoot feature for your device.

The M-Audio Audiophile is a card that mounts inside the computer then I guess you don't have to think about USB-port noise that might be occurring.

I'm going to stick with .wav files; the OGG files are not as good quality, I read.

[chibear]

Getting back to my original post, here is a sample of the artifacts I am talking about. Again in the loud & dense sections there are no audible artifacts, just in these places:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/47699417/artifactexample2.mp3

Edit May 19: I've spent some more time with Support from IK Media and they can't figure out the problem. In fact they can't hear it. They are interested in Acoustica's take on it, whenever they respond to my ticket.