Finishing up converting my main template from BBCSO VEP to Iconica Sketch & Iconica Opus VEP. It’s nicely trimmed down a bit without the BBC bells and whistles - I like it. I really like it. And it’s super slick, I can work on the sketch without even starting up VEP as I’m embedding those VSTs directly into the score. It’s a nice solution, with direct correlation on sound and CCs from sketch to score
So now I have only Etude Elements, Iconica Opus & Sketch installed on the laptop hard drive. So no need for external SSD dongles. The sketch score
is just Iconica Sketch and Elements - VEP not even running. Then transfer to full score with Iconica VEP. And if I decide Iconica isn’t doing it for me I can swap in a different VEP template with say BBCSO.
KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. I’ve been wrangling this for too long screwing around with the too simple Note Performer and too complicated BBCSO.
You have no idea what I’m saying apparently. But speaking of simplicity instead of emoji posts maybe we can say something useful here …
BBCSO made some kind of attempt at simplicity with the three different versions. Problem is they’re different installs and different templates needed. Still too complicated basically and I couldn’t find a way to combine them. The VST UI is nice and modern - easy to use. But its a big library that dunks you into the deep end pretty quickly.
Note Performer goes for the maximal simplicity, which comes at the cost of just not sounding quite good enough and almost impossible to intermix with other libraries. Plus no clear correspondence between ‘initial temp’ to ‘final render (in a different VST)’
Halion SO is like a big, old haunted mansion. Weird, big and hard to use.
Anyhow I converted the project in progress over to this new system and am finding it much easier to work with. However I think the price is absolutely out of line, this is only worth it on a massive sale like this. I’d never buy it at full price.
If I understand correctly, you use a local install of Sketch (possibly for traveling, light-weight… ) and you have Opus over in a VEP project. Is it fair to say that the only thing you need to do when migrating back and forth is apply the specific template?
Also, does Opus sound $300 better than Sketch (I don’t use either - yet).
Actually I have Sketch and Opus both installed on the internal laptop disk. So it’s two layers of lightweight. Sketch just for sketching, don’t even need to fire up VEP on the laptop. But if I’m ready for final orchestrating VEP Opus is still fast and lightweight compared to BBCSO (which started to stress this overpowered laptop, plus requires dongle-disks). And Opus sounds pretty darn good, 90%-95% without all the fuss.
As for migrating there is none, it’s all one project template. The Sketch score is like a small embedded group, like Mahler having a brass group offstage in his symphonies. So it’s just copy and paste from the Sketch to Full, and fleshing it out. Point being it’s all about the balance between enough simplicity to just get some work done, and good enough sound for media renders, without requiring a lot of CC work. Appears to fit the bill, working out so far.
On your final question AFAIK Sketch is just trimmed down Opus, so note-for-note should sound the same. You miss out on mic positions, playing techniques, maybe some instruments etc. One small difference is in expression maps. Sketch conveniently has a single “Percussion Map” instrument for the unpitched. Opus has them separated out with a whole bunch of different maps. Which again works well, in the sketch I just added a bunch of extra unpitched to the single perc player, pointed it at the single Sketch VST channel for the percussion, and it magically maps the instruments. Super easy again, no futzing around with percussion just to block out a piece
