Review: Orchestral Tools Miroire Baroque Orchestra

I’ve just downloaded OT’s new Miroire sample library, and will spend the next few days getting to grips with it.

It’s on special offer for the next two weeks.

First impressions are: the sounds are lovely, the violins and violas are sufficiently ‘authentic’. The brass and wind are probably the best and most useful elements.

The choir is nice, with no vibrato, and an option for a rotating syllable, which is subtle enough to be a noticeable change without actually sounding like nonsense.

The down-sides:
There’s just one “Basso Continuo” instrument, which is a combined Cello, Contra (an octave down, yay!) and there’s a Bassoon in there, too. But no separate instruments, so no celli, bassoons separately.

The sustains are a bit slow in the attack, and the release a bit late, leading to some ensemble issues, so it’s going to take some work with Expression Maps to get the best out of this in Dorico. The same for the balance, as the choir can’t be heard over the instruments. But there are plenty of controls in the player to adjust envelopes and what-have-you.

Other missing instruments include organ, harpsichord (though there are plenty of samples of those); nor theorbo.

I think I should be able to get something usable out of it, even if I have to use it alongside other libraries. The great thing about the SINE Player is that you can load your own selection of articulations, and then assign them Key switches, or CCs, or Program Changes. So you have complete versatility; but at the same time that makes sharing Ex Maps difficult, unless you’ve loaded the same samples into the same slots.

I’ve only been messing with it for a couple of hours, but here’s some snippets. I’ve only done Short and Long in the Ex Map, and there’s no other tweaking of anything.

Here’s quite a good bit of strings, possibly some oboe in there as well:

The choir are late!! (Authentic!)

Here’s the Solo oboe. The Cello, Organ (and voice) are from other libraries.

2 Likes

Can’t you share the Sine state (after you’ve done all your settings right) so that you’re sure the expression maps will work ? This is what I’ve done with Joby Burgess percussion, because I had to completely remap the instruments to make them playable and useful in Dorico… and it’s Kontakt based.

Well, yes. Or just load all the artics for the instrument, and then use the KSes where they fall. (Though I was hoping to be economical.)

Other thoughts: there are some “Inspirational Collections”, which are mostly pointless.

I’ve just downloaded one set of microphone positions, which comes in at 11Gb. The whole thing is c. 100 Gb.

This is terrible. Do they also have a patch for a better conductor?

1 Like

Interesting, I don’t suppose they have a pianoforte with historical temperaments? My tech recommended against doing such a thing to my grand, in fact had written an article for the PTG on the topic. But I’ve always been curious to play them and see for myself.

Yes. I’m confident that I can whip them into shape, though. I had similar with the LA Sessions Strings that I trialled, and I was able to improve on it.

Temperaments can often be configured in the player, rather than in the samples. Kontakt and ARIA can load ‘scala’ files, which are tuning schemes.

2 Likes

Have you tried Pianoteq ? There’s a whole lot of ancient pianofortes there and you can choose whatever temperament you want (especially with the Pro tier).

Here’s the upper strings sustain, which is lovely.

2 Likes

Think I’m making some progress. Still some trouble with the length of Oboe notes, and balance. But this is coming together nicely.

All in all, I’d say if you’re happy fiddling with player settings and ex maps, then it’s certainly worthwhile for the strings, woodwind and brass. The choir is a bit of a write-off.

1 Like

After spending some time working out the mysteries of the SINE Player, here’s my latest effort, which is rather quite good, if I say so myself.

If anyone’s interested (…) in what I’ve learnt about the SINE Player, and how to get the best for Dorico, for this and presumably other OT libraries, I’ll post a little write-up in a bit.

I dare say there’s more balance and spacing work that can be done.

I’ve used good old GPO5 for the continuo organ, basses and bassoon.

My final review is: if it was a bit better, it would be excellent. Still trying to overcome some sluggishness in the attack that can affect the ensemble. But definitely not without its uses to anyone wanting a ‘Baroque’ sound.

3 Likes

As I listen to it, I’m impressed by the strings. I rather liked the sound of the choir that you posted in your earlier example, although I agree with you it is shamefully late… To the point that I cannot believe they released it that way… But it seems to me like you could export the stems to a daw and then just nudge the choir parts forward a few milliseconds and it would really lock into place.

The oboe sounds like a trumpet :trumpet: and I’m not impressed. Although perhaps ironically, Bach often wrote for the oboe like it was a Trumpet so, :man_shrugging:t2:

The response I got from OT was:

“We deliberately cut our sustains to preserve the full attack, not to the transient. So you might need to start them a bit early relative to the grid. That is on purpose.”

Note sure I quite know what the first sentence means, but there we are.

Early Oboes do sound a bit tinny. (Lotti frequently pairs one trumpet with one oboe – mind you, that was all the players they had at San Marco…)

1 Like

What happens if you duplicate your score and then shift the voices to the left by a 32nd?

You could do it with the Playback offset, leaving the notation intact. But I’d prefer a method at the Ex map / VST end.

I forgot all about playback offsets. I use note performer all of 2-3 times a year, and operate on the silent template the rest of the time.

Two more gems from OT support:

I queried why all the instruments have Staccato and Staccatissimo articulations, except for the Oboes, which only have Staccatissimo. – “This is on purpose”.

Secondly, “extremely few people use sample libraries in notation software.”

What is the market for sound libraries? Are there thousands of people making film and TV scores, without needing a decent score?

It just reminded me of the old joke “You’re the fifth customer I’ve told today: there’s no demand for that product!”

4 Likes

and he also wrote for voices as if they were an organ…

Frankly, I’m not really won over by any of this Miroire stuff (even taking into account the fact I’m not a great Baroque fan in general) and the combination of high prices v quality from what I’ve heard, at times lacking or hard to find documentation and the idiotic comments from their tech support do not encourage me to seriously look into OT’s stuff despite their being quite prolific. Actually BBC woodwind also just have staccatissimo so they probably just copied from them.

Try listening to the Four Seasons for something stringy from Cinematic Studio Strings – Cinematic Studio Series instead . Isn’t it better? On the other hand I wouldn’t argue that the OT sound is individual and probably we shouldn’t be comparing chalk and cheese

1 Like

…and keyboard like it was a violin… and pedals like they were a cello… etc. etc.

I decided to look a bit more at this library as I’ve downloaded the SINE player and it’s feeling rather lonely. I still find the instruments in general rather fuzzy though the sort of overall sound is somewhere in the ballpark. But I’m actually quite impressed by the choirs. For classical/Baroque choral singing, it’s perhaps the best I’ve heard – not much text of course but it could be worthwhile as an alternative to the time-consuming and erratic EWQL SC. The two choirs can be downloaded separately (as can the rest)

Update – just listened to this BMV62 Orchestral Tools: Miroire | Page 12 | VI-CONTROL Even though it’s not really my kind of music, I’m starting to get impressed! if that can be done, I’m sure it can be done in Dorico as well.

That’s a much better sound than I’ve managed to achieve. He gives the whole thing much more ‘space’, somehow. I’m pretty rubbish at using Dorico’s mixer to any effect. But it does give hope.

He says he used Domino Pro for the choir, though.