UVI IRCAM Solo Instruments and Prepared Piano on special - 40% off.

[Udo]

IRCAM Solo Instruments, one of my favourite supplementary libs, is on special, as is the IRCAM Prepared Piano. Both 40% off. For the best deal, check audiodeluxe.com prices at checkout (and possibly others, eg JRR shop).

http://www.uvi.net/en/orchestral-compos ... ments.html
http://www.uvi.net/en/orchestral-compos ... piano.html

EDIT: Guy objected to having separate threads for IRCAM Solo Instruments and IRCAM Prepared Piano ... God knows why ... (this requires a resolution!).

[mr anxiety]

Udo, This library has no legato patches, correct?

How successful have you been using the IRCAM lib in conjunction with another library, say Berlin WW or VSL WW for example?

Thanks for your thoughts

Mr A

[Udo]

No legato and and there's more lacking, but there are a lot of articulations and some real surprises. Then there's the sound ..... Listen to the demos! Despite some limitations, it's a unique, interesting and useful product!

[Piet De Ridder]

Here's what I wrote three years ago — to the day, in fact — about the Ircam Solo Instruments:

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Strange little library. Me, I really like it, but I doubt that many others ― accustomed to (and expecting) the sampling depths and programming sophistication of many of today’s libraries ― will. This IRCAM package, you see, offers none of those luxuries. There’s hardly any velocity switching, no round-robins, no legato of any kind, no release samples, no continuous controller programming (except volume), no performance scripts, most of it sounds very mono-ish … In fact, if I were told this was a product of the dark and, in sampling terms, barbaric nineties ― some old Akai- or EMU-library or something ―, I’d have no difficulty believing it.

So, why do I like it, then? Well, the sound. That unfashionable, quaint, one-dimensional sound. This thing doesn’t sound very high-end or anything, but it’s got a certain authentic, unpretentious, spartan, almost home-recording type of quality and liveliness to it, which I happen to really like.
Might seem a bit strange to use these terms to describe an IRCAM-effort, this being the institute where the sonic universe is being scientifically explored with state-of-the-art equipment, but that’s what this particular library sounds like to me anyway: someone inviting a few musician friends over for an impromptu, jolly and somewhat chaotic sampling session in the living room. The results are very uneven, there’s very little consistency in the amount and length of what was sampled, but you get something which you rarely hear in other sample libraries: a certain carefree spontaneity. Something French perhaps. Which I find quite irresistible.

The reason I like this sound, is because it’s not entirely dissimilar to the sound of the Columbia recordings of the 60’s. A sound which I really love and which can be heard at its best in the wonderful registrations of Stravinsky’s chamber music, conducted by the composer with the Columbia Jazz Orchestra featuring Benny Goodman and Israel Baker.
I suppose this is not a sound that is going to make all that big an impression on today’s ears ― spoiled (or ruined?) as many of us are by today’s artificially enhanced digital hyperrealism ― but I happen to really like it. And the IRCAM has something of that as well: there’s a slightly raw, unpolished, retro-ish, almost analog colour in these recordings.

In short: ignore what’s written on the product page: “If you're looking for your first high quality solo instrument library or are looking to add a choice collection, IRCAM Solo Instruments offers a unique and comprehensive soundset unrivaled in quality.” None of that is true. The only word that rings true in that entire sentence is “unique”.

My verdict would be: if you’re looking for a comprehensive collection of professionaly sampled solo instruments that don’t sound out of place when put in amongst today’s orchestral libraries, look elsewhere. You won’t find any of that here. Also: if you’re thinking ‘wide-screen cinematic’, there’s nothing much of interest here either (except some fx articulations). This set could easily win a gold medal for being the most un-cinematic sample library in existence.
If, however, you like a slightly off-beat, un-trendy type of sound, and you don’t mind fiddling with sparsely, inconsistently and, let’s not deny it, fairly amateuristically sampled instruments, this IRCAM set holds plenty of very nice surprises.

_

[mr anxiety]

Thanks Piet. You have painted a very clear picture of what to expect from this library. Intriguing I must say!

Thanks Udo, as well.

Mr A

[Udo]

Forgot to include this review in my post above. It describes IRCAM Solo Instruments well, incl. its drawbacks: http://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/usb ... nstruments

[Udo]

Guy objected to having separate threads for IRCAM Solo Instruments and IRCAM Prepared Piano ... God knows why ... (this requires a resolution!).

[Lawrence]

Indeed it does.

[Piet De Ridder]

Ha! I just remembered: a while ago, I wrote a few words about the IRCAM Prepared Piano as well:

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The penultimate word on prepared pianos, I believe. And I only say ‘penultimate’ cause you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but unless something does (and it would have to be something totally fantastic), this is it. Truly superb sample-set and absolutely stunning piece of programming (more on which in a second), resulting in the most adventurous, creative and inspiring piano-related samplelibrary I have ever come across. SonicCouture’s Xtended Piano is a great collection as well, but this, this is something different altogether.

So, what did IRCAM do? Well, first they sampled a Yamaha C7 in a normal way. (Lovely results.) Then they sampled the instrument fitted with paper, with aluminium foil, with an iPhone, with rubber, with wooden pegs, with screws & bolts and, finally, with coins.
Not quite satisfied with all of this, they continued to sample the piano muted, scratched, bowed, played with mallets, played with sticks and played with a plectrum.
Still not satisfied, they also performed glissandi with glasses sliding over the strings, they recorded the impact of metal bars on the pianoframe and also recorded harmonics.

And then the team — the project is a collaboration between IRCAM, AcousticSamples and UVI — came up with an extremely clever piece of scripting/programming which allows to you to completely customize your keyboard, on a note-per-note basis (!) and with the option of having two different layers (or articulations) for each and every note. This means that the note C3 could be a combination of, say, a layer of muted piano and a layer of bowed piano, while the note C#3, could have a layer of aluminium foil and wooden pegs. And D3 could be sticks plus harmonics. And so on.
You also have the choice of simply loading one-layer articulations of course. Each note can also be tuned (or detuned), layers can be crossfaded, or velocity-switched, or simply triggered together … the possibilities are truly endless. And there’s also a randomize button (per layer) which randomizes the articulation assignments for each note (or for the entire preset, if you choose so).

And they’ve also included a completey new reverb (UVI SparkReverb), a “highly advanced synthetic reverb”. Oh, and there’s two microphone perspectives as well.

The manual also includes a couple of very interesting paragraphs on the history of the prepared piano, the work of John Cage, and the philosophy behind translating the ‘prepared piano’ (the real instrument in all its colouristic richness) into something that can be called intuitive, practical and musical software.

The IrcamPrepared is only available for the UVI Workstation or MachFive (MOTU). The download is 19,15 gigabytes (though you can also order a DVD-version) and an iLok is required.

I wish I had some more time right now to do a few demos (showing the various articulations in isolation and maybe also showcase a few combinations), but that will have to wait a bit. In the meantime, there’s a number of pretty good and illuminating demos available here.

_