Not to draw attention away from the wonderful musical improvements, but the big win in this release for me is the migration away from UVI Workstation to a custom plugin based on the Gorilla Engine. I can't understate just how painful previous UVI-based versions of the Bohemian were to work with -- at least in REAPER -- and just how much of an improvement on system resources the new version is. Kudos to Virhamonic on this improvement alone!
But the fun doesn't end there. Here's the full change log:
New Plugin built on the Gorilla Engine
Background Streaming (loads in under a second on SSD)
Massive memory demand decrease (3 Gb down to under 1 Gb when streaming)
Looks and sounds like a fantastic update. Still to me it’s best in class for any exposed stuff, and this should expand its usefulness maybe to other areas. Also it looks like they’re embracing more bespoke customisation - I’ve always liked their moods and like going with their flow, but I know this is an area that others want more control.
The load times and memory management look spectacular. I only heard about Gorilla Engine for the first time this week, but this is a promising debut for the platform. Should have time tomorrow morning to have a play around, will report back.
The performance improvements are significant, but beware it installs Yet Another Privileged Service on your computer for copy protection, a la PACE. (On Windows it runs as LocalSystem, which means it can do anything.)
tack wrote: ↑Apr 02, 2022 2:56 pm
The performance improvements are significant, but beware it installs Yet Another Privileged Service on your computer for copy protection, a la PACE. (On Windows it runs as LocalSystem, which means it can do anything.)
Any noticeable CPU drain? Presumably it runs on start up? Or is there a way to have it just run when you start Gorilla Engine?
Unfortunately, there’s no AAX version as of yet. They’re saying it could be as soon as two weeks from now; but as we all know, Virharmonic doesn’t have a good track record for releasing updates when planned. That said, it looks like it will be worth the wait.
Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Apr 02, 2022 3:22 pmAny noticeable CPU drain?
No complaints at all in this regard, at least from short term monitoring. It's effectively idle.
Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Apr 02, 2022 3:22 pmPresumably it runs on start up? Or is there a way to have it just run when you start Gorilla Engine?
Yes, if you set the service to Manual (in Windows Services), when you load the Bohemian it will drag its feet for some time (from a few seconds to one or two dozen seconds of hanging), and then it will eventually try to autostart it, at which point the Windows User Access Control pops up and asks "Do you want to allow Codemeter Runtime Service to make changes to your device" and then the "CodeMeter Runtime Server" sevice is started.
So that's what I'm doing, plus I've changed the service to run as myself rather than LocalSystem. It's not as good as running the service as a dedicated user, but trying to reverse engineer how to do that would take hours.
I wish Windows developers cared about this stuff, but the reality is they don't because users don't. So it's admin privileges for all.
Thanks Jason - I'll see how it goes. I didn't realise there was Codemeter under the hood.
Installation was pretty confusing for me. It first asks for a download location but not your downloads folder so "you won't delete the files by accident". "Oh", I thought, "it must need these". So I chose my G drive folder where I wanted the library itself. Then it said it was installing the VST, and to choose a folder, so I took it out of the default windows location into my own VST 64 bit folder on the C drive. I was then left with 24gb of files on by G drive and also another 24gb in my VST folder. "That can't be right" I thought. On interrogation afterwards, it had installed VST2 and VST3 files in their default places, put the library content in my custom VST location (2 files ending in .blob), and and kept installer files where I actually wanted the library content. Terrible instructions, but I just moved things around and accepted the VST files where they were, and everything worked - on a first launch it asks for the location of the curiously named Blob files.
First impressions positive. Loads and plays lightning fast with no glitches. CPU use minimal. The main improv playing style is better than ever, and this is where Bohemian really shines - nothing to touch it. Silky smooth to my ears, no jarring transitions and as I've always said it feels genuinely alive, which cannot be said for 99% of sample libraries. There's now a lot more forced articulations and playing strokes to micromanage a particular note or phrase.
I think the other playing styles are a bit less successful. The differences between Emotive, Assertive and Classical are pretty subtle, not big enough to warrant the names imo. In particular, I wanted a pretty nv-heavy skew for classical, but it was still strong vibrato even at low velocities which felt wrong. There is an nv articulation you can force, but on a first attempt at fluid playing the notes, it didn't connect legato-style (however, more on this below). Sprightly, the last category, doesn't work at all imo, it sounds like a blurry mess that isn't either fluid or very sprightly. Worse, the forced articulations don't work in this mode at all for me. So if you need shorts, its back to good ol manual keyswtiching on one of the other styles (the good news at least is that the short articulations themselves sound great).
There are new performer modes for playing 1st or 2nd violins, and various divisi options. Confusingly, for this to work you need to also press the Maestro keyswitch to put it in poly mode- for the life of me I can't think why this isn't defaulted for the divisi patches. It says DIVISI, but remains stubbornly monophonic until the Maestro keyswitch is enabled. Once done, this does sound excellent though, and it's such a fast way to get great results from either trio or chamber sizes. There's also a Crafting control which the manual tells me enables the legato with other forced articulations. Ah-ha - this definitely improves things when playing, say, NV, trem, ponticello etc. I'd say subjectively it gives results on a par with other good solo string libraries - the seamless connectivity which makes the main instrument so wonderous isn't there, but it's quite useable with care.
It's a bit frustrating to see several ux faceplants which - presumably - would be so easy to fix - default Crafting to ON, and Maestro to ON for all divisi modes. It should be doing that under the hood, so trivial compared to the incredibly complex scripting that joins all the notes together. Part of the original raison d'etre of Bohemian was you could play and it just works, so it feels like quite a design fail to scrabble around with the manual to make it do what you'd expect. Also the performer modes are buried under a small drop arrow, they should have their own permanent pride of place.
BUT. The big picture is that these are irritations. The basic playing and the new performer modes are outstanding, and it's blindingly fast in use. Terrific to see this level of ongoing development, and all for free for existing owners.
Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Apr 03, 2022 4:24 amInstallation was pretty confusing for me.
And me. I posted about my installation confusions over on VI-C and I was a bit underwhelmed by Virharmonic's reply (basically that they would improve the documentation/tutorials rather than improve the actual software).
Otherwise, my first experience actually playing it was similar to yours. Really positive initial impression -- as expected given this VI's legacy -- and some head scratching around why the divisi modes didn't actually, you know, divisi. Also wish they had some sort of progress indication on initial sample loading.
I hope some of these UX oddities do receive attention beyond just documentation updates. But otherwise, all told, it's a lovely and welcome update to this instrument, and I'm excited to see what Virhamonic cooks up next in the Bohemian series (notably the upcoming viola, in addition to migrating the cello to this new format).
Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Apr 03, 2022 4:24 am
It's a bit frustrating to see several ux faceplants which - presumably - would be so easy to fix - default Crafting to ON, and Maestro to ON for all divisi modes. It should be doing that under the hood, so trivial compared to the incredibly complex scripting that joins all the notes together. Part of the original raison d'etre of Bohemian was you could play and it just works, so it feels like quite a design fail to scrabble around with the manual to make it do what you'd expect. Also the performer modes are buried under a small drop arrow, they should have their own permanent pride of place.
BUT. The big picture is that these are irritations. The basic playing and the new performer modes are outstanding, and it's blindingly fast in use. Terrific to see this level of ongoing development, and all for free for existing owners.
Hi Guy, Tack and everybody else ,
Much appreciated feedback. I'll try to explain why we didn't default to certain things. We wanted that on first launch, users can simply resign their keys to their favourite key switches they have used before and replay their old track and for them to get similar or same results, just sounding a bit better thanks to the back of house improvements we have made. That made us turn Crafting off at default as many professional composers like yourself have it in the template and they could get different results. We believe that crafting can bring superb results, but some might have intentionally not used legatos there and desired detached notes and crafting would have broken their compositions. (this is a main headache with making evolving expansion, that you always have to think on what existing users have or might need for their transition to be smooth).
Maestro turning on with Divisi was something that I was considering doing, but on the other hand we know from past support, that a lot of people wouldn't notice Maestro turning on and would be emailing us about the instrument being broken and no longer playing right with too many notes sounding when they play ect .... I know that it might sound crazy, but we have done support for years, to sort of expect what would such small change of turning 2 things on at once could mean to support as some would not notice the second feature turning automatically on.. But we could have been wrong on this. It is just an assumption and what updates are for. PS If you turn on Maestro on Sprightly you will get in my opinion better results on double stops then with Sprightly in UVI, but that is subjective of course. I just preferred them
Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Apr 03, 2022 4:24 amInstallation was pretty confusing for me.
And me. I posted about my installation confusions over on VI-C and I was a bit underwhelmed by Virharmonic's reply (basically that they would improve the documentation/tutorials rather than improve the actual software).
We don't make the installer software, that part is made by Gorilla Engine (UJAM), we pass on all feedback on installer to them, but we can not guarantee any changes as it is not designed by us. That is why we said that we will improve the docs.
Of course there will be script updates and possibly even some sample tweaks in future, so all feedback is appreciated and I hope that you all enjoy the free update.
Geoff Grace wrote: ↑Apr 02, 2022 3:36 pm
Unfortunately, there’s no AAX version as of yet. They’re saying it could be as soon as two weeks from now; but as we all know, Virharmonic doesn’t have a good track record for releasing updates when planned. That said, it looks like it will be worth the wait.
Best,
Geoff
Hi Geoff,
The AAX will come soon (weeks). We just had to wait for PACE to send us parts required to assembly it and we are now working with Gorilla team (they are awesome help) at making the AAX version. The Gorilla Engine can already compile AAX, we just need to make sure that our instrument works there exactly the same as on AU and VST and once we are comfortable that it is the case, we will release it
In the latest it will be with the release of the Cello as Cello will already come with AAX support and that isn't far away
Thanks for the input Onderj, will try that out for Sprightly. I still think for convenience it would be good to have a short-centric performer, maybe using longer notes only on fff. And one that majors on nv.
I get the dilemmas - I of course would favour defaulting to linking the features where appropriate, but you'll doubtless get inundated with support requests whatever you do! Maybe it could be a preference in a future version?
Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Apr 05, 2022 12:48 pm
Thanks for the input Onderj, will try that out for Sprightly. I still think for convenience it would be good to have a short-centric performer, maybe using longer notes only on fff. And one that majors on nv.
I get the dilemmas - I of course would favour defaulting to linking the features where appropriate, but you'll doubtless get inundated with support requests whatever you do! Maybe it could be a preference in a future version?
We can definitely investigate this, I won't make any promises or forbid tell you some timelines but it is a cool idea
Geoff Grace wrote: ↑Apr 02, 2022 3:36 pm
Unfortunately, there’s no AAX version as of yet. They’re saying it could be as soon as two weeks from now; but as we all know, Virharmonic doesn’t have a good track record for releasing updates when planned. That said, it looks like it will be worth the wait.
Best,
Geoff
Hi Geoff,
The AAX will come soon (weeks). We just had to wait for PACE to send us parts required to assembly it and we are now working with Gorilla team (they are awesome help) at making the AAX version. The Gorilla Engine can already compile AAX, we just need to make sure that our instrument works there exactly the same as on AU and VST and once we are comfortable that it is the case, we will release it
In the latest it will be with the release of the Cello as Cello will already come with AAX support and that isn't far away
Cheers
Ondrej
Thanks for your reply, Ondrej. It helped me have a better understanding of the teamwork involved. While I'd rather not have to wait for an AAX version, it's even more important to me that it be stable and functional; so I appreciate your efforts toward that goal.
I think this is a fantastic release and one of the few upgrades recently I would have been happy paying for, that it is free makes it that much better.
I am tempted to buy the cello just because of how useful the violin is but the tone to me feels a bit constrained for lack of a better term. Anybody wish to chime in?
Scoredog wrote: ↑Apr 06, 2022 11:33 am(...)but the tone to me feels a bit constrained for lack of a better term. Anybody wish to chime in?
I don't have either, but listening to the Cello demos, I agree about the word 'constrained'. The sound of the instrument gives the impression of being pressed between two plates of glass, like they do with flowers and butterflies. Dead flowers and butterflies.
The violin demos on the other hand have many strong moments. Much more alive.
I’ve always liked the cello well enough, although it doesn’t quite stand out in quite the same way as the violin. But what you hear is pretty much what you get - if the tone isn’t doing it for you in the demos, it won’t magically transform under your fingers if you own the real thing.
Whew, I have a stone-age version of the bohemian violin and this looks like quite the update! UVI was rather crash prone on my system so I'm happy to see they switched to Gorilla (heard some good things about that platform before through the grapevine).
I'm quietly hoping Virharmonic will eventually look at porting their old choir libraries over to the new platform too. I would certainly like to use CBC more often but I usually stay away from reaching for it because of the UVI instabilities (and slow loading).
,
and once we are comfortable that it is the case, we will release it 
but it is a cool idea 