Tonal quality just short of a real instrument Although purely synthetic, the WIVI instruments have equal or better tonal capabilities than professionally sampled instruments. Every WIVI instrument is built from large amounts of tonal data extracted from the output of a real instrument, and every nuance is reproducible by the synthetic WIVI instrument.
Many sample-based instruments have been processed for a larger and more striking sound, a phenomenon that makes a nice first impact but can become very counterproductive when orchestrating.
Real instruments, on the other hand, usually have a thinner but much more expressive sound. Volume is built by combining instruments. This is also the way WIVI instruments are meant to be used.
Therefore, when judging the quality of the WIVI instruments, we encourage you to make comparisons to recordings of real instruments rather than sample-based instruments, as the similarity is much more striking.
Furthermore, a combination of WIVI instruments makes exquisitely balanced ensembles. Each individual instrument is sculpted to be of solo quality, but with its own unique character. When blended, all instruments add to the volume and color of the sound, creating living and breathing ensembles.
WIVI also handles complex musical performances and phrasing
Successful sample-based music is often densely orchestrated, or of percussive nature. Simply because samples work very well in these situations. It's harder to get away with more delicately orchestrated music, exposed solo works or musical phrases with advanced expressive development.
When using non-adequate tools, a wish to achieve realism can limit one's writing. Real instruments have much more agility and expressiveness than most people are aware of. This advantage of acoustic instruments is often neglected when writing using sample-based counterparts.
WIVI was designed not to hold back the user. Every nuance can be controlled in detail, and performances are limited only by your own skills and imagination. The internal controlling apparatus of the WIVI instruments is designed to always maintain realism during a performance.
The controlling engine of WIVI could appear to be a limitation, but you'll learn that it's exactly the opposite. The engine allows you to experiment, and push the boundaries of the instruments without having to worry about the fact that it's only a synthetic emulation. Realism will be preserved.
All WIVI instrument handle exposed solo lines with high realism, regardless of nature and tempo of the performance. Whereas sample-based music strive to become more than the sum of its parts, WIVI instruments are designed to stand equally well on their own.
Use a breath/wind controller or key velocity for dynamic control All WIVI instruments can be real-time controlled, out-of-the-box, using a breath or wind controller. This is not a requirement – if you prefer to use the modulation wheel or key velocity that is also possible (among other choices).
As a decent breath controller player you're likely to need only one single take to record even highly expressive musical performances, because the WIVI controlling engine usually take you beyond the step of having to tweak for realism. You'll find that more time will be spent on writing, and musical performance decisions, instead of fine-tuning the tools.
By choosing to control dynamics using key velocity, you renounce the ability of altering dynamics in the middle of a tone. Still, the instruments are at least as controllable as any sampled instrument with an equivalent of 127 seamless velocity levels. For many applications that is fully adequate.
All instruments have full, continuous, dynamic range
Dynamic changes can be realized at any time, such as in the middle of a tone or a phrase. All instrument properties are preserved during such changes. A rapid dynamic change will have the same characteristics as that of a key-triggered attack or release. You can do realistic breath/wind controller staccato series through tounging, without releasing a key.
All instruments have full and continuous dynamic range, from ppp to fff, and does not rely on discrete velocity levels. Any performance is possible, from a lyrical pianissimo to a screaming forte fortissimo. You don't need special samples to reproduce crescendos, sforzandos etc, because with WIVI you can easily create your own phrasing and articulation, in any tempo using any dynamics.
Performance mistakes don't jeopardize realism Performance mistakes when using WIVI will not give away the music as synthetic. It will instead sound more like an authentic player error, where phrasing and tone remain pretty much intact.
MIDI control changes are meant to be directly translated into physical instrument actions (like changing the breath pressure applied, or pressing a valve or key). Uneven controller data shouldn't jeopardize performance realism, making WIVI ideal for real-time performances and live recording.
Think of it as if you're always playing within WIVI's "sandbox". You can roam around freely, send any MIDI data you like, but ultimately you're being taken care of by the controlling engine. It keeps performance and phrasing within the boundaries of realism, and you shouldn't have to worry about exact timing or slightly uneven velocity levels.
Create your own special effects and articulations The WIVI instruments respond realistically to fast dynamic changes and short notes, and are inherently capable of many special effects, such as fluttering, trills, pitch slides, vibrato, legato and portamento.
The WIVI instruments also include a number of synthesized noise components, such as breath noise and key/valve noises. The amount and the character of noise components is customizable, allowing the user to create very clean instruments (to fit in a popular mix, for example) or noisy instruments beyond reason.
All controllers of WIVI are independent. There's nothing stopping you from doing, for example, a real-time pitch bend slide, while doing a crescendo, flutter tonguing, a trill, wah-wahing a dynamic harmon mute etc. Any combination is possible, and controllable in real-time.
Equally suitable in jazz, orchestral and popular settings With samples, it's common to use a different set of samples depending on musical setting, even when the exact same type of instrument is orchestrated. WIVI doesn't categorize instruments that way. When an emulation of an instrument is accurate enough, there's no need to.
Instead, you provide the necessary difference, through writing and performance. The WIVI instruments function equally well in classical, modern and popular setting. Just provide the expression.
The WIVI brass instruments also aim to include a full set of mutes (for instruments with a custom of mutes). This includes advanced mutes, such as wah-wah mutes, that are real-time controllable for various special effects.
Built-in acoustic engine and positioning system Although WIVI acoustically target high quality convolution reverbs, the built-in acoustic engine comes highly recommended. By tracing the sound emanating from the instrument throughout the room, a rich and vibrant stereo image is automatically constructed, unique to each instrument.
Advanced audiospatial positioning and rotation of the separate instruments can be done within the virtual environments included with WIVI. The graphical representation is also meant to aid the user into realistic positioning of the instruments.
The internal spatial engine can be customized to correspond to just about any acoustic space. All instruments are multi-layered, giving the user full control over direct sound, early reflections and late reverb of each instrument, as well as advanced directional properties.
All sound is calculated using the audience object (this is you) as a reference. It's also possible to position and rotate the audience object any way you like within the environment. This way, you may listen to the performance from any position and angle. For example, you can move around and listen to the close-up sound of different members of an orchestra during a performance.
The architecture allows routing of separate layers to different outports. One common setup would be to use an external convolution reverb for the late reverb, while keeping the early reflections and direct sound as provided by WIVI.
Note that the engine uses a hybrid approach that mimics the way we perceive acoustics. It's optimized for performance, and shouldn't be used for scientific measurements.
With WIVI you can emulate having REAL instruments, on location in your studio, concert hall or living room The WIVI synthesizers are capable of raw instrument output (as opposed to a traditional "dry" studio-recorded samples). If you output the raw signal from a speaker, which you position in your studio, concert hall, or living room etc, you can emulate actually having a real instrument located at that spot in your room. WIVI emulates the exact output that normally would emanate from the bell of the instrument.
You can record the output as you would record a real instrument, to make it blend seamlessly with your acoustic mix. Analogously, you can use the raw output to create authentic backup players for your orchestra, directly in your concert hall.
The raw signal is naturally free from acoustic influence, and if the signal is played with sufficient amplification (most real instruments are pretty loud) on an adequate speaker, the signal will inherit your room's real acoustics, and act acoustically as a real instrument performed on that very spot.
Can produce output genuinely designed for your IR reverb Acoustic impulse responses (IRs) behave much like real spaces. They are designed to be applied only to raw instrument output, free of any other acoustic influence.
Since WIVI can output truly raw instrument signals, WIVI instruments will achieve the correct coloration from impulse responses. This is never the case with wet, or studio-dry sampled instruments.
When applying an acoustic room response on a wet or studio-dry sample, many basic laws of acoustics are ignored. Normal behavior would be to get a tin-can sound, or some other highly unpredictable equalizing of the sound. This is the expected results of superimposing the sound coloration of two different acoustic environments.
This is not a problem with WIVI, and the difference is usually very noticeable. Whereas most sampled instruments only sound well through a handful of IRs, raw WIVI output produces a bright and clean sound when fed through just about any acoustic IR. Probably even some of those you've previously discarded as useless.
The audio flie above is an anechoic recording of the late reverb layer only, meaning it's 100% absent of filtering and acoustic sound coloration. This is the raw signal you feed into your external reverb, while WIVI also can provide direct sound and early reflections on top of this.
Note: this audio file is not an approximation of a small room, or even an acoustic chamber. The levels, panning and timing of the instruments in this clip was calculated to generate only the late reverb of the sound. How this is done is also highly customizable.
Tweak instrument tone and behavior to fit your needs The tone and behavior of each WIVI instrument is highly tweakable. Parameters that have a profound impact on sound and behavior have been made available to the end user, and the possibilities are almost endless.
Some performances might require instruments with unusual agility, or sometimes you might want to change the size of the instrument to mimic other instrument types. This is achievable in the WIVI universal player.
WIVI is also a first-rate tool for creating highly expressive experimental instruments. The instability parameters can be used to create nervous, screaming instruments with all the expressive characteristics of an acoustic instrument. Or you can use the tonal data of flute or a trumpet to create an equally expressive plucked instrument.
Listen from player position when recording an instrument It's usually beneficial to hear the direct sound of the instrument when performing and recording in real-time. In WIVI this is possible without altering the settings of the hall or instrument.
Just move the audience object into the proximity of the instrument to be recorded. This way you get to hear what the instrument sounds like up-close (much like the performer would hear it). Response time will be better, and expression will become more distinct. This is especially beneficial during fast passages, which become less distinguishable when heavy reverb is applied.
32-bit resolution sound, as high sample rate as you like Since everything in WIVI is synthesized, you're not forced to use a fixed sample rate. Also, unlike sample based instruments, bit resolution is not limited by sample sizes or recording quality. All sound uses 32-bit precision or higher, and sample rates from 6 kHz to 384 kHz are supported.
Produce phasing free stereo, that can handle mono mixing Stereo recordings inherently have phase differences between the left and right channel, meaning mixing to mono often produce unwanted phasing. This can distort the music when played through lo-fi devices, such as most portable gadgets with a built-in speaker (like mobile phones). A number of TV broadcasts and video storage formats also uses mono.
Since this phenomenon is only synthetically emulated by WIVI, it can be turned off at will. Default output is authentic stereo, which includes phase differences, but besides stereo and mono mode there's also a special mono compatible stereo mode. The mono compatible stereo mode prevent phasing on global level (phase settings can also be set on instrument level).
If you want stereo – but you know your music might be mixed down to mono in the future – use mono compatible mode. This mode sounds rich and vibrant, virtually indistinguishable from authentic stereo, but it can be safely mixed down to mono in the future without phasing issues.
When using headphones, authentic stereo gives a slightly better stereo separation than mono compatible mode. When using speakers, phase differences are virtually suppressed by speaker positioning and the difference between the modes is not likely to be audible.
Educational value, create interactive acoustics demonstrations WIVI can be used for much more than production purposes. The tonal accuracy of the instruments make it an excellent tool for studying the tone and timbre of instruments, even on an academic level.
The acoustics engineer can use it to learn the perceptive impact of direct sound, early reflections and diffuse reverb. Or study the effects of reverb on instrument jitter and shimmer, when compared to anechoic conditions.
The pen and paper composer can study the tonal characteristics of instruments with great accuracy. A musician or orchestrator can use it to preview how different mutes attached to the instrument will affect the sound.
In acoustics class, WIVI can be used to demonstrate various phenomena. Such as an interactive demonstration of an anechoic room, or the reverbation radius of the diffuse field. You can create interactive audio demonstrations of different microtunings, octave stretching, how phase shifts can suffice for localization of an audio source, and much more.
In synthesis class, you can peel off layer by layer from a highly realistic WIVI instrument until you're left with a raw tone, no more exciting than a telephone signal. This can then be done in reverse to demonstrate the concepts of synthesizing acoustic instruments.
Even though it's basically a closed system, WIVI is designed to act as an open environment where you can study acoustic instruments, room acoustics and the concepts of acoustic synthesis in detail.
Interface graphics is 100% hardware-accelerated The graphics processing and interface of WIVI is completely separated from the audio processing. All graphics is drawn using the built-in 3D capabilities of your graphics card. It's based on custom interface technology that runs 100% on your GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) leaving your CPU free to do other tasks, such as processing the audio.
Although graphically advanced, the structure and hardware-acceleration of the WIVI interface allow the software to run very smoothly, without compromising audio performance. You can expect equal performance even on low-end systems, as long as you have a moderately new graphics card.
Most graphical components in WIVI are vector based. This allows for very smooth controller movements, and a variety of color schemes to choose from. All controllers take advantage of multiple visual feedback paths, to enhance visualization of parameter changes and interface functionality.
Some very old graphics cards may have trouble running WIVI. Before purchase, make sure your graphics card can handle WIVI by trying out the trial edition on your system first. WIVI can run through Direct3D, OpenGL or software rendering, but the highly recommended driver on Windows is Direct3D.
The Direct3D driver requires DirectX 9.0 or newer to be installed. DirectX 9.0 can be downloaded separately from Microsoft, but is also automatically installed with Windows XP Service Pack 2. All versions of Windows Vista ship with the necessary updates.
Friendly on computer resources The synthesis engine of WIVI is highly optimized, and extremely efficient at doing what it's customized to do. WIVI has also been structured to run more efficiently on modern processor units.
Computer requirements are actually lower than that of most sample players. This is possible, because sampled instrument depend on a polyphony which isn't necessary for WIVI instruments. The pipeline of WIVI is also optimized for acoustic synthesis, allowing large structural improvements over traditional synthesizers.
Memory requirements of WIVI are low. The typical instrument uses less than 5 Mb of RAM, and sound data is dynamically loaded by the plugin on-the-fly. Only necessary data is kept in RAM. The plugin loads almost instantly, and multiple instances share common resources.
Since WIVI works in a 3D-environment directly on your graphics card, it's capable of real-time graphics compression (if supported by your graphics card). This reduces the memory usage for graphics by 75%, and performance is not affected by this. WIVI can remain a heavily graphical application without compromising audio performance.
Automatic updates, no dongles Every part of WIVI was designed with electronic distribution over the Internet in mind. Such distribution has a vast number of advantages. Delivery can be instant, user registration is done automatically through purchase, updates can be offered automatically etc.
All WIVI synthesizers are distributed through a custom developed electronic distribution and update system, where all software bought comes preregistered and digitally watermarked to you. Since your name and contact information is already hard-coded into the product, it requires no additional effort in order to be installed or used. The distribution system is specifically designed to require minimal effort from the paying customer.
The standard commercial license is a single-user license, and may be installed on any number of systems as long as you're the only one with access to the software. You need no dongle or serial number to run the software – your name and contact information is the only proof of purchase you'll ever need – and you may run the software simultaneously on any number of machines.
Since all users are registered on purchase, free updates are automatically offered via email as soon as they become available. These updates are also preregistered and digitally watermarked to you, and cannot be used to update illegal copies or anyone else's version of the software.
Instruments can be added dynamically to the universal player. When a new instrument collection is purchased, you simply copy the instrument files to WIVI's instrument directory, and they will automatically be available the next time you load the software, together with your old instruments.
All WIVI instrument collections come with the universal player. Updates to new versions of the universal player, and ports to new operating systems, are free of charge. These updates are distributed/offered automatically to all customers via e-mail.
If you have further questions about the operation or functionality of WIVI, don't hesitate to ask in our forum, or consult the online documentation.
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