Kirk Hunter Diamond Symphony Orchestra Support

Official support for: kirkhunterstudios.com
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

Did you discover your Kontakt version?

Post

nousndthem wrote:Did you discover your Kontakt version?
Sorry, yes it's 5.5.2.880

Post

Human Pitch Correction.
Samples recorded with "hpc" (human pitch correction) sound very "real" especially during medium and fast phrases. This is due to the fact that when strings players play, sometimes, they are likely to be slightly out of tune at the beginning of each note. However, this is a desired effect. Without it, the result can sound rather sterile and "flat" and even "synthy". With this new HPC control, you can turn on or off the hpc feature, or use it variably above certain velocity points.
DarkStar, ... Interesting, if true
Inspired by ...

Post

Thanks DarkStar. Good description. I'll keep an eye out for it.

Post

Oops, I should have added - I found that in the TVEC 3 documentation "Diamond_Strings_Manual.html" (in the downloads, I think)

Also:
[n the Settings,] select "Choose to trigger "HPC"..." You will see a knob appear. With this, you can:
1 - Set a value above which the HPC samples will be heard. Any time a note is played with a velocity greater than what is set with this knob, the HPC button will light up. So during velocity-controlled HPC, the HPC button itself will have no effect other than showing/hiding the HPC knob.
2 - Turn the HPC samples off all the time. If you want to turn off HPC altogether, then turn the knob all the way up to 127. That means that only a velocity that is greater than 127 will trigger the HPC samples....which is impossible since the highest possible velocity value is 127. Additionally, if you set this knob to 0, and then click the HPC button (or automate) until it is not lit, then you have effectively turned off the HPC samples as well.
3 - Turn the samples on all the time. If you want to hear the HPC samples all the time, then turn this knob all the way down to 0 (You'll see the HPC button change from "Vel HPC" to "HPC".) and then click (or automate) the HPC button to make sure it is lit up. So when the HPC knob is set to 0, the HPC button effectively becomes a toggle between HPC on, and HPC off.
DarkStar, ... Interesting, if true
Inspired by ...

Post

So I went out to my account on the Kirk Hunter site and noticed that under the downloads for Diamond there was a new download called Instruments_Fixes_9-12-2016.zip so I downloaded it but the instruments it contains are named very differently than my previous Diamond downloads. So I re-downloaded the whole Diamond Orchestra. It appears things have been reorganized quite a bit from what I had before. But their are a few issues:

1. The new version of Diamond is only 56.5 GB vs the old 71 GB. That's a pretty big change and it's not Kontakt compression since I ran Kontakt's compression on it and it reduced down even more (to 41GB). So this new 56.5GB size isn't due to compresion, so what created the 14GB of savings?

Is there some reason I shouldn't use the version I made by compressing? It seems to work and is only 41GB. Is there some reason Kirk Hunter isn't shipping the library compressed?

2. The new Diamond has a folder Instruments\Strings\1_Violins\1_Disco Stabs and Scoops that contains one instrument "18 Violins Disco Stabs.nki"
but that .nki file appears to be associated with a Kontakt Library and can't be loaded. Kontakt complains "Your new Library needs to be added before this Instrument can be used. Please go to Kontakt's Libraries tab and press the Add Library button." when you try to load or do a Batch Resave.

3. The new Fixes 9-12-2016 appears to not fit in with either the old or the new filenames/file structure. They appear to be just new instruments. Shouldn't they be folded into and replace things?
-Matt

Post

Hmm, sounds like a few hiccoughs.

A couple of weeks ago, I did see that the download files had been reorganised too. I asked here:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 5&t=472273
for some explanation but Kirk has not yet replied.

As a favour, perhaps you could let us know what is in each of the new download files (if it does not take you much time). That way, people will not need to download all 40 (?) files just to get the one they want.

Q2: That almost sounds like it belongs to Pop Rock Strings.

Q3: For the Fixes, there was a ReadMe file that just said put their folder into the root folder. But it does not describe what they al are. Or what they should replace. If we knew that we could put them in the 'right' folder, then do a Resave to locate the samples.
DarkStar, ... Interesting, if true
Inspired by ...

Post

With WinRAR you have to download the entire set really. You shouldn't pick and choose, it really is a set. You can sometimes pull things out of single files in a RAR archive, but there isn't any guarantee it is complete. And with the reorganizing of the sample files and instruments, I don't think you could get "picky" if you wanted to. The whole download is about 35GB.

The fixes aren't named at all like the other files. You can put them where ever you want, but that doesn't make them "fit" into anything.
-Matt

Post

I'd also like to know if anything hase been changed / updated since my purchase on March 25, 2016.
Thank you!

Post

Interesting find (for me) with Diamond TVEC4 instruments.
I finally discovered that the CC11 issue I've been having is that CC11 is midi learned to the Volume control of the instrument, which obviously eliminates one level of control by pointing CC07 and C11 to the same place.

This is the case with all TVEC4 instruments.
EDIT(09.28.17): I've been finding this is the case with ALL TVEC instuments.

If you want to regain the ability to use CC11 and also CC07 with these instrumets here's the fix.

1) rightclick on the volume slider for the instrument and choose to unlearn CC11.
2) save your instrument as a new instrument to be safe.
3) Open the wrench and add a modifier in the Amp section.
Choose External CC
In the boxes presented
type 11 in the first one to the left for the CC# (hit ENTER)
type 127 in the second box to tell Kontact that if no CC11 data is present then you want the level to be 127.
(hit ENTER)
Finally in the "lag" box at the far right type 100. (hit ENTER)
Resave your instrument. Test it to make sure CC11 and CC07 are working seperately.

I always just put a suffix of SK_CC11 on the end (before the .nki) and that makes it obvious and doesn't overwrite the original instrument.
---------
Overview of the original intention (old midi spec.) and reason to have CC07 and CC11 'both' working.

CC07 is a global volume level. CC11 is "expression" that is intended to work "within" the CC07 range.

If you create an "expressive" performance using a lot of CC11 data and then later want to gently raise or lower that performance "without" disrupting your "expression" ... you use CC07.
Hence it is and has always been said "CC11 works "within" CC07".
Last edited by nousndthem on Thu Sep 28, 2017 5:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Post

I've been wanting, for a long time, to get the play ability of the old Emerald Brass into the Diamond TVEC4 brass instruments, particularly the Emerald SFz patches for Trombones, FHorns and Trumpets.
The Diamond samples 'seem' to be newer, cleaner and bigger sounding that the ones in Emerald,
but the TVEC4 instruments were lacking that ability to 'push' that I got used to with Emerald.

What I really like about those Emerald Brass SFz patches is the ability to control dynamics with the mod wheel.
The Diamond TVEC4 patches are close, in that the mod wheel seems to filter and push the high end a bit but also rolls off the low end,
but doesn't add any meaty volume swell.
That's probably more realistic, but for my needs it isn't getting to where I need them to go.
I suspect I got spoiled by early Emerald brass.

If you'd like to mod these instruments then read on.

Anyway,
Here's how I did it for the TVEC4 Trombones, FHorns and Trumpets.
It didn't seem to work well with the Tuba so I skipped that one.

Note:
There are already 1, if not 2 modulators in the amplifier section assigned to CC01. I don't know what they do, but they don't swell the volume, so just be aware of those and add a new one as described below.

1) Load the instrument, open the wrench and immediately save your instrument under a new name so that the original is safe, and you can roll back if there's a problem. My method is to add a sufix with my initials that descibes the change so my new istruments
end with " " " SK_CC11_CC01.nki
2) Select Group Editor and make sure that the "Edit All Groups" button is selected, then close the group editor.
3) Find the Amplifier section and at the bottom of it choose the "Add Modulator" drop down menu, then External Sources > midi CC.
It might take a bit of time for it to get added so wait until you see the new modulator appear.

"1" will show in the first black box meaning it is CC01.
"0" will show in the second black box meaning take no action is no CC01 data is received.

In the 3rd black box called "Lag" double click on the 0 and change it to 100.
Set the slider to the left of the Lag box to something lower than 100%.

100% will mean that your instrument will be silent when the mod wheel is at Zero.

I set mine at 69.4% and it's giving me a good dynamic volume well and a decent volume when no CC01 date is present.
64.4% might seem a bit much at first, but try it with a very light touch on one note at a time and play and expressive melody.
We don't need to use full mod wheel all the time but for some quiet passages it seems it gives a bit more head room.

Now, test that the mod wheel is now adding the amount of swell to the volume of the instrument that you want to hear.
Adjust the slider percentage to get the amount of swell that you want.
If all is good save your changed instrument.

Post

Just did the same (as in the previous post) to the TVEC 4 strings ... adding mod wheel swell to get more control over dynamics.
It's working on Bass, Cello, Viola, 2nd and 1st violins.
Same process as doing it for the brass described in the previous post.

Post

msorrels wrote:So I went out to my account on the Kirk Hunter site and noticed that under the downloads for Diamond there was a new download called Instruments_Fixes_9-12-2016.zip so I downloaded it but the instruments it contains are named very differently than my previous Diamond downloads. So I re-downloaded the whole Diamond Orchestra. It appears things have been reorganized quite a bit from what I had before. But their are a few issues:

1. The new version of Diamond is only 56.5 GB vs the old 71 GB. That's a pretty big change and it's not Kontakt compression since I ran Kontakt's compression on it and it reduced down even more (to 41GB). So this new 56.5GB size isn't due to compresion, so what created the 14GB of savings?
Did anyone figure out this discrepancy?
2. The new Diamond has a folder Instruments\Strings\1_Violins\1_Disco Stabs and Scoops that contains one instrument "18 Violins Disco Stabs.nki"
but that .nki file appears to be associated with a Kontakt Library and can't be loaded. Kontakt complains "Your new Library needs to be added before this Instrument can be used. Please go to Kontakt's Libraries tab and press the Add Library button." when you try to load or do a Batch Resave.
I get the same error. Wondering the reason for the error, if its fixable, though I doubt i need disco stabs anyway

I'm also wondering where the heck to find TVEC3 woodwinds that are mentioned in the manual. They are most definitely not included in this current Diamond download package. I'm going to use primarily Concert Brass 2 and Concert strings2, but for woodwinds and percussion, I will use Diamond. If there is supposed to be some TVEC3 woodwind programming I would love to use that for consistency, and also if there is TVEC3 programming for woodwinds, theoretically they would be using the same early reflection IR's that CB2 and CS2 are using...which would be useful.
MacPro 5,1 12core x 3.46ghz-96gb MacOS 12.2 (opencore), X32+AES16e-50

Post

They are in the download I did a long time ago.
I've got:

Clarinet
Oboe
English Horn
Flute
Piccolo
Bassoon

in my Tvec_3.1_Instruments folder

You might need to email KH directly from the website and ask.
I don't think he looks in here at all any more.

Post

I think you must have the older and bigger download which probably doesn’t even match the same sample names to the current one. Sigh... well at least I know it’s out there I will email Kirk.
MacPro 5,1 12core x 3.46ghz-96gb MacOS 12.2 (opencore), X32+AES16e-50

Post Reply

Return to “Kirk Hunter Studios”