Orchestral Libraries Again

[MikeInBoston]

Hey Mike, you suggested getting the Pro wind and brass. I'm a happy camper with what I have, but of course I haven't had time to actually use the library. I'm wondering if I should take advantage of the sale that ends today, or get them as needed. Do you find those pro additions very useful?

Well, when you think that you can get them at 40% off, why wouldn't you take advantage of the sale? As far as the winds go, you should probably get CineWinds Core first. It is the most useful in that this library contains the piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon, in other words, the core instruments of the woodwind section. The Pro package has the auxiliary instruments and other exotic instruments (english horn, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, recorder, penny whistle, etc.). This package may not be as useful, although it's great to have them both.

In my opinion, the CineBrass Pro library is more useful than the Core library because of all the solo brass instruments it contains as opposed to ensembles, although I'm glad I have them both.

Mike

[dix]

My thinking too. The Pro winds and percussion contain more obscure content that can wait till the next sale or until I'm wealthy. The brass looks pretty useful. Downloading now.

Thanks again to all for the valuable input.

[MikeInBoston]

My thinking too. The Pro winds and percussion contain more obscure content that can wait till the next sale or until I'm wealthy. The brass looks pretty useful. Downloading now.

Thanks again to all for the valuable input.

Great! I think you'll like them, and also working with Kontact.

Mike

[towerproductions]

I guess i must be the oddball here . No problems with EW Play here for the most part with Hollywood strings and Brass and many of their other libs. You do need plenty of ram for HS and ssd hds make a big difference with streaming and load times. There are plenty of people getting great results on the EW forums with the hollywood series but it does have a learning curve and helps to run more instances of Play. But everyone has there faves and there is always new stuff coming out so keep doing research and checking out demos and videos.
Play is more limited than kontakt as a player but I personally don't use many of the bells and whistles of Kontakt anyway .

[Armageddon]

I've gone on and on elsewhere about my problems with EWQL (in particular, Ministry of Rock 1), but while I have no love for the company, I can honestly say I have zero problem with the PLAY engine itself and am mystified why others do. Since PLAY 3, they completely extended the GUI to incorporate a console-style mixing board on its own screen. I have a lot of issues with the fact that they've elected to incorporate some weird "DLC"-style paid inserts for said console, instead of incorporating them for free, but for basic mixing inside the VI, it works out great. The extra pay-to-play stuff is indicative of their overpriced business model, which is horrible. Plus, I've almost never had a problem with PLAY, either standalone or as a VI inside of DP, even on much slower systems than the one I own now. If you dig EWQLSO and don't mind paying too much for the library, that's probably the way to go. Granted, I have no idea how recent updates work with anything more recent than Snow Leopard, which might be the basis for others' issues, but it works great for me.

As for me, I love the Symphobia series -- I have all three libraries and they deliver every time, and ProjectSAM is now releasing smaller, specialized libraries that can be picked up for cheap. I also use Miroslav Philharmonik for solo stuff and EWQL's old "Voices of the Apocalypse" for choirs. If I'm just using Symphobia, I wind up just using the "stage" position mics without worrying about reverb and if I combine different libraries, I usually send everything to a concert stage impulse and it all blends together pretty well.

[Gravity Jim]

I've been researching this topic through endless Internet digging, auditioning of memos and interviews with friends in the industry, and I can offer the definitive answer:

All the top-tier, really expensive orchestral libraries are great. In fact, according to someone, they are all the best. Every single one. So, if you feel like you need such a thing, you should definitely buy one and use it.

[Shooshie]

I've been researching this topic through endless Internet digging, auditioning of memos and interviews with friends in the industry, and I can offer the definitive answer:

All the top-tier, really expensive orchestral libraries are great. In fact, according to someone, they are all the best. Every single one. So, if you feel like you need such a thing, you should definitely buy one and use it.

I've noticed the same thing, except with these exceptions: the ones that I'm using this week are better than the ones I was using last week. I think I've probably said so in this forum, so I'm sure it's true.

Eihsoohs

[doodles]

and make sure you play them loud aswell. It's an undisputed fact that the louder you play your track, the better it will sound

[dix]

Well, I WAS ready to buy Hollywood and Play. If any of you Play believers had revealed yourself yesterday AM I'd without a doubt be one of you now, but I'ma CineSamples man now, and a pretty happy one so far. I get Jim's observation (there really are a lot of great libraries out there now), but I could find no one that considered EWH the best. Believe me I was looking. ...anyway, it's water (and $1300) under the bridge. Onward...

[towerproductions]

dix,
I'm sure you'll be happy with cinesample libs, as there stuff does sound very good, as does EW HS , Lass, Project Sam and Vienna and the many others. Most orchestral stuff is pretty high quality these days as the bar keeps getting raised higher so I don't think there really is a best. Many mix very nicely together for different colors. But the bottom line is they are all just tools and it's what you do with them anyway.

[darrell]

I do okay with Play. An occasional glitch here and there. I bought an SSD drive and put all my samples on there. It used to take 10 minutes or so to load a pretty much complete (keyswitched) orchestra into DP, but the SSD does it in 1-2 minutes. First SSD I've had, and frankly, I'm amazed.

My main quibble with Play is that, even in Platinum Orchestra (not Hollywood) the 16-bit resolution makes the sounds really nasty on the top end, and it isn't good if you have screecy strings and woodwinds. Other quibble is that some instruments (perhaps recorded on a different day?) don't have the same ambience, or too much room tone, than the main body of samples.

[mikeharper]

I had no problems with "Play" either but I am moving to spitfire audio instead of upgrading to the HW series. Another company, Orchestral tools looks interesting http://www.orchestraltools.com/page3/index.php

[Shooshie]

But the bottom line is they are all just tools and it's what you do with them anyway.

This is what I've always said. But starting in the 1980s, and continuing up to the advent of major virtual instrument libraries, I was willing to work incessantly to get convincing sounds for strings, brass, and winds. When the early libraries started emerging, it was far less work, because they started off sounding pretty good, but you had to do keyswitching and use all those articulations. I just wanted something that had a constant envelope + velocity crossfading that I could control with a WX-5 MIDI Wind Instrument. I got pretty much what I was looking for, but they still required some programming.

Now, some libraries have gotten so easy to use that I'm getting spoiled. I don't want to have to go back and do a lot of insertion and editing of controllers, keyswitches, and such. So, I have let go of some of my old hands-on methods and have gravitated to the easier interfaces to use (though arguably harder to learn) such as the Vienna Instruments Pro Advanced Interface. With a fully-equipped library, not lacking in articulations or sample layers, you can set up your expression pedals to control the articulation matrix, and it's really easy to use. I can lay down a string track pretty much in one take with minimal editing.

I've even started using some of the VSL wind sounds instead of Wallander Instruments, now that I've learned to play them more naturally. Not in every case, but in many cases. (I did a bassoon track last week for a Broadway album recorded in NY and Nashville. It was so easy and fun to do! Not much editing, really.) Was getting ready for a timpani part this week, but they found a live player at the last minute. Ok by me, but it was really an easy job, had I gone through with it.

Shooshie

[Killahurts]

With a fully-equipped library, not lacking in articulations or sample layers, you can set up your expression pedals to control the articulation matrix, and it's really easy to use. I can lay down a string track pretty much in one take with minimal editing.

Awesome! Every time I have applied this into the creation of a song, it has been successful. I remember when I got the Gofriller Cello and Stradivari Violin, it was a maze of pedals, wheels, keyswitching and right hand technique.. but when you "synced up" with it, which didn't take long, it was an amazing experience! And, it was recordable, a la making records.

[Shooshie]

With a fully-equipped library, not lacking in articulations or sample layers, you can set up your expression pedals to control the articulation matrix, and it's really easy to use. I can lay down a string track pretty much in one take with minimal editing.

Awesome! Every time I have applied this into the creation of a song, it has been successful. I remember when I got the Gofriller Cello and Stradivari Violin, it was a maze of pedals, wheels, keyswitching and right hand technique.. but when you "synced up" with it, which didn't take long, it was an amazing experience! And, it was recordable, a la making records.

Those two libraries, the Strad and the Gofriller, are the reason I still have Kontakt. I still pull those out now and then. I wish they'd continued to develop those. They were almost great. I mean, they were almost the absolute best solo strings you could buy, and if they had a few tweaks, they'd be THE best you could buy anywhere. Pretty important tweaks, though. Without further development, they'll always be "almost famous." But I can get great lines out of them. They were almost a perfect match for the WX-5. I say almost, because the only way to make them do a good legato unfortunately also triggered the portamento when using the WX-5. I learned to play it with triggering the portamento most of the time, but it was very hard to do. If they could make another trigger for portamento, besides overlapping notes, it WOULD be perfect. Alas..., it's not to be. Maybe they'll come back someday in another form, but until then I'll nurse these old ones along in Kontakt.

Shoosh