Garritan Instruments working in Leopard!

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 7:43 pm

First of all, it's all working. I bought Four Garritan packages before Christmas during the Garritan Go-Round sale, and they all installed and are playing in Leopard. The Stradivari Solo Violin and the Gofriller Solo Cello both worked right off the bat. The Garritan Personal Orchestra and the Garritan Big Band required some updating. All the updaters needed were online, and appeared in the Native Instruments "Service Center" application on cue. After the installs, updates, and authorizations, everything worked as advertised. I'm using Leopard 10.5.1 on an Intel Mac Pro 2.66 GHz tower. And it all sounds Fantastic!

Garritan uses a whole different approach for the cello and solo violin, but they are amazing, almost like magic. Beautiful sounds. Simply beautiful. The Garritan Personal Orchestra is more straight-ahead sampling, but it is very well done, and plays extremely nicely. The jazz band has some wonderfully useful instruments. I was blown away by the contrabass sax!

So far, I've been able to use the WX-5 on all the instruments. I'm still learning the ropes, so I don't know if the WX-5 will handle all the parameters, but I like the ones it's doing so far. The main thing is that everything is working on my Mac Pro with Leopard -- I was expecting to have to wait for months while Native Instruments updated the Kontakt2 Player. Not so. It appears to already be updated, once you download it through the "Service Center" app.

I'm a very happy musician right now. I've got a roster of extremely expressive instruments, and I could not ask for more. (well... I COULD ask for more, but I'm quite satisfied with what I have for now. These will keep me busy for a long time)

Kudos to Garritan for making such useful libraries that play so beautifully.

Shooshie

PS: if you saw my footswitch/expression pedal thread from the past week, you'll know that I bought the Roland FC-300 to help play these instruments. I'm sure glad I have it! It's actually well-suited for this.

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 8:14 pm

This is great news to hear, Shooshie-- for a whole lot of reasons. Bravo to you and Garritan.

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Fri Jan 04, 2008 8:15 pm

Shooshie wrote:...The main thing is that everything is working on my Mac Pro with Leopard -- I was expecting to have to wait for months while Native Instruments updated the Kontakt2 Player. Not so. It appears to already be updated, once you download it through the "Service Center" app.

I think Garritan may be among the very few lucky ones receiving the update-- and in Leopard, you say?

Wow.

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 1:46 am

Good to hear -- I installed the cello and violin last night but didn't have time to use them yet, other than for just some quick testing out, which even with just a few minor tweaks in the interface let me know that these are going to be eminently playable plug-ins that easily result in usable/musical results.

Knowing that the Garritan VI's work in Leopard whittles down my list further. I think one of the last remaining bottlenecks for a confident Intel Mac purchase is the East/West Play-based libraries.

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 2:52 pm

Frodo wrote:This is great news to hear, Shooshie-- for a whole lot of reasons. Bravo to you and Garritan.

I'll post some mp3's as I get the chance. This is a paradigm shift, as far as I'm concerned, and is every bit the match of Wallander. (I'm talking about the Strad violin and the Gofriller Cello) I've seen no VI of this caliber. Ever.

Shooshie

richardein · Post by **richardein** » Sat Jan 05, 2008 4:25 pm

Shoosie,

Agreed. The Strad violin is excellent (don't have the cello). It takes a while to learn to play it, but it sounds excellent.

azusa749a · Post by **azusa749a** » Sun Jan 06, 2008 10:08 pm

Sooshie, what is the version of Kontakt player that comes with the Strad?

I'm still on 10.4.11, but soon will be on Leopard.
I have the Strad 2.03 and Kontakt player 2.2.3 (stand alone), and 2.20 for the AU (I don't know why they're different.)

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:50 am

azusa749a wrote:Sooshie, what is the version of Kontakt player that comes with the Strad?

I'm still on 10.4.11, but soon will be on Leopard.
I have the Strad 2.03 and Kontakt player 2.2.3 (stand alone), and 2.20 for the AU (I don't know why they're different.)

Version 2.2.4

azusa749a · Post by **azusa749a** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 2:22 pm

Thanks.

jmlmbt · Post by **jmlmbt** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:31 pm

Shooshie:

Thanks for that info and the Countoff Beats lesson.

I was thinking of investing in the EWSO but am put off by the Play issue for Mac Pros. I can't get a straight answer as to when the intel supported version is coming out. So, after reading your Garritan post I'm now interested in that. Have you or anyone else had experience with Garritan's Per. Orchestra and/other Garr. libraries? Would you recommend them over EW?

Thanks!

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 6:15 pm

I have the GPO, but I can't compare it to EWSO, as I don't have the latter. Compared to MSI it's a much better rompler. I think the instruments play better and sound better, but then MSI is pretty iffy. Some things in MSI are ok, and others aren't. I'm glad to have both. GPO has no classical guitar, which may not be important to some, but I need it sometimes. Fortunately, MSI does.

The winds are pretty good. Nothing is on the quality level of, say, Garritan's Gofriller Cello or Stradivari Solo Violin, but they're very solid and competent sounds. With care, you could do a very convincing orchestral arrangement in GPO.

I'm working on a sextet that is mostly GPO. I'll post a link when I'm done. Let me say this much, though: all sampled sounds depend more on the performer than on the sound itself. The best sounds on earth won't do much for the lousiest performer/arranger, while the best performer on earth can probably make a masterpiece of the worst sounds. That's the law of the land, more or less, so if you consider yourself competent at this stuff, I think you'll be able to do an ok job with pretty much any library you get. Some just make us work harder than others, that's all. Of course... then there ARE those libraries which are amazing; like the above-mentioned strad and cello.

Shooshie

Phil O · Post by **Phil O** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 8:41 pm

Shooshie wrote:
azusa749a wrote:Sooshie, what is the version of Kontakt player that comes with the Strad?

I'm still on 10.4.11, but soon will be on Leopard.
I have the Strad 2.03 and Kontakt player 2.2.3 (stand alone), and 2.20 for the AU (I don't know why they're different.)
Version 2.2.4

Please forgive my ignorance, but am I to understand that Kontakt player comes with the Garritan packages? I've been thinking of getting GPO, but I don't have Kontakt. I don't need both?

Phil

jmlmbt · Post by **jmlmbt** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 8:56 pm

Thanks so much for the information. I'm doing my research and I may end up just sticking with my very good hardware (Fantom XR is the main device). There's a lot to be said for "if it aint broke....."

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:45 am

I guess you know about Garritan's new standalone player that will allow for more customised interfaces based on instrument type, but I don't think they have yet announced whether and/or when their existing Kontakt libraries will be ported.

So far an enticing new Organ collection is announced in this format (covering seven different pipe organs) and an upcoming Advanced Orchestra that I think is probably derived from some of the techniques employed in the Cello and Violin libraries being talked about here.

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 6:51 pm

Phil O wrote:
Shooshie wrote:
azusa749a wrote:Sooshie, what is the version of Kontakt player that comes with the Strad?

I'm still on 10.4.11, but soon will be on Leopard.
I have the Strad 2.03 and Kontakt player 2.2.3 (stand alone), and 2.20 for the AU (I don't know why they're different.)
Version 2.2.4
Please forgive my ignorance, but am I to understand that Kontakt player comes with the Garritan packages? I've been thinking of getting GPO, but I don't have Kontakt. I don't need both?

Phil

Phil, Garritan's packages come with everything you need. I installed the player from the DVD, and immediately it asked me to update the player, so I just did what it told me to do, and in a few minutes it was all done.

Shooshie

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Garritan Instruments working in Leopard!

Garritan Instruments working in Leopard!

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