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I just received an email from UVI about their new Orchestral Suite for UVI Player & Machfive.

The sample sounds on the page sound pretty awesome. Anyone care to share their thoughts about this vs other orchestral tools?

Not bad for two bills. I'll research it some more but looks like a decent enough collection for the money. Thanks for the link.

The demos range from thoroughly impressive to revealing some of the weaknesses. Further down in the demo list, you can hear more problematic passages. They seem to have sampled a fair amount of special phrases & effects which are useful. It does seem to be a fairly comprehensive set of samples for a losslessly compressed 5 GB.

I think the price is really good for what you are getting. However, like many sample libraries in this range, it has its weaknesses. You would need to really study the demos to try to determine whether those weaknesses will affect your work.

I find myself in a kind of limbo where I'd LOVE to have a great orchestral library, but I rarely get the kinds of gigs where I need one. I will use Kontakt's library, but it is pretty limited (and problematic). I have heard really good ones, but I'd either need a big gig, or some windfall of cake.

And therein lies one of the problems. If you DON'T have a great library and deliver a second rate orchestral score, you won't get any more. Buying a great library, OTOH, does't assure you'll get any gigs. It's like finding an agent. They don't want you if you're not already making money and once you make money, they all want you and you don't want them.

Crazy!

OK, had the time to listen to the demos in the studio over real speakers and... each! Dull strings. Tubby brass. Nice crips percussion, but that's easiest to sample. Yeah, I'll pass on this one.

Thanks a lot for the input guys. I went ahead and impulse bought the thing last evening after posting the original message, LOL!

Just wondering though, what are your goto libs for this kind of work?

Well, don't despair. Just use your ears as you work with it. Add EQ when needed.

Also, I don't know what the UVI interface lets you tweak WRT envelopes. For example, the classical guitar has some decay in it that makes it sound fake. Sometimes adding a little release time on other samples can help them sound less fake.

You'll find that the library will influence both the compositional choices you make as well as the way you play the keyboard in terms of phrasing and articulation. That's why having a library that doesn't make you bend over backwards can really help. But working within limitations has its benefits.

As you heard in the demos, very convincing music can be made with that library. So don't kick yourself too much. I think it's better than the library that comes with Kontakt.

Just forge ahead and use the tools you have to make some great music now. ("Hey Self, are you listening to this?")

I agree with Stubby You can tweak and massage a lot of otherwise unusable sounds into you mix with just a few keystrokes. I am bothered by software developers who taut their work as great orchestral libraries when they're marginally passable. To their credit, at least the demos were honestly representing the actual product. That's not always the case.

guitardood wrote:Thanks a lot for the input guys. I went ahead and impulse bought the thing last evening after posting the original message, LOL!

Just wondering though, what are your goto libs for this kind of work?

At work I use Eastweat Symphonic Gold, Hollywood Strings, Hollywood Woodwinds. At home, I have NI Komplete 9 + Vienna Special Edition and Chamber Strings, I also use the Kontakt version of Symphonic Gold. Hollywood strings are excellent imo.

When I need a solo violin though, nothing beats the real thing, and she's very cute too, like all those violin chicks

stubbsonic wrote: ("Hey Self, are you listening to this?")

LOL! And thanks

Yeah, I have a flesh and blood violinist as well. In live shows the reviewers use more ink describing her than the music. I'm ok with that.

What happened to MOTU's Symphonic Orchestra 2? Could this be the that but under the UVI banner?

FutureLegends wrote:What happened to MOTU's Symphonic Orchestra 2? Could this be the that but under the UVI banner?

I often wondered about that too. iirc a demo was officially presented a year ago (or more) at NAMM? I still have it, although not very useful these days, but if there is to be a new version, I might be interested. Maybe they'll bundle it with DP9 like MX4?

UVI workstation is Motu product or it is another company? And what is official forum for UVI? I cant find it.

And question for someone who own Orch. Suite, have marimba bowed play technique? I find (in manual pdf) vybraphnoe have it (arco style), but marimba have some FX technique - it is bowed technique?

I don't remember the details, but I believe the folks who developed UVI also developed stuff for MOTU and licensed (or sold) them the code. Not so sure about MachFive. I seem to recall that being developed in France, but I haven't had my Geritol this morning. Clearly, the UVI player is NOT a MOTU product.