mhschmieder wrote: As for Evolution Series: South America, it's only $100 so I may buy it after all. I got confused earlier thinking each element was $500 vs. the entire suite.
Looks like the most recent Evolution Series sale ended on 8 December and was up to 40% off.
Sound-on-Sound reviewed the library in August 2011, and admired the seven mic positions and recording quality but complained that Yellow Tools Engine doesn't allow for instrument tuning and that the vendor provided zero information about the instruments sampled. It has since been ported to Kontakt though, so maybe the current version allows tuning (although it now only has four mics vs. the original seven).
Having just re-tried them both just now, I'd say Samba Drums from Wavesfactory is the better kit -- though there is only partial overlap. This is due to how it was recorded, and also it seems more deeply sampled (though neither kit is as deep as Evolution Series).
Percussao do Brasil from Sonokinetic has two mic options (Close and Far), both of which sound too dark, muddy, and reverberant even if I remove the Impulse Response reverb effect. It sounds coarsely recorded also.
Note that Sonokinetic calls their Brasilian Timbau a Timbal; whereas both Wavesfactory and Evolution Series calls theirs a Timba. From what I can tell, Timba is the English form, Timbal the Spanish, and Timbau the Portuguese. And of course, no relation at all to Timbales!
The SOS review is for the old 1st edition(Engine)the current Evolution Percussion ver.2 was reworked in 2013,expanded and ported to Kontakt 5 with added scripts etc.... so imo the SOS review is not totally accurate now........
you might want to look at this thread on GS, the 11th post explains the changes.
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/product ... ntakt.html
They put this on sale 2 or 3 times a year,I got it for 40% off during a previous sale last year.