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So Kirk Hunter has a 50% off sale, and Diamond Orchestra is $125 at the moment.
I'm figuring for woodwinds and percussion, plus extra strings and brass that's not too bad of a deal.
I know it's an older library, but my needs as far as orchestral libraries are pretty minimal, it would be nice to have a decent sound and some flexibility, but I mostly do experimental rock so there's that.

Nothing new added woodwinds wise and percussion wise to Garriton 5, and I already have Cinestrings, Cinebrass, and KH Concert Strings 2.

Side note: missed a blow out sale on EastWest Symphonic Orchestra Diamond for under $150 by 24 hours..

EastWest ALWAYS have sales if you can wait. The price will likely come around again later this year.

nk_e wrote:EastWest ALWAYS have sales if you can wait. The price will likely come around again later this year.

Funny! I'm in email negotiations with a guy from soundsonline EU about getting a copy of Symphony Orchestra Platinum for the sale price, since our emails back and forth ruined the window for me.

Looks like a better complete orchestra package than Diamond so wish me luck.

Happily, I own a few of Kirk Hunter's orchestral libraries including a now older version of Diamond Orchestra. I like them, especially his Concert Strings 2 library. There are enough articulations in his libraries for my modest needs. I use his Concert Strings 2 library, especially, for most projects. For the most part, you can configure (within Kontakt) to have his instruments sounding quite dry which seems to help make mixing easier when blending them with other libraries.

I own East-West's Symphonic Orchestra (Platinum Plus) and Hollywood Orchestra Diamond Strings, Brass, Wood Winds and Percussion. Oh, and I also subscribe to their monthly Composer Cloud thingy (for now) to explore the rest of their libraries. I can not get their "Play" engine to work dependably. This is especially true for me when working with their Ministry of Rock instruments (for their electric bass). The usual issue for me are sustained notes cutting out unexpectedly. (My system is robust, with all of the libraries stored on SSDs and plenty of RAM in my computer(s).) I get this if they're housed in VEPro 5 or housed directly in DP 9. Heck, the sustained notes unexpectedly cut out on me using Play by itself. (For the record, I have less problems with the orchestral instruments, and use many of the percussion VIs from their Hollywood Orchestra Diamond series.) So, they're not my "go to" instruments when creating templets for my modest projects. In reading other people's problems with Play, it seems that it doesn't Play as well (pun intended!!) with Apple's operating system. (Although, there are people here who have no problems with Play.)

But back to Kirk Hunter's libraries. . . I like 'em, especially his string libraries. (They blend well enough for me when used with VSL's "Special Edition" instruments which I also own and like to use.) (Yes, I'm a bit of a software/virtual instrument junky.) 50% off his products seems to be a good deal for nice (yet older) instruments. For what it's worth, I've communicated with Kirk Hunter via phone and email in the past when dealing with sales and other issues (upgrades) in the past. I think that's pretty cool!

Ted

zuul-studios wrote:Happily, I own a few of Kirk Hunter's orchestral libraries including a now older version of Diamond Orchestra. I like them, especially his Concert Strings 2 library. There are enough articulations in his libraries for my modest needs. I use his Concert Strings 2 library, especially, for most projects. For the most part, you can configure (within Kontakt) to have his instruments sounding quite dry which seems to help make mixing easier when blending them with other libraries.

I own East-West's Symphonic Orchestra (Platinum Plus) and Hollywood Orchestra Diamond Strings, Brass, Wood Winds and Percussion. Oh, and I also subscribe to their monthly Composer Cloud thingy (for now) to explore the rest of their libraries. I can not get their "Play" engine to work dependably. This is especially true for me when working with their Ministry of Rock instruments (for their electric bass). The usual issue for me are sustained notes cutting out unexpectedly. (My system is robust, with all of the libraries stored on SSDs and plenty of RAM in my computer(s).) I get this if they're housed in VEPro 5 or housed directly in DP 9. Heck, the sustained notes unexpectedly cut out on me using Play by itself. (For the record, I have less problems with the orchestral instruments, and use many of the percussion VIs from their Hollywood Orchestra Diamond series.) So, they're not my "go to" instruments when creating templets for my modest projects. In reading other people's problems with Play, it seems that it doesn't Play as well (pun intended!!) with Apple's operating system. (Although, there are people here who have no problems with Play.)

But back to Kirk Hunter's libraries. . . I like 'em, especially his string libraries. (They blend well enough for me when used with VSL's "Special Edition" instruments which I also own and like to use.) (Yes, I'm a bit of a software/virtual instrument junky.) 50% off his products seems to be a good deal for nice (yet older) instruments. For what it's worth, I've communicated with Kirk Hunter via phone and email in the past when dealing with sales and other issues (upgrades) in the past. I think that's pretty cool!

Ted

Hi Ted, A couple questions.
that european deal at KVR is falling through, me and the east west guy there emailed back and forth until the sale was gone. I'm pretty ticked off about that especially since it seemed to me that the possibility of the woodwinds and percussion being better in the Syphonic Orchestra Platinum from East West was there. So the question is what do you thing of KH Diamond? I think the woodwinds and percussion are older stuff that wasn't updated so what you have is representative of what I would get if I bought it. I have KH Concert String II, CineBrass and Cinestrings so mostly I'm looking for variations on brass, plus percussion and woodwinds.

Hi,

I'll second what Micheal wrote- except it sounds like he uses more libraries then I do. I like KH Diamond and concert strings a lot and have used them for years on many projects. I haven't used Play in a year or so because I only use it for symphonic choirs choirs but for me Play is often glitchy and I generally loathe having to deal with it.

Best,

Bradford

Michael Canavan wrote:
Hi Ted, A couple questions.
that european deal at KVR is falling through, me and the east west guy there emailed back and forth until the sale was gone. I'm pretty ticked off about that especially since it seemed to me that the possibility of the woodwinds and percussion being better in the Syphonic Orchestra Platinum from East West was there. So the question is what do you thing of KH Diamond? I think the woodwinds and percussion are older stuff that wasn't updated so what you have is representative of what I would get if I bought it. I have KH Concert String II, CineBrass and Cinestrings so mostly I'm looking for variations on brass, plus percussion and woodwinds.

Hi Michael - I am afraid that I do not have a real informative answer to offer to you. Around the time when I started creating my first modest orchestral templets, I opted not to use the wood-winds and percussion found in KH Diamond. Instead, I used most solo wood-winds from GPO 4. This was quite a while back. For my newer orchestral templets (within the past year), I started using the wood-winds found in VSL's "Special Edition" bundles (as well as still incorporating a couple of solo wood-winds from GPO 4 and now GPO 5). As for percussion, for my more recently made orchestral templet, I still use GPO 4 (GPO 5), and some from the Hollywood Percussion series.

Since I created my first orchestral templets, a number of years ago, I know that Kirk Hunter upgraded his libraries. Maybe the wood-winds and percussion sound better now than they did to my modest ears back then. I just haven't made the time and effort to hear how his upgrades "bettered" the sound and playability.

Please know that I not an expert. I learn from you guys, actually. Sorry that I could not be more helpful.

Ted

Thanks For your honesty about the Diamond. Had a feeling the woodwinds and percussion weren't that great, which defeats the point of me getting it. On the plus side my emails with soundsonline Europe finally paid off and I got the super flash sale pricing! The guy had pulled aside a copy of Symphonic Platinum and the Dark Side for me and its in the mail!

Hopefully Play behaves for me, definitely couldn't pass up a 80% off sale coupled with a "two for an additional 55% off!"

I don't think the KH woodwinds are so bad and I would not put the GPO4 woodwinds as any better this his...but definitely his genius lies more with string instruments.

dewdman42 wrote:I don't think the KH woodwinds are so bad and I would not put the GPO4 woodwinds as any better this his...but definitely his genius lies more with string instruments.

Mostly I got a copy of EastWest Symphonic Orchestra Platinum plus a copy of The Dark Side. 150GB of content for a grand total of $101, normally $800, hard to pass that up!

I might just pick up KH Spotlight Strings during this 50% off sale though.

it was on sale for that cheap? Great purchase!