Symphonic Instruments versus EWQLSO

[westla]

Originally posted by Mark Schmieder:
[QB]I would never want a sample library to be my final recording; just good enough to get me attention so that hopefully a real orchestra would play my works at some point.
/QB]

That's cool for an amateur, but let's get real. While the majority of the time my projects are recorded by live players, if you're doing TV work, it's lamost all sampler based. Also when th producer and director come over to my studio, I can't constantly be making excusses because the samples they are hearing on my mock ups don't really cut it.

For professional composers we need the best tools around, not some pie in the sky notion that if we use inferior sounds somehow this will keep orchestras in bussiness.

Also samples have nothing to do with killing orchestras in this country .... it's killing seesion players in LA. Noone is going to Orchestra Hall to hear a virtual orchestra. What's killing orchestras are he publics indeference to something that should be embrassed. (although that's a whole other subject).

<small>[ August 16, 2005, 02:11 PM: Message edited by: westla ]</small>

[Arpeggio]

After spending considerable time with MSI, I can honestly say that MSI is far superior to EWQLSO Silver (and GPO for that matter). Granted, it can't realistically compete with the $1,500 (currently) EWQLSO Platinum or the $4,000 Vienna Symphonic Library, but in its price range, you really can't beat MSI.

[larocheb]

I would like to know all the ARTICULATIONS of each instrument for Motu SI. EWQLSQ provide this information very clearly.

[croftish]

IMO you can't touch EWQLSO for the money OR for ease of use. Some of the velocity layers are a little unsubtle, but that's the only crit I can give it.
Absolutely trounces both GPO and MSI, but hey, that's just me.
I use it in conjunction with VSL on GS3 for all my orch stuff.

[jimjacobsen]

Originally posted by Mark Schmieder:
[QB]I would never want a sample library to be my final recording; just good enough to get me attention so that hopefully a real orchestra would play my works at some point.
/QB]

That's cool for an amateur, but let's get real. While the majority of the time my projects are recorded by live players, if you're doing TV work, it's lamost all sampler based. Also when th producer and director come over to my studio, I can't constantly be making excusses because the samples they are hearing on my mock ups don't really cut it.

For professional composers we need the best tools around, not some pie in the sky notion that if we use inferior sounds somehow this will keep orchestras in bussiness.

Also samples have nothing to do with killing orchestras in this country .... it's killing seesion players in LA. Noone is going to Orchestra Hall to hear a virtual orchestra. What's killing orchestras are he publics indeference to something that should be embrassed. (although that's a whole other subject).

<small>[ August 16, 2005, 02:11 PM: Message edited by: westla ]</small>

Have you looked into a spellchecker? All those big-time producers and directors like things spelled correctly, too.

[jr213]

Have you looked into a spellchecker?

Don't do that... We're musicians... sum of us make better myoozik then eNglish teechirs.

[thanatopsis]

IMO you can't touch EWQLSO for the money OR for ease of use. Some of the velocity layers are a little unsubtle, but that's the only crit I can give it.

I agree. before MOTU's SI I relied on a cheesy $40 CD of string samples that I had to map and crossfade myself. Well, Reason did a lot of it for me. It did get the job done and isn't much worse than the strings on SI. The solos were MUCH less noisy, but the differences between multisamples was more noticable. For other instruments I used old preset stuff on the Korg Oasys card and even older stuff like the Korg M1. Mind you, I make cheesy electronic synthpop music and don't normally do anything near orchestral.

SI was really fun, though. Everything in one easy-to-use package. I made a few stupid film score-like things the night I got it and started wanted something better.

I got EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Gold. Even on sale, Platnum was a bit out of my price range and I thought Silver might not be much better than SI.
I was disappointed that Gold doesn't have any choir or piano samples like Silver. I thought it would be the same, but even better. Well, I knew it didn't have any choirs and got EWQL Symphonic Choirs, but I still wanted a piano. I'm glad the pianos in SI are decent for what I use them for in a mix. It also has those fun historical instruments that SO Gold lacks.
SI isn't great, but as I said elsewhere, it is good enough for some stuff. SO Gold is far bettter sounding and has more articulations, but it isn't as complete as SI. I guess it is a quality vs quantity thing.
SO Silver seems to be more like SI from reading about it, but I haven't heard it myself.
BTW, Kompakt, which comes with SO isn't bad. It is almost as nice as the SI interface. It only has 8 slots, but you can load 2 plugins to get 16.

[loff56]

Hmmm, I wonder...

Has anyone made the upgrade from EWQLSO Silver to EWQLSO Gold? What happens? Do you get overlapping articulations loaded on your computer, with a choice of loading a EWQLSO Silver instance AND/OR a Gold instance. Or does the silver material appear in an instance of EWQLSO Gold?

Like thanatopsis said, Gold doesn't come with the Piano but Silver does. Upgrading to Gold doesn't mean you lose the piano does it? It's probably just the same player, right? Does Gold only install the articulations that currently are not there?

Thanks for all your input in this topic. It seems as though upgrading to Gold is the better way to go than to cross-grade to SI.

[emulatorloo]

Hmmm, I wonder...

Has anyone made the upgrade from EWQLSO Silver to EWQLSO Gold? What happens? Do you get overlapping articulations loaded on your computer,

East-West has a decent forum over at http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/index.php?

I think they have addressed this there...at one point you had to pay extra to keep Silver, but they may have changed their policy. Many people found buying Gold at the sale price (495?) was a better deal than upgrading.

[loff56]

Yeah, I checked that out. Couldn't seem to find any info specifically on whether they changed the whole losing your silver licence when "up-grading" to Gold thing. But apparently If you buy Gold at the, what's now, the cheaper price (495) instead of the upgrade price of 850 (I think), not only are you buying it cheaper, but you're not losing the samples from Silver because you will now have two licences, one for Silver and one for Gold. Seems like the logic police never made it over to East West. Either that or the "buying into the next level" marketing stratagy has been, intentionally or not, priced out of its own functionality. I really should be able to upgrade to Gold for only 345 if they were really playing fair. Oh well. Sorry to get off topic on my own thread.

[David Polich]

Just a quick note from here in Los Angeles - sample orchestral libraries are indeed what you hear on many television show soundtracks and movie soundtracks as well. I've heard things done with both EWQLO and VSO and, frankly, I really did think they were actual orchestra tracks. It all comes down to the skills of the person using them.

With music being the last thing on the budget, it's become much more acceptable to use sample libraries for scores.

[Timeline]

Is there a 24 bit 96 or 88.2 library? I hear some very realistic productions out there like Stargate SG-1/Atlantis, amazing!

Just because a library claims a floating BR this does not mean the original files were made at anything than 16bit
as I understand it.

[richard]

Hmmm, I wonder...

Has anyone made the upgrade from EWQLSO Silver to EWQLSO Gold? What happens? Do you get overlapping articulations loaded on your computer, with a choice of loading a EWQLSO Silver instance AND/OR a Gold instance. Or does the silver material appear in an instance of EWQLSO Gold?

Like thanatopsis said, Gold doesn't come with the Piano but Silver does. Upgrading to Gold doesn't mean you lose the piano does it? It's probably just the same player, right? Does Gold only install the articulations that currently are not there?

Thanks for all your input in this topic. It seems as though upgrading to Gold is the better way to go than to cross-grade to SI.

I've made the Silver to Gold switch. There are some choir and piano sounds on Silver that are not on Gold. Unless I'm trying to perhaps save CPU, there isn't a reason for me to use Silver anymore.

I haven't used SI, but I'd make a guess after hearing the demo tunesthat it could fill out some holes in Gold, but if I could only buy one, it would probably be Gold.... actually, I'd spend more time checking them out. Gold sounds good, but sometimes I'm surprised with the lack of certain instruments/articulations... (Like how about tremolo for all strings?!?! If I remember right, Gold only has trem for Violin and Cello!)

[richard]

Yeah, I checked that out. Couldn't seem to find any info specifically on whether they changed the whole losing your silver licence when "up-grading" to Gold thing. But apparently If you buy Gold at the, what's now, the cheaper price (495) instead of the upgrade price of 850 (I think), not only are you buying it cheaper, but you're not losing the samples from Silver because you will now have two licences, one for Silver and one for Gold. Seems like the logic police never made it over to East West. Either that or the "buying into the next level" marketing stratagy has been, intentionally or not, priced out of its own functionality. I really should be able to upgrade to Gold for only 345 if they were really playing fair. Oh well. Sorry to get off topic on my own thread.

I never was told to give up Silver when I upgraded...