motu ethno up @ motu.com

TOD · Post by **TOD** » Mon May 22, 2006 6:48 am

Well, I'm a total latin / ethnic drum slut so I'm definitely getting EI, (I have latigo, iDrum, microtonic and ethno techo-for spectrasonics) now EI!!

According to Sweetwater they will be shipping mine today.

David Polich · Post by **David Polich** » Mon May 22, 2006 11:51 am

I think the sound quality of EI is outstanding. Me, I prefer the "in-your-face" "glossy" "upfront" sound. You can always make a hi-fi thing lo-fi, but you can't do the reverse.

But I must admit in all my excitement, I almost didn't remember that one important thing - all the pitched instrument loops will be in a particular key which can't be changed. And even at 8GB, you just know that at some point you're going to exhaust all the pitched instrument loops. Mono "lead" lines from a sitar, well you could conceivably transpose those. But the polyphonic loops - forget it. You either compose the rest of your track in the EI loop key, or you don't use that particular EI loop.

It would be great if EI could do what Stylus RMX does with polyphonic REX loops - you can transpose them up and down. One could also record EI's output as audio tracks, then load those into Ableton Live, I guess, but then you'd be out of the DP environment.

I still think I'll get EI, though.

TOD · Post by **TOD** » Mon May 22, 2006 1:36 pm

Sweetwater just called....It's been pushed back at least two more weeks.

funkyfreddy · Post by **funkyfreddy** » Mon May 22, 2006 4:19 pm

TOD wrote:Sweetwater just called....It's been pushed back at least two more weeks.

This has been going on for months since I ordered it.... YAWN.... I hope it's worth the wait.

Spikey Horse · Post by **Spikey Horse** » Tue May 23, 2006 1:20 pm

I notice that Quantum Leap RA is available at a group buy price of $497.50 (for couple of weeks at least) which puts it in the same bracket as the about to be released Ethno (a tiny bit more expensive).

Does anyone already have RA? - and can they comment on it please!

....obviously it's hard to actually compare the two when no one has Ethno yet and both website' s audio demos are of the 'produced song' type.

But having said that, after some brief demo-ing I think I definately prefer the RA sounds....hmmmm....

What is clear is that Ethno has 4 GB samples and 4 GB loops and phrases and RA has 14 GB of samples including some ensemble and legato (I hope they mean VSL style legato) patches..... cartainly RA seems to come out on top when you 'do the maths'.

Perhaps I should rephrase my question: Do any QL RA owners have any good reasons why I should NOT get this while it's still on special?

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Tue May 23, 2006 2:04 pm

I don't get your math: how is roughly 2x a "tiny" bit more expensive?

Ethno is $297, which is $200 less than the RA group buy, making it 60% as expensive as RA.

I'm kind of glad Ethno was pushed back a few weeks, because my printer finally died its final death this weekend and I had to buy a new one. The delay in Ethno saves me having to take money out of savings

.

Spikey Horse · Post by **Spikey Horse** » Tue May 23, 2006 2:20 pm

Sorry, I am in the UK and I found it listed online (at a well known UK music store which usually does the software at the RRP or less) and the price was £250 *sterling* - that's $469.95 ....

...... compared to QL RA at $497.50 (group buy)

I will now investigate if this really is going to be the price in the UK!

Sorry for the mistake, and thanks for the heads up!

P.S. I'd still love to hear comments about RA ....

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Tue May 23, 2006 2:25 pm

Oh, indeed you may not be able to get the same MOTU discounts in the U.K. I know there are certain brands that do not simply match the exchange rate (some brands are cheaper in the U.K.; some are cheaper in the U.S.).

I'm very curious about RA, but don't have the funds as I've committed to Ethno Instrument and can't buy both. Maybe someone who gets both can post some unproduced raw comparisons of similar voices? I imagine it'll be the case that both have their purposes and neither is redundant.

Having looked at the webpage for RA and related products, I'm a bit confused whether it is a superset of "Rare Instruments" or not. And if not (or even if so), does anyone recommend that (much cheaper) package?

quadrupolesmurf · Post by **quadrupolesmurf** » Tue May 23, 2006 3:10 pm

Spikey Horse wrote:But having said that, after some brief demo-ing I think I definately prefer the RA sounds....hmmmm....

With RA you're locked into using NI's Kompakt (or upgrading to Kontakt) and Inakt. NI has some issues, both on the customer service side and on the 'robust' plug-in side. I've wanted Stormdrums and RA for sometime, but, I don't want the be at the mercy of NI updates. Currently, there isn't a Universal binary planned for either Kompakt, or Inakt. I am not exactly sure how NI plans to remedy this problem. There are several sample manufactures that are locked to Kompakt and Inakt. Anyways.... At least check this out. It's hard to tell if its a few bad apples whining, or if its a real problem. I own Battery and Reaktor. Battery is (relatively) unstable within Logic and Reaktor is pretty good.

http://www.nativeinstruments.de/forum_u ... ay.php?f=4

I can't wait for Ethno to ship. It's exactly what I've been looking for.

Hopefully, the first version will be memory/cpu friendly and stable.

Spikey Horse · Post by **Spikey Horse** » Tue May 23, 2006 3:11 pm

mhschmieder wrote: ........ I imagine it'll be the case that both have their purposes and neither is redundant.....

I agree completely .... but perhaps there's less incentive to add it to my library if this price is correct for UK.... £250 just does seem just a bit pricey, especially with this RA group buy winking at me from accross the room.

mhschmieder wrote: Having looked at the webpage for RA and related products, I'm a bit confused whether it is a superset of "Rare Instruments" or not. And if not (or even if so), does anyone recommend that (much cheaper) package?

Apparently according to this article it makes up about 10% of RA's library.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct05/a ... westra.htm

EDIT: about the stability of NI format in DP - I've never had a problem with running either Kompakt (admittedly hardly ever use, I got a couple of their romplers bundled with other stuff) or Kontakt 2 (I use all the time - never a problem - I love it, especially with the new update).

I'm sure there are problems, I just never had any myself. Ooops shouldn't say things like that.....

EDIT (again) - sorry I meant 'kompakt' and 'kontakt' ..... er...she sells sea shells on the sea shore.......

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Tue May 23, 2006 3:21 pm

D'oh! I'm an SOS subscriber, but rarely read the whole magazine -- just what it pertinent at the time. I didn't spell out the whole name properly when I did my search, so it didn't show up (searching on just "RA" does not produce usable results, and searching on the abbreviations of EastWest Quantum Leap didn't work because I didn't use that specific terminology).

Thanks for the link. I always respect SOS review quality and the level of honesty in their articles. The US publications, even the better ones, generally seem too timid -- though both EM and Keyboard are getting a bit more daring recently, if one parses between the lines to see the "real" review

.

quadrupolesmurf · Post by **quadrupolesmurf** » Tue May 23, 2006 5:44 pm

Does Ethno require an iLok?

and does it come with it? or does it need to be purchased separately?

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Tue May 23, 2006 5:51 pm

It comes with it. I was told at NAMM that it would probably be a different authorisation than the other stuff. In case the specifics of what I was told were in confidence, that's all I'll say for now.

quadrupolesmurf · Post by **quadrupolesmurf** » Tue May 23, 2006 6:14 pm

Thanks for the info.

I am not thrilled about the iLok, but I understand the need for it.

The problem is playing live. It's enough to worry about my powerbook being ok at a live gig, now I have to worry about a little usb dongle getting lost.

My Logic dongle never leaves the house. It is an indoor dongle.

I heard the shipping date for Ethno was the 30th. But it could be moved back. A few online stores are having this date.

hugy · Post by **hugy** » Wed May 24, 2006 8:45 am

David Polich wrote: It would be great if EI could do what Stylus RMX does with polyphonic REX loops - you can transpose them up and down..

Actually you can do it when you're not in map mode.
you can even play chords. And all are going to be synchronized.