Will MSI be enough for me?

[charlesmoman]

I am applying for a fellowship and working on a budget.
Part of the project is writing a score for a DVD to be played by a chamber-sized orchestra. Think Copland meets James Taylor meets John Williams.
About a 30 minute piece - several short movements.

I would be getting the latest Mac Pro tower with at least 4GB RAM, maybe more. Will be getting MSI and could budget in EWQL Gold if I needed.

Will MSI be enough for me, or should I go for EWQL Gold?
I plan on sweetening my VI work with a small live group of string players at a professional studio with pro session players.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Most of the time the music will be more sparse than a typical classical style scored orchestral piece. But at times it will be big.

[supersonic]

MSI is a good start. I'd suggest you get into it and then decide what you want to expand it with. There is also Vienna Symphonic Library which is very nice.

[papageno]

Will MSI be enough for me, or should I go for EWQL Gold?

First the player has to go UB... maybe in October

[meeloo]

Will MSI be enough for me, or should I go for EWQL Gold?

First the player has to go UB... maybe in October

MSI is UB. The only missing part is the MAS UB component which should be out any days now.

Cheers,

MeeLoo

[papageno]

Will MSI be enough for me, or should I go for EWQL Gold?

First the player has to go UB... maybe in October

MSI is UB. The only missing part is the MAS UB component which should be out any days now.

i was unclear, i was talking about ewql

MSI is UB but the sounds are not-so-good. And the ranges problem... uh-oh. These problems make MSI mainly a tool for people who need occasional natural-like background sounds.

[composer2005]

Personally I find MSI rubbish and would gladly accept a refund!

I have now EWQLSO Platinum and Pro Expansion and Choirs and Wordbuilder.

[meeloo]

Personally I find MSI rubbish and would gladly accept a refund!

I have now EWQLSO Platinum and Pro Expansion and Choirs and Wordbuilder.

You are comparing a 300USD product with a 5000+USD bundle without more argument that "rubbish"? That's a little too short IMHO.

[mhschmieder]

If you could afford all of that, you don't need the refund .

[lamboguy]

I think MSI is a great deal for the $$ involved.

Fred

[waterstrum]

Yes, great deal for the money.
Many cool sounds you have to dig around for.
Obviously not a $3,000 library.
Not rubbish!

[CWoodONe]

It's not exactly a Casio string patch, but not all that much more flexible.
Not many articulations are available, making graceful transitions very, very awkward. It's really pretty bad compared to the other libraries out there, even in this price range. I give it a C-, maybe even a D. Ableton's EIC for 70 bucks actually sounds better, and has tons more flexibility. The pocket orchestra in Dimension Pro has at least as good a collection of samples, and vastly greater flexibility. Plus a lot of other stuff if you're not just interested in a starter orchestral set.

[slobizman]

Which is the lowest version of EWQLSO would beat Motu. They are having a sale now and Silver is about the same price. But does that not have an many instruments?

[mhschmieder]

I do consider MSI very good value for the money, but don't use it very much for its main intended purpose.

Primarily I use its more esoteric instruments (historical and percussion).

The ensembles are nice because you can pick out the individual instruments.

I have had no success yet with the solo orchestral instruments, and keep returning to my outboard Kurzweil PC2r hardware for those as well as certain articulations with ensembles.

Of course software libraries are used in a more complex way with MIDI track-splitting for articulation, whereas hardware synths are meant for ease of live playing and maximum expression possible without patch-switching.

I have been hesitant to drop big bucks for a library to augment MSI where it is weak, as I'm not convinced there is a solution worth its price. Synful Orchestra is modeled and can sound very realistic, but breaks down on fast articulation passages. So possibly some mixture of modeling and sampling is required.

The upcoming Yamaha Motif XS workstation will have a completely reworked orchestral voice library with multiple articulations on up to eight layers for an individual patch. I may well put my MSI license up for sale after the NAMM show .

Ethno Instrument is another matter entirely. Those sounds just aren't available elsewhere for the most part, and I do feel overall that it is a better designed VI in terms of usability.

But as I said, MSI is great value for the money. I think it should primarily be judged in that context. And also one must consider how much work must go into making adequate use of the more expensive libraries.

[blazingrythm]

Motu Symphonic Instrument is NOT worth the money.
It's total garbage!
I was SO excited to get it and SO disapointed after going through it.

I have an old AKAI S1100EX sampler probably worth $150.00 on eBay
that I loaded up the CD of Miroslav's Virtual Soloist and it blows that piece of crap that Moto has the ballls to put out there on the market for $300.00 away.

The strings they have tried to pawn off on us is just plain insulting.
Mushy, hissy, weak strings.
Geez, even my old Roland U220 has better orchestral sounds.

I love DP and that is worth every cent.
Even my 828's are strudy work horses but MSI is a slap in the face.

To rectify this, Motu should offer some updates complete with a USEABLE SOUND LIBRARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Theirs is CRAPPPPPPPPPPPPP!

And those Motu techs have a way to block your phone number on the support line if theydon't want to deal with you.

I called the other day and the tech seemed so bored, I found myself apologizing to him for keeping him on the phone while I tried out his suggestion.
I had to call back because I had another related question and the Motu Tech number was busy for the remainder of the day.

Maybe I interupted him from surfing the porn sites, how dare I?

[mhschmieder]

I have put my MSI license up for sale, but I do still feel it is worth its price. Possibly EWQLSO Silver (which I don't think was available at the time MSI was first released) is better bang for buck, but MSI does have some unique instruments that would have to be bought a la carte from Bolder Sounds and other sample library providers otherwise.

My main complaint is the close miking of the instruments; more from the player's perspective than the audience perspective. But that is also a valid approach, and one may work better than the other for some people. You have to pay $1500 and have a super-powerful computer to run EWQLSO Platinum with its mixable three mic positions. Apples and oranges.