MOTUnation.com

mhschmieder wrote:No "amen" from this corner. After all, they sent a replacement disc right away to another poster (was it tooXXXhip?). Yes, they should use cases that secure the DVD's more securely. So should Winter&Winter (publishers of my favourite artist of the past decade, Uri Caine). But they stand by their product and replace faulty discs. Believe it or not, not everyone does.

In spite of all the scratches and scuff marks from the disc having traveled outside the case and up against the scratchy foam that separates the manual from the iLok, I was able to install and use Ethno Instrument tonight. It did take too tries with the data DVD, as the Ethno.dat file was not found the first time. But I doubt I'll bother asking MOTU for a replacement, as I backup my external hard drive anyway, so I have the data in two places whether or not the DVD ever loads properly again or not.

As for the sounds, they blew me away, and are immediately usable (unlike MSI, which requires many of the same tricks as one should expect when realising a score via a notation program, with all the sample-switching that that entails). Ethno Instrument works great with existing recorded MIDI tracks that were entered via keyboard.

I was shocked to find no kalimba and no shehnai, but I have other sources for those so no big deal. As for kodo drum, I may not have looked hard enough.

I only had time to render one composition tonight as I lost four hours over a snafu with upgrading my G4 iMac user memory from 128MB to 512MB (the blasted microscopically thin plastic rails that secure the SDRAM in place broke off, even though I used next to no force at all, and I had to carefully superglue them with the tiniest amount of glue possible in hopes of securing the SDRAM in place with no spillage and no shorting of contacts). Can we talk about Apple "professionalism" for a minute now? .

At any rate, I decided to augement the existing tracks with doubling instead, as there were no direct mappings of the bizarre collection of instruments I had used for this particular composition (which was recorded using a Yamaha Motif ES, the best currently available workstation for standard ROMpler based ethnic instruments).

The koto is the best I've ever heard, and the various bagpipes and bombards are worth the price of admission alone. In fact, regardless of how good RA is or whether I eventually need it to complement this set, I feel that I got well over $1000 worth of quality samples from my modest $279 investment.

I haven't been using MSI much yet for anything other than orchestral percussion (at which it excels, and for which I use it almost daily, so it did earn its investment regardless), simply because I have not yet developed the discipline or patience to split my string tracks based on attack vs. release/etc. Once I start using notation programs (I am just now about to evaluate the Notion demo disc, which also arrived today), I am hoping to get into the sort of habits that prpfessional MIDI orchestrators use.

Ethno Instrument, on the other hand, will be used regularly, on existing tracks and for upcoming work. I have a flamenco/arabic fusion project that I will be recording later in the month. It's a project that I subbed for last year on bass, and the guitarist and I were in a previous project together whose music I am currently remixing and adding to, and we are both very excited about being able to lend both projects a more authentic air with some of these exotic instruments (live players are hard to find).

odysseysounds wrote:I purchased Ethno Instrument off the shelf from Guitar Center yesterday in La Mesa (San Diego), CA. There was no mention on the box that it was Universal Binary. There was simply a sticker that said "Version 1.0".

The Soundbank DVD and Installer installed perfectly on both a Powerbook *and* an Intel Imac; it was indeed the new UB version. This fact was noted on the Read Me file on the installer. Furthermore, there was no need to create any alias files to place them in the Ethno folder, as others have mentioned. The installer did what its supposed to do and created and installed the alias files in the right places. Ilok installation and use was smooth and painless.

I'm sorry to hear that others had problems with Ethno, but my experience was flawless.

The program itself is awesome, like a hybrid of MachFive, SwarPlug, and Stylus RMX, which are mainstays in my rig (altho they're going to be lonesome for a while....). At $279 its a bargain and an inspiration.

Blake Wilson

toodamnhip wrote:I was referring to the recent deluge of installation problems ...

toodamnhip wrote:... showing lack of forethought on installation protocols and other issues of silly, blatant, non-professional forethought...

mhschmieder wrote: I was shocked to find no kalimba and no shehnai, but I have other sources for those so no big deal. As for kodo drum, I may not have looked hard enough.
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carrythebanner wrote:

toodamnhip wrote:I was referring to the recent deluge of installation problems ...

"Deluge of installation problems?" So far I've counted 3: 1 bad CD and 1 bad DVD (out of who knows how many), and 1 user who had an issue with his startup disk that was unrelated to Ethno.

toodamnhip wrote:... showing lack of forethought on installation protocols and other issues of silly, blatant, non-professional forethought...

Others have also verified what Tech Support said: the installer does all the work for you, as long as you copy the sounds from the DVD first.

mhschmieder wrote

What I find fascinating about this is that MOTU put as much research into "getting it right"...

brownie wrote:I have a question, mine installed fine,but i'm a little dumb on the ilok situation,i have an account, i have a challenge code, now what do i do next? who gets the challenge code? motu tech support? native instruments? the milkman? it's a little vague, i've been trying to figure it out for a few days now and i'm just going round in circles, so any help would be great.

carrythebanner wrote:

brownie wrote:I have a question, mine installed fine,but i'm a little dumb on the ilok situation,i have an account, i have a challenge code, now what do i do next? who gets the challenge code? motu tech support? native instruments? the milkman? it's a little vague, i've been trying to figure it out for a few days now and i'm just going round in circles, so any help would be great.

I don't think you can use the challenge/response to authorize, you need to use the iLok key. Make sure the iLok is connected to the computer (try a few different ports) and that you've got the latest iLok drivers.