221 thoughts on “General Software”

  1. I have a G5 with a powercore mkII card inside it to run (among others) Master X3, and TC REVERB- I am very fond of both of those plug ins because they can be used smartly (with tweaking) or hurled stoopidly and speedily on tracks (including the final mix output) with great results. Here is the problem: I am about to upgrade my G5/Logic7 to Mac Pro/Logic 9 and I believe my card will not work- Are any of you familiar with the sounds of those plug-ins and can propose software only plug ins that might do the trick? Note: I have been out of the buying loop for a while, so even “obvious” answers might be helpful. Thanks!

  2. yeah, as Alex said, the main knock on Gold was also its biggest selling point. Compared to Platinum, it had only one mic perspective — the Stage mics. (and is 16bit vs 24bit, but that’s probably a plus actually.) So it always sounds like Gold. For better and for worse, the players are panned already and the hall is the hall. And if you just let it sound like Gold, it sounds pretty good. The platinum version additionally has close mics on everything, so you had greater flexibility, but even Platinum was always meant to sound like that hall.

    I don’t know what you’re used to for orch samples. But I suspect you’re gonna be very pleased. And if you really paid 250 bucks for it… even years after the initial release (which was over a grand) it’s a lot of orchestra for that money. I LOVE Symphobia, but it isn’t even close to being worth 4 or 5x Gold.

    And while there are several better options, the trumpets aren’t that bad. The 4tpt sect ain’t great. But the EW 2tpt patches are always in my template.

  4. I’m not doing full blown orchestral pieces. I ordered the gold b/c I’m looking for something on a low budget for now. Really I’d just be incorporating the brass and strings into contemporary rock/electonic/hip hop, etc. so I think this will be fine for now. If I had the $1300 budget I’d look into symphobia but I’ve already spent more than I wanted to this year , next big job maybe. Anyway, thanks for your input, it’s much appreciated!

      • Thanks, I wasn’t selling it short (I have no right to judge it, haven’t received it in the mail yet) I was stating that I won’t be doing full blown orchestral pieces in the near feature. That’s fantastic if it’s good enough to do so.

        • I hate tooting my horn – really I do, but this relates to the Gold samples. I received a five star rating from Recording Magazine on an orchestral track I created using the Gold samples.

          I guess it’s not quite tooting when I remain anonymous.

    • I would advise against Gold if that’s what you are planning on using it for. The samples are great, but they are all wet (recorded with stage mics), so when you layer on the brass on strings it will sound like they were recorded on the EW sound stage rather than in your recording studio. VSL special edition comes dry (recorded with close mics) so you have flexibility with how you want to use reverb with it.

      • Good point Alex!

        The EW sound stage works well for my orchestral tracks. I use other samples for different purposes like piano solos. The EW piano sample can work as a background instrument, but not so well as a stand-alone solo sample.

  5. Can anyone reccomend one of these over the other?

    Vienna Symphonic Library Vienna Ensemble PRO $265 (not as much content and limited articulations)
    OR
    East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Gold Complete $247

    I just need some decent brass & strings at a low price. Oh and user friendly always helps! Thanks in advance!

    • I use the EWQL Gold with good results. EWQL strings are okay, but I mix them with Kirk Hunter strings and some Logic Pro samples. The brass: trombones, French horns, Tuba, and Wagner Tuben are great. Trumpet, not so great.

      That’s a good price for the Gold. I think I paid $450 a year ago.

      • It does seem like a good price. I use EWQL Gold. Its a good workman like library, certainly superseded these days by LASS etc.The EWQL library must be at least 5 years old by now if not more. Vienna stuff is very good but there are so many variations in their products I get confused.

    • Those two products aren’t comparable. The VSL product contains a tiny tiny orchestral set as a freebie add on. The product is an audio and midi over LAN solution. That’s what the 250 is for. They give you a little orchestra just to try it out.
      Can’t compare it to EWQLSO Gold. The comparable product to Gold would be the VSL Special Edition Libs.

    • I agree with Brian.

      I should add that the VSL you’ll be getting for $265 is basically some of their old samples – most of which are over ten years old. You can hear the difference when compared to the newest sample libraries. I got a couple of the limited edition / extended packages last year, which ran me about $1400, and to be honest the only samples I use are the legato epic horns and legato woodwinds.

      The EWQLSO brass is ok, except for trumpets. The stacc strings are pretty good. If that’s your budget limitation, then I suggest going with it.

      If you can wait and save up a little more money, I highly recommend Symphobia. It costs around $1300, but if you do big epic orch stuff, then you’ll probably end up using it more than any other library. The sustained notes and staccato notes for brass and strings are both great, and there are some cool effects, including horror rises and John Williams style woodwind flourishes. It also runs pretty efficiently – on a G5 quad I was able to use about eight Symphobias in one big trailer session, combined with a lot of other sample libraries.

      People have been raving about the new Hollywood Strings, but it is a major processor hog, as well as very pricey.

      • I might agree with Matt and I might not 🙂
        What kind of music will you write? If you really write for orchestra, gold. If you want orchestral elements in your music. — and this might include pretty bombastic orchestra but maybe don’t care about having every articulation on the violas, symphobia.

    • A few things to know about this drive from: http://www.storagereview.com/hitachi_simpledrive_rev_3_2_0tb_usb_external_hard_drive_review

      This drive is only designed to be used in an upright position; the stand is permanently attached. The drive can tip about 15 degrees left or right before it will fall on its side.

      The SimpleDrive 2.0TB’s sole means of connecting to a computer is through USB 2.0, which maxes out around ~30MB/s for sequential reads and writes. The SimpleDrive is easily capable of maxing out USB 2.0’s bandwidth as our benchmarks show:

      Spin-up Time

      The SimpleDrive 2.0TB drive takes a significant amount of time to spin up – 15 seconds. This can get annoying when the drive powers down after inactivity; any program that wants to access the drive will be held up while the drive is spinning up until it is ready.

      Noise Level

      The SimpleDrive 2.0TB unfortunately has a significant noise level; read/write clicks are easily noticeable while having a normal conversation with someone. In our localized sound test where we apply a stethoscope to the center of the external drive’s casing, we saw average rates of 47 decibels during read and 63 decibels during peak drive use. Comparatively, these rates make the Hitachi SimpleDrive one of the loudest external drives we’ve tested.

  7. Oh yea, didn’t realise how big East West Pianos was either – it has 35 dual layer dvds – that 7 gigs a piece. Thats about 250 gigs of software to install….takes about 20 mins per dvd…going to take AGES to install it…

  9. What are some awesome string/synth pad samples? I use Logic Pro and I’m planning on adding a new sample bundle to my set-up. It would be interesting to know what you’re all using.

      • I noticed my old version of Wavepad would convert any file type. Now the new version says something about copyrights when you try to convert to MP3s, yet NCH (same manufacturer) also makes Switch now, which will convert anything with no questions asked. Odd that they dropped the ability from one software and just made a new one that does the same thing instead.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

X

Forgot Password?

Join Us