EastWest Orchestra

[SinJim]

So I'm planning on buying the EastWest/Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra pack in the next couple weeks. Hurray I'm graduating and going into the real world, so I thought I deserved something special.

Anyhow, my question is for those of you who already own the sample packs. I'm looking into getting the Gold pack, but what I want to know is if I will regret not going all out in the first place for Platinum. I have room in my wallet (granted not much) to do platinum, buuuut the job market's pretty shit so I'd like to have a cushion in case it takes awhile to get a job.

Will I regret not getting the platinum pack instead of the gold pack? Are the 3 different mic positions worth it? Are the 24-bit samples really noticeably better quality than the gold's 16-bit samples? If I do go platinum, do I even need to consider getting the ultimate package with both 24- and 16-bit samples? I'm assuming that if I already have the 24-bit samples, it doesn't make sense to get the 16-bit ones.

Also, is there a way to upgrade later to the full platinum package for the difference in the prices? Or will this just entail me purchasing the entire thing again? I'm making this purchase (along with Stormdrum 2) and I want it to last a long time until I'm considering seriously professional samples.

My computer setup is as follows:

Macbook 2GHz
2GB ram
500GB external with firewire
Logic Studio

As long as I'm careful with how many instances of the instruments I've got going, I should be okay. Are there any other general recommendations with the symphonic orchestra?

Thanks in advance for any input. I just want to make sure I make the right decision.

~SinJim

[Michael425]

Jim, just do the right thing and download the Gold edition for free from ThePirateBay(dot)org

That's what i'm doing.

It may take a long time to download since it is a 13.4 gig torrent, but I don't believe that an amateur artist that wants realistic orchestra sounds should have to pay $800 or whatever it costs.

That, my friend, is a joke.

And if the gold edition isn't good enough, then go ahead and spend the $1000.00 or more for the Platinum edition.

But my suggestion is to download the Gold Edition from ThePirateBay(dot)org.

It's the only way to go. And it should only take me 4 to 5 days to download... lol.

PM me if you have any questions.

~Michael425~

[RenoakRhythm]

At 12/5/08 12:49 AM, Michael425 wrote: Jim, just do the right thing and download the Gold edition for free from ThePirateBay(dot)org

That's what i'm doing.

It may take a long time to download since it is a 13.4 gig torrent, but I don't believe that an amateur artist that wants realistic orchestra sounds should have to pay $800 or whatever it costs.

That, my friend, is a joke.

And if the gold edition isn't good enough, then go ahead and spend the $1000.00 or more for the Platinum edition.

But my suggestion is to download the Gold Edition from ThePirateBay(dot)org.

It's the only way to go. And it should only take me 4 to 5 days to download... lol.

PM me if you have any questions.

~Michael425~

Waits for EastWest to come and takes all your money and parents money for Piracy.

My friend, NG doesn't let you delete or edit comments... this is engraven in stone.

lulz.

[RenoakRhythm]

I is being friendly my favorite 425 guy... :)

Don't take offense to the jokes .

[Rig]

At 12/5/08 12:49 AM, Michael425 wrote: Jim, just do the right thing and download the Gold edition for free from ThePirateBay(dot)org

That's what i'm doing.

Stop talking about piracy you fucking n00b.

[RenoakRhythm]

At 12/5/08 02:08 AM, Rig wrote:

At 12/5/08 12:49 AM, Michael425 wrote: Jim, just do the right thing and download the Gold edition for free from ThePirateBay(dot)org

That's what i'm doing.

Stop talking about piracy you fucking n00b.

lol... Rig your delivery is always awesome.

I was trying to be nice about it.

[Carf]

At 12/5/08 02:08 AM, Rig wrote:

At 12/5/08 12:49 AM, Michael425 wrote: Jim, just do the right thing and download the Gold edition for free from ThePirateBay(dot)org

That's what i'm doing.

Stop talking about piracy you fucking n00b.

Thanks Rig for cleaning the mess again ;)

[Krank]

At 12/5/08 12:49 AM, Michael425 wrote: Jim, just do the right thing and download the Gold edition for free from ThePirateBay(dot)org

That's what i'm doing.

does this win the nomination for next big internet meme?

"do the right thing and download from the pirate bay, thats what I'm doing"

it is theoretically possible to download the torrent. my friend jimmy dean(real name censored because hes a fucking pirate), downloaded the torrent and said it worked pretty damned good.

Once I get a decent daw computer I will actually invest most likely in the platinum for quality. and symphonic choirs.

they are terrific libraries!

[SinJim]

Well, I'm starting to get offers from people to score flashes now so, yea. Plus that's a mighty big lawsuit if you're caught, aside from it being wrong.

Besides, I'd rather wait 5 days for the thing to ship than try and download it illegally. I'm a stickler for having an actual box for things this expensive. Sometimes Internet providers take notice when you're drawing that much bandwidth. That certainly doesn't bode well.

So back to me original questions, can anyone help me out (yargh!)?

Thanks in advance.

~SinJim

[MaestroRage]

You CAN upgrade from Gold to Platinum, split the difference later. However I don't really think the 3 mic positions are that big a deal.

I mean as Josh pointed out in an earlier thread it is possible to get very realistic reverb with convolution reverb impulses, so really it's not that important to get Far, Close, Stage.

Also if you are willing to go Platinum consider investing the same money in Symphobia by Project SAM. I have enlisted in a couple film composition forums now and they all say that Symphobia is the better library of the two. You won't get as many instrumental effects as Platinum, and it's far far smaller in size, but having larger and more samples does not equate to better.

Project SAM's libraries are always ace, I myself am considering either investing even MORE money in East West and getting platinum for 500, or saying screw it all and getting Symphobia for $1,200

[PianoFortress]

The hardware requirement for Platinum is high. It's recommended to have a PC for each section. That's simply overkill for an amateur artist. Gold XP or the PLAY version of Gold, which I have, is all you ever need. Plus it's not all about having the most expensive and realistic sounding samples. you must be able to work with the plugin.

The samples of Symphobia that I've tested are really impressive. Great sounds all the way through. Just too expensive atm.

[SinJim]

At 12/5/08 11:17 AM, MaestroRage wrote: You CAN upgrade from Gold to Platinum, split the difference later. However I don't really think the 3 mic positions are that big a deal.

I mean as Josh pointed out in an earlier thread it is possible to get very realistic reverb with convolution reverb impulses, so really it's not that important to get Far, Close, Stage.

Also if you are willing to go Platinum consider investing the same money in Symphobia by Project SAM. I have enlisted in a couple film composition forums now and they all say that Symphobia is the better library of the two. You won't get as many instrumental effects as Platinum, and it's far far smaller in size, but having larger and more samples does not equate to better.

Project SAM's libraries are always ace, I myself am considering either investing even MORE money in East West and getting platinum for 500, or saying screw it all and getting Symphobia for $1,200

Hmm, well it's good to hear from you. The quality of your songs are top-notch so if that's what I have to expect from gold, then I'll probably go for that and upgrade later.

The good think about logic studio is that it comes with a convolution reverb (Space Designer) and over 900 impulses in the box. So I don't really have to worry about that. I also have like 6 other reverb plugins that can be used.

One of the reasons I do want to stick with EastWest is because they've got a deal where it's buy one play product get another free. So $650 nets me both Gold and Stormdrum 2. Good deal if I say so myself.

After finishing watching the Symphobia review, I have to say it is pretty sweet. It's straight up geared towards people who write for film and it's got a ton of features that combine different elements for that dramatic feel. That may be an investment I make in the future, but I think stormdrum 2 will warrant me sticking with EastWest.

I also have a question. In the review for Symphobia, the guy used the mod wheel to adjust the dynamics of the patch he was playing. I don't have a mod wheel - just a pitch wheel and, while I'm still trying to figure out if there's a way to map the pitch wheel to the mod wheel because I don't use the pitch wheel to often, I want to know if EastWest has that feature. Eventually I'll be getting a different keyboard/digital piano and I'll make sure that's got both the pitch and modwheel.

With the features that Symphobia had for combining ensembles, does Symphonic Orchestra parallel that ability? The Symphobia patches had basses and cellos on the bottom of the keyboard and violas and violins on the top. That would just take forever to set up if the program didn't offer those features.

Thanks for the reply Maestro.

~SinJim

PS - I've been checking in on symphonic choirs but it seems they've removed that from the product page temporarily. Anyone have any idea how much that is? I'm thinking it's gotta be pricey. Thanks in advance.

[MaestroRage]

Hey!

They removed a lot of their old libraries while they upgrade them to PLAY. Symphonic Choirs, while it was up, was $599. With PLAY, I assume it will be about $699.

Regarding the patches. One of the strong points of PLAY is the ability to mix and match instruments. Now I don't know for sure if PLAY let's you put cello on the low, viola/violins on the mid, high on the same keyboard, but i'm sure they must have a pre-made patch with that ability. It seems almost foolish not to seeing as they have large ensemble patches in their old version.

Also Space Designer is actually an item they talked badly about in these film forums. Altiverb is apparently the industry standard but I believe Josh may be right that the right impulses with the right engine will simulate the same for much cheaper. I'm on that mission to find that now.

StormDrum 1 rocks, so I know for sure SD2 will kick more arse.

PLAY DOES however tend to eat up RAM, so be sure to have loads in your CPU.

Also Platinum does require more CPU and RAM then gold. Significantly more, so if your PC can support Gold and SD comfortably together, then it should be able to run Platinum well.

[MaestroRage]

Sorry for double post.

Yes, the mod wheel is used in many of the patches in Gold as well. I'm not sure if you can program it through Logic, I know it can be done in FL.

[Chronamut]

At 12/5/08 12:02 PM, MaestroRage wrote: Sorry for double post.

Yes, the mod wheel is used in many of the patches in Gold as well. I'm not sure if you can program it through Logic, I know it can be done in FL.

hey can you actually buy any of these in stores or is it all online?

[SinJim]

At 12/5/08 12:00 PM, MaestroRage wrote: Hey!

They removed a lot of their old libraries while they upgrade them to PLAY. Symphonic Choirs, while it was up, was $599. With PLAY, I assume it will be about $699.

Regarding the patches. One of the strong points of PLAY is the ability to mix and match instruments. Now I don't know for sure if PLAY let's you put cello on the low, viola/violins on the mid, high on the same keyboard, but i'm sure they must have a pre-made patch with that ability. It seems almost foolish not to seeing as they have large ensemble patches in their old version.

Also Space Designer is actually an item they talked badly about in these film forums. Altiverb is apparently the industry standard but I believe Josh may be right that the right impulses with the right engine will simulate the same for much cheaper. I'm on that mission to find that now.

StormDrum 1 rocks, so I know for sure SD2 will kick more arse.

PLAY DOES however tend to eat up RAM, so be sure to have loads in your CPU.

Also Platinum does require more CPU and RAM then gold. Significantly more, so if your PC can support Gold and SD comfortably together, then it should be able to run Platinum well.

Thanks for the replies Maestro. I've got a couple more questions (heh, sorry).

Hmmm, I've only heard good things about Space Designer. Then again for only $500 in a DAW you can't expect it to be revolutionary. At the moment I'm not doing movie production but if that time arises, I will be spending the dough for something like Altiverb. That program looks retardly awesome, but I don't have $1500 to drop on it.

Maestro, would you mind linking me to that forum so I can check out the downsides and see what I can do to try and get the most realistic sounds out of Space Designer. If not, that's cool, I just wanted to read up on it.

Also, Does the gold pack come with an orchestra piano? I eventually might drop the $500 for the Quantum Leap Pianos - they sound ridiculous, but if the gold package comes with a good sample, I'll be able to put that off for quite awhile. My Logic pianos are good, but I'm beginning to notice that they're not the best quality.

And last one, I swears. Are the brass samples good? The Logic brass that I have is terrible, and I find it hard to put it into my songs. I definitely need good brass if I'm doing more "epic" sounding pieces.

Thanks again Maestro.

Chrono - These are mostly online, although I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere like Guitar Center had a copy or two. I haven't been there in quite some time, though, so I can't help you out. If you're looking to try stuff out first, I don't think it's possible. They do sell it on amazon.com (some of their packages). The site I'm purchasing from is www.soundsonline.com. That's the one with the two-for-one deal. I wish it was three for one because then I'd be getting voices of passion (which is ridiculous).

~SinJim

Oh yea, and Stormdrum 2 is going to be ridonkulous.

[Phyrnna]

I didn't want to start an entirely new thread for this....

I just got the East West orchestra thing. So I opened up the VSTI in FL by adding it as a channel. The only thing is that the only instrument I can get out of it is the first one on the list - Flute.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to get each instrument out. I don't want to add 30 different channels of the same VSTI.

Thank you. v_v;

I feel so computer dumb........

[MaestroRage]

Firstly, no. Voices of Failure sucks. Hard. I got banned from their forums for bringing up a lot of it's critical down falls and frankly, lies that their advertisement page had. I admit I came on pretty strong, but don't get that shit. Trust me on this one.

http://www.thecomposercollective.com/tcc /index.asp

that's the forum, there IS a sign up fee. They didn't go too deep as to WHY they said it sucks, but when somebody brought up that they used Space Designer the music lead ripped into the guy something fierce for it, rambling about it's poor design apparently. I won't pretend to know why, just relaying what was indicated.

EW Gold DOES have a piano patch, but to be honest it kinda sucks. It's better then free soundfonts for sure, but it's missing a lot of expression and few velocity layers.

The brass samples are decent. I mean all my songs with brass are from there, I don't mean to whore or anything, here are a few songs I use that heavily involve the entire brass ensemble from stac tuba to trumpets/french horns/tuben/trumbones. The last one is more focused on french horns/trombones/stac tuba. Also the last one's mixing quality is teh shit, so maybe it's not the best example but I don't have any songs up yet which exclusively use that section.

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I'm an open book, ask however much you'd like. It's a big purchase, you should do so with confidence.

[joshhunsaker]

SinJim - your computer is going to need a serious upgrade if you plan on scoring anything decent...

[MaestroRage]

At 12/5/08 02:09 PM, joshhunsaker wrote: SinJim - your computer is going to need a serious upgrade if you plan on scoring anything decent...

I assumed the specs were good enough if he was buying gold.

- Do you have at least 2 gigs of RAM
- Duo Core processor (at least 2.0 ghz)
- 250 gig harddrive? Essentially you should have the OS drive, and a separate drive for the samples

If you're using Vista 64 bit, 3 gigs of RAM is the recommended specs.

[joshhunsaker]

If it's a single core he may run into some problems...otherwise you're right.

[Darkmaster603]

I was considering saving for the gold, but I think I may run into computer problems, I have

80GB hard drive
512mb of ram
some other crap i cant remember because I'm not at home

Ugh, how much will a decent computer cost me if I never really play games and mostly make music now

[PianoFortress]

The piano patch from Gold does suck but the PLAY version has been improved.

[joshhunsaker]

At 12/5/08 02:52 PM, Darkmaster603 wrote: I was considering saving for the gold, but I think I may run into computer problems, I have

80GB hard drive
512mb of ram
some other crap i cant remember because I'm not at home

Ugh, how much will a decent computer cost me if I never really play games and mostly make music now

Honestly...you can buy a decent AMD Phenom based quad-core computer that will give you loads and loads of power for about $500. You really don't have to spend a grundle.

I'll just put a plug in for where I work (Best Buy):

HP Phenom 64bit Quad-core
3 gigs ram (that's plenty - there will be other things that become your limiting factor before this does
4mb total L3 cache (!!!)
720 gig hard drive (also !!!)
Very nice graphics card with hdmi output (actually quite useful if you've got a hi-def screen available...)
2000mhz system bus!
(has vista installed)

Under $500 dude. That's actually a pretty friggin killer deal. If you need a computer I would jump on something like that. I would probably buy this one but I've already spent too much money on other stuff anyway. Best buy's warranties are also second to none so you can tack one of those things one and not have to worry for a long time...

[MaestroRage]

holy crap! where do you work and reserve one for me! Honestly i'd go buy that like, tomorrow!

[MaestroRage]

boooooo.

I forgot that there was a BestBuy in the US. I don't see a similar deal for Canadia.

My heart, she breaks.

[SinJim]

Sorry, been in a meeting all day. I have a core 2 so i'll be fine, I got 2 gigs of ram too and also, Logic has a freeze function that free up the processor for other things. Takes a bit of time, but I'll make do.

I actually placed my order today. $684 for both Symphonic Orchestra Gold and Stormdrum 2. If you're thinking about it, now's the time to buy.

Thanks for all the input guys.

~SinJim

[Rig]

At 12/5/08 04:50 PM, MaestroRage wrote: boooooo.

I forgot that there was a BestBuy in the US. I don't see a similar deal for Canadia.

My heart, she breaks.

I'm building a computer from the ground up over at Newegg. It's about $1900 CND, not counting the monitors I want (visual ones, not audio).

Should last me a while.

[S3C]

At 12/5/08 12:46 PM, Chronamut wrote:

At 12/5/08 12:02 PM, MaestroRage wrote: Sorry for double post.

Yes, the mod wheel is used in many of the patches in Gold as well. I'm not sure if you can program it through Logic, I know it can be done in FL.

hey can you actually buy any of these in stores or is it all online?

Yes, I've seen EW along with other popular programs/sample libraries/plugins at Guitar Center.

[Danman87]

At 12/5/08 01:48 PM, MaestroRage wrote: Firstly, no. Voices of Failure sucks. Hard. I got banned from their forums for bringing up a lot of it's critical down falls and frankly, lies that their advertisement page had. I admit I came on pretty strong, but don't get that shit. Trust me on this one.

Dude, you got banned from the soundsonline forums? I'd love to see that post! :P

I just got a promotional mail for their x-mas sale by the way and read something like ALL PRODUCTS ARE 40% OFF. Probably the best chance to save a few bucks... or you just wait for the new years eve promotion, first monday of the year sale, 29th february blowout, almost easter sale, easter sale, etc.