Orchestral VSTi options?

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Rez

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Mar 4, 2008
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I'm looking at dipping in to the budget market for orchestral sounds and I was pretty much sold on Garritan GPO which seems ok for the job but then I notice on the "Powered by Amplitube" 4x1 deal thats going on that their Miroslav Philharmonik CE is now in the deal so I could go for that and get a load of other amplitube stuff thrown in.

The question is does anyone have any thoughts or feedback on Miroslav Philharmonik (or indeed Garritan GPO)? I can get basic ideas about the sounds they throw out so I'm wondering more from an ease of use angle...
 
Garritan GPO I don't think is very good... Never tried Miroslav. I own EWQLSO Silver and am pretty dissatisfied with it. The sound is great but its just way too much reverb that you can't dial out, and on faster sections it can sound pretty fake. Also the interface is the buggiest god damn thing I've ever had to deal with, its a real nightmare.

If I had the cash I'd get a copy of Vienna Symphonic Library SE.
 
I really don't like GPO, not impressed at all. But I use and love Philharmonik. The choirs aren't the greatest, but I've actually found them to sometimes fit in a song better than some other choir libraries (because the client didn't want that larger than life choir sound).
 
What I've heard from GPO has not been impressive, and do note that the CE edition of Miroslav is a light edition.

I've gone the route of buying EWQLSO Silver, upgrading to Gold, and now about to upgrade to Gold Plus.

I would recommend Silver. It is limiting because of the amount of articulations included, however, the sounds are extremely good for the price. Also, you have the upgrade path to Gold, which will give you all sounds and articulations. I've not had any issues with the interface.

Here's something I recorded in about 30-60 min my first week with EWQLSO Silver, just experimenting. And note that everything was played from a keyboard (so that's why the timing is a bit off)
http://www.box.net/shared/x1pkj908fi

Obviously I can make better things now. It's just to show off how good you can make EWQLSO Silver sound, even without a clue how to use it.
 
I own EWQLSO Silver, and I think it sounds great, but it really is limited and obviously leaves you wanting more. I've actually been thinking of getting Miroslav to accompany it. I'm not sure which option would be better: upgrading to EWQLSO Gold for 200 bucks or purchasing Miroslav or Miroslav CE.

I like how EWQLSO sounds, a lot, but it really gets buggy sometimes. I've heard some clicking between the samples when they play, but not recently. When I've had other projects opened in Logic, sometimes when I load up a project with EWQLSO in it (PLAY engine) it crashes Logic when PLAY engine is supposed to load samples. I'm thinking I might email East West about this, it's getting pretty annoying. Although emailing them wouldn't probably change a thing.
 
I would highly recommend upgrading from Silver to Gold. In my opinion it makes a world of difference! There are a lot more articulations, including specials such as trills and that sort of thing, which can really sprite things up and help the realism. Silver is 11GB. Gold is 33GB, so you get about 2/3 more material.

Some people advocate the point that you could use several libraries together. I am of the opinion that you'll get more bang for the buck if you upgrade EWQL to the standard version rather than buying another light orchestra to go with it.

However, do note that I've only ever owned a light version of GPO and EWQL. I just wanted to make a point out of the fact that getting Gold *Really* makes a huge difference from just having Silver. Also, once you have Gold, you can upgrade to Gold Plus at a later time, which will give you the remaining two microphone positions.
 
Right, thanks. So how does the upgrading work? Do you download the extra 22GB, or will they send more DVDs?
 
Cognition said:
You buy it from their web site, and they ship out the DVDs to you.

They have an office in Amsterdam, so shipping only takes a couple of days: http://www.soundsonline-europe.com
Click to expand...

Thanks, didn't know that!

Looks like they also have to include VAT and shipping is 20€, so the actual price will be closer to 200€, but I'll have to think about my options. Upgrading will certainly be an option now. And you're right about it being better to have just one larger-scale library than two watered-down ones.

Do you have any problems with the PLAY engine? It seems they've updated the other versions more often than Silver...
 
PLAY is working fine for me. Sometimes got problems on big projects, that I'm running out of memory, but this is due to system limitations and not PLAY I think.
 
AudioPhile777 said:
I actually own Miroslav and GPO... I think they are both awesome... if you want solo strings, though, Miroslav is the way to go... GPO also offers a student discount if you happen to be one...
Click to expand...


I am interested in solo strings... good info.

I'm only interested in "entry level" at the moment so although the East West stuff looks and sounds amazing I just need some orchestral sounds to pad out the ideas running around my head :)
 
ahjteam said:
free options:
Click to expand...

Christ I just assumed that these kinds of sounds would never be free! This is a great way of getting started... Thanks for the links!!!! The link only gives you SFZ+ which is $60 but a quick search on KVR and I found the SFZ for free. Cheers :kickass:
 
sopulurn said:
Do you have any problems with the PLAY engine? It seems they've updated the other versions more often than
Click to expand...

im having quite a bit of problems with it myself. The sounds are obviously great, but everything from setup, to actual use has been a huge headache for me. The Play VST has been crashing cubase as of lately, and its quite frustrating.
 
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