East West

[jerryjennings]

Sweetwater is having a sale and the East-West Symphonic -silver is 97.50. Right now my strings completely suck, and horns too for that matter. Does anybody have an opinion on whether the east west silver will give me some good submit-worthy strings? I've had cool orchestral sounds in the past, but not since I've switched to mac. I need some good pop strings and pop strings too, but that's for another day I figure.
Thanks, J

[andygabrys]

its one of those things.....Its in your ear, not your gear.

EW silver is "essential articulations" which could be enough, or might not be enough. That's up to you.

For me:

EW also runs in PLAY not Kontakt, and some people have had poor results in the past with performance, although the recent updates seem much better even on mac. PC has always been more stable.

I personally don;t use EW stuff anymore - it sounds good, especially listening to Nick Phoenix and Thomas's demos on the EW site, but for me its organized like a dogs breakfast. I have the Gold package - has different sets of articulations for each string set, and the naming convention is slightly different on each set. There are few patches that you can actually control bow pressure or sound pressure by automating CC1 or CC11. And you can organize it with key switches or put different patches on a million different tracks and double and combine them. Fine for a lot of people. A drag for me.

I eventually bought LASS and it works very well for my amount of laziness when it comes to programming orchestra stuff, and its very flexible. Lots of things that can be controlled with CC's. Also very expensive.

[kclements]

its one of those things.....Its in your ear, not your gear.

+1

..., but for me its organized like a dogs breakfast.

OK, that's funny!!!

I don't have any experience with EW so I don't know from experience. I have a lot of friends who do not get along with the PLAY engine (especially on Mac) so I have stayed away. But your millage may vary. I have a good friend that is still using samples from IK Multimedia SampleTank from 2002ish and he gets really great placements!

For me, LASS is the way to go. But it doesn't sound great out of the box. There is a pretty big learning curve and a lot of time is spent making it sound great. But once you learn your way around it, it gets quicker and you can mold it into just about any style you desire. If it were me, I would save my pennies and go for LASS lite.

cheers
kc

[jerryjennings]

Thanks! Based on both of your input I think I will look at LASS.
J

[andygabrys]

Keep in mind Jerry if you are spending $1k, there are also other packages out there

Spitfire, 8dio etc.

It's worth a look around even if you decide on LASS in the end.

[Paulie]

Still trying to figure out what a dog's breakfast looks like.

[Russell Landwehr]

Depends on if it is the first or second time the dog is eating that breakfast ewwww

I think EW strings are "okay" as long as it is buried in the mix. Kind of like hiding that nasty tasting pill in the dog's breakfast knowing full well he'll eat around it.

[jerryjennings]

"I think EW strings are "okay" as long as it is buried in the mix. Kind of like hiding that nasty tasting pill in the dog's breakfast knowing full well he'll eat around it."

That sounds so familiar! Because that's what I do with all the string and horn sounds I have now...

[sansharbour]

I use Cinematic Strings 2

They sound great and are very easy to use.
Not that expensive either

Don