EastWest

[aimusic]

Hi All,I'm really keen on getting EastWest's Symphonic Stuff, but I'm looking to go all out on it, is the EW/QL Symphonic Orchestra Platinum the best deal to go for? as the products on their website are confusing because there's gold, silver, platinum, gold pro, platinum pro etc... and I have NO clue what's going on....ThanksBrad

[davewalton]

Quote:Hi All,I'm really keen on getting EastWest's Symphonic Stuff, but I'm looking to go all out on it, is the EW/QL Symphonic Orchestra Platinum the best deal to go for? as the products on their website are confusing because there's gold, silver, platinum, gold pro, platinum pro etc... and I have NO clue what's going on....ThanksBradThey originally came out with Silver, Gold, and Platinum so that's your foundation with Platinum being the best. Then later they added expansion packages (XP) for each (more articulations) so then in addition to Silver, Gold, and Platinum you had Silver XP, Gold XP, and Platinum XP. You can't run an XP expansion package unless you have the same base package so new buyers had to order two packages (the original and the XP). Then to presumably make things easier they started calling the combinations of the regular packages and the XP packages "bundles" so now you've got Silver Bundle, Gold Bundle, and Platinum Bundle and that's the current reference point. So if I talk about "Gold" (or any other element) here, I really mean the "Gold Bundle".The easy part is that at only $895, the Platinum Bundle is one heck of a deal. Ask anyone who originally laid out more than $3000 buying the original and upgrades. It's one of those price/performance decisions. Platinum is actually over-kill for all but dedicated orchestral composers. Sure, all I need is Gold but for only $400 more... I'm always tempted by that kind of thing. Gold and Platinum are identical except that Platinum is 24-bit (Gold is a mere CD quality 16-bit ) and Platinum has each articulation recorded from near, mid, and far (Gold articulations are single 16-bit mid recordings). You can really tweak your orchestral sound in Platinum by mixing near, mid, and far articulations. Of course you potentially TRIPLE your tracks as well so you need lots of computing power and maybe a local fire department handy in case your computer catches fire trying to run all that stuff. I just got Platinum Bundle because of the upgrade price and also because I just got a new computer that has the drive space and horsepower to run it. Plus my wife's cousin is the fire chief. It's actually kind of insane. The entire Platinum Bundle package is a whopping 140GB. I don't remember how many DVD's there are as part of the entire installation package but I do remember counting 17 DVD's for the strings alone! Forgetting about Platinum for the moment, Gold sounds GREAT. Several of us in the forum use or have been using it (me, Matto, Ernstinen off the top of my head). Ern does full orchestral compositions with Gold that are very impressive and convincing. Gold is definitely a "pro's" orchestral package but with the advantage that it runs on normal computers.But if you've got the computing horsepower, for only $400 more...

[aimusic]

Hey Dave,Thanks for the in depth reply and for helping me understand their product range.... For me the thing is, I've mostly gone through life wanting the big kahuna but settling for lesser ones because of financial issues e.g. wanted the Boss Gt-8, instead, bought myself a zoom 808 pedal (which got stolen), then a pod2.0 (sold it, coz it's useless on it's own) and then A Korg pedal (sold it) and then eventually (thanks to a sales bonus) I bought the Boss Gt-8, so where I should have only spent R3400 (south african rands) I ended up spending R8000 all in all, so that's why I'm thinking about going for the platinum bundle, it's only around £700 and sounds amazing, and this way it will save me from buying the silver, then the gold and then the platinum...DAMN HISTORY AND IT'S REPETITIVNESS!!!!I'm currently running a Open Labs Miko Lx (Gen3) workstation which is quadcore with 2gb ram, will be upgrading the ram soon and buying an external hard drive as I'm finding 200gb does NOT GO FAR!!! I've got fxpansion bfd2.0 (55gb) and Gigastudio 3 (25gb) and all my other synths etc... so I think I would be able to run the platinum bundle.I've got gigastudio, but I cannot believe the prices to buy instruments, the only great quality ones I can find are the Vienna Symphonic sounds and they come with a NICE price attached to them...Once again, thanks for the info... and I pray that your pc doesn't catch fire, only the red hot flames of creativity Brad

[mazz]

Hey Brad,I bought Platinum when it was pretty much full price but I've not regretted it one bit. I run it on two computers but I still can't run all the mic positions at one time. I have 3 templates set up, one for close, one for mid and one for far. I don't use the three positions at once very often but I have mixed and matched and that works really well. For instance, close strings for a smaller ensemble feel but distant harp at the same time for a more spacey harp part. Lots of options.My computers are about 3 years old at this point. I'm inquiring about upgrading the CPU on my PC and possibly leasing a new mac this year so I might get more horsepower for Platinum but I think you'll be able to run what you need to with your setup.If you can swing the bucks or rands or whatever, it's a no-brainer. You might need a new hard drive though!!!! Cheers, Happy New Year!!Mazz

[matto]

Just to chime in here...I only have Gold and I'm extremely happy with it. To be 100% honest with you (and others may disagree), I would get the Gold XP bundle and put the $400 you save towards getting the VSL Special Edition or Kirk Hunter Ruby.I think you'll have a more versatile orchestral palette that way than by buying more mic positions of the same sample library.EWQLSO is great , but every library has its strengths and weaknesses. For this reason, most orchestral mockup specialists use a mix of different libraries. And it's never been more affordable to do that than now...matto

[matto]

Oh no...looks like I've done it again. Spent more of mazz' money

[aimusic]

I've taken a listen to them and I think they sound rather decent and a bonus is that I can buy them for my GiGastudio, so now I don't have to feel like I waisted cash on buying that....And they don't seem to be that badly priced as well... Anyone used them? I wish I could spend someone elses cash...

[mazz]

Quote:Oh no...looks like I've done it again. Spent more of mazz' money Don't worry, I used your credit card!!

[matto]

Quote:I've taken a listen to them and I think they sound rather decent and a bonus is that I can buy them for my GiGastudio, so now I don't have to feel like I waisted cash on buying that....And they don't seem to be that badly priced as well... Anyone used them? I wish I could spend someone elses cash... One note: If I'm not mistaken Ruby has some advanced programming that uses scripting which is only available in the Kontakt version. If you're considering buying it I would email Kirk and have him tell you exactly what the difference between the formats is.

[ernstinen]

Quote:Forgetting about Platinum for the moment, Gold sounds GREAT. Several of us in the forum use or have been using it (me, Matto, Ernstinen off the top of my head). Ern does full orchestral compositions with Gold that are very impressive and convincing. Gold is definitely a "pro's" orchestral package but with the advantage that it runs on normal computers.Thanks for the compliment, Dave! I bought a VisionDAW to run Gold, and they said I'd need two of them to fully utilize the library. I don't --- one nice PC is enough, although I run another for my GigaStudio libraries.When I first bought Gold, I couldn't figure out how to "turn off the reverb." Well, you CAN'T --- the ambience is built-in to the samples. But now I think it's great. I use a little reverb on my dry samples to blend them in with Gold, and it works well. Ya can't go wrong with Gold, IMHO.Ern