GPO, EastWest, other libraries question

[mojobone]

I believe MIDI guitars can work as controllers, but you'd still need a keyboard for certain things; adding pitch bends and modulation in real-time after step entering the actual notes is often the best way to achieve realism in passages that are maybe too fast for a non-keyboardist to play. Any MIDI controller message can be step-entered, but for a stringed-instrument player, it's usually much smoother and faster to do your bending and vibrato by hand.

[leonid]

Do you guys use multiple machines to playback your score? Or could you do it on just a single powerful computer?Any PC's you'd recommend that would be good for using EastWest and other libraries?Thanks

[aimusic]

Hey Leon,The PC I built recently is handling the EASTWEST stuff like a dream... I've got 16 different instances of PLAY open on one song and the CPU usage is sitting at 1%, it really is crazy!The machine I built is an Intel I7, with 6GB RAM, another trick is to try have 1HDD for your programs, 1HDD for your project files and multiple HDD's for your sample libraries with the HDD's being at a min of 7200RPM. With the Sample libraries being spread over multiple HDD's, it becomes easier for the sample libraries to be read without signal congestion.I've also got another PC which IF the time comes and I need the extra power I'll connect the two, but looking at what I'm using at the mo, I don't think that'll be a problem.Take CareB

[mazz]

VisionDAW and PC Audio Labs make custom configured PCs for running East West and other libraries. I use multiple machines and one of them is a VisionDAW dual core (can't remember the GhZ specs) with XP 64 bit and 8G RAM. I'm not running a DAW on it, I run Play stand alone and so far I've been able to run quite a few instruments at a time. The Play version of the orchestra has most of the legato and short articulations combined in one large keyswitch for each instrument (from what I've seen so far) instead of separate keyswitches like in the Kontakt version. I like this because it takes only one MIDI track instead of the two it used to take. I will still load some DXF (filtering and cross fading through samples controlled by the mod wheel)I would check out the two companies I mentioned and also a company called ADK which also builds audio PCs. These companies will load your software and libraries and will provide after sale tech support which is specific to audio and the software they installed, which is something you won't get from Costco or Dell. You'll pay a bit more for these machines but you get what you pay for in this case, IMO. If you're going to use a singe computer, a 4, or even better 8 core machine with plenty of RAM would probably allow you to do some fairly extensive orchestrations before you run out of juice.As far as needing a keyboard: Even if you're entering in step time in Sibelius or another DAW, it will be quicker to do it from a keyboard than it would be using even QWERTY key strokes or the mouse. You could even get a little 25 key keyboard with octave switching. I'm a fairly accomplished keyboard player and I'll even occasionally enter fast runs in step time and then tweak them to sound more "human". When I want a "blur" of sound from the strings like an ascending run, I'll make runs of different amounts of notes, like 16 notes in the first violins, 12 in the seconds, and so forth, which tends to diminish the "MIDI" effect.I haven't done any playback out of Sibelius as of yet and so I don't know if the "human playback" feature works with music entered in step time mode, but if it does, that will help somewhat in getting things to sound less mechanical but it may or may not fly in the cold light of the real world (libraries, screeners, etc.). That remains to be seen. Also, I don't know if dynamics are played back via MIDI but if they are, that's another plus in the Sibelius column.Hope this helps,Mazz

[leonid]

Hey B, sounds cool. I saw another post about the specs of your system. I noticed you mentioned separate hard drives, and that seems to be what the other audio PC companies often do.Mazz, thanks for the information and I've checked out some of those companies, lots of choices!I think the tough thing is going to be whether to build a system or to get audio PC already set up. Thanks for your suggestions and info.Leon

[t4mh]

My 2 cents.One word, Articulation! Everyone here probably plays something and knows that "how" you play it is everything. When you hear a real orchestra with like 18 violins you have to realize that all of those players are not playing exactly like each other even though they are reading the same music. This is more articulation to my way of thinking than anything else and is what makes the orchestra sound real. I am extremely impressed with a lot of the orchestral things I hear on this forum in this vein! The depth of work by these people to approximate that realism is quite awesome to say the least. It all seems an extreme uphill fight of dedication and perseverance to me. I would think that whichever software made "real sounding" group or solo articulations easier to accomplish would be the choice! I have no idea what kind of system would be required for that software but I'd bet it would be killer!Good Luck!Keith

[ernstinen]

I've got a VisionDaw that has only 2 gig ram, and I can run 64 instruments of Gold on it! I'd highly recommend Gold over Silver for a few extra $$ because of the great ambience built in to the samples. (When I first got it, I thought "how do you turn the reverb off?" You can't, but once you get used to blending it with other libraries, it works wonders).I've met Gary Garritan, and his products are great for the price, but they're really aimed at amateurs, IMHO. I've got GOS and GPO, and rarely use them.My other PC runs GigaStudio samples. Some are 'dry' like GPO, and I try and match the ambience of Gold with an external reverb. If you get the right reverb setting, they can combine very well.Here's a piece I did with this combination:http://www.box.net/shared/15on53qri1Best Regards,Ern

[t4mh]

Cool track! And your right ( though I knew you would be ) that I can't really tell a difference. However, I have no orchestral software and don't really know anything about the samples and so forth to make an informed opinion. I do think we should use everything we have at our disposal which you obviously have done! One of these days I'm going to bail off into this stuff and of course I'll have to make a big software decision just like this, what this thread is about. Thanks for sharing!Keith

[fusilierb]

Hey Leonid,I think you were asking me a question, if not, I'll answer anyway. If you are using a 64 bit windows system then you can access RAM above the 4 GB limit. I would say that on that system, you will get a lot more out of it than mine. What sequencer are you using? I can currently get about 12-14 tracks to play back semi-reliably on a dual core mac under Cubase 5, this is about twice what I could get out of Cubase 4, so the DAW's efficiency will be a factor in how much you can stream. But with the samples coming off a fast hard drive and the DAW running on another fast hard drive, you should be able to get at least a few sections to play back simultaneously. Mazz is really the man to answer that question as he streams from one of these souped up PC's.But an entire orchestra at once, I just don't think so, but you could get enough streaming to work on complete orchestra sections at a time, render those to audio files and then start turning on the other sections. At least that is what I'm having to do.B