Alright, I'll admit it, I'm confused

[samonbass]

I need some new software, but not sure what to get, can only really get one at the moment, budget restraints, need advice with what all of the following products do. I have heard good things about Stylus, EZ drummer, Kontakt, Collossus. I am lost with what is best value for money, if I get one of the jack of all trades software, will I need to upgrade (ie are the sonds any good)???. I realise some of these are like asking you to compare chalk & cheese. What styles of music are these used for? Pros & cons? Any help much appriecated. Thanks heaps.Sam.

[steveha2865]

What hardware and software are you using? Not all of those programs run on all platforms.What style(s) of music are you working with?Steve

[mazz]

For any of the products you mentioned, you'll need a DAW host (depending on platform: Sonar, Logic, Cubase, etc.) and a pretty modern, zippy computer with a good amount of RAM.Kontakt is a sampler that comes with a sample library that covers a lot of bases. All of the samples are good and usable. EZ Drummer is great for drum parts. The expanders are uniformly excellent. It's reasonably priced but it's only drums and percussion.Stylus has been discussed at length here on the forum, I'd recommend searching. In short, it's pretty amazing for creating unique grooves, particularly if you work in Film/TV. If you channel surf any time of day or night, you'll hear Stylus.Colossus is a large collection of samples culled from East West's libraries with some new stuff also, I believe. East West makes great samples so the quality will be good. It runs on Kontakt player which is a stripped down version of Kontakt. Unless you have Kontakt or Kontakt Player 2 (which doesn't come with the library) you can't use it on Intel Mac.Without out more specifics on what you are trying to accomplish, it's hard to make any specific recommendations.BTW: All the software you mentioned is cross platform. Good luck,Mazz

[samonbass]

Basically I need a some good drums samples & better sounding strings/piano/other synths. I am writing instrumental music, pitching for film/tv use, been a member for 6 months, have had 10 forwards, but need better sounding drums & synths as I know the sounds I have now are holding me back. I cant really pitch anymore orchestral songs at the moment as I know they need better samples. Also in need of good drum samples for other styles such as rock, r&b, electronica & some synths that are pretty much the standard of what people are using for film/tv (that last one is a bit broad but any help/advise is much apprieciated). My laptop has 1gb ram so there is no problems with running programs. I record with Cubase SX, also use reason, fruity loops for drums.Anymore advice is much apprieciated. Thanks & happy new year (almost NYE in oz).Sam.

[ibanez468]

Stylus is good! Not only can you use what's already available (and it has crap-load of drum samples) but you can make your own audio samples (of whatever) and integrate within Stylus. Probably a very necessary tool, in my opinion. I looked at EZ drummer a few days ago on the web, I think that's gonna' be next on my list of drum programs to buy. I have BFD, and it's cool too. The folks here are high on EWQLSO, and after listening to some demos, I'd have to agree. Great orchestral sounds! I'm waiting on mine to arrive FedEx (probably Monday, I hope). From what I heard, EZ drummer would be a great fit for rock, Stylus is good for your R&B, Hip Hop, and just about whatever else you can come up with, EWQLSO is the fit for Orchestral.For synths, that's a toss-up. I have enough hardware synths and software synths to cover that. Reason has a crap load of synths built into it. Then there's SampleTank2, just too many to list. I would go with Stylus first, as that could cover a good range of genres, and you can do more with it. You can switch it from grooves to one-shots for the drums. And I mean it's got enough stuff in it that you can't help but get inspired to create tunes. And the fact that you can incorporate your own audio samples within it, just makes for all kinds of musical possibilities. If you can only get one thing at a time (which is probably how most of us have to do it) I'd get that first. And then work my way down the list in the order of importance. What do ya' need NOW, and what can you wait on to get later. Of course only you know that. But that's how I would approach it. Hope this helps. BTW, do some research on the internet, and look up these products to see what fits your needs, especially after reading about anything on these posts. After I heard about EWQLSO, I went pokin' around on the net, and read my butt off until I came to the conclusion that it was time to order. Good Luck!ibanez468

[aimusic]

just my 2cents...DAW : Reaper... excellent new program from the company that made WinAmp... It hardly uses any RAM and is fast and simple to use....Drums: Recently bought myself Fxpansion BFD2.0 and might I say...AWESOME!!!! Can't wait to get myself an electric drum kit to trigger BFD in Reaper, then the skies the limit.....Sounds: I'm really liking EastWest's stuff, take a look at their product line... Specially their Gypsy sampler, that's pure tv/film composing material right there....Then again, this is just my 2cents... Hope everything works out....Best Wishes for 08, hope it brings you all many forwards, many deals and much spiritual and financial success...Brad

[matto]

Quote:Basically I need a some good drums samples & better sounding strings/piano/other synths. I am writing instrumental music, pitching for film/tv use, been a member for 6 months, have had 10 forwards, but need better sounding drums & synths as I know the sounds I have now are holding me back. I cant really pitch anymore orchestral songs at the moment as I know they need better samples. Also in need of good drum samples for other styles such as rock, r&b, electronica & some synths that are pretty much the standard of what people are using for film/tv (that last one is a bit broad but any help/advise is much apprieciated). My laptop has 1gb ram so there is no problems with running programs. I record with Cubase SX, also use reason, fruity loops for drums.Anymore advice is much apprieciated. Thanks & happy new year (almost NYE in oz).Sam.Well, no one application is going to give you the best of all worlds. Since you can only afford one thing at the moment I think I would recommend Kontakt 3. It has a vast 33Gig library which will cover most of the categories you'll need. It won't be as in depth on any one category as an instrument dedicated to that category would be, but if you can't produce broadcast quality music in a wide variety of styles using K3 I don't think the sounds are the problem . The other advantage of K3 is that, as arguably the leading sampler platform out there, it has a LOT of third party sound support, so you'll be able to expand your sound library for it cost effectively in the future.One thing I don't quite understand is why you need "better synth sounds" when you've got Reason. That's the one category Reason covers quite well, so if people tell you your synth sounds aren't up to par it may actually be your use of the soinds that's the problem, not the sounds themselves.If your laptop supports 2GB RAM I would upgrade to that...assuming you've got a decent speed processor of course. Reason is known to be light on system resources...these large samples will tax your system more and will also require from disc streaming, so your harddrive needs to be fast enough to support that. In other words MAKE SURE your computer is up to handling K3 (or something comparable) before buying.Stylus RMX and EZ Drummer are fantastic programs, but very specialized. The same is true for something like EWQL Gold. Colossus is more like K3 in that it offers a wide variety of material, but IMHO K3 beats it in terms of selection, useability (thanks to the new performance views) and certainly expandability at this point.HTH,matto