Changes in sampler technology

[allends]

I haven't followed the topic very closely to form my own opinion so I'm asking what you think about this statement in the latest edition of Film Music Weekly (Page 13):Quote:"Fact: As more and more product moves into EastWest’s PLAY, there will be a standard shift. There’s going to be PLAY, Vienna Instruments, Kontakt, and GigaStudio as the main four."http://www.filmmusicweekly.com/issues/F ... 60507.pdfI haven't made a big investment in any of these programs yet but it seems to me that future users of EastWest will buy PLAY versions and current users may need to learn to use PLAY to do the work. Is this correct? Is Vienna going proprietary too? Is this a good/bad thing?-Allen

[mazz]

Allen,At the risk of sounding like a rank amateur I have to agree with this statement.All of the formats mentioned have their strengths and weaknesses but great music has been made with all of them (the jury's still out on PLAY since it is just being released this week).If PLAY lives up to its hype, it will be a great technology for a lot of reasons. Apparently it can interpret phrasing and insert the proper articulation (legato, stacatto, etc.). It also is supposed to allow networking of the libraries and control of multiple libraries on different computers with a common interface on the "master" computer. I've got Gypsy on pre-order and should be getting it this month so I'll hopefully be raving about it and PLAY soon enough. I really like East West's aesthetic. They make big, fat, warm sounding libraries and I like those kinds of sounds so I am heavily invested in their libraries.Kontakt is cool as well. It's very flexible and pretty good at importing other formats (not perfect, nothing is). It has a lot of sound shaping capabilities and effects. It runs cross platform, and can run as a plug in or stand alone. Anything that uses a Kontak player as its interface can be loaded in to Kontakt natively. I'm not familiar with GigaStudio but it appears to be very flexible and pretty popular. Lots of Hollywood composers run multiple Giga computers.I think one of the reasons the companies are going with proprietary formats is piracy. East West is requiring an iLok with their new libraries and their samples are not individually accessible outside of the host application (kontakt player, kontakt or soon PLAY). Like it or not, that's that way it is. Some people think its OK to steal expensive sample libraries and share them out on P-P networks, etc. No company can stay in business if their products are being stolen so they have to protect themselves.I probably should have left it at "I agree" but the caffine is kicking in and my fingers want to talk! Mazz

[nickbatzdorf]

A bold statement for anyone who's not clairvoyant. Who wrote that, Peter Alexander?You can certainly add to the list. E-mu's sampler is looking good, Steinberg HALion isn't dead in the water, Logic EXS24 is still viable, and other companies may well write their own players as well. PLAY is EastWest's proprietary player for their libraries, Spectrasonics has one for theirs, and so on.

[nickbatzdorf]

By the way, Vienna (Vienna Symphonic Library) went "proprietary" about a year ago. Their player is fricking awesome.