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Now I'm having a tough time deciding which virtual instrument to invest in. I need good orchestral sounds, so I was originally going to get EWQL Silver. Now I see that East West's Colossus has orchestral instruments as well as drums, guitars, pads and ethnic stuff.Does anyone have experience comparing the two? I'm on a small budget, but I'll spring for Colossus if the orchestral sounds are as good as Silver.Thanks.

Colossus is more generalized, they even say that it does what a keyboard workstation does only with much higher quality samples (32G worth!) That being said, I doubt it has all the articulations of the Silver orchestra, but it might. You could e-mail them or ask on their forum.I use a lot of East West libraries but I don't have Colossus. I can vouch for the quality of their samples and they say that the Orchestral samples in Colossus are taken from the EWQLSO library which are very good.It really comes down to your existing sample library, what does it have and what holes do you need to fill. Do you need more of the generalized instruments (guitars, basses, percussion, etcl) or do you want to buy a specialized orchestral library because you already have the other bases covered? What kinds of music do you see yourself composing in the near future? Good luck,Mazz

Quote:It really comes down to your existing sample library, what does it have and what holes do you need to fill. Do you need more of the generalized instruments (guitars, basses, percussion, etcl) or do you want to buy a specialized orchestral library because you already have the other bases covered? What kinds of music do you see yourself composing in the near future? I need everything. Right now I use my Yamaha PSR-2100 keyboard for rock instruments as well as symphonic and I just try to tweak the audio to make them sound better. I've got all sorts of different projects in the works. The screeners typically bash my production for being too artificial. Which it certainly is. I'm sure either one of the products I'm looking at would be a vast improvement.It was funny, though, that one of my first submissions was to a jazz listing and several favorable comments were made about the "band" - which was nothing more than the Yamaha's accompaniment track practically straight out of the box! I guess you can fool some of the people some of the time.

I think that first one had you playing sax live, right? Sometimes a live instrument over a "canned" track can make a huge difference in the perception of a listener.IMO I think Colossus would be a great choice since you don't really have any sample library at the moment. It will be a HUGE step up from the Yamaha keyboard. I'm only basing my recommendation on my knowledge of East West's overall quality, not Colossus itself, which I don't own. I do have a number of the libraries that they pull some of the sounds from for Colossus and those libraries are in heavy usage here at Mazz studios! Good luck,Mazz

Colossus is great, but its strength isn't its orchestral instruments. If you want an all-in-one library with good orchestral instruments and lots of other great stuff, Sonivox Muse is a better choice. But if you want lots of "go to" instruments other than orchestral ones, it's hard to imagine anyone not being really happy with Colossus.

Quote:Do you have a sample player like kontakt?Eeep - I do not. I presumed that was included with the East West products.

The sample player is included with East West products. If you're on Mac, the player is not compatible with the Intel Macs so you would need Kontakt. East West is slowly introducing it's own sample player software but it'll be a while before all their existing products get switched over. That shouldn't stop you if you're interested, the sounds are still great and the player works just fine provided you're not on Intel Mac.Hope this helps,Mazz

"Colossus is great, but its strength isn't its orchestral instruments."I should have said that its strength isn't its *selection* of orchestral instruments. The articulation choice is pretty minimal; it's designed for playing in real time rather than programming, which is what you need to do if you want serious results.

HEADS UP!Just noticed the Silver Pro XP expansion is on sale at AudioMIDI.com for 99 bucks plus an extra 15% off for Labor Day. NOTE: Must own original Silver or this expansion won't work!Mazz

Just took the plunge and ordered Colossus! Hope it is all they say it is I just got it for $525.00 shipping included from Sweetwater Sound. I write many different music styles and I think it will be the ticket to start my sample library my main instrument is guitar but my wife plays the keys and a combination of both should prove to be interesting.