Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

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Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Manning » Mon Oct 14, 2013 2:37 pm

OK, I've decided to briefly hijack the Vintage Synth forum for a discussion of Virtual Instruments. I know it's a big part of what I do, and I suspect a lot of other Trockers use them. And it's hard to know which ones are good and which ones are crap.

So here's most of my current collection. Feel free to post your own, and/or ask any questions about mine.

East West/Quantum Leap
- Symphonic Orchestra Platinum
- Symphonic Choirs
- Pianos
- Ra
- Silk
- Fab Four
- Stormdrum 2
- Voices of Passion
- Goliath
- Gypsy

Spectrasonics
- Trillian
- Omnisphere
- Stylus RMX

Sonokinetic
- Minimal
- Sultan Strings
- Sultan Drums

Samplemodelling
- Soprano Sax
- Alto Sax
- Tenor Sax
- Baritone Sax

Steinberg - Halion 5
Vienna Symphonic Library - Special Edition
Native Instruments - Komplete 8
Vir2 - Mojo Horns
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Thirteen » Mon Oct 14, 2013 3:13 pm

Go on then, hijack away :ymhug:
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Manning » Mon Oct 14, 2013 3:36 pm

One lonely thread for us "modern" folks, that's all I ask ... :)
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Drumstruck » Mon Oct 14, 2013 3:38 pm

Hi Jack (er... Manning)

Carrying on your discussion - I have:

East West/Quantum Leap
- Symphonic Orchestra Gold
- Pianos
- Ra
- Silk
- Goliath
- Dark Side
- Solo Violin - imo solo violin is really nice - you can hear the bow on the strings / rosin etc like they say

Also got a cheapie pack called "Big Brass & Horns" that is surprisingly good for $27, but needs Kontakt to run (I only have Player and it times out after 30 mins or so).


Will probably be after something like Pianoteq's Vibes / Marimba / Xyl / Glock later on.
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Thirteen » Mon Oct 14, 2013 4:21 pm

Manning wrote:One lonely thread for us "modern" folks, that's all I ask ... :)


Modern! Software becomes vintage every time there is a major OS update!

Having said that I do have quite a few of the same items that you list, I wish I could find my Nuendo dongle though, haven't seen it in 3 weeks....
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Chinagraf » Mon Oct 14, 2013 4:48 pm

I have similar list of the EW Quantum stuff, except Hollywood Strings as well, Miroslav Orchestra, Garritan Jazz and Big Band and Synth VSTi's Nexus2 and Sylenth. I run them on Cubase 64bit, can't run so many on PT.
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Manning » Mon Oct 14, 2013 5:36 pm

What is Garritan like?

I'm always on the hunt for a decent Big Band sound, although Broadway Big Band is a bit too pricey ($2200 or something). http://www.fablesounds.com/BBB-Menu-frame.htm

I've been highly impressed with samplemodelling, although I only have the saxes so far.
http://www.samplemodeling.com/en/produc ... phones.php
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Chinagraf » Mon Oct 14, 2013 5:59 pm

It's well programmed. It makes good use of cc's for articulations like falls and doits and stuff, but it's still no comparison to real stuff. I pretty much use it for mapping out arrangements then get real players to replace it all.
It is good for the price and it's articulations are geared more towards big band than the EW brass stuff is, although I've never tried Hollywood brass..
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Manning » Mon Oct 14, 2013 6:15 pm

Hollywood Brass is purely orchestral - fairly useless for big band stuff.

Garritan sounds pretty much like Mojo Horns then - certainly very useful for sketching out ideas, but not much more.
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Chinagraf » Tue Oct 15, 2013 2:01 pm

Yes 'Hollywood Big Band' would be a winner. I'm sure Doug has thought about it already. Wouldn't be surprised if it came out. What I'd kill for them to do is a quartet. Kronos would be amazing. The solo stuff in Symph Orch is a bit meh. Some of the Miroslav solo stuff is ok.
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Manning » Tue Oct 15, 2013 2:29 pm

I'd be keen to hear your thoughts on the Spitfire BML Sable series - it's the best string ensemble that I know of. At GBP1100 the price is steep, but the quality seems pretty amazing.

http://www.spitfireaudio.com/bml-sable-vol-1
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Chinagraf » Tue Oct 15, 2013 2:43 pm

It's always so hard to judge from audio demos but I'm not convinced by the stuff I heard on the site. The short stuff and pizz sound good, but so do most libraries. I always find the faster legato lines to sound fake, particularly in the attacks.
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Drumstruck » Wed Oct 16, 2013 8:46 am

.... sad to say the marimba in Goliath is pretty poor - even has a dud note.... and the xylophone is a little dead too

so I got Soniccouture's Grand Marimba - to marimba lovers this is beauty :D
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby NYMo » Thu Oct 17, 2013 12:02 am

I've only got Goliath and Kontakt 4...but I don't do a lot of that sort of stuff...so they'll do me.

Cheers
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Not too old to Rock n Roll...not too young to die !
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Manning » Thu Oct 17, 2013 12:03 am

It's not just Goliath, the Marima in the full EW Symphonic is pretty tepid. The glock has this really annoying mallet click, which is louder than the actual note at times.

I haven't tried the Soniccouture, but I've been pretty happy with Mallets from Sonokinetic.
http://www.sonokinetic.net/products/classical/mallets/
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Drumstruck » Thu Oct 24, 2013 1:40 pm

Downloading Soniccouture's (new) Vibraphone now :D

It's nearly 8GB - there goes the bandwidth for the next 8 hrs.....
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Manning » Thu Oct 24, 2013 5:05 pm

Looking forward to hearing your full impression of it.
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby SteveL » Thu Oct 24, 2013 10:13 pm

I run with EWQLSO Platinum Plus, all the Spectrasonics VIs, CineBrass, and Orchestral Tools' Orchestral String Runs. I'd love to have more but it can be a very expensive pursuit chasing the latest,biggest VIs! Piano-wise I demo'ed a bunch of VIs but stuck with the concert piano patch on my K2600 (although I did buy the Alicia Key's Piano from NI). I also use UVI's PlugsoundPro with a bunch of old libraries (love Xtreme FX) which is great for variety. I scored a no-budget Tropfest animation using just EWQLSO, Cinebrass and Orchestral String Runs (link below if you're curious). I get a lot of mileage out of that one EWQLSO (Plat Plus) software! I'd love to try some of the Spitfire Stuff, and I have demo'ed and loved the LASS stuff too....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO-1A3UGvRk

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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Drumstruck » Fri Oct 25, 2013 8:46 am

Manning wrote:Looking forward to hearing your full impression of it.


Me too - still downloading..... 3 GB to go..... so later today probably.....

fwiw I got my xylosynth connected through a Roland UM-1 MIDI<->USB convertor with a (cheapie) M-Audio kb controller doing control change stuff - setup went very smoothly and both are talking to the Marimba in NI and all the EastWest stuff in Play. What does a mere drummer do with all this? Guess I'll have to learn to play an instrument now....
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Drumstruck » Fri Nov 08, 2013 8:32 am

A little more on the Soniccouture vibes - first off the sound is very realistic - like the vibes are in the room with you. The interface is a customised NI - the Soniccouture frames are easy to see and manipulate - good sized "knobs" and good level of control. Quite a nice room/reverb/delay too. :ymparty:

Using a MIDI kb the dynamic (velocity sensitivity) was fine, but using my xylosynth I had to adjust the curve a little to reduce top octave impact and increase bottom octave impact - it is set at 1 and 127 - I adjusted it to 10 and 120 and that pretty much configured it for my ham fisted drummers wallop.

There is a very small latency - perhaps <1ms - that is just discernable using a mallet controller via the MIDI->USB convertor (but it's nowhere near as bad as apps like BFD - that is unusable to me in a "live" drumming situation - of course, this is all subjective - I hear lots of others say the latency doesn't bother them in drum apps). I'll be trying MIDI over f/w when I get a longer cable to see if I can reduce the latency a bit more.
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Sammas » Sat Nov 16, 2013 11:14 am

I love Soniccouture's stuff.
Their Broken Wurli is terrific!

I don't suppose any of you Konkakt chaps want to play crash test dummy for a sample library or two that I have almost finished? You probably need Kontakt 5 as a minimum.
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Drumstruck » Sat Nov 23, 2013 11:49 am

Really been liking the EastWest pianos (Gold) - just upgraded to the full version (multi-mic positions / 24bit).
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Manning » Wed Nov 27, 2013 3:01 am

Nath - I'm in Turkey at the moment, but when I get back I'll happily crash-test anything you've put together, I'm back mid-December.
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Thirteen » Wed Nov 27, 2013 7:57 am

Just to hijack the VI Library thread, does anyone here use DSP Quattro?
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Julian Nichols » Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:28 pm

I'm seriously looking at getting the brand new Spitfire Audio Hans Zimmer cinematic percussion library. But the size of it terrifies me - 200gb! I might have to factor a new hard drive in to the purchase price I think :-?

If anyone happens to get hold of it, can you please let me know how much the initial download "Parcel" is, they are apparently releasing it in chunks, but even so, on my rural sattellite collection the whole lot is going to take something like 4 months to download without exceeding my quota!
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Manning » Sat Nov 30, 2013 7:01 am

As you say, they are releasing it in stages. I've been watching another forum for news but nothing so far on file sizes.

The GBP299 intro price is only good for two weeks... then it reverts to GBP399... argggghh.

Some good videos about it here:
http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28993
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Drumstruck » Fri Dec 13, 2013 4:19 pm

Drumstruck wrote:Really been liking the EastWest pianos (Gold) - just upgraded to the full version (multi-mic positions / 24bit).


.... the DVD pack arrived and had a faulty disk 23..... wouldn't install.... so a support call got me the pack on HD for an extra $40. Lesson learned - always ask if you can get it on HD rather than DVDs - there are better things to do than load 35 DVDs and have it fail at #23.....

For anyone considering the EW pianos - I recommend the Platinum (24bit) version - much better granularity in the sounds, more mic positions etc.

There are 4 pianos in the pack: Bechstein, Bosendorfer, Steinway and Yamaha. imo the Steinway sounds the best all-round for sublety and dynamics. The Bosendorfer is very percussive and rich, but not so subtle. The Bechstein has the best bottom end (awesomely nice) but is a bit plunky in the top end. The Yam sounds like a cheaper Steinway.
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Re: Hijack - Trockers and VI libraries

Postby Manning » Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:36 am

For any SonicCouture fans, they are running a 40% off everything, or a Buy One get one Free sale.

http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/
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