Thud
02-11-2005, 11:57 PM
First of all, what a monumental difference the updates made! Added some new keyswitching and that creative new way of implementing a one-fingered roll on percussion instruments. :D
Anyway, been playing around with the sounds a bit, and just sequenced a short little 28-bar thingy to get used to the new plugins (I'm using Sonar4 studio edition). Once you figure out the general flow it's pretty easy to make use of all the various string articulations, etc.
Since I'm a percussionist, I did spend a lot of time on the percussion sounds of course. The grand marimba is the best I've heard yet, maybe still lacking a little warmth in the lowest registers but it's very beautiful sounding. A slight hint of noise in the samples though, which might hinder a solo marimba passage.
Everything else is even more impressive, finally a xylophone sample that captures the sweetness of the real thing rather than just sounding cold and clinky like most.
The splitting of the timpani across the keyboard is also unique, separate halves of the keyboard for right and left sticking, but once you get used to it, it makes a lot of sense and makes it easy to create more intricate timpani passages. Even playing a roll sounds fine that way.
Just a couple of things I noticed though:
On the "Marimba" patch (not the symphonic grand marimba), the A-440 note sounds dead. In fact, it's exactly the sound that a bar would make when the bar is not seated correctly on the instrument... the note is definitely much more choked sounding than every other note on that instrument. Weird.
The Vibes sound absolutely great. However, the sustaining notes don't cut off when you release the pedal! Ack! All the notes played with the pedal up are stacatto, but any notes you play before releasing the pedal will keep ringing.
All in all this is such a fantastic package. I still can't believe I'm getting all this for the price I paid. I'm loving this so far... and such a relief not to have to depend on dealing with dozens of separate soundfonts anymore.
I also came to the sober realization that I have to upgrade my computer sooner than I thought. I have a gig of memory, and managed to fill it up with remarkable ease. I think I'll need 2 gigs to be really happy. And my poor 2.4GHz Pentium4 is maxing out with about 20 instruments playing at once.
Athlon64, here I come.
Anyway, been playing around with the sounds a bit, and just sequenced a short little 28-bar thingy to get used to the new plugins (I'm using Sonar4 studio edition). Once you figure out the general flow it's pretty easy to make use of all the various string articulations, etc.
Since I'm a percussionist, I did spend a lot of time on the percussion sounds of course. The grand marimba is the best I've heard yet, maybe still lacking a little warmth in the lowest registers but it's very beautiful sounding. A slight hint of noise in the samples though, which might hinder a solo marimba passage.
Everything else is even more impressive, finally a xylophone sample that captures the sweetness of the real thing rather than just sounding cold and clinky like most.
The splitting of the timpani across the keyboard is also unique, separate halves of the keyboard for right and left sticking, but once you get used to it, it makes a lot of sense and makes it easy to create more intricate timpani passages. Even playing a roll sounds fine that way.
Just a couple of things I noticed though:
On the "Marimba" patch (not the symphonic grand marimba), the A-440 note sounds dead. In fact, it's exactly the sound that a bar would make when the bar is not seated correctly on the instrument... the note is definitely much more choked sounding than every other note on that instrument. Weird.
The Vibes sound absolutely great. However, the sustaining notes don't cut off when you release the pedal! Ack! All the notes played with the pedal up are stacatto, but any notes you play before releasing the pedal will keep ringing.
All in all this is such a fantastic package. I still can't believe I'm getting all this for the price I paid. I'm loving this so far... and such a relief not to have to depend on dealing with dozens of separate soundfonts anymore.
I also came to the sober realization that I have to upgrade my computer sooner than I thought. I have a gig of memory, and managed to fill it up with remarkable ease. I think I'll need 2 gigs to be really happy. And my poor 2.4GHz Pentium4 is maxing out with about 20 instruments playing at once.
Athlon64, here I come.