Opus 1 or Eastwest Gold??

[evaclear]

Hi there,

I need help! Will i be happy with Opus 1 or Eastwest Gold?

I know ideally i could use them both, but $$. step at a time!

I am a producer who wants to inverst in a library for film and other projects such as pop/adult contemorary albums etc. I have read a lot stuff about VSL being incedible but not necissarily dynamic or very "hollywood" like the eastwest is.

My priority is film music moreso than pop/rock production
My primary need with the library is flexibility
My primary orcherstral family is Strings. (used most)

Opus 1 or Gold? (looked into SI and Garritan, but not interested)

[Marcussen]

a) What else do you have?
b) When you say film scoring - are we talking Epic Lord of the rings kind, smaller indifilm kind of music (less instruments,many solo pasages etc)

?

[evaclear]

I'm currently using non orchestral softsynths and programs like Atmosphere, Stylus, Sampletank, Absynth etc with keyboard stuff ocassionally thrown in from my Roland XV88. And i'm often paying a violinist to come and play over string lines I’ve play in through Atmosphere "hollywood strings" patch. This is when doing tracks on peoples albums etc.

I would like to fuse (often full) orchestrations with electronic stuff more often than writing for intimate exposed sections. I do want the strings to sound credible in all dynamics though! (appreciating much has to do with programming skills). Strings are my priority.

Short answer is... i need a flexible library that sounds 'film'. Mainstream film.

I know this sounds vague, but i guess flexibility is vague!

Thanks!

[Marcussen]

tough one, as a lot of it is a subjective preference in sound. I have both the above liberaries, and what makes it hard is that none of them alone would suit me completely.

If I were to choose one I would say Opus. However Gold is easier to sqeeze hollywood sound out of, and is in many ways easier to manage right out of the box. Opus however has more articulations, and is more useful all round.

In my view Opus is superior in sound for everything except some percussion and brass ensemble. But for solo brass, Opus beats EWQLSO.

Bare in mind that this is subjective, and that I know many others love the strings in Gold, and would choose them any day over Opus.

Also note that you need some good reverb for opus for it to really shine. Out of the bow Gold sounds better.

I use my VSL stuff with Gigastudio 3 and its 'Gigapulse' which really brings the samples to life

[dcoscina]

If strings are your primary interest, I would also agree that Opus 1 might be a better route, at least to start with. Between the performance tool that allows you to produce accurate glides and portmentos, and the fact that there's a bit better detail in the string sound, that might be the best route. I don't agree that the solo brass are markedly better on Opus 1 compared to Gold though. If I were just using Opus 1 and didn't own Gold, I would augment my library with Project SAM Solo Sessions. But that's just me.

Gold IMO has a bit warmer sound though. Part of that is due to the built in ambience. I would say that Gold is a better performer on my system than Opus 1/Gigastudio which is very flakey especially when using the Gigapulse. I get drop-outs and such so I primarily use Gold.

[Sean Beeson]

I have to say that gold is the path you might wish to choose. I say this because it has such a full sound right out of the box. Not to mention with the updates, legato will be availiable for Gold too. It truly is an excellent product. I do not think that you will be disappointed with gold, because there is a lot of flexibilty and it just feels good in mixes.

Beeson

[dcoscina]

Sean does have a point about the EWQLSO Pro upgrades- but if we're comparing price points between Gold and Opus 1 (which are roughly $1000), than Gold Pro would be a much more expensive route to go.

I love using Gold for reasons expressed throughout this board. It's a solid, great sounding library. But objectively speaking, I still think Opus 1 has some benefits over Gold at this point and time. As I said, I prefer Gold for brass, percussion and section winds. But the vibrato strings to me still have some weirdness to them- the sustain sounds a little synthetic. I don't hear this with the Opus 1.

The standard answer for eveclear is to listen to user demos for both libs and see which one sparks your interest. :)

[janila]

A good compromise is to get Opus1 and EWQLSO Silver. I got both at the same time and now I have ordered the Silver Pro upgrade. They support each other nicely, you can stack the libraries together where needed and use them separately to get different timbres. You need a good reverb and some mixing skills but the results can be very rewarding.

[robgb]

I have no experience with Gold, but I use Opus 1 and I like it for two reasons:

1. Little or no room sound on the instruments, which allows YOU to control the environment. This works for some, others prefer a different approach.

2. The Performance Tool.

I use the Kontakt version and it works and sounds great. I often use it in conjuction with GPO, and the two sound quite good together. There's also an upgrade option if you decide to go full VSL, but Opus 1 may be all you ever need.

[dcoscina]

I've had my eyes on Opus 1 for a while but I'm waiting for the EWQLSO Pro upgrades to come out before I spend any more money. I'd rather stick with EWQLSO series just because I'm familiar with the sound and both Silver and Gold blend well together.

I wish VSL would approach the market in a 3 tiered way the way GPO or EWQLSO has done thereby making their libs more accessible to the cheapskate in all of us...I suppose their Horizon series partly addresses this mind you....

[evaclear]

Thanks for your responses. Great input.

You've stimulated some great thought! I've heard all the demos for both and the only givaway that Opus 1 will be more work to get to shine (in listening alone) are the chamber strings demos. They sound a little suspect, due to production/programming i would guess... but they're a different product again, so won't go there!

Also, the Opus demos all sound different from each other, with their different ambience/verb. This may or may not be a good thing, as i back myself as an engineer, but my strongest and most suited verb is the Waves IR-1 reverb. No Lexicons in my studio unfortunately. Anyone used the IR-1 with VSL? Any good?

I love the excitement of Gold and the romance of Opus. Damn it i'm going to flip a coin!

[peter269]

Thanks for your responses. Great input.

You've stimulated some great thought! I've heard all the demos for both and the only givaway that Opus 1 will be more work to get to shine (in listening alone) are the chamber strings demos. They sound a little suspect, due to production/programming i would guess... but they're a different product again, so won't go there!

Also, the Opus demos all sound different from each other, with their different ambience/verb. This may or may not be a good thing, as i back myself as an engineer, but my strongest and most suited verb is the Waves IR-1 reverb. No Lexicons in my studio unfortunately. Anyone used the IR-1 with VSL? Any good?

I love the excitement of Gold and the romance of Opus. Damn it i'm going to flip a coin!

Hang on. In the next few weeks, the complete Kirk Hunter Strings Brass Winds will be available which over 150GB for $995 with close, far and distant micing. Brass ships in 10 days. Choose from GS and Kontakt formats.

All the instruments are recorded in their seated positions. This library gets a big sound. www.kirkhunter.com

[evaclear]

Hang on. In the next few weeks, the complete Kirk Hunter Strings Brass Winds will be available which over 150GB for $995 with close, far and distant micing. Brass ships in 10 days. Choose from GS and Kontakt formats.

All the instruments are recorded in their seated positions. This library gets a big sound. www.kirkhunter.com


Thanks. Will check it out!

[janila]

Taken from this thread:
There's also an upgrade option if you decide to go full VSL, but Opus 1 may be all you ever need. ;)

[JonFairhurst]

Opus 1 sounds are from the Pro Edition as I understand.

So does Opus 1 have an upgrade path to the Pro Edition?

Check out their web store. They have a "discount calculator".

-JF

[handz]

BOTH! I must recommend BOTH.
Gold have many great percussions, nice hollywood brass, Big deeb basses...it have many what opus lacks...and Opus have great Legato Srings and Great woodwinds. (but I dont like bassoon so much)

If you ask what first - I buy GOLD - it is absolutely easy to use, don¨t need reverb, sampler....Its easy to use - so you can compose...