Some advice please...

[wayne_rowley]

I have recently sold my last hardware synth and I am moving to a pure software setup with a controller keyboard. I am having trouble deciding which software samplers to buy. I currently have EWQLSO Silver and GPO so am fairly well off for orchestral sounds. These are my needs:

- A good set of general sounds, particularly piano and percussion.
- Some nice synthesiser sounds, especially old analoge and pad sounds
- Some Celtic sounds (Uilliean pipes and whistles) along with some other ethnic sounds.

I also have the library Symphony of Voices in Kurzewil format which I want to convert to a usable format.

I have a limited budget!

I have thought of the following options:

- Komtakt 2 (for general sounds and sample conversion) and Ethno World 3

I am uncertain as to the quality of Kontakt 2 - there are fair too many reported bugs for my liking. Otherwise it looks like a good combination.

- Kompakt, Nostalgia and EthnoWorld 3 (with Translater NI to convert the CD to Kompakt).

I have concerns that the general instruments supplied with Konpakt are not greate.

The third option is

- Colossus with Translator Soundfont and the free sfz player.

Colossus sounds good - it has the range of sounds I need. But the size means that it will take up virtually of my remaining hard disk space!

Any thoughts from the users of the various libraries I have mentioned?

Is Kontakt 2 a hopeless cause?

How good is the Kompakt library, and will Translator convert Kurzweil to Kompakt?

Thanks,
Wayne

[dvincent]

Kontakt 2 is a great program. I have had very little problems with it - no more than any other program I use. The library that is included is both versatile and varied. It includes a nice orchestra library which would round out your current VIs as well as pianos, percussion, guitars, some old synth sounds, etc. It would be a good addition to the arsenal IMHO. Is light on ethnic sounds, though. I have not used any of the other products you mentioned.