Time to upgrade my Orchestral Library?

[dpasdernick]

I have EWQL Silver, Gold and Gold Pro XP. Lately I have been thinking about a new orch lib and have narroed it down to Kirk HUnter's stuff and the Vienna Symphony Speacial Edition. Pricing will be about the same as I would have to buy Kontakt in order to use Kirk's stuff. The two sets of sounds in the VLSO speacial edition will set me back around $1000.00 KH's Diamond is $700 + the $249 crossgrade version of Kontakt (bonus 30 gigs of extra sounds)

Gold has been great and has that Hollywood sound. The VLSO SE has some of the epic horns and appasianto (sp?) sttrings. I love their player and the ability to do portamento, etc. I think KH's stuff may be more Hollywood-ish (I like that sound)

I can't think of anything else in the 1k price range that offers what these two do. Any thoughts?

Darren

[EricWatkins]

What about starting to specialize into some sections like true strike percussion or Project Sam Brass. Just thinking out loud here. I'm sort of in the same place with GPO and Gold XP. I want even more articulations and options. More IS more. :)

Eric

[germancomponist]

I have EWQL Silver, Gold and Gold Pro XP. Lately I have been thinking about a new orch lib and have narroed it down to Kirk HUnter's stuff and the Vienna Symphony Speacial Edition. Pricing will be about the same as I would have to buy Kontakt in order to use Kirk's stuff. The two sets of sounds in the VLSO speacial edition will set me back around $1000.00 KH's Diamond is $700 + the $249 crossgrade version of Kontakt (bonus 30 gigs of extra sounds)

Gold has been great and has that Hollywood sound. The VLSO SE has some of the epic horns and appasianto (sp?) sttrings. I love their player and the ability to do portamento, etc. I think KH's stuff may be more Hollywood-ish (I like that sound)

I can't think of anything else in the 1k price range that offers what these two do. Any thoughts?

Darren

If you buy Kirk`s library, you will get many many more articulations than there is inside the VSL Speacial Edition. Have you listend to Kirk`s Concert strings?

Gunther

[Haydn]

You can purchase the VSL SE without the expanded library for just over $400 if you catch it on sale. The performance legato instruments are quite nice. The extended content does come with the standard edition and you try it for a month before it locks itself. Then you can decide if you want to purchase the license for the extended instruments or purchase another library with the money saved. You could then use the extra money for part of Kirk's library with Kontakt or purchase something like ProjectSAM brass. I really like the Project SAM Solo Sessions brass. Also, check out some of the Westgate Studios stuff which has downloadable versions. I downloaded the french horn and it's quite nice for $70.

Jim

[Doralin]

I grant you are now using QLSO gold with one PC or one Mac. Probably you will need bounce or freeze when you compose a full-orchestral music if you purchase VSE. Meanwhile KH Ruby may be playable with one PC or one Mac not using bounce or freeze. With my PC (E6850, 7200rpm HDD, 3.5GB RAM) , Kontakt2 can load KH Ruby's almost full orchestral instruments (about 16 tracks) and perform them all together.

And maybe you will begin to consider purchasing a new reverb plug-in after you got VSE, and it will cost you some more budget.

[germancomponist]

....and Gary Garritan is working on a new library! :)

[dpasdernick]

I grant you are now using QLSO gold with one PC or one Mac. Probably you will need bounce or freeze when you compose a full-orchestral music if you purchase VSE. Meanwhile KH Ruby may be playable with one PC or one Mac not using bounce or freeze. With my PC (E6850, 7200rpm HDD, 3.5GB RAM) , Kontakt2 can load KH Ruby's almost full orchestral instruments (about 16 tracks) and perform them all together.

And maybe you will begin to consider purchasing a new reverb plug-in after you got VSE, and it will cost you some more budget.


Yup, the horsepower to run these libs is definitely a factor I am trying to ignore ;) I have the Wizoo reverb and it's pretty darn nice but it eats up resources. Crikey, I am about to open a can of worms here! Maybe I'll ditch the whole orch idea and buy Roland's Sonic Cell. All the Fantom sounds and two expansion slots for around 1K.

Thanks for all of the input!

Darren

[JohnG]

I have EWQL Silver, Gold and Gold Pro XP. Lately I have been thinking about a new orch lib and have narroed it down to Kirk HUnter's stuff and the Vienna Symphony Speacial Edition. Pricing will be about the same as I would have to buy Kontakt in order to use Kirk's stuff. The two sets of sounds in the VLSO speacial edition will set me back around $1000.00 KH's Diamond is $700 + the $249 crossgrade version of Kontakt (bonus 30 gigs of extra sounds)
Darren

Why don't you just go for Platinum EWQL with the expander (XP)? It would be very cheap and sounds unbelievable.

[dpasdernick]

Why don't you just go for Platinum EWQL with the expander (XP)? It would be very cheap and sounds unbelievable.

I have been trying to get more playability out of all my VST's Portamento in strings is a favorite of mine and EWQL's Gold has only a couple of slides that are cumbersome to work with. Plus the wiidwinds are lacking IMHO. Since Gold Pro XP has every sample that Platinum has (without 2 of the mic positions) I'd really be buying the same lib. I've always thought very highly of the VSLO stuff. A few people mentioned buying more specialty libs like Westgate or Project Sam. Maybe I should buy Kontakt 3 before I buy anything else?

Darren

[Haydn]

Buy Kontakt 2 first and then do the free upgrade to Kontakt 3. Since most of the libraries currently out were programmed with Kontakt 2, it will be the most compatible. When you install Kontakt 3 upgrade, then you can still use Kontakt 2.

Jim

[tradivoro]

I definitely belive in having a variety of sounds is going to give you more versatility in writing projects... Definitely the Kirk Hunter or the VSL, you can't go wrong there as far as having great additional new sounds.. Although east west stuff is great, having more fo the same is going to give you the same sound... I definitely think you're going to get more bang for your buck with the Kirk Hunter stuff... Definitely a great ilbrary with a lot of great sounding stuff... Combine that with gold, and you have a winning combination...

[JohnG]

I have been trying to get more playability out of all my VST's Portamento in strings is a favorite of mine and EWQL's Gold has only a couple of slides that are cumbersome to work with. Plus the wiidwinds are lacking IMHO. Since Gold Pro XP has every sample that Platinum has (without 2 of the mic positions) I'd really be buying the same lib. I've always thought very highly of the VSLO stuff. A few people mentioned buying more specialty libs like Westgate or Project Sam. Maybe I should buy Kontakt 3 before I buy anything else?

Darren
It is of course subjective, but the three mic positions are the number one reason why I prefer the EWQLSO Platinum over Vienna; Vienna gives lots more control since there's no room tone (on anything I have, at least), so it is great if that's your goal or you are trying for chamber music. By contrast, when you put together a whole orchestra and you want a really big sound, EWQLSO sounds much more like a recording of a real orchestra to me, whereas many other libraries are too bright or have that "accordian" sound. And you are right that some of the solo winds are not in tune / as strong as, say, the brass, which is I think the best part of EWQLSO.

And, based on the NI chat boards, the other poster who advises Kontakt 2 is definitely right -- as long as you are also getting a free upgrade to Kontakt 3, definitely buy Kontakt 2 and wait a bit for an update to Kontakt 3.