London Percussion is Great!

[Mel Tron]

I\'ve been using London Orchestral Percussion and I must say I am very pleased with this 4 Disk Library. I think this is the new standard for Orchestral Percussion. Tons of choice and excellent sound quality. I rarely endorse a product but this is great stuff. You might want to keep your Ult. Timpani as well. It would take days to just explore these sounds fully. The only thing I couldn\'t find were brush hit snares. I\'ve been looking for that snare sound from \'Apollo 13\' Opening with Trumpet Solo by James Horner; a distant military brush hit snare x2 or 3. Perhaps it\'s here somewhere. anyway this is a nice set.

[donnie]

Wow! Thanks man! Glad to hear you are enjoying the sounds. I don\'t have to tell you a LOT of time went into it.

As far as needing a brush snare email me on that and I\'ll see if I can hook you up.

Donnie

[Simon Ravn]

Donnie, I don\'t have LOP - YET - but can\'t you please hook us ALL up if you\'re gonna offer free update samples?? http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

[Mel Tron]

Pardon me, I am going to rave on a bit more..

The Bass Drums kik *** ! from pp to FF and you get a choice: Ludwig or Yamaha. also the Ludwig Black Beauty Snare: Awesome! There are so many snares here.. Its hard to choose- they are all great!

I really like the rubber mallet Glocks. You can\'t get this sound anywhere else... also the Orch Toms, Wind Chimes, Temple Blocks, Chimes, Triangles, Tambourines etc. etc. all tastefully recorded. Also there are enough Cymbals to sink a Battleship. Everything you\'ll ever need for Orchestra. NOW if there were only a Brass Library to match the Realism of this I would be heaven.

I can certainly appreciate the hard work that went into this Library. This is THE DEAL of the year so far and a New Standard in Percussion.

[Bardstown Audio]

This percussion library is truly awesome! It simply does not get any better than this!

Kip

[donnie]

Gosh!!!! Mel Tron, it\'s guys like you that we make these libraries for. It is so nice as a developer for someone to REALLY appreciate your work. I sincerely appreciate everything you\'ve said.

Donnie

[timzydee]

I just received LOP and started looking it over. Sound quality is great just like UOP. I was surprised and dissapointed however to see that the timpani weren\'t sampled on every note like UOP. So, in that way I like the UOP timpani sound better. Unfortunately only LOP has the timpani rolls at multiple dynamics and crescendos, however no decrescendos. It should make for a rather tedious combination of the two. That aside, the snare section II blew me away. If you haven\'t heard it, just imagine the opening bars of the 20th Century Fox fanfare...really big and deep. Another thing I noticed is that the 40\" gong has scrape samples that aren\'t assigned to any regions. I wonder if there are others that I\'m missing? Also, I\'m still curious to know why the back of the CD case (very nice by the way) mentions celeste, and yet there is not one to be found.

[csduke]

Donnie,

This has been mentioned before but I did not read an answer: Is there a special LOP price for those who own UOP?

Thanks,

Craid D

[This message has been edited by csduke (edited 02-20-2002).]

[PeterRoos]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by csduke:
Is there a special LOP price for those who own UOP?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi CsDuke,

I believe there is an upgrade offer with a discount of $150 off the $400 price. Donnie will probably jump in later with more details.

Cheers,
Peter

[ursatz]

I\'m confused by the upgrade from UOP - if I upgrade, do I become a *non*-licensed UOP user? In other words, at that point am I no longer allowed to use UOP?

[PeterRoos]

As far as I have understood Donnie\'s remarks and a reply to my questions per email:
you need to send your original disc(s) as proof of ownership, but you are allowed to keep and use backup disc(s). Orders and discs should be sent to BigfishAudio. Please wait for Donnie\'s confirmation on this.

Regards,

Peter

[Mel Tron]

I think many of us are looking for perfection. Music as a High Art demands a critical stance.

Many Recording Artists don\'t get it right on their 1st or 2nd release. Perhaps Sample Developers are like Recording Artists in a sense. The more they produce the better they get. If you need a Celeste the X Sample one is Sate of The Art. Maybe it\'s a typo on the back cover. Maybe there will be upgrades. I usually need to tweak ANY Library to suit my needs. The more you do it the faster it gets.

London Orch Percussion works very well with Ultimate Timpani. After all its a HUGE set isn\'t it? Perfection?.. No. Awesome?.. YES!
Worth the bucks? No Brainer.

[KingIdiot]

Hey now, I posted some nice things about this library and didn\'t get offered any freebies :P

Seriously tho, Mel, yah the black beauty is my favorite http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif Power! All the snares take prettty well to tuning too.

I haven\'t played with SoundStage on the LOP samples yet, but I have a feeling they will take very well.

I also love some of the \"wacky mallet sounds, and am a glock fan. There are enough varieties of glocks to fill most any type of music/sound. I love the fact that I\'m not locked in to using one sound.

I told Donnie months agao that I was going to take some time to do some \"teaking\" and get some whacky sounds with rpcoessing. I\'ll share these tips as I get into them http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

Definitely lots of raw material to \"play\" with, and Percussion always takes well to some funky processing.

I can\'t wait for his \"junk percussion\" library.


------------------
Really...I am an Idiot

[donnie]

After talking with the guys at Big Fish it appears that I may have spoken out of turn. It is not right for me to say that you can copy ANY disc, whether it\'s mine or definately anyone elses. (which just for the record I didn\'t say you \"could\" copy any other disc\'s; just mine)

So this is how we need to leave it. All I\'m saying is that you shoudn\'t copy the discs but what you do in your own home is your buisness http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

Donnie

[This message has been edited by donnie (edited 02-20-2002).]

[Neal Acree]

I also think LOP is great. There\'s some great sounding stuff and a whole lot of options for most of the instruments. My only question is, why the decision to not make any combined instruments, like a timpani that keyswitches between hits, rolls, 3 stroke, etc, or as an alternate, putting all of the piatti on one patch? I think I know the answer, disc space for one, as well as the user can make their own patches. Don\'t get me wrong, it\'s a very good library, but for $400, some combos would have been nice. Update?

[donnie]

Neal,

Do you have any idea how much programming went into that library!?! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

Just kidding, anyway the reason is basically load time. For example, if we combined all the suspended cymbals (8 of the them total) into one patch it would be major over kill as well as a pain in the butt to load everytime. Besides, I\'m probably write more percussion in my works than anyone and I\'ve never used that many different sus.cym\'s in one piece before! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

Donnie

[timzydee]

I think combo gigs would be good too because of midi channel limitations. If I want to have full orchestra along with Cymbal, Bass Drum and Snare I would like to have a gig that has a basic perc. pit combination so that it uses up only one midi channel in my sequence instead of 3 or 4. I\'ll end up making my own gig, but the issue of load time, as well as memory usage is up to the user. The combo gigs would be in addition to just snare, just cymbal, etc. By the way, I mention snare bass drum and cymbal as an example because I usually set aside a channel for timpani, a channel for a chromatic mallet instrument, and only one left over for usually snare. So the combos would be good so I don\'t have to switch too much between snare, cymbal, or whatever.

[Simon Ravn]

I am with Donnie on this one. Load time is becoming more a pain with bigger and bigger libraries, so seeing a library that sort of returns to the \'good old AKAI\' philosophy is great. I\'d probably not use more than 1 or 2 different cymbals in a piece anyway. As for MIDI channels.... Tim, you do know that you have 4 MIDI ports in GS right? http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif I have ALMOST run out of channels with 4 ports sometimes, but JUST almost. And that is without any program changes, since I hate doing those (also because GS handles instrument numbers very badly).

[Doug Bircher]

Simon,

If you use more than one port, will controller messages written in Channel 1 of port one in Cakewalk affect an instrument playing in port two, channel one? I run into that problem in Cakewalk when I just create a new track using the same channel number that I\'ve already used (in the same port). I haven\'t tried setting up new channels in a second port.

[donnie]

Ok, I have down some .art file updates for the Timpani that let you keyswitch between hits and rolls and one that switches between the hand muffled strokes and the 3 strokes. If you would like these then just send me an email and I\'ll send them right over.

donnie@dssoundware.com

Donnie

[Haydn]

Doug,

Make sure your ports aren\'t linked in Giga. Cakewalk should not have problems with program changes on different ports.


Donnie,

I would like to see a combi for the timpani sound to easily change from single hits to rolls. How about an .art update?

The snares are just killer in this library!!

[timzydee]

I have that question too. I\'m using 96 so I only have two ports. When I originally bought the thing, I thought it could go beyond the usual 16 channels,but now realize that the ports are only used for mixing two gigs on one channel. Can you clarify how you use the ports to go beyond 16 independant channels? By the way, here\'s a setup I\'m looking at.

1 Flute
2 Oboe
3 Clarinet
4 Bassoon
5 French Horn
6 Trumpet
7 Trombone
8 Tuba
9 Timpani
10 Snare, Cymbal Bass Drum (new combo gig)
11 Harp, Mallets (sometimes need more here too)
12 1st Violins
13 2nd Violins
14 Violas
15 Cellos
16 Double Basses

[tomhartman]

Originally posted by donnie:
Ok, I have down some .art file updates for the Timpani that let you keyswitch between hits and rolls and one that switches between the hand muffled strokes and the 3 strokes. If you would like these then just send me an email and I\'ll send them right over.

donnie@dssoundware.com

Donnie<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Donnie, LOP sounds like a definite winner and I will be a purchaser.

I have one question though, and I mean no offense, because I\'ve seen this in other GIGA libraries. One of the big sales pushes of GIGA is that memory is nearly no longer a limitation. That said, why are sample developers STILL stretching samples across keys? I\'m referring to some of the posts here which mention your timps being stretched. Is there an update, or will there be, that doesn\'t have stretched samples? Avoiding stretching is the main reason I was attracted to GIGA.

Thanks!

[Simon Ravn]

It is not true that there are no limitations by memory. With a certain amount of memory you will be able to load a certain amount of samples. So I think it\'s fine stretching samples (stretching is the wrong word actually - since the REGION is just stretched - not the samples themselves, since that wouldnt help a bit), to save memory usage, where you can\'t really hear a difference. About a year ago EVERYTHING had to be sampled for every single key. Luckily that \'impress\' effect has worn a bit off with LOP (and possibly other libraries, including Maartens upcoming horns), so we still get really good quality, but at the same time save on loading times, memory etc. I like it.

[Jamieh]

Anyone have a recommendation on where to buy LOP from?

[Hasen]

Depends where you are in the world.

[tomhartman]

Originally posted by Simon Ravn:
It is not true that there are no limitations by memory. With a certain amount of memory you will be able to load a certain amount of samples. So I think it\'s fine stretching samples (stretching is the wrong word actually - since the REGION is just stretched - not the samples themselves, since that wouldnt help a bit), to save memory usage, where you can\'t really hear a difference. About a year ago EVERYTHING had to be sampled for every single key. Luckily that \'impress\' effect has worn a bit off with LOP (and possibly other libraries, including Maartens upcoming horns), so we still get really good quality, but at the same time save on loading times, memory etc. I like it.<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Well....I don\'t know. I don\'t care about load times. I care about the best quality I can get. And I hate the sound of stretched regions or whatever else you want to call it...I agree there are times when it seems to make little difference, but in my experience there are more times when it makes a big difference. Somehow or another, Kurzweil, years ago, managed to make a pretty good sounding Steinway with just a few notes. That was the exception. There are samples out there in very expensive libraries which I own, and most of the folks up here own, that make my skin crawl here and there as you go up the keyboard....they shall remain nameless;)

I will always prefer the best quality I can possibly get, over any convenience factor. If I didn\'t, I\'d still have a rack sampler and forget about it. My dollars will always go to the companies whose philosophy is the same....

[tomhartman]

Originally posted by Simon Ravn:
It is not true that there are no limitations by memory. With a certain amount of memory you will be able to load a certain amount of samples. So I think it\'s fine stretching samples (stretching is the wrong word actually - since the REGION is just stretched - not the samples themselves, since that wouldnt help a bit), to save memory usage, where you can\'t really hear a difference. About a year ago EVERYTHING had to be sampled for every single key. Luckily that \'impress\' effect has worn a bit off with LOP (and possibly other libraries, including Maartens upcoming horns), so we still get really good quality, but at the same time save on loading times, memory etc. I like it.<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Well....I don\'t know. I don\'t care about load times. I care about the best quality I can get. And I hate the sound of stretched regions or whatever else you want to call it...I agree there are times when it seems to make little difference, but in my experience there are more times when it makes a big difference. Somehow or another, Kurzweil, years ago, managed to make a pretty good sounding Steinway with just a few notes. That was the exception. There are samples out there in very expensive libraries which I own, and most of the folks up here own, that make my skin crawl here and there as you go up the keyboard....they shall remain nameless;)

I will always prefer the best quality I can possibly get, over any convenience factor. If I didn\'t, I\'d still have a rack sampler and forget about it. My dollars will always go to the companies whose philosophy is the same....

[Jamieh]

I\'m looking for a good US web retailer that sells LOP. I don\'t think Sounds Online sells it.

[DTrevino70]

You can get it here @ northernsounds, im planning on getting it too. They have two different prices posted does anyone know which one is the real one?

[DTrevino70]

399.00 and 380.00 dlls.

[A_Sapp]

Yea, the LOP is great. They\'re a few glitches here and there, but maybe just 4 notes out of the entire collection will have a glitch. That\'s it!

[Robert Kral]

timzydee:

I have the full Gigastudio version (160).

With this we get 4 ports of midi and 64 midi channels, not just the chained / linked ports as you describe.

Can anyone else here answer timzydee about his version of giga? I would presume with 2 ports you should be able to actually get 32 midi channels.

[Haydn]

Timzydee,

You should have 2 independent ports giving you 32 channels. The ports may be linked or you\'re not selecting them correctly in your sequencer.