GPO vs. EQWL

[tylerwbennett]

I hope it won\'t be difficult to get an unbiased opinion in this forum. I am about to purchase my \"orchestra plug-in\" and I am torn between GPO and EQWL Symphony (silver). I would like to know if anybody has used both, and if so what are the benefits of GPO?

I spent the early part of the 90\'s as director of my own orchestra (The Tyler W. Bennett Orchestra) in support of corporate awards ceremonies, and wrote and produced music for radio and TV commercials. I took some time off of writing and producing to father a handful of children. When the time came to get back to where I belonged (I KNEW it would happen if I was patient), the technicological (is that a word?) landscape had progressed so far! I knew that would happen too.

I awoke from my great sleep to find that the nearly $100K investment I had made in my digital studio was (sigh) obsolete and probably worth a couple thousand on ebay. I\'m so pleased that the capabilities have expanded at the same rate that the cost has diminished.

But enough about me, back to the question. My main areas of interest are prioritized as follows...

Realism of the samples (fooling the ear)
Usability of the samples
Ease-of-Use
Stability
Affordability

So in lieu of a \"trial version\" of GPO I wondered if anybody out there could calm my nerves. I\'m not Donal Trump and this is still a sizable investment. Honestly, based on the mp3 demos I am leaning toward GPO.

Thanks so much in advance for your help.

Tyler

[FossMan]

Well, I did an on-line search for \"EQWL Symphony\" and came up with zilch. What is EQWL short for?

[MalteRathke]

Hey Fossman,

it\'s a typo and should read \"EWQL\" - it\'s the East-West-Quantum-Leap-Symphonic-Orchestra-Silver-Editon or EWQLSOSE [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

And Tyler, although I own GPO, I won\'t make any precise statement yet as I didn\'t spent enough time with it. By now - for me - it has it\'s strong and it\'s weak points and I bet this applies to all minor (or even major) libraries out there. Also, I don\'t own EWQLSO and can\'t compare (except for some demo mp3s). In my opinion GPO isn\'t so good in fast, powerful passages - I \"heard\" this isn\'t so in EWQLSO. It seems that neither library is a complete winner when it comes down to the overall soundrange of an orchestra. You will definitely find some superb sounds in GPO that are not available in EWQLSO and vice-versa. Without a demoversion it is really hard to judge which library has the sounds you need and I bet it will come one day that you have to complement whatever library you buy of the both (maybe even with the other one, as I know some people own both). At the end, I guess the support from Gary and this community is unmatched [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Malte

[Francesco]

Hi Tyler,
personally (as you can see in the DEMO page) I love GPO(I\'ve heard both). There are many points over your needs that may convincing you to go with GPO:


1 - Realism of the samples (fooling the ear)
The basic concept of the GPO let you achive the best realism at that price. Using the ModWheel you can do very expressive crescendo-diminuendo. It is extended to some percussion instruments such snare rolls, cymbal rolls and similar, so you control the crescendo, and not (as in the traditional way used in the EWQLS) the crescendo controls you. Moreover you will find in the GPO many more instruments than the EWQLS (Contrabassoon, Contratuba, oboe d\'amore....).
Moreover there are 2 controls called VAR 1 and VAR 2 which let you choose the amount of a random intonation and a random dynamic (often happen to the brass as you know). The EWQLS don\'t have it

2 - Usability of the samples
I\'ve tried the EWQLS, Vienna symphonic library, Symphonic strings and other similar libraries, and I can assure that nothing is more easy than the GPO. More information on the Control webpage from the mainsite http://www.garritan.com

3 - Ease-of-Use

You have to Load and Play. Is there something easier?

4 - Stability
The Kontakt player which comes with GPO has a great stability. Anyway Gary has released as well 3 updates till now,and more are in development (the library was out on december 2003), the EWQLS nor 1.

5 - Affordability
there is a little difference in price, but a great difference in contents. With GPO at 249$ you get all you need to start (sequencing program, notation program, reverb and GPO studio host which let you use GPO with your favourite notation program). All the programs are FULL VERSION (so they don\'t shut down after 5-10-30 days of use). With EWQLS at 299$ you get only the library and the Kompakt player to play the samples.

6 - (I ADD) ENSEMBLE MAKER
With Gpo you can build ensembles as in the real world. I did a strings demo (called TILL THE END) where I\'ve used 32 single instruments (9 first violins, 7 second violins, 4 violas, 9 cellos and 3 basses). So when I want to go on divisi with (for ex) the 1st violins, I split the section by 5 playing a line and 4 playing another, obtainig the real sound and balance as in a real orchestra. With EWQLS you can\'t do that, because you have predeterminated sections (such 18 1st violins). When you go on divisi and play two separated lines whithin the same section, you got the sound of 36 violins.
With GPO you can make ensembles of any size.
YOU control the sound, not the opposite.

7 - (I ADD) INSTRUMENTS
With GPO you got some rare solo instruments, such as Stradivari, Gagliano and Guarnieri violins - Montagnana Cellos, just to say a couple. they are very well programmed and expressive. In the EWQLS seems that they don\'t care so much of the solo instruments.

8 - (I ADD) CUSTOMER CARE
I don\'t know the customer care service by EWQL, but I can assure that Gary and his team are very kind and always try to make their customers Happy.
I hope I\'ve calmed your nerves [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
hope everything is clear and remember that I\'m at your disposition for more questions.

all the best
Francesco

[dnortana]

I\'d like to amplify on ease of use.

With GPO you do not have zillions of different articulations, perhaps scattered across several different computers in your network, to sort through to find the right sound. For the most part, you load the basic instruments you want, on a single computer, and the programming for that instrument takes care of the articulation problem automatically.

This approach strongly simplifies the workflow, and avoids the inspiration-stopping \'find the right sound\' sidetrack entirely. I find this to be a huge plus for GPO.

Also, sound versatility hasn\'t been mentioned. Because the reverb choice is left to the user, you have the flexibility with GPO to be small and intimate, like a chamber ensemble, to huge and bombastic at the other extreme. This is not possible with a sample library that was sampled with a large hall\'s ambience. This flexibility is another big plus, if you will be writing for varying size \'venues\'.

Trond

[Mike Kelley]

Franceso (the expert) has pretty much laid it all out but I\'d add that if the Big Band add-on comes to fruition any time soon GPO will be in a very unique position when it comes to orchestra libraries -- nothing EWQL has can compare to this feature.

(So, please, please Gary and Tom get this out soon!)

[tylerwbennett]

Thank you all for your input. I am convinced that I should purchase GPO, if for no other reason than to become part of this wonderful community. Reading through all of your posts, listening to all of your music, and seeing all of the support that you give one another is encouraging. But the open arms with which you welcome a newcomer \"nobody\" like me is truly moving, and I\'m genuinely touched. Thanks again.

[runamuck]

Hi,

I own both libraries. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. I honestly could not say that one is better than the other.

Garritan\'s support, though, is second to none.

Jim

[nexus]

Well in addition to Francesco\'s detailed comments (well done!) I\'ll add GPO is very much a \'composer\'s tool\' kind of product and is the choice where ultimate control over your orchestra is desired. Also there sure aren\'t any missing instruments in THIS orchestra!
Man is GPO complete!

I am going to be purchasing the Silver edition shortly. I could not bear to be without GPO though, that\'s why I bought it first.

I don\'t think Silver will be a good timbre match for GPO, though from what I heard in the demos. There is still much natural (though lovely) ambience in the Silver.

A better timbre-mate would be VSL Opus, but it\'s pricey.

I currently have had good luck using some sounds from my Edirol HQ orchestra to pair up with GPO. I cannot use the \'far\' samples in my SAM brass at all with GPO, and those are the ones I like best in that collection. They would match perfectly with the Silver however.

Lastly, you just CANNOT beat Gary\'s customer support and attitude and this alone should make you want GPO!

If you want more detailed info on this topic, just search back here and over on EW forum. You\'ll find loads of stuff and many opinions.

[Mike Kelley]

Originally posted by nexus:
Well in addition to Francesco\'s detailed comments (well done!) I\'ll add that there is probably one area that GPO must bow to Silver and that\'s in the area of aggressive \'film score\' types of things (listen to the fine demo \'Blackwing\' on the Sounds Online website to hear exactly what I mean.

<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I don\'t think this is true -- certainly Francesco could shed more light on this (and perhaps even Gary and Tom) but for one thing we don\'t know at all if these libraries are playing on the same level field.

My (limited) understanding of Silver is that it is programmed as sections -- thus no ability to \"get intimate\" since you can\'t reduce those sections. But the reverse is not true of GPO -- you ought to be able to build up instruments to make the same sections, and thus achieve the same \"punch.\"

As a matter of fact, I\'m almost positive of it: only my lack of talent would keep me from proving it. And you also have to know what post processing has been applied to those Silver samples.

Ideally someone with both could take the same midi file in the same application, such as Sonar, and only switch out the libraries and compare the results. GPO would need to have been assembled so the sections matched up, of course, but that should be the only tweaking either one provides. My guess is the sound would be very similar.