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Garritan's Personal Orchestra


Magpel

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I don't do a lot of "serious orchestration," so I've never invested in the high end and top dollar libraries like Vitous, etc. Still, I would love to have a good pallette of orchestral sounds, and every attempt I've made to find them cheap has failed, from ROMplers to soundfont hunting to that crappy Conexant Gigasampler GM library. Yuck.

 

Garritan's new product looks really interesting. The sound quality should be high, and the personal ensemble making feature sounds excellent. Garritan is now yet another developer to go the standalone route. The trend continues.

 

Check it out

Check out the Sweet Clementines CD at bandcamp
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I really hope this product sounds good and has enough articulation options. Besides that, it sounds like the perfect product at the perfect price point for a certain segment of the market (that would include me!). I just hope it doesn't cut so many corners that it sounds "cheap" compared to the big libraries. It seems almost too good to be true. I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed on this one, though.
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  • 4 months later...

PatAzz, nice composition, but the strings definitely don't do it for me - the rest of the instruments might be convincing, but the string sections still sound artificial, especially compared to his full set (well, duh!) It's mostly on the releases, there's a very synth-y decay tail that screams rompler to me.

The horns are pretty good, and percussion, but the piano does not match my Giga options (Bardstiown Bose, Post Bose.) Again, this figures, and it's certainly good enough for mock-ups, which I believe its its primary purpose, but I probably wouldn't release an 'orchestral' recording with those strings prominently displayed.

 

(I've ordered it anyway, it's useful to have an entire orchestra in one place, raaher than constructing from Giga vendors and trying to match ambience.)

 

Again, nice work. Did you post this at northernsounds? Didn't see it.

 

Dasher

It's all about the music. Really. I just keep telling myself that...

The Soundsmith

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Nice writing, man.

 

I've heard a ton of samples of the GPO...and for $249 it aint bad. My issue is with the RAM requirements. Although I probably wouldn't be doing much (if any) MIDI sequences with the software (I'm used to the 'play live into multitrack' thing). So if I'm loading single voices or sections...that means 512 MB of ROM will do...right?

Weasels ripped my flesh. Rzzzzzzz.
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mike, Mini's strings kick GPO's ASS (it's not even close) but again, we're venturing into that, "sure, a civic is cool, but check out the features of the A6" world. Mini comes ONLY with strings, sellf for $500 and requires Gigastudio, so in essence, we're looking at over a $1000 to get a "full" orchestra, and that's a minimum, whereas as GPO, with a so/so orchestra (DO NOT try any solo cello lines) only sets one back about $250...

 

If I had my choice, I'd get Sonic Implants Strings, Vienna Pro edition and Garriton's full version, and get a couple of Giga machines (or maybe a dozen of them), but in this csae, I think Magpel wants a CHEAP solution. :D

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Very nice stuff Pat. Quite different from what I've heard from you in the past. I tend to agree with Dasher regarding the strings. What kind of articulations does it come with? One nice thing about using the Kompakt engine is that it should be very easy to change the attack/decay on any of the instruments.

 

OT, are you up for an early morning GC sale? President's Day sale tomorrow. Opens at 8:00.

 

Busch.

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PatAzz, nice composition, but the strings definitely don't do it for me - the rest of the instruments might be convincing, but the string sections still sound artificial, especially compared to his full set (well, duh!) It's mostly on the releases, there's a very synth-y decay tail that screams rompler to me.

First congrats Pat, great recording. As to the quality of the instruments, I think they could be completely convincing, but the acoustic space wasn't right for me. It was a bit too dry, didn't sound like a concert stage or even a sound stage to me. That gave them away as samples the moment I heard them.

 

Casey

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Wow. Tough crowd. I have not heard a real orchestra enough to make a judgement on the authenticity and will not compare it to other sample sets.

 

I will say it is a nice arrangement, and seems much better than what you get from a Roland or Kurzweil expansion ROM which is around the same price. I do worry about the copy protection system and wonder how easy it is to get new installs whenever you replace a HD or motherboard.

 

Robert

This post edited for speling.

My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page

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Yeah Rabid, definitely not knocking the arrangement here, if anything it's so good that it lets you _really_ judge the sample quality without letting problems with the arrangement get in the way. I would also agree with your assessment RE: ROMplers. Definitely much better than the typical offerings there.
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Originally posted by Rabid:

I do worry about the copy protection system and wonder how easy it is to get new installs whenever you replace a HD or motherboard.

 

Robert

I don't trust anything with "activation" requirements, which kept me away from GigaStudio and Vocaloid and even Windows XP so far, having learned my lesson from TurboTax in 2002 with that activation debacle.

That said, I'd like to see a version of Garritan Strings in Native Kurzweil format, as I've a huge investment in hardware samplers and would like to keep it all hardware.

BTW, I can't get to the link to hear that sample music...it's coming up not found.

Best Regards,

 

Mark A. Weiss, P.E.

www.ampexperts.com

-

 

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Originally posted by cg1155:

PatAzz, nice composition, but the strings definitely don't do it for me - the rest of the instruments might be convincing, but the string sections still sound artificial, especially compared to his full set (well, duh!) It's mostly on the releases, there's a very synth-y decay tail that screams rompler to me.

First congrats Pat, great recording. As to the quality of the instruments, I think they could be completely convincing, but the acoustic space wasn't right for me. It was a bit too dry, didn't sound like a concert stage or even a sound stage to me. That gave them away as samples the moment I heard them.

 

Casey

Thanks, I appreciate all the feedback.

 

This was my first try at "an orchestral" arrangement in a long, long time. Considering I didn't get a huge amount of time to play with it, I'm pretty happy even though I, too, agree that the strings (high strings specifically) need some work, but it's probably me that's not doing them justice as far as performances go. I think it's in good enough form to start tweaking the strings to make them more realistic. I have Gary's GSO Lite, so I may do some A/B comparisons there.

 

As for the "room", I agree. Gary Garritan responded to my post on his forum and offered a couple of suggestions. I'll get around to trying them ASAP and repost an update... It helps when the personal responsible for the tool gives you some hints.

 

Thanks for the listen. If you're interested Gary's got a huge number of demos on his site , some of which are truly amazing realizations.

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Pat, I've heard a number of demos for GPO, and the strings have always let me down - until the Rites of Spring demo on northernsounds. The strings aren't as prominent, but I love the result - far and away the best work from GPO. (Of course, I love ROS, and that may excuse a multitude of sins.)

 

But this composition, and the overall result, is still very creditable, IMHO. I have to admit I could not pull it off (so who am I to complain...) :rolleyes:

 

When I get my copy, I'll be doing some pop orchestral tests (for live gig backing tracks) and if I like the result, I'll post as well. Good luck, and keep writing.

 

Dasher

It's all about the music. Really. I just keep telling myself that...

The Soundsmith

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