Orchestral Library For The Holidays

The way Dimension Pro works is driving me crazy. It's hard to teach an old dog (me) new tricks! So I'm considering whether the holidays is a good time to buy one of the lower-priced orchestral libraries (GPO, Philharmonik, or others) where I can just load a few instances of a VSTi and assign instruments using all 16 channels. That's what I'm used to.

As I have searched and read threads, it seems like the opinions I'm finding are getting dated. Some of you are well-tuned to the market and what tends to happen at what time of year. So I'm interested in hearing your takes on the relative merits of the products and the current state of affairs in this market. Big budget stuff is not an option.

I should add that while I can play, I am not the most accomplished keyboardist, so I plan to layer single or double note recordings and do a lot of editing to get my end result. I am concerned about the frequent comments that GPO requires a great deal of skill at mod-wheeling to get good results.

Comments open...

GPO is a great first library. As long as you take the time to read the manual working out how modulation works isn't too bad.

Another decent option is Kontakt 4, its more expensive but it is a full sampler and contains orchestral patches taken from VSL.

Just before Christmas is historically not a good time to look for music software bargains. Odds will be better come January. This year, it was July and August that saw the most amazing deals. I don't recall any GPO sales events, though. Ever.

In the meantime, concentrate on composing some good tunes. Those MIDI files will still work next January. Yes, Dim Pro is a hassle, not being multi-timbral. Still, it will work and the GPO subset that comes with DP is definitely usable. For that matter, you can do your composing with the TTS-1 and substitute it later.

You may as well also grab a copy of SampleTank Free. Not much in the way of good orchestral samples there, but it is free.

Yellowtools Symphonic orchestra is worth a look. It works with Independence Free and last year they has some sales on YT's download instruments over the holidays. It lacks solo strings but the the ensembles are very good. Brass and wind are also very useable.
 
http://www.yellowtools.com/cp21/cms/yt_shop/product_info.php?info=p69_symphonic-orchestra.html&XTCsid=48c1b6111748f38be852c91346a6c91d
 
 

Miroslav is indeed a somewhat dumbed-down, er, simplified library. It is easy to use. However, it lacks velocity layers, so it takes a little more work to make it sound dynamic. Miroslav works fine for people who just want backing tracks to sweeten pop/rock songs. For serious orchestrators, GPO would be a better choice.

IIRC, the Miroslav videos are using multis, where a bunch of instruments are loaded all at once and activated by keyboard range and/or velocity. Lots of fun for jamming and working up ideas, but not all that useful for serious composing.

bitflipper


Just before Christmas is historically not a good time to look for music software bargains. Odds will be better come January. This year, it was July and August that saw the most amazing deals. I don't recall any GPO sales events, though. Ever.

In the meantime, concentrate on composing some good tunes. Those MIDI files will still work next January. Yes, Dim Pro is a hassle, not being multi-timbral. Still, it will work and the GPO subset that comes with DP is definitely usable. For that matter, you can do your composing with the TTS-1 and substitute it later.

You may as well also grab a copy of SampleTank Free. Not much in the way of good orchestral samples there, but it is free.

GPO does have sales events - and actually the last 2 I knew about were at Christmas.  they do their sales events on the garritan website.  the last ones I knew about were "roulette" type sales.  you had to keep refreshing your browser to watch for when the sale item went up.  they rotated between their packages with as much as 50% off, IIRC.

Cakewalk did offer this as an Elite pack at one time.
Now they are offering Garritan's Jazz and Big Band as an SONAR Elite pack.
You never know what they might come up with next.  JABB is a nice package as well as the GPO pack they offer a mixed bag of elements you can really dig into.

Started a thread at Northern Sound source today, and I'm told there that it's normal for Garritan to have a holiday sale, and not to be surprised if I can get GPO4 for $99 soon.

Also today, I'm learning what strides have been made in notation software in the five years plus I've been away from MIDI music. It turns out, as most of you I'm sure already know, that special editions of Notion dedicated for use with either GPO4 or Philharmonik are available for only $89. Also, Finale 2011, available in an academic version for as little as $227, comes with an abbreviated GPO sound set. From interaction with some users and listening to examples, it appears these can be used quite effectively with limited or no keyboard use. I've downloaded the demos and hope to put them to the test tomorrow.

One thing that is tipping the scales for me is the tremendous community support available for GPO. I can't find any equivalent support for Philharmonik.

I've pretty much decided to go with GPO partly because of the potential upcoming sale, which I hope materializes, but even more so because it's clear that community support on the Northern Sounds forum is far superior to anything with Philharmonik I can find. That support will be crucial to my development with whatever product I would choose.

Also, having messed around with demos of three notation programs (Finale, Sibelius, Notion), I am still leaning towards Notion 3, primarily because I love the uncluttered user interface that puts the focus on the music itself. And it does not seem to sacrifice anything important to music production (as opposed to score printing). Feel free to chime in if you think I'm missing something with regard to this last statement.

One thing, though. I am running Windows 7 64 bit, Producer 64 bit, and DimPro 64 bit. The demo of Notion 3 wouldn't recognize my DimPro 64 bit VST. When I asked about it on their forum I was told to install DimPro32 bit and it would work fine, that Notion 3 is a 32-bit program but it would run well in a 64 bit environment. That statement seems true since the demo worked fine.

Can I install and run both 64 bit and 32 bit DimPro at the same time?

BIt weird say in Philharmonik there is no velocity layers becouse even GPO has these only in some percussions i understanded and in Philharmonik there is at least few sounds in few velocity levels in own instruments for example french horn i think. and i think both have own good and bad sounds. to my taste best harpsicord yet when i also need other sounds is GPO harpsicord.

Well, I ended up returning my keyboard, ordering Notion SLE for GPO, and upgrading to the full Notion 3 (since the upgrade path is overall cheaper than just buying Notion 3). Notion 3 is not a download, so I'll have to wait until next week to get it. Meanwhile, then, I wait for GPO4 to see if there is a $99 holiday sale. In the end I will have upgraded from Sonar 3 Studio to 8.5 Producer, purchased a good notation/softsynth control program (Notion 3), and added the soft synths DimensionPro, the Notion 3 sound including London Symphony orchestrals, and GPO4, all for $389. Not bad.

Thanks for everyone's input, and I'm looking forward to getting started with composing arrangements and using notation software as my primary input and control, with Sonar serving as a supplement and a mix-and-finish tool.

May you have a blessed Thanksgiving Day. Despite numerous difficulties, I have much to thank God for.