wst3
the original GOS was awesome, and somewhat larger than the entire GPO5... think I'm going to wait this time and let some of you all be the trail blazers...

I'm pretty sure the new GPO5 will be much bigger than GOS. I don't know exactly how big GOS was, but the new GPO is around 16gb, so I believe them when they say included almost everything from GOS. I'm guessing the biggest new edition to GPO is the GOS strings and that's why the size has increased so dramaticly. The other things they added shouldn't take up nearly that amount of space.

My first two libraries for GigaStudio were the Presonus Orchestra and GOS.
 
When GS went away, I switched to Kontakt 2, specifically for the Strad and Gofriller solo instruments. (I was still limping along with GS on a dedicated machine.) GPO was one of my early Kontakt purchases. I did some good work with it. And it was a wonderful learning experience.

As GPO (and JABB) went from one delayed release to the next I lost faith in Garritan the company.
 
I still don't make a ton of money from music production, but I have purchased a handful of the big(ger) dollar libraries, and I can tell you that they have trimmed hours of my time to complete a project. Don't kid yourself, they aren't perfect - at least none that I own - but they do let me work much more efficiently, and to my ears they do sound better with minimal effort.

So I would suggest, to those that think the higher priced libraries are in fact over-priced - if you are charging for your work you might want to take a look at them.

Specifics, for those that are curious...

I use Cinematic Strings 2 and 8Dio Adagietto and Agitato for most string parts. The dynamic bowing patches in Adagietto can be absolutely magical - I do with they would tempo sync though. And for more contemporary stuff I still find Kirk Hunter's Pop/Rock and Concert Strings libraries very useful.

I use Cinesamples core libraries for classical brass and all my woodwinds. I also still use Sampletekk Big Orchestral Brass to supplement.

I use Chris Hein's Compact Brass for pop stuff. I've also been toying around with Big Band Brass (a loop library), but thus far I haven't been all that thrilled. That might have been a poor purchase decision.

I think I have about 1 gazillion percussion libraries - I've lost count! But I use various percussion bits in just about everything I do. The Tonehammer/8Dio/Sound Iron libraries do most of the heavy lifting, for contemporary hand percussion I'm using Brio and Flying Hands a lot too.

I also have a bunch of pianos, but I find myself returning to the Sampletekk pianos most of the time. The Rosewood Grand from Orange Tree also gets a lot of use.

About two years ago I picked up a copy of Orchestral Essentials second hand, I've long been curious about the entire ensemble approach. For the better part of a year it just sat there and mocked my attempts to coax music from its bits. And then I started to get the hang of it. And once I did I became even more curious, so I picked up Albion 1.

I still turn to the more conventional libraries most of the time, but if time is a problem I can generate a pretty passable track using the ensemble approach. And I use them a LOT to add some sense of space or something (that magical glue).

And then this past fall a friend made me an offer I could not refuse - I was looking at Vienna Ensemble Pro and he suggested I try the basic Vienna libraries as well. It was a thinly veiled ploy to sell me his copy of their Special Edition Vol 1 (he had recently upgraded to their all-encompassing bundle).

This is not a simple instrument, or workflow, but dang, it is powerful! And the instruments sound great once you treat them with a little space (early reflections and reverb). Heck, they can sound gorgeous, and they layer really well with my 'older' libraries.

There are, of course, a number of other libraries I'd love to try, but these represent a material investment, so for now I think I'll continue to work with what I have.

Anyway, my point in all of this is that you can do great things with GPO - but I think you can do even better work, and work more efficiently  in the bargain, with the more complex/expensive libraries. And they aren't THAT much more expensive.

Any news ?

The beginning of the blog page mentions "by the end of February".
 
Maybe I missed the 18th comment...
 
Michael

GPO 5 now available... Go to garritan webpage, click on buy garritan today and it is there ready for everyone!

Let us know how you get on with it, what's the operational issues, quality, etc. I'm quite tempted by this myself.
 
For a February release, they took it to the wire
 
Cheers
Jerry

jerrydf
 
For a February release, they took it to the wire
 
Cheers
Jerry

That's why they chose Leap Year. It gave them that extra day...

However, I have not received a serial number from Time+Space, yet. They said they'd send those as soon as Make Music sends them out.
 
Michael

Fleer
Still waiting ...

Yeah, me too. I want to be impatient, but I know Time+Space won't even open for another 5 hours or so. Maybe it will be waiting for me in the morning.

Arcrex, I was thinking the same thing. I have not ordered yet, but I understand that GPO5 does not have Attack and Release controls in Aria for all instruments. I believe Instant Orchestra does however. I am a bit surprised they were not added. Those at the old Garritan Forum report that the strings, overall sound much better than in GPO4.

My preliminary take on GPO5: The woodwinds are even more lovely. Brass I'm still evaluating, but there is a lot of potential there. Percussion is improved, same with strings. Plus, you get Garritan Orchestral Strings, generally thought to be superior. I'm not sure about that; the new GPO5 strings are definitely a big improvement, although as usual I'll be using any number of string libraries, it's just the nature of the beast. I especially thought the bassoon #1 was gorgeous. I love bassoons. And the Eng Horn is a bit better. I was hoping for much improvement in the trumpets, but I'm not sure that will pan out, although they certainly are better. And I was hoping for really good pizz. bass and cello, but I'm not sure about that either. All in all, for 50.00 a great deal. 

I hope those of you that now have GPO5 will post back with your reviews of this update.

Sidroe
 Has anyone done the Aria Player update?...

I wouldn't think this would be necessary.  Seems odd that they would release GPO 5 with anything but the most current player.  That's just my feeling, though.  In the world of vsts, stranger things have happened...

Right, the latest Aria and engine is installed by default, and when you open a project, whatever you had loaded on the old Aria is loaded up on the new one, with the new instruments. And you have the option of using either GPO4 or GPO5. There is also a new drop-down menu on the left of the expanded Aria player, which is less cumbersome than the old way of selecting your inst.