IK Multimedia Orchestral Percussion

Thanks for posting this, Larry.  We also have a new video for Orchestral Percussion:
 

Bought and downloaded it this morning. I've been fiddling around with it for a couple of hours, so this is obviously a very preliminary assessment, but overall I like it -- especially the timp patches. Its nice to have some decent timp crescendos, including a patch that triggers a sample to close out the crescendo when you release the key. There are also timp patches for different mallet types, from soft to hard. The various instrument samples, so far, are all clean and sound good. The Grand Casa, in particular, is very nice, and has a good set of articulations and rolls. The orchestral snare is nice too -- pretty crisp, with a nice mix of strikes and rolls.
 
The library meshes well with the Cinematic Percussion library, and really does seem designed as a companion library for it -- for instance, there are no hanging cymbals or cymbal swells in the Orchestral library. Those are in the Cinematic one, so I think owning both would give you the most complete set of percussion options.
 
Audio loops are decent. There isn't a huge number of loops, but what is there should be useful for what I do.
 
However, I'm so-so on the midi patterns. I've auditioned a bunch of them, and while some are ok, others (especially the timp and snare patterns) sound pretty mechanical and unconvincing -- at least to my ears, anyway. In particular, I was hopeful that we'd get some good midi patterns for timpani crescendos. However, I find them to be very machine gun-ish (for lack of a better phrase), and really don't play nicely with the Orchestral Percussion velocity layers. Depending on which patch you are using with the midi crescendos, there is a very audible and unpleasant shift as it passes through different velocity layers, and it sounds really unconvincing. Admittedly, I just started fiddling with the midi patterns this afternoon, so I may not be using them correctly. I'll keep experimenting. I also haven't tried the midi patterns with other libraries yet, so maybe they will work better when used with EastWest or some of my Kontakt libraries.
 
Overall, though, I'm happy with the purchase. Used some of my Jam points to buy Orchestral Percussion, so its a pretty inexpensive addition to my libraries, with some useful features.
 
YMMV, of course.
 
Rob

Soundwise
Is there any significant difference between new Orchestral Percussion and MP1 percussion?

$99