All great suggestions. OK, so last night I started doing this: Since East West Gold is my wettest library, I figure I need to set everything to that. Now, the East West "Play" synth has a reverb called EW Hall, which happens to be the same as Northeast Hall in Spaces (which is also by EW). So, I figure that EW has already figured out the right amount of reverb for each instrument, and indeed, if I turn on the EW Hall reverb for each inst. on the Play synth, it all sounds good (except for the timpani, they have Dark Abbey on that and it's way too much, so I set that to EW Hall also). Then, I put the other synths (Aria, Dim Pro etc) on Spaces, and set that to NE Hall (again, same as EW Hall, but here I'm using it with Spaces, whereas with the EW inst's. I'm using EW Hall right on the Play synth -  again, EW Hall on the Play synth equals NE Hall on Spaces reverb). This is giving me a good balance so far. I'm considering adding a bit of native verb on the other synths, to see if I can fine tune things a bit. And I need to decide whether to put Spaces on each synth, or send them to a bus. One advantage of doing it this way is that I now don't need to group inst's on different synths, so I can use fewer instances of each synth. That way the resource drain is less, and I can afford to put Spaces right on the synth. It seems to sound better that way. Anyway, I'll let you know how it's going, and thanks for all the help.

michael diemer
...Since East West Gold is my wettest library....

Not to make things more complicated, but I just discovered this myself in EWSO and might make things easier on you: In the Player view for your EW instrument, down the center it shows all those key switches, right? Well at the bottom of most of them is something called "Release Trails". Uncheck the boxes next to those, and all of a sudden you lose all that "wetness" and have plain, dry sounds to which you can add your own effects! Woo hoo! I was so excited when I found that.
 
I had actually ponied up something like $100 for the "close mic" library, (no longer available as a standalone purchase btw) because it had drier sounds, but I might not have needed to had I discovered the Release Trails thing.

Sounds like you have a plan in motion Michael.  Let us know how it turns out (post examples!)

jkoseattle

michael diemer
...Since East West Gold is my wettest library....

Not to make things more complicated, but I just discovered this myself in EWSO and might make things easier on you: In the Player view for your EW instrument, down the center it shows all those key switches, right? Well at the bottom of most of them is something called "Release Trails". Uncheck the boxes next to those, and all of a sudden you lose all that "wetness" and have plain, dry sounds to which you can add your own effects! Woo hoo! I was so excited when I found that.
 
I had actually ponied up something like $100 for the "close mic" library, (no longer available as a standalone purchase btw) because it had drier sounds, but I might not have needed to had I discovered the Release Trails thing.

Yeah, I know about those things, but could never decide what to do about them. I'll try turning them off per your advice, Arlen.

Actually, I like it better with the tails on. Maybe because i'm used to it?

https://youtu.be/Q4Hirnibn3M?t=327
 
I've been taking this approach, but I don't do orchestral samples and compositions. I have 3 sends 2 3 busses, Early reflections on one, medium hall on the other and large(ish) hall on the third. I'm liking how I can set sounds up at depths in the space, pulling close sounds out of the large reverb, and letting others sit there without conflicting with the close reverb.   
 
I used to in my hardware days, have a reverb send and a delay send. I've gone off delay to a large extent, but where I do want it, it's usually on the one sound source, so I inserts works better here.
 

Kamikaze
I used to in my hardware days, have a reverb send and a delay send. I've gone off delay to a large extent, but where I do want it, it's usually on the one sound source, so I inserts works better here.
 

Hmm. I've read many threads recently on here and other forums where the tendency seems to be moving away from delays and back to reverb.