Shane_B.



On the subject of EQ'ing ... I thought I would mention a feature of Ozone that I haven't seen in any other EQ I've used, that has vastly improved my mixes and masters. Hold the 'alt' key and it will solo the frequency you are clicking on with your mouse. This would be a nice feature request for Sonar's Sonitus EQ.

Shane

noldar12


Randy, originally, EWQL gold had the one mic position, and Platinum had all three, including close and surround.

Recently, EW added, IIRC both of the other options for Gold, but at least the close mics for certain.

Having messed with EW, even the close mics have the lush hall sound in the samples themselves, but the reverb tail, since they use close mics, is fairly short. 

IMO, they can be used for chamber music, and they do sound more detailed than the regular mic position.  As for a dry sound, no, because of the hall they were recorded in.  One of the (few) things I like about Play is the ability to easily mix mic positions to help sculpt the sound you are after for any given piece.

In the end I still feel that the "time-worn" comments about EWQLSO remain true.  It will give you a very decent "Hollywood" sound out of the box.  But, there are reasons, when you go to EW's website, that while they may include a demo of Holst's The Planets, smaller orchestral works and/or small ensemble pieces are few and far between.

Curiously, EW just posted a Vivaldi excerpt using HS, and IMO, the EW HS mock-up left me shaking my head.  Suffice it to say it did not work (most of their "Hollywood" type demos of HS I find excellent, and some are beyond that).

As for the surround mics, they are even more awash in reverb (as expected).

Interestingly, the original purpose of the close mics was for emphasis during solo passages within orchestral works rather than for use as separate instruments.

You have, in essence, asked the question that underlies much ongoing discussion. 

EW's approach is to provide samples with reverb as part of the sample.  By doing so EWQL also can be used fairly well "out of the box."  Many do feel that EW's approach also yields a more natural sound than recording a dry sample and then adding convolution reverb.  The down side, as you implied, is the potentially limited range of applications for the samples.

VSL took the opposite approach, recording extremely dry samples that one has to add reverb to in order to have anything decent.  The advantage with VSL is flexibility of use of their samples - they can be used and placed in any setting the composer desires.  The difficulty is getting a resulting mix to sound good (MIR is potentially helpful in this regard).  As opposed to EW, VSL's demos include everything from solo instruments, to string quartets, to chamber works, to classical symphonies to "the Hollywood sound".  Honestly, IMO, EW does the Hollywood sound better.

Which library is better?  It all depends on the "sound" the composer is after for any given composition.

rbowser


Right, Michael - Samples that are dry, like VSL's, aren't meant to be used that way.  All samples sound "horrible" without reverb because that's totally unnatural.  In real life we always hear at least some room ambiance when we hear an instrument, even in a small room. 

But samples that are dry like that give the user the most flexibility.  You're supposed to use reverb appropriate to the piece you're recording when using dry samples like VSL's and most of the Garritan instruments.

Jose, thanks for the info - I'll listen to demos at the EW site to get a better idea of how dry they can actually be.   I don't care for the concept though, to have any reverb recorded with the samples.  That can make a library faster to get results "out of the box," but that doesn't interest me.  Complete control over the sound is what I like.

Thanks to everyone who picked up on my question.

Randy B.

Sure you can always add reverb in whatever amount you want.  But which one sounds more natural, the one recorded at the time the instrument was sampled or the one you add through processing?  There's no way to emulate all the phase correlations that go on in a real room when using artificial reverb.  Even Toontrack used a similar technique with Superior Drummer 2 when they sampled their drums.  They are limitations in how you can place the OH mics, but they also realized that there's nothing like the real thing and that's what makes SD2 stand out among the rest IMO.  Same thing with EWQL products, which is what I like about them.

Sure, I understand the theory you're talking about, Jose.  I still think dry samples are the better approach to libraries.  I'm thinking for instance of a friend who was doing a large project, mixing instruments from several different libraries.  He couldn't make the EW instruments blend with the others since they were wet samples, so he had to give up using them in that project.  More flexibility is needed.

lorneyb2

Shane_B.



On the subject of EQ'ing ... I thought I would mention a feature of Ozone that I haven't seen in any other EQ I've used, that has vastly improved my mixes and masters. Hold the 'alt' key and it will solo the frequency you are clicking on with your mouse. This would be a nice feature request for Sonar's Sonitus EQ.

Shane

Great tip there Shane.  I was not aware of that one.  Is there a way to decrease the Q to get a wider sweep doing that?

stevec

 
Even as a brand new GPO user, I can definitely see the possibilities by mixing and matching the various solo samples, "players" and sections, then adding FX to taste...    Sheesh, I was up to 2:00AM just going through patches.    
 

stevec

 
Thanks again, Randy.  I appreciate it.    Maybe I'll go register on the Garritan forums...
 

Alan T


Hello rbowser
 
Thank you for moving my post to the current thread and correcting my mistake; it was the Calvin Custer arrangement that Gary W used, not Michael Sweeney's as I stated.
 
I referenced both arrangers work for clues recently while I was rendering Jerry Goldsmith's original arrangement, which is not publicly available. I got mixed up as both arrangers use the same publisher (Hal Leonard).
 
Best Regards
 
Alan T