Nice guitars as well. There's a patch list somewhere. I just love Steven Wilson's music.

I've spent a fair bit of time with Hollywood Orchestra, and it continues to impress me. I've had it for about 6 months, and I'm still getting better at utilizing it in all its flexibility. Right from loading the first instrument it was clear that HO had quality sampling. It took a fair bit of experimentation to make it sound the way I wanted. However, flexibility, is a good thing, even though it's a complicating factor in the beginning. I consider it one of my two best purchases last year.
 

bapu

Fleer

Glyn Barnes
And Ghost Writer is the business!

Oh yes!

To each his own. I don't write Synth music and the (hour long?) vid I watched on Ghostwriter seemed to be VERY SYNTH ORIENTED. It did not inspire me in the least.
 

Not so much synth as "processed". Distorted cello, clavinets through a Leslie etc. There are some nice basses an guitars. Certainly not for everyone.

It also inspired me to try creating similar sounds myself.

Been downloading more, but yet to be blown away. Seems to lack some features I take for granted from other software, although most of this is user-error or ignorance. I don't really like having to work that hard to get something to sound good. I prefer something good out of the box that can be tweaked or changed, but still good and easy to play. Not sure this is for me. If I had the dough, I'd check out some other orchestral libraries. So far the only one that even gave me a chill was the Fab Four, but I don't think I would use it much. Some of the samples for orchestral, etc. are pretty good, but the whole Play interface leaves me colder than ice. Still, it's worth exploring a while longer, perhaps I'll change my mind at some point.

I get what some have been saying about the complexities of Hollywood Orchestra. When I first got HO, I felt the sting of not finding enough tutorial material. But now HO is my go to library. I was used to simpler libraries that "just worked" without a lot of fussing around. I'm glad I stayed with it. I found that there is a reason behind the way HO is put together but it took some time and effort to "get it". Now I find myself thinking of using something simpler and then going back to HO because I can't make the "simple" library do or sound like I want. 
 
For those who are interested here are some resources that might help:
From AskVideo.com - right now on sale for $11 US.
Play- http://www.askvideo.com/course/eastwest-101-learn-the-play-engine
Scoring - http://www.askvideo.com/course/eastwest-103-tools-film-tv-games 
This is the only real tutorial video on HO that I know of besides the few that Nick Phoenix did.
 
Various tips and tricks from the EW forums.
- Tips and tricks for relatively new people, 
- Seasoned composers - opinion needed
- Composing action/thriller music - Tips?
- Your favourite articulations from Hollywood series
- Essential Reading
 
The EW forums are certainly not as effusively helpful as here at the Sonar forums. But there are some good folks there like Lorenz W. (LMW).

+1 regarding Lorenz (LMW). Great support.

DRanck,
 
Thank you for your time and effort to provide the links.
 
John

+1, thanks David.

Appreciate the links, will check them out before I abandon my quest with EastWest... :)
 

In looking around, I'm thinking maybe Albion One would be a great library and a decent value. I really loved the videos on their site. I've heard great things about this, and if I can time it at a discount (I missed the upgrade path that was offered before), I think I would prefer this software to EW, at least at this point.