KONTAKT alternatives to EWQLSO??

Hi

I was looking at the East-West Sounds on Line site and they are currently running a %50 off sale which is tempting me to buy either the EWQLSO silver or Gold at half price.

I am getting into KONTAKT though and hesitant to get a whole other interface going. EWQLSO uses their own sample play back VSTi called PLAY which I have read mixed reviews of.

So I am reticent to invest in large sample content that runs separate from KONTAKT. Is that silly? Maybe for $99 (+ cost of iLOCK) I should just try silver.

or is there comparable third party content out there that runs in KONTAKT?

Thanks

 

There is a huge choice of orchestral libraries available for Kontakt both for the free kontakt player http://www.native-instruments.com/e...ditional-sounds/third-party-sample-libraries/

and also those requiring full Kontakt.

 

Any suggestions as to which ones are comparable to EWQLSO (silver or Gold) in terms of quality, ease of use, number of articulations, computer resources required etc, costumer service ( i hear is rather good over at East-West).

I know EWQLSO used to be available in KONTAKT format, I don't know what changed in the relationship between the 2 companies, but just saying that I already would have purchased it if it was still in KONTAKT.

 

There are loads, Spitfire audio, Audiobro, Cinestrings, 8dio and many more. Personally I would get the full version of Kontakt and see how you get on with the included librarys.

 

Thanks for those suggestions.

I have full version of KONTAKT (Komplete Ultimate 9)

I find the included orchestral sounds a bit lacking - great for other stuff though

 

I had a short look ... EW Symphony Orchestra Gold, iLok needed and only 16 Bit samples ... no thanks!

340€ for 16 Bit samples and than this iLok crap ... never.

Call me a freak or whatever, but your band Jaffa Road deserves audiophile recordings, so in my opinion 24 bit and 48 kHz are a must.

 

My first Orchestral Lib. was EW Gold and the old player before they released their new player so some things may have changed.
I still use and like the percussion instruments, even though they have limited velocity layers and sometimes
the transition from one layer to an other is too much of a change for me.

I soon found the other instruments in Gold very limiting. Of course, this is just my subjective opinion.
My issues:
1) The hall ambiance/reverb recorded on the samples began to become difficult, for me, to work with.
I see it as limiting the possibility for a feeling of closeness and it makes it difficult, for me, to play with sensitivity.
And the reverb can't be turned off as it's recorded on the samples.

2) Poor playability because of inconsistent sample start times in many many instruments.
A general example would be you play a G and the G# and F# surrounding it have a different timing/feel making it impossible to play a part without having to either compensate for the different timings, or fix it in the piano roll view by sliding notes.
With even a fully quantized track and the same velocity for each note the ones with the different start times need to be slid off the grid,
forwards or back to make a consistent sounding performance.
I also found inconsistencies in start times for the same note relative to the velocity layer.
Of course the makes sense to some degree, but when it seems random, and not based on musicality and playability,
it begins to be a problem, for me.

So, I needed a change and bought Kirk Hunters Emerald for Giga.
Playability is exceptional. There is some ambiance recorded to the samples but it's way cleaner and never a problem for me.
Much more potential for intimate expression as well as bombastic ...
The weak parts for me were the wood winds, even though very usable, they're just a bit odd for me.
My go to for wwinds is now and oldie ... "Advanced Orchestra" for Giga ... converted to Kontakt.
... and percussion isn't as good, for me, as the EW Gold percussion. But it is all a mater of taste.

I then bought Kirk Hunter Diamond for Kontakt about 6 months ago and it's really really nice and a great price also.
The newer samples are more well rounded and really smooth and close, AND, Diamond still has all of the old Emerald and Ruby instruments.

My only complaint with the KH libraries are the documentation format is in html and very difficult to navigate and even after than some things just aren't explained well enough. You have to figure them out on your own or ask someone.

 

I'm curious as to see how the new NI Emotive Strings (in conjunction with Action Strings) compares to EWQLSO Gold (strings only of course).

 

I expect Emotive to blow away Gold ... seems to be similar and a nice addition to Action Strings, which is also made by Dynamedion. But I think the price of both NI string products is a bit high. I have Action Strings bundled in Komplete 10 Ultimate and find it outstanding, though limited to it's designed purpose, which I would call "dramatic cinematic strings phrases". Emotive Strings seems to fill the gap to "soft melodic cinematic strings phrases" as I would call it.

PS: Here's a promo video showing, that both NI string products were made the same way by the same musicians and producers:



Here's a demo video of Action Strings, which is concepted similar to Emotive Strings, so you get a feel for the workflow, in case you never used it yourself:

 

Its not really comparing like with like as emotive strings/action strings have a very different usage/target to EWQLSO. A more accurate comparison for action strings/emotive strings would be Capriccio http://www.sonokinetic.net/products/classical/capriccio/

 

Yes, but that also has a too low sample rate ... 44.1 kHz is not appropriate for film music, where the standard is 48 kHz.

Just my opinion.

 

The difference between 44.1k and 48k is not really THAT huge. Especially since Kontakt resamples on the fly no matter which sample rate you're working on. For orchestral samples 44.1k is just fine when everything is considered (also, it's very likely that Sonokinetic recorded at a higher sample rate like 96k/24-bit then resampled down for the release to bring the CPU usage down).

You'd be hard-pressed to hear any discernible difference between 44.1k and 48k in the mix.

It's literally apples and oranges - you can't compare them directly at all since they are fundamentally different in concept and execution.

 

That depends on the used equipment. In my case, I use a Beyerdynamic T90 headphone, that has such a fine resolution, that e.g. NI West Afrika's string instruments sound like crap below anything of 96 kHz. I hear very clearly sample noise ... annoying.

So in "modern" times I'm astonished, that Kontakt instruments or similar products that are more than obviously targeted for film music don't come sampled at 24/96. Audiophile productions are not possible with such 44.1 kHz instruments ... at least in my opinion

 

...yet many are done day after day and nobody really notices! So the "audiophile productions are not possible" is really a not valid point. Or even an opinion.

With orchestral libraries a large voice count is usually necessary. 96k/24-bit samples more than double the CPU load, that's why those libraries are resampled to lower sample rate - this allows greater voice counts, yet contains the CPU usage.

Also, rest assured that the noise you supposedly hear (it's most likely just cognitive bias since you KNOW that you changed the sample rate, so your brain is telling you there's something there, hah. Usually resampling artifacts are way below -100 dB, which is not really discernible by human ear, so there goes that point too, this is pure science.) is nothing compared to MP3 compression whole world is subjected to day after day after day. Yes, even with those "audiophile productions", they all end up compressed afterwards. So it's all a moot point.

Stop quibbling about specs and go make some music instead. 44.1k or whatever - it doesn't matter as long as the composition itself is good! Most of all, the listener doesn't really give a flying fvck about what sample rate the libraries used in production were. Or if it's a real orchestra or samples. Or whatever.

 

Good idea.

For sure the crowd of HiFi enthusiast is very small today. Most music consumers nowadays never heard audiophile music

 

And even if they heard it, I very much doubt they would actually hear any difference!

 

EXACTLY!

Yes I planed on shouting it!