Symphonic Instrument demos up!

[Mwailey]

Saw this posted at Northern Sounds, and thought you all might be interested.

Symphonic Instrument Demos

Its apparently a German site (I think) - the demos are listed under "Ecouter" on the left.

And after my first listen, I must say that I'm a bit dissapointed. You might as well just spend the extra $130 to get EWQLSO Gold, which sounds infinitely better. Oh well.

<small>[ April 30, 2005, 09:44 AM: Message edited by: MwaileyBear ]</small>

[jackorhythm]

Originally posted by MwaileyBear:
Its apparently a German site (I think)

francais

i thought it sounded pretty good but it's really hard to tell w/o a back to back demo of the same piece being played by the different libraries. it sure is getting interesting though with all these choices under $500-ewgold, gpo, motu, and there's a new vitous thing coming out too. maybe it's worth waiting another month or 2 and seeing what happens.

btw-listen to the solo violin on "calm fields". fantastique, non?

<small>[ April 30, 2005, 11:09 AM: Message edited by: jackorhythm ]</small>

[chrispick]

Originally posted by jackorhythm:

Originally posted by MwaileyBear:
Its apparently a German site (I think)

francais

i thought it sounded pretty good but it's really hard to tell w/o a back to back demo of the same piece being played by the different libraries. it sure is getting interesting though with all these choices under $500-ewgold, gpo, motu, and there's a new vitous thing coming out too. maybe it's worth waiting another month or 2 and seeing what happens.

btw-listen to the solo violin on "calm fields". fantastique, non?

Yeah, the "Calm Fields" violin sounded pretty good.

But, the other stuff...I don't know. It all sounds so "maximized" to me. Seemed lacking in dynamics, texture, room ambience. I'm not thrilled. But, I'll give it a more thorough listen and evaluation once it's officially released.

<small>[ April 30, 2005, 03:39 PM: Message edited by: chrispick ]</small>

[Mwailey]

Not to mention a few of the demos sounded too much like Elfman. I am so sick of all the damn pseudo-Elfman rip off music thats popular nowdays. I know that has nothing to do with the quality of the samples - but still, it annoys me!

<small>[ April 30, 2005, 03:30 PM: Message edited by: MwaileyBear ]</small>

[jackorhythm]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MwaileyBear:
[QBpseudo-Elfman rip off

i'll buy that-

a bit of cirque du soleil happenning as well-makes me think it might be a quebec websight rather than france french.

[cycless]

No, this is "france french language".
The price is in •‚¬ (Euro) not Canadian dollars.

Like the demos though.
Far better than the Garritans or EWSLO (how ever spelled, you know what I mean.
As for dynamics and sound they are o.k. I believe.
For THAT money 8 Gb. Not bad I‘d say.
The demos lack a bit in the ambient department,
but if you can load all the nice altiverb IR‘s (are we allowed to b.t.w., or are there copyright issues ???) this shouldn‘t fall short.

[chrispick]

Originally posted by cycless:
No, this is "france french language".
The price is in •‚¬ (Euro) not Canadian dollars.

Like the demos though.
Far better than the Garritans or EWSLO (how ever spelled, you know what I mean.
As for dynamics and sound they are o.k. I believe.
For THAT money 8 Gb. Not bad I‘d say.
The demos lack a bit in the ambient department,
but if you can load all the nice altiverb IR‘s (are we allowed to b.t.w., or are there copyright issues ???) this shouldn‘t fall short.

I wouldn't confuse the size of the library with the quality of the sound. Sure, bigger samples often mean better, richer samples, but it's not a given in all cases. I'd really like it if the MOTU Symphonic sounds great, especially for the price. I'm not hearing yet.

I'm patient though.

Anyway, the MOTU Symphonic is supposed to ship with its own convolution reverb. Presumably, this is to provide "real room" reverbs to the sounds, hopefully precluding ALtiverb and the like. Again, we'll see.

[jackorhythm]

[/QB][/QUOTE]]Originally posted by cycless:
No, this is "france french language".
The price is in •‚¬ (Euro) not Canadian dollars.[/QUOTE]

good catch

[/QB]

Originally posted by chrispick:
the MOTU Symphonic is supposed to ship with its own convolution reverb.

the verb is probably the same as in mach 5 which i find to be good but not as good as altiverb.

what would be great is if someone did a few MIDI files of several pieces/styles and imported them into each of these programs, spit out mixes and posted them somewhere(with pertinent comments on functionalityh) so we can all compare on a level field.

<small>[ May 01, 2005, 03:50 PM: Message edited by: jackorhythm ]</small>

[chrispick]

the verb is probably the same as in mach 5 which i find to be good but not as good as altiverb.

Being a stickler: MOTU's made a point of advertising the Symphonic reverb as being convolution, so presumably it'll be different than M5's reverb (which is not convolution).

Anyway, I just hope it's a reverb that's well-suited for orchestral sounds. In a case like this, specificity would be preferred over versatility (although I'll always take both, given the chance).

<small>[ May 01, 2005, 04:29 PM: Message edited by: chrispick ]</small>

[Mwailey]

Originally posted by jackorhythm:
what would be great is if someone did a few MIDI files of several pieces/styles and imported them into each of these programs, spit out mixes and posted them somewhere(with pertinent comments on functionalityh) so we can all compare on a level field.

I've seen this debated before on other forums - they all say that these big libraries aren't meant to be used like that. If you create a MIDI file using EWQLSO it may sound fantastic, but if you use that exact same MIDI file in VSL it might sound awful. Each library has to be tweaked to match its own characteristics.

I know that the MIDI tweaking I have to do to get Sonic Implant Strings to sound good is nothing like what I have to do to get EWQLSO strings sounding good.

[jackorhythm]

hhmmm...interesting.

here's a thought; what if a few MIDI files were posted and people were allowed to import them into their respective programs and tweak them as necessary and then post the results. perhaps then there could be some result for objective comparison. if there were several examples from the same library we could discern a difference in the library owners' styles and ability.

[jackorhythm]

okay, check this out-

i listened to "calm fields" 5 times to try to figure out if that solo violin is a sample and still couldn't get over how real it sounded so i asked a good friend (who's a great violinist and a full time professional here in nyc) to listen. his immediate comment was that it's either a real fiddle player or the best program ever. he based his judgement on such things as varying vibratos, pitch/timbre changes in the middle of notes which can only happen when a player manipulates his bow or left hand, and random bow noises, etc.

i guess we must remember that there are no credits or specs as to who did these demos or how. it is a foreign sales site trying to make money and not an official motu site that must represent their product honestly.

as that was the singularly most impressive element for me from these demos, i guess i'll still wait (hesitantly) beforejudgement.

[Bretlipowmixes]

After waiting patiently, and finally getting to hear a demo, I have two initial reactions after listening. First, I'm impressed overall. If those were in fact made with the instrument and its library, I think its definately worth it. Second, I'm a little skeptical. Well, make that more than a little. I haven't seen demo's anywhere else (sweetwater, audiomidi, etc), except this german site, which doesn't make any sense since MOTU is right here in Boston. I would think if MOTU released MP3 demo's, many of MOTU's distributors would have them available. Unless, perhaps the staff at this site came up with the demos themselves? I guess its possible. I don't understand why there isn't a proper product page on MOTU's site either. This demo seems too good to be true, and trust me, I want it to be true.

PS
I'd be more than happy if someone would correct me on this, and somehow prove that those demos are legit.

[cycless]

I am from France and I can asure you this is not a fake.

Univers-Sons.Com is a well known retailer here and they say on the site that the product is "announced".
Not that SI is available.

The composer, G. Roussel is well known here too.

I could imagine it‘s not an offical demo release of Motu though.
God knows how this could happen.
Reminds me of the prereleased master tapes of Madonna records or something like that.

Today I had the demos on Quad monitors in our studio and compared them
to Garritans, EastWest, Sonic Implants and my own Miroslav.

If I take into account that this are MP3‘s at a bit rate of 128 (I assume), they outperform anything else.
I don‘t like the reverb though, but this could depend on the low resolution bit rate of course.

I had a close look at the GUI: Clear arrangement.
There‘s one point I can‘t agree with: The amp envelopes are knobs, not faders.
Makes good graphics but for workflow this is a no no !
Same design as for filter envelopes please !