About to buy EastWest

[Gar23]

I've been looking into the east west collection for awhile now and I am thinking about finally buying one of them, most likely the ministry of rock or voices of passion. Before I add it to cart though i would like to ask a few questions.

The tutorials on youtube seem to show quite a bit but not everything. I use many different programs on the same machine (8 year old dell dimension 4500). Would doing something like running a program like ministry of rock and running sonar for recording be too much for anything but the current high-end computers?

Can you import midi that was notated by finale or sibelius into east west programs and then export the audio from the east west program?

Sorry for the amatuer questions and thank you for any input you can give.

-Gar

[A.Leung]

East Wests PLAY is NOT a sequencer. You can import midi files into your sequencer and use that with anything.

[Jonathan Kranz]

Can you import midi that was notated by finale or sibelius into east west programs and then export the audio from the east west program?

You can use PLAY as a plugin in both of those notation programs (as long as you are on current versions of each as plugin compatibility was recently developed).

-Jonathan

[persentio]

Your computer probably will have difficulty running multiple instances of PLAY on it.

[noldar12]

It is very easy to take a Finale file and transfer it to a sequencer, for much more in depth editing (though Finale's human playback features are very good).

Depending on whether you are Mac or PC different sequencers could be options: Sonar, Cubase on PC; Logic, Digital Performer, Cubase on Mac - I am sure I am forgetting some. Try some of the demos, and see which one you like, or you could simply stay within Finale. IMO better results are possible when composing in Finale (or Sibelius) and then working on the final performance in a sequencing program.

[peter5992]

Hey Gar:

Couple of points here:

1. Sibelius can plug in MOR and VOP and all other libraries by EW (I do that all the time), however using these libraries as VST instruments, only as of version 5. Do you have Sibelius 5?

2. Yes, it is possible to export midi files created in Sibelius into a sequencing program and then plug in the EW libraries. Like Allan said though, Play is *not* a sequencing program but a sampler / player.

3. An 8 year old Dell dimension computer? I have a six year old Dell desktop and that thing is a dinosaur - only use it to print documents and as a backup.

You'll have to give a little more info on your current setup - the EW libraries are great and there is a steep sale discount - but you don't want to buy something that your computer won't be able to handle.

[Gar23]

Yes, i've been getting the feeling that this computer is far beyond its prime. A family member just got a brand new Mac and I was floored by how nice it is. The only problem is that my budget is very very slim right now but I would really like to feel that i am progressing building my studio rather than starting the whole thing over again :( but you gotta do what you gotta do.

This is my hardware
Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz
512 RAM
Terratec Dmx6fire soundcard
Geforce 3 ti
Roland A-37 Midi controller
40GB hdd I have a 500Gb IDE Ultra ATA 100 upgrade in mind just as soon as I commit to EW
A pair of Soundheim(??) hd 204 headphones I got off a relative

And my software
Finale 2003 considering getting sibelius due to the overall cruminess of Finale
Cakewalk Sonar 2007
Anvil Studio
Orion Platinum
Audacity

I am sure after reading this you're thinking i need to start throwing money at my setup and for the price of roughly two EW programs I could get a very nice music dedicated computer.

As for my other questions. I know EW isn't a sequencer, I use sonar mostly to compile what I do with other programs like finale, orion and anvil and add some polish. What I was wondering is would there be some way that using this computer I could get clips of what I play in say, MOR, into sonar where i could do something with it? I am far from knowledgeable in this area (as you can tell :) ) When i studied music I took a couple of computer music classes but they paled in comparison to a school like Berkeley.

Sorry for the long read but I appreciate any responses I get.

-Gar

[ELP71]

Yes, i've been getting the feeling that this computer is far beyond its prime. A family member just got a brand new Mac and I was floored by how nice it is. The only problem is that my budget is very very slim right now but I would really like to feel that i am progressing building my studio rather than starting the whole thing over again :( but you gotta do what you gotta do.

This is my hardware
Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz
512 RAM
Terratec Dmx6fire soundcard
Geforce 3 ti
Roland A-37 Midi controller
40GB hdd I have a 500Gb IDE Ultra ATA 100 upgrade in mind just as soon as I commit to EW
A pair of Soundheim(??) hd 204 headphones I got off a relative

And my software
Finale 2003 considering getting sibelius due to the overall cruminess of Finale
Cakewalk Sonar 2007
Anvil Studio
Orion Platinum
Audacity

I am sure after reading this you're thinking i need to start throwing money at my setup and for the price of roughly two EW programs I could get a very nice music dedicated computer.

As for my other questions. I know EW isn't a sequencer, I use sonar mostly to compile what I do with other programs like finale, orion and anvil and add some polish. What I was wondering is would there be some way that using this computer I could get clips of what I play in say, MOR, into sonar where i could do something with it? I am far from knowledgeable in this area (as you can tell :) ) When i studied music I took a couple of computer music classes but they paled in comparison to a school like Berkeley.

Sorry for the long read but I appreciate any responses I get.

-Gar

1) Long story short, you don't have the machine to have anything other than a series of frustrations with any current sample library, let alone any PLAY library which tax even the highest spec'd machines.

2) Again, the SEQUENCER - Sonar, etc - is what triggers MOR or any other plug-in. These are collections of samples. All the sound will 'come' from MOR but will be initiated in the sequencer. You can render the sequence to audio by track or as a mix.

But again, your machine MAY do one instance of a simple sample, and maybe not even that.

[noldar12]

You really will need a new computer. Your system really cannot handle Play. Maybe you could do a bit if you were able to increase your Ram to 2 gigs, but as ELP71 said, you would be in for nothing but frustration. If you could build your own PC, even a small shuttle system could get you in the door. IMO, when facing serious budget constraints, PC's have some advantages over Mac. Shuttles have room for two internal hard drives, something one cannot do with a Mac Mini.

Something else to explore is that if you were to upgrade to Finale 2009, you should be able to trigger EW Play sample libraries directly from within Finale.

[waldorf&stadler]

Yikes! Interesting thread title which made me shudder, especially as the starter is called "Gar" :eek:;)

[Gar23]

Yikes! Interesting thread title which made me shudder, especially as the starter is called "Gar"

huh?

Anyway, thanks for the help, sounds like i know where i need to spend the money. Is there anyone who could suggest a good upgrade? Another Dell? (not a chance in heellll) Or maybe i'll try making my own for a change :)

Oh I get it, About to buy East West, maybe after some hefty donations to the Gar is F'ing poor, help HIM help THE ECONOMY!

-Gar

[peter5992]

Hey Gar23:

First of all, don't pay attention to the previous poster - I didn't get that either. If you are coming in here and say that you are interested in EW libraries but somehow doubt that your computer is powerful enough, I, and most people around here, do take you seriously.

That said, the best thing for you to do is probably to buy a new computer - don't even think about upgrading your existing computer. You'll have to overhaul everything etc etc, which may be more expensive than just buying a new system with everything fully integrated and tested. Take advantage of holiday savings.

Now as to recommendations, that is really tough. If I were to start afresh right now, I'd probably get a pretty powerful HP laptop as well as a separate dedicated windows computer that would have the biggest CPU and the most RAM and the fastest and biggest hard drives that money can buy right now.

To put things in perspective though, I don't have the latest and greatest computers, and I can still run all of the EW libraries (those that I have which are most of the latest major releases) smoothly, with limitations:

* On my HP laptop (windows vista 32 bit, 1.6 ghz processor, 2 GB ram), with an external hard disk I can run MOR, Gypsy, VOP, SO (NI version), Goliath, SD2. But if I stack up too many instruments the whole thing comes crashing down.

* On my slave / standalone computer (windows xp 32 and 64 bit, 8 GB RAM, four hard disks with 250 / 500 / 500 / 1,000 GB space) I can run everything pretty smoothly.

* I like to use Sibelius wherever and whenever I can - in a 32 bit I can plug in all EW libraries as a VST plugin, in a 64 bit environment I have 8GB RAM and though I cannot use the EW libraries as VST plugin I can hook them up through a midi loopback connector.

Hope this is helpful --

Peter

[waldorf&stadler]

Sorry, I didn't mean any offense. It was just a stupid joke about an alternative meaning of your thread title (which really struck me at first sight) and your username which reminds of EW's "arch-competitor".

If you like your relative's Mac mainly for the OS you could build a new PC based on the EVI-X recommendations and maybe get the best of both worlds at a later time:

http://www.efi-x.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26&language=english