Platinum close mic question

[hypolydien]

Hi,

I now own the Play Gold version, and I might be interested to upgrade to Platinum before the holiday sale ends.

I do have a few questions. What I am looking for is some dryer samples than the ones in the gold version.

I am a string teacher. I do conduct a student orchestra and I write a lot of arrangements / transcriptions of Mozart, and Haydn symphonies, and of baroque concerto grossi of Handel, Vivaldi, Corelli and the likes.
I have in the past made play along practice versions for the students, using mostly the string from the old Siedlaczek Advanced orchestra strings or the strings included in Cakewalk’s Dimension Pro. I have never been able to use the EWQLSO strings for that purpose( I have owned and used the Kontakt Gold version for several years) because of the natural reverb, which is beautiful for listening purposes, but is much too undefined for play along purposes.

So my question to Platinum users is: Do you think the close mic samples of the Platinum version would work for play along purposes? Or is there still too much reverb from the hall in those samples as well?
It would sure make my life easier if they do, because I could produce demo listening versions with the stage mic position and then simply run the same versions through the close mic position for the play along versions.

I have search the forum and found this link with an example of close mic position.
http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/s...QLSO+close+mic
I am wandering if anyone would have a close mic example with strings only.

The other solution would be for me to purchase a studio recorded library like the Siedlaczek String Essentials (which is also on sale right now) to produce the play along versions from dryer samples. Especially since I do not do much writing for full orchestra. However, if I do that and would still want to use the EWQLSO strings to produce lusher listening versions, I would probably have to program everything twice, since midi programming from one library rarely translates well into another.

I know that the ideal solution would be to have both the Platinum Play and a studio library, but I can only afford one right now. Also, the Best Service libraries seem to be on special a lot less often than the EastWest ones. I must say EastWest is quite generous with special offers

I am running Windows XP 32bits on a Q9950 PC with 3.25 gigs of RAM. 2 internal drives; one for system and applications, one for samples library. 2 external USB drives; one for data and one for backups.

I would appreciate any suggestion, and am truly sorry about the long-winded question.
Thanks,

Jean