GPO and Digital Performer

[TomD]

I am new to this forum. I need to update my orchestral sounds. I currently have a Triton and the Roland Fantom. I am thinking of purchasing the Garritan Personal Orchestra. I was hopng for some feedback on the quality of the sounds, especially the brass. I currently have a powermac G4 with dual processors and Digital Performer 4.5.

Thank you in advance.

TomD

[amo]

May I give you my feeling ? Get EWQLSO, you'll find the gold version at a "crossgrade" price, around 500$, somewhere on their site....
You are on East West forum. I guess it is fine to talk about other librairies, but you'll find here that most people use East West products....
Cheers,

Amaury

[lgrohn]

Originally Posted by TomD

I am new to this forum. I need to update my orchestral sounds. I currently have a Triton and the Roland Fantom. I am thinking of purchasing the Garritan Personal Orchestra. I was hopng for some feedback on the quality of the sounds, especially the brass. I currently have a powermac G4 with dual processors and Digital Performer 4.5.

I have GPO, Silver and Gold. I don't use GPO anymore, because I just can't
stand its solo strings. If you have possibility to test GPO, take the lowest cello sound
and add some var1 and var2 "humanizers" and keep pressing the key. The sound is
more than terrible. GPO's solo alto's lowest not is like signaling truck... Oh yes. EW
doesn't have solo alto but I am waiting for PRO. And until then EW's solo sello goes much higher
that GPO and the alto emulation works very well.

Concerning the brass, just go to Garritan site
http://www.garritan.com/competition.html
and listen to the brass section of the winner. I am sure that after that you will forget GPO...

LG

[neoTypic]

GPO is a worthwhile purchase for some of it's solo instruments. I find the solo woodwinds to be nice as well as the solo violins. The violas don't sound too good to my ear however. A lot of it just takes the effort of learning how that library works. You really need to stack instruments to get the full sound you might be looking for plus the use of a decent reverb.

I can't comment on the ease of use of EWQLSO as of yet, but GPO is very easy to use and good for quick mockups. I do not regret buying it in the least as the sounds are good for the price and the community is very supportive over at NSS.

My suggestion is to go listen to some of the demos.

[lgrohn]

Originally Posted by neoTypic

I can't comment on the ease of use of EWQLSO as of yet, but GPO is very easy to use and good for quick mockups.

My system generates music from pictures in a few seconds. Using GOLD it it always a pleasure to listen the result without any extra work. Not so with GPO, because the sound is not good enough. LG

[neoTypic]

Originally Posted by lgrohn

My system generates music from pictures in a few seconds. Using GOLD it it always a pleasure to listen the result without any extra work. Not so with GPO, because the sound is not good enough. LG

I'm sure the quality of the sounds are great, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of us considering or doing the group buy. The sounds in GPO are meant to be used in a different way though. EWQLSO has patches that have multiple instruments playing in the same patch. To recreate this in GPO you need to load that many players + the solo instrument.

It took me a while to get this as well because I was used to loading up a patch in Edirol Orchestral and just playing while doing the same in GPO sounded thin.

[lgrohn]

Originally Posted by neoTypic

I The sounds in GPO are meant to be used in a different way though.

Their tactics seems to market more instruments than others. But show me a GPO demo with low solo violin, alto, or cello? Those are difficult and GPO fails badly. The reason why bought GPO (while already having EW and waiting for PRO) was just those solo instruments and they are useless if one trusts on one's ears.
LG

[neoTypic]

Originally Posted by lgrohn

Their tactics seems to market more instruments than others. But show me a GPO demo with low solo violin, alto, or cello? Those are difficult and GPO fails badly. The reason why bought GPO (while already having EW and waiting for PRO) was just those solo instruments and they are useless if one trusts on one's ears.
LG

Would you mind pointing me in the direction of an EWQLSO demo of one of the above that you find sufficient? Indeed they are difficult to pull off because of the transitions between notes. I think VSL holds the strong ground here.

[lgrohn]

Originally Posted by neoTypic

Would you mind pointing me in the direction of an EWQLSO demo of one of the above that you find sufficient? Indeed they are difficult to pull off because of the transitions between notes. I think VSL holds the strong ground here.

Playing a long solo cello note shows already the difference. LG

[Doug Rogers]

I'm closing this thread because the GPO vs EWQLSO debate has been thrashed to death and always ends up in a verbal brawl.

- Doug