Which Orchestral Samples is Better?

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 6:02 pm

Garritan Personal Orchestra or EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Silver Edition?

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 7:38 pm

Comparing both Beethoven MP3's, I have to say Garritan's violins have a better attack.

Mind you based on those demos, I wouldn't buy either collection. The guys who did the sequencing are lousy conductors.

If you want to stay in that price range go for the Garritan.

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Sun Feb 29, 2004 8:46 pm

I own GPO, and I just listened to some of the EWQL demos. I think GPO's strings, and also horns, and percussion sound much better than the EWQL.

But the results are BOTH pretty marginal in my opinion. I can't say GPO is totally perfect. I think they both require substantial amount of mixing technique for realism.. which was hard enough with GPO. But I have a preset project for GPO that I use as a starting point, which works fine for me. You can check out my demo of GPO here if you haven't already:
http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... forum=17&1

The bottom line is, it takes LOTS of practice to get an orchestra to sound nice. It has alot to do with how you arrange it. Some advanced people only need 3-4 parts to take you through a whole story. It's amazing.. I've just started, and I've got a long ways to go.

[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2004-02-29 20:52 ]

bosone · Post by **bosone** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 3:26 am

i own GPO and i think it's unbeatable in term of simplicity of use!
all that you need to control orchestral performance is in point of your fingers, really!
in term of quality, for me it does sound very good!

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 9:35 am

Kensuguro,

I just listened to your mp3 using the GPO. It sounds very beautiful. I would have used a lot less cymbal and snare rolls as it tends to cover up the other sounds.

Despite your warning, your music makes me want to buy the GPO. Am I allowed to install it on only one computer? Do you have any tips for arranging and mxing? I read that doubling samples tends to make them sound synthetic.

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 10:06 am

Doubling samples makes phase cancellations creep in.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 10:33 am

The "Edirol Orchestra" is something to think about as well... It is a different concept, becasue they are not samples, but a VST plugin. I have tryed it and it sounds quite well for orchestral backgrounds...

The soundscapes you can create, can easily be compared to a classical orchestra. It has also a acoustic piano, it's not the greatest thing I've heard, but it's fine as a plus.

It comes also with some effects that swits the kind of sounds.

YOu can adjust the volume of every instrument (there are about 20 or 25 of them toguether in one pluing).

If you want something "fast" and for just doing realistic orchestral backgrounds, this is for you. If you want to compoase detailed orquestrations, you'll have to use samples directed to individual tracks.

Give it a try, it doest worth the interest.

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 11:00 am

all instruments in GPO are single layered so you don't get phase problems. You also don't get the typical crossfade error of having 4 horns ->crossfade -> 8 horns -> 4 horns. (you get double the number of instruments during the sample crossfade) It's a problem that plagues most multi layered samples. GPO works around this by using only 1 sample, plus delicate patch programming. The rest you do with the mod wheel.

The copy protection on GPO is somewhat strange, and it's mostly NI's fault. You can only install on one machine I think, as it uses a unique machine ID plus response activation scheme. I had to generate my ID a couple of times when I recently got my new computer.

In terms of arrangement and execution.. practice! I'm still learning, but you have to learn each instrument's range, color, strengths and weaknesses. Each instrument may sound consistant from note to note at first, but when you throw it in a mix with other instruments, the difference start to show. You'll have to listen EXTREMELY carefully tho, and this takes practice and experience.

Another aspect of good arrangement seems to be the way you pair instruments to create a certain texture. Imagine this, all your orchestral instruments are different oscillators, each with different basic characteristics, plus the all sound different in different ranges. Now you're looking to create a specific sound... and you have mix the oscillators together and ballance them out to get that sound. So, with an orchestra, instead of turning knobs, you add layers of parts.

One last extremely important aspect of using GPO is the mod wheel, velocity, and sustain pedal. Mod wheel controls the intensity on all instruments. For strings, it's how strong you're bowing. For breath controlled instruments, it's how strong you're blowing. If you set this to 0, you get nothing. At 127, you get full volume. It sounds like the mod wheel is controlling the volume, but it seems to be linked to filters as well. The velocity is used in many instruments to control the attack speed and is not linked to volume at all. The foot pedal is used as a legato switch and does not respond like usual. The foot pedal essentially switches the playback startpoint of the sample. Pedal up plays from start (with the attack), pedal down removes the attack, causing a smoother transision. (so your strings don't always have that weak attack)

In terms of mixing, volume levels are all adjusted initially, and this works quite well. But, the problem is that an orchestra is quite dynamic in nature, so it's hard to control all the individual parts so that the loud parts actually sound loud, and the softer parts sound soft. This takes planning and experience. It's a combination of proper arrangement (the musical intensity) and also proper playing of the parts. (the volume of individual parts via mod wheel) It's really easy to cause clipping, while it's really easy to have parts burried away in a busy arrangement. Reverb is also important, but I find SFP's masterverb quite suitable for my need. The trick is to set the highpass at around 200hz, and lowpass up to 9000hz or so. Quite different from my normal setup, but it seems to work wonders to my strings. Shimmering highs and clearly defined lows. For my mixes, I've overdriven alot of the parts, including the reverb channel. (oops, it was supposed to be my secret)

Well.. I can go on for quite a while about this. I think GPO is a very good buy. It takes a while to learn it properly, but in the end, it's an orchestra your'e dealing with. It's one hell of an instrument to learn. If you really want to get into it, I'd suggest getting some books so you can learn stuff as you experiment in GPO. I've learned tips from books that would have taken me years to figure out. (namely, Samuel Adler's "The Study of Orchestration")

bosone · Post by **bosone** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 12:47 pm

braincell wrote:
I just listened to kensuguro mp3 using the GPO. It sounds very beautiful. I would have used a lot less cymbal and snare rolls as it tends to cover up the other sounds

i am too in the demo page of GPO! i did "the sword of the king" piece... heavy metal with orchestration!

it's not perfect (in fact i think i was too rude with optimaster!)... but for me was a great joy to appear as one of the "GPO demo maker"!

kensuguro wrote:

One last extremely important aspect of using GPO is the mod wheel, velocity, and sustain pedal. Mod wheel controls the intensity on all instruments. It sounds like the mod wheel is controlling the volume, but it seems to be linked to filters as well.

modwheel controls a parametric EQ setted at frequencies around 3K, enfatising this range when it goes up and dampening when the CC goes down. there is also a "randomizer control" (var2) that changes randomly the enfatised frequency, and it very useful to obtain some "human variation" in the instrument tone

Reverb is also important, but I find SFP's masterverb quite suitable for my need. The trick is to set the highpass at around 200hz, and lowpass up to 9000hz or so.

from what masterverb preset do you usually start?

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Mon Mar 01, 2004 1:41 pm

Okay, that one sounds like a modern video game. I also listened to Ken's disco. It's hard to imagine this was written by the same person who made the asian orchestral music.

Thanks for the tips Ken. I'll buy the book.

[ This Message was edited by: braincell on 2004-03-01 13:42 ]

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 4:28 pm

I called NI and GPO can be installed on 2 computers.

Actually I have to amend this post to make a correction. I called Garritan not NI. As far as I can tell it is nearly impossible to get through to NI over the phone. They just put you on hold until you give up. I tried for several days and probably more than an hour on hold and never was able to speak to anyone. I just wanted some information on registration and system requirements.

[ This Message was edited by: braincell on 2004-03-04 10:55 ]