SSO in action

[West]

Stayed up late working on SSO* last night, and here's a small demo clip featuring a narrow selection of instruments. The reverb is Freeverb3 Nverb.

Dammit, I'm starting to think this sounds better than my regular samples

* Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra, a small free sample library I will be releasing eventually, in case you didn't know.

[vladikus]

That does sound good.

[Aleksi]

Pretty good composition! And i like the sounds, not bad at all! To you sample your sound from real instruments?

Personally i'm also not using EWQL SO that much anymore. I've grown tired of the sounds... not too much human feeling in them and too US film score oriented.

Good luck on your library!

[West]

To you sample your sound from real instruments?

Nope, I'm basing the library on free soundfonts that I've tweaked quite heavily. And layered to no end.

Personally i'm also not using EWQL SO that much anymore. I've grown tired of the sounds... not too much human feeling in them and too US film score oriented.

That's one of my main gripes with EWQL actually. The sound quality is superb but I've always felt that their libraries lack warmth and, well, human feeling as you put it. It's too clean somehow. When the day comes that I decide to sink a boatload of money into a pro grade library, it's probably not going to be EWQLSO. I would like something warmer and grittier.

Good luck on your library!

Thanks!

[Aleksi]

When the day comes that I decide to sink a boatload of money into a pro grade library, it's probably not going to be EWQLSO. I would like something warmer and grittier.

You don't have many alternatives: VSL is the library you must go for. I've purchased a couple of DVD libraries and i kind of wished i had spent my money into the VSL library from the start. No comparison with EWQL. You have a "pretty close to real" legato and the sound quality is just amazing. Plus, it has a very natural sound to it. But, on the other hand its much harder to use and requires a very good reverb and good mixing skills.

Project SAM has top sounds too, but very Hollywood oriented.

[Rain]

I think SAM specializes in nice sounding brass setups and VSL is really nice for realistic sounding Strings. EastWest is pretty good for background instruments, but the solo instruments, apart from the cello, just don't sound very human at all without a ton of tinkering... but then again, what doesn't? I'd like to pick up VSL myself. I'd also like to win the lottery or to have a LARGE bag of unmarked bills fall out of the sky right on my head.

Btw, I think that verb sounds great West. How much tinkering with it did you have to do to get the current sound that you have?

[West]

You don't have many alternatives: VSL is the library you must go for. I've purchased a couple of DVD libraries and i kind of wished i had spent my money into the VSL library from the start. No comparison with EWQL. You have a "pretty close to real" legato and the sound quality is just amazing. Plus, it has a very natural sound to it. But, on the other hand its much harder to use and requires a very good reverb and good mixing skills.

Don't you also need an entire machine park of computers to use it to its fullest?

You know, my dream library would be a completely custom made one. I know, it's a silly idea considering the crazy amount of work that would be involved, not to mention that I'd need top notch equipment, professional recording skills -- and an orchestra to sample! We have a quite good symphony orchestra in the town where I live though and it would certainly be fun to do a project like that with them. I know it will never happen but one is allowed to dream

Btw, I think that verb sounds great West. How much tinkering with it did you have to do to get the current sound that you have?

Surprisingly, not much at all. I just tweaked a few things on the default preset. As there is no manual and I have no idea what some parameters do, I just moved the sliders around until the verb sounded good with all instruments. The fxp preset is attached, if anyone wants it.

edit: Hehe, I had to zip the fxp file to attach it. But it's so small that zipping it actually made it larger

[Rain]

You know, my dream library would be a completely custom made one. I know, it's a silly idea considering the crazy amount of work that would be involved, not to mention that I'd need top notch equipment, professional recording skills -- and an orchestra to sample! We have a quite good symphony orchestra in the town where I live though and it would certainly be fun to do a project like that with them. I know it will never happen but one is allowed to dream

Swedish eh?

Dreams melt. Sometimes their products in new form spills out into actuality. You would need all kinds of mics as well to take advantage of the intricacy and character, eq-range of each instrument. I've recently acquired a pretty promising hand book which goes by the name of.... [censored] I can't find it. But it has some good recommendations for mic'ing certain instruments and which mics get the best range of the sound for each instrument, among other things. It's probaby not too time consuming to go over it. Hopefully I can find that and see if there's anything truly useful in it about mic'ing the orchestra. I am sure that's another artform itself.



WEST. Location: Neverwinter. Is this in Middle Earth or something???

I would've loved to play around the reverb file you uploaded but I won't load for mac. WHHOOPPIIEEEEEE

[Aleksi]

Don't you also need an entire machine park of computers to use it to its fullest?

No, not at all. It was, 6-7 years ago when you had to have Giga Sampler. Now they have they're own engine, like PLAY, only much better. And i find VSL to use less ram than EWQL. I'll send you some demo i'm close to finish with my new library, the difference is just huge...

Also, to give you an idea, my G5 broke this summer and i had to buy a new computer. My budget only allowed my to buy an iMac (last generation). Well, it runs way better than my old computer. I have sessions with EWQL, VSL, QL Piano, SD2 and a couple of Altiverb 6 sets open. Works fine. Its a golden age for computers!

[West]

Swedish eh?

That's right.

Dreams melt. Sometimes their products in new form spills out into actuality. You would need all kinds of mics as well to take advantage of the intricacy and character, eq-range of each instrument. I've recently acquired a pretty promising hand book which goes by the name of.... s*** I can't find it. But it has some good recommendations for mic'ing certain instruments and which mics get the best range of the sound for each instrument, among other things. It's probaby not too time consuming to go over it. Hopefully I can find that and see if there's anything truly useful in it about mic'ing the orchestra. I am sure that's another artform itself.

It's not just the mics. Imagine recording every note of every section and solo instrument, in multiple velocities, plus also articulations and effects. Even with well-structured sessions where nothing goes wrong, it would likely take months. Who's going to pay the orchestra during that time? Admittedly the financial bit might be possible to solve with some culture grant or something like that (as in my dreams, this would be a free open source library). But still... I wouldn't want to take on a project like that. At least not alone. It would be a disaster.

Location: Neverwinter. Is this in Middle Earth or something???

Neverwinter is a city-state in the D&D game world Forgotten Realms. Despite that it's located far in the north, the city has a warm climate (don't know why). I ended up setting Neverwinter as my location because we've had warm winters with virtually no snow the last two years. And let me tell you, I'm not used to that.

I would've loved to play around the reverb file you uploaded but I won't load for mac. WHHOOPPIIEEEEEE

Okay... let's try this then:

[West]

Don't you also need an entire machine park of computers to use it to its fullest?

No, not at all. It was, 6-7 years ago when you had to have Giga Sampler. Now they have they're own engine, like PLAY, only much better. And i find VSL to use less ram than EWQL. I'll send you some demo i'm close to finish with my new library, the difference is just huge...

Also, to give you an idea, my G5 broke this summer and i had to buy a new computer. My budget only allowed my to buy an iMac (last generation). Well, it runs way better than my old computer. I have sessions with EWQL, VSL, QL Piano, SD2 and a couple of Altiverb 6 sets open. Works fine. Its a golden age for computers!

Ah! Well it's good to hear that progress is being made not only in terms of sound quality, but also performance. That sure gives me some hope of using a high end library someday.

[marcusvinicius]

Another sso test.
http://www.4shared.com/file/68476575/9 ... d=4c1e3a2c
It´s so simple.

[West]

Very nice marcusvinicius, I like the arrangement. I think you're using far too little reverb though. It's a matter of taste of course but I definitely think SSO benefits from quite a lot of verb.

Example