Logic - Rewire - Notion (issue)

[hselburn]

Musiciansfriend sells them for $80. A lot less than what the kpc15s typically go for. I was surprised so I asked. In facts they were today's stupid deal at $50.

[Surfwhammy]

As a bit of follow-up, Native Instruments is having its now third annual Thanksgiving week 50 percent discount sale on Kontakt 5, so if you have been pondering the idea of getting Kontakt 5, this is the time to get it . . .



[NOTE: Kontakt 5 works very nicely with NOTION 4 running in 64-bit mode on the Mac, and there is a virtual festival of third-party sampled sound libraries for unusual and rare instruments available for use with Kontakt 5, including among other things perhaps the only sampled sound library for Lap Steel Guitar available on this planet . . . ]

Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments) ~ Thanksgiving 50 Percent Discount Sale until Monday December 9, 2013

[NOTE: As best as I can determine based on doing a few experiments, you have to use a MIDI keyboard mod wheel and pitch wheel, as well as some MIDI keyswitches to get accurate Lap Steel Guitar sounds with this sampled sound library, which makes it a bit impractical, but it works with a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application that provides the required MIDI support. The drawback is that you have to play the parts on a MIDI keyboard and record it in a DAW application to capture the mod wheel, pitch wheel, and other stuff . . . ]

Lap Steel Guitar (Orange Tree Samples)

Bolder Sounds has some very unusual and rare sound sample libraries for Kontakt 5, as well, which is fabulous . . .

Sampled Sound Libraries for Kontakt 5 (Bolder Sounds)

Fabulous!

P. S. You can get very realistic Lap Steel Guitar and Pedal Steel Guitar sounds with the NOTION 4 native Electric Guitar and its advanced guitar tab articulations if you do a few experiments and understand how these types of guitars work, and you can do it entirely with music notation and guitar tab articulations in NOTION 4, which makes it reasonably easy to do . . .

[hselburn]

What I need are orchestral sounds. Do they have those?

[Surfwhammy]

What I need are orchestral sounds. Do they have those?

Yes, and they are very realistic . . .

Kontakt 5 includes a virtual festival of instruments, including high-quality orchestral instruments provided by the Vienna Symphonic Library Orchestra . . .

[NOTE: These are the high-level VSL Orchestra folders for Kontakt 5 . . . ]



[NOTE: There are other instruments and synthesizers, for approximately 1,000 instruments and 43GB of samples. The orchestral instruments are from Vienna Symphonic Library, and due to the amount of samples, it is a boxed package with CD/DVD media. When I got it two years ago, it shipped FedEx Ground for free from California and arrived in a few days (approximately a week) . . . ]

Kontakt 5 Library (Native Instruments)

You can listen to the various instruments at this link, which is fabulous . . .

[NOTE: There are 10 audio Demo Tracks in the Sound Examples section, and you can listen to choir and orchestral samples there, as well as the other styles and genres. The choirs and orchestral instruments sound very realistic here in the sound isolation studio played through the calibrated full-range studio monitor system . . . ]

All Kontakt 5 Media (Native Instruments)

Fabulous!

[hselburn]

Ok, I had a couple questions for NI that I sent their way. Hoping they get back to me before the sales end. At $199, I'm interested. At $399, east/west gold would be a very strong competitor.

[Surfwhammy]

Ok, I had a couple questions for NI that I sent their way. Hoping they get back to me before the sales end. At $199, I'm interested. At $399, east/west gold would be a very strong competitor.

EWQL has some very nice products, but they are focused primarily on Windows, and I am not so certain about how their products work on the Mac . . .

EWQL is having a 50 percent discount sale for "Black Friday", which lowers the price for Symphonic Orchestra Virtual Instrument Gold Complete to $247.50 (US), but I think you should browse through the Mac related posts in their FORUM before making a decision, since there are some posts that refer to needing a SSD drive to get sufficiently fast loading and response times, and I found a post about PLAY 4 not working on the Mac due to AppleScript problems, which are supposed to be fixed . . .

Symphonic Orchestra (EWQL)

Kontakt 5 works very nicely on the Mac, and Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL) clearly does good work . . .

I do not have any EWQL products, but I like the way one of the violins in "Gypsy" sounds, and they have nice Flamenco guitars, but it costs too much for my budget, and I did not like what I read about problems with the Mac versions, which has been ongoing . . .

As I recall, EWQL made some changes to their PLAY engine, which changed the way the NOTION 4 rules or whatever work, and I think this has not been fixed, yet . . .

My overall impression is that EWQL has very good, high-quality chromatically sampled instrument libraries with extensive articulations, which is great, but it makes the instruments very "heavy" in terms of computer resources, and as noted I think the primary focus is on folks who have high-end Windows machines and probably use Windows servers to stream some or perhaps all the audio . . .

This is the information about the EWQL recommended system for the Mac:

Mac Recommended System

Mac Pro Quad Core Intel Xeon 2.66GHz or higher
4GB RAM
Mac OSX 10.5 or later
7200 RPM or faster (non energy saving) hard drive for sample streaming

NOTE: In order to mix multiple microphone positions in Platinum and Platinum Plus, we suggest using a "recommended" or better system.

This is the link to the EWQL FORUM General Discussion section, where you can browse the various topics and decide for yourself:

General Discussion (EWQL FORUM)

There are topics on EWQL in the NOTION FORUM, as well, so it makes sense to check them, but overall from what I have read I do not get a "warm and fuzzy" about EWQL products running on the Mac . . .

This is one of the reasons that I decided to get Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments) two years ago, although part of the reason was to be able to use the Handbells V2 for Kontakt 3+ (Bolder Sounds), which has a full range of handbells, going as low as C2, which is fabulous . . .


Randy Richards of the Denver Bronze musical group holding "Tiny" the C2 Handbell

Handbells V2 for Kontakt 3+ (Bolder Sounds)

Fabulous!

[hselburn]

Waiting to hear back from NI. EW meets the required but not recommended specs as you said. I'm hoping there are avlot of the Vienna instruments because I'll never use techno sounds. I'd have to like that kind of music first and well, let's just say it's not my cup of tea and never has been. The orchestral, that's what I need. Not much else.

[Surfwhammy]

Waiting to hear back from NI. EW meets the required but not recommended specs as you said. I'm hoping there are avlot of the Vienna instruments because I'll never use techno sounds. I'd have to like that kind of music first and well, let's just say it's not my cup of tea and never has been. The orchestral, that's what I need. Not much else.

These are the contents of the high-level Kontakt 5 VSL Orchestra folders shown in my earlier post (see above) . . .









This does not show all the articulations and detailed information for each solo instrument or ensemble, but it is sufficient to get a sense of the full orchestra . . .

There are plenty of additional instruments in different genres, where for example there is a selection of World instruments, some of which make sense to include in an orchestra, where for example if the orchestra is doing "The Nutcracker Suite" (Tchaikovsky), it makes sense to include some Arabian, Asian, Spanish, and related instruments for the Arabian, Chinese, and Spanish dances, respectively . . .

[NOTE: I am not so well-versed in all World instruments, but there are Turkish drums and Japanese stringed instruments, as well as some Indian instruments and some Latin or Spanish instruments, which should be sufficient for "The Nutcracker Suite". I did not find a piccolo trumpet, but there are piccolo flutes; and I did not find a sousaphone and helicon, either, but so what . . . ]

One of the things I like about Kontakt 5 is that if you need an unusual or rare instrument, there probably is one available in a third-party sound sample library that works with the Kontakt 5 engine, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

[hselburn]

About the only thing I don't see are saxophones and I'm willing to bet they are in another library.

[hselburn]

Only song I know with piccolo trumpet is penny lane