Promoting Philharmonik

[Frunobulax]

It is a GREAT deal...and of course...then you spend $99 more to get the ST2.1 upgrade as well...2 DVDs worth of new materials (right?)Zai

Actually, the 2.1 sounds upgrade (as well as the engine upgrade, of course) will be free of charge to anyone buying now or who has bought it during the past few months.

[Kim Lajoie]

It is a GREAT deal...and of course...then you spend $99 more to get the ST2.1 upgrade as well...

Zai, you'll be putting smp off with talk like that. If you buy ST2XL now (or anytime in the future), you'll get a FREE upgrade to 2.1 (engine AND sounds) when it becomes available. No problem.

(edit: Beaten to the punch by Frunobulax)

-Kim.

[zai]

Aye...doh, sorry! :p I was thinking about ST2L...sorry!

Meaning a every better deal...$548 for ST2 + Philharmonik + ST2.1...you go!

Zai

P.S. see, I think I know everything...now come to think of it...I thought I knew everything...keyword: thought....

[Rellik]

I'm really curious about the ST2XL update -

ST2XL is my main "workstation", I even have it in my default project template (which is no small deal, since it adds a while to the load time ), so if the update improves it significantly... well, then I might be willing to want it

People always talk about how SS2 is better even for acoustic/orchestral stuff than ST2XL - makes me kind of sad to hear about that so I figure it would probably be worth it to upgrade to the 2.1 sampleset of it beats the crap out of SS2, so I don't have to say "Man, I should've gotten SS2, not ST2XL" every time it comes up I'm fairly happy with the bread-and-butter sounds ST2XL provides, but better is ALWAYS better! Even more attractive would be to include the 2.1 sounds upgrade with the Philharmonik crossgrade - that would be a GREAT deal, the kind of deal worthy of Sonic Reality!

[Frunobulax]

(edit: Beaten to the punch by Frunobulax) -Kim.

Now that you've gone legit and become a company man you're getting slow on the draw Kim!

[Kim Lajoie]

(edit: Beaten to the punch by Frunobulax) -Kim.

Now that you've gone legit and become a company man you're getting slow on the draw Kim!

"Uhhh yeah, we're gonna have to ask you to push your desk all the way back against the wall. And oh, there's that stapler I was looking for, I'll just get that from you. Thanks"



Relik, the 2.1 sounds upgrade will be improving on the general focus of ST2XL - so acoustic and orchestral sounds will probably be getting better. However, SS2 will still be SS2, and will be full of pads, a synth monster, drumkits from mars, etc. You might still want to get SS2 anyway.

-Kim.

[Kim Lajoie]

- a demonstration of the advantage of the stretch engine would be cool. a solo violin doing slurs / pitches / true legato or sth like that.

Ok, I did a quick demo of Stretch doing the kinds of things I wrote about in my big post over on Page 3 of this thread. It's a demo of what Stretch can do for orchestral sounds.

Listen to the demo by clicking this link.

This is what's in the demo:

1) Violin portamento up and down an octave using regular resampling (this is how a normal sampler sounds like). Notice how unconvincing this is - particularly the slide up.

2) Violin portamento up and down an octave using Stretch. Notice how the tone remains consistent throughout the portamento. Of course you have total control over the range and the speed of the portamento.

3) Male choir playing beyond the top of its range using regular resampling (how a normal sampler would do it). Notice the "Mickey Mouse" effect.

4) Male choir playing beyond the top of its range using Stretch. Notice how the tone remains consistent and natural.

5) Short string motif.

6) Short string motif darkened using a regular filter. This is how regular samplers will process the sound to make it darker. Notice how it sounds a bit like you've got cotton in your ears.

7) Short string motif darkened using Stretch. Notice how the actual timbre of the sound is adjusted. Of course this is not something you'd do all the time, but sometimes you might need to adjust the timbre of an instrument and Stretch can do it while still retaining a natural sound.

8 ) Violin vibrato on three notes, using Stretch to speed up and slow down the vibrato. I didn't even bother including a "regular sampler version" - it sounded terrible! Like I explained on Page 3 of this thread, Stretch uses the vibrato that's already there - the vibrato that was performed by the violinist. Even though the speed changes in this demo are a bit extreme, you can still hear how natural the sound is - as if the performer him/herself were doing the vibrato speed change.

The sounds in this demo are from Sonik Synth 2, not Philharmonik.

Hope that helps.

-Kim.

[Rellik]

Relik, the 2.1 sounds upgrade will be improving on the general focus of ST2XL - so acoustic and orchestral sounds will probably be getting better. However, SS2 will still be SS2, and will be full of pads, a synth monster, drumkits from mars, etc. You might still want to get SS2 anyway.

-Kim.

Sorry, I don't care for sampled synth sounds. Synth1 is worth more to me than any synth library and when it comes to electronic drums I have my own methods for that as well. It's good to hear that the sounds will be getting better in the update - sounds like the kind of thing I'll have to wait and see about.

I'm mainly excited about the engine update. Hopefully the same bug that caused ST2 to not respond to MIDI CC's during render is the same one that is causing it not to react to Sync during render - I ran into that one for the first time yesterday (used some ethnic percussion loops - percussion loops like those don't really feel like cheating, for some reason! who knows why...) and everything went all awry and out of sync and ruined my track... oh well I'll have to file another bug report...

[Kim Lajoie]

Sorry, I don't care for sampled synth sounds. Synth1 is worth more to me than any synth library and when it comes to electronic drums I have my own methods for that as well. It's good to hear that the sounds will be getting better in the update - sounds like the kind of thing I'll have to wait and see about.

In that case it sounds like you made the right decision to go with ST2XL. I think the 2.1 sounds upgrade will definitely be worth it.

-Kim.

[smp]

You should consider it though. Philharmonik on its own is going to retail at $499. The SS2->ST2XL crossgrade is $219 and the ST2->Philharmonik crossgrade is going to be $349... so you can get ST2XL and Philharmonik for $568. If you're going to get Philharmonik anyway, that's like adding ST2XL for only $69. If that's not a killer deal, I don't know what is.

-Kim.

Sort of tempting, Kim, but not quite enough. It's all academic anyway because now that I've bought a house, any music indulgences have to be scrimped and saved for (and justified to myself as well). Philharmonik is one of those "Definitely. One day." purchases. Until then, I'll settle with working out how to use what I've got a bit better.

While Philharmonik would be sweet, if I can't write something vaguely orchestral good enough to keep my happy in the meantime with SS1, SS2 and Symphony Strings then I probably don't need Philharmonik

That could my new sig. "Philharmonik. Definitely. One day."

-s

[telebunke]

While Philharmonik would be sweet, if I can't write something vaguely orchestral good enough to keep my happy in the meantime with SS1, SS2 and Symphony Strings then I probably don't need Philharmonik
-s

It's not only for writing something orchestral. It's also about having all orchestra instruments at hand to use them in any kind of music.
Pro sounding brass and woodwinds, for example, are very important in almost any style of music. Well, mabe not for techno, but one might discuss about that, too.

tele

[Squids]

Sonik Synth 2 has its own sound set. It will be different from SampleTank 2.1's sound set. The new sound set is improved from the original ST2XL sound set and has a broader range of what it can do. But, it doesn't replace getting focused workstations such as Sonik Synth 2, Studiophonik, Philharmonik and (woops, almost told ). The sounds combined with new features are a really nice upgrade package.

Sonik Synth 2 has some nice acoustic/electric sounds. Better than SampleTank XL? That's all a matter of opinion. They are DIFFERENT at the very least. There are some really great sounds in XL that stand on their own (especially the pianos for example). That doesn't mean that one might like one sound from either over the other though.

If one is looking for orchestral sounds though there is no question that Miroslav Philharmonik is a smart choice, especially while there is a crossgrade discount being offered to ST2 L or XL users.

[nexussynth]

The Miroslav will be the orchestral library to beat, even at it's full retail price of $499.

I've been at this orchestral mock-up thing long enough to know just from the demos that Philharmonik is special.

I played some old stuff I did with the original MV library from about 10 years ago and it sounds a bit embarrassing compared to what the library sounds like now, and I remember being so excited about the sound of it then. But time wore on and I used it less and less. I never expected to be this excited about the Miroslav samples again but squids has really done the library justice.

If it has my beloved cc#11 expression implemented, I'll be total along with my other recent library aquisitions.

Now where do I find the pre-order link if available yet? I'm cross-grading from ST2L.

[harmony gardens]

They don't have a link yet, but if you call esoundz and talk to Alex, he can set you up. I prepaid on Friday.

[telebunke]

If your account is full that means you have $50 in epointz waiting to be used on something... downloadable sounds, Expansion Tanks, Sonik Capsules etc. Then once it is used your account is open to get more epointz back up to $50 again.

Yes that's exactly it. Good to see for the others that the work, I invested, payed off. Might be a motivation for others cause they can see that it actually works.

You might want to email alex@esoundz.com to see what other options you may have in terms of ordering certain things you want.

cool, I'm gonna do that. Next thing after what I got from the group buy is Philharmonik.

tele

Then definitely contact Alex because he is now making a list of all esoundz members that will be wanting the Philharmonik crossgrade from ST2 (even new members- which is free to join by the way for anyone reading who isn't one already and you automatically get discounts just for being a member). We're trying to prepare to have enough on hand to supply all of our customers with it the soonest possible time.

Just yesterday I signed a contract for a new house. I'll be moving, which will cost quite some $$. Therefore and since I already spent $4000 this year, I need to refrain from purchasing more stuff for about - let's say 3 months. Meaning I would not do any prepay. Maybe there still is a way for me to have some kind of reward for doing more promotion?

tele