KVR Audio

Yossarian · Post by **Yossarian** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 11:38 am

Suddenly there are quite a few orchestral library options at the budget end of the spectrum. Kirk Hunter has just announced two new libraries:

Virtuoso Series 2 is a 25 GB orchestral library with what Kirk describes as a “Hollywood cinematic” sound. Price: $249

Virtuoso Series Academy Edition is a 6 GB subset of the Series 2 samples, programmed for “light loads” so that you can have the entire orchestra loaded even on a smaller rig. Price: $149.

Both libraries come in Giga format and are available now. There seems to be some overlap with Kirk’s Concert Series library but most of the samples are new.

There aren’t a lot of demos up yet (more are coming) but here’s one of the smaller Academy Edition library:

http://www.kirkhunterstudios.com/ReqVsaeDryM.mp3

More info at www.kirkhunterstudios.com

/Yoss

sghoughton · Post by **sghoughton** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 12:06 pm

Do you know if there are any plans for a kontakt 2 version of this? This looks interesting and might be whats mission from my collection right now.

thanks

steve

Yossarian · Post by **Yossarian** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 12:38 pm

This is what it says at Kirk’s website:

Translation into Kontakt and other samplers will be addressed, but cannot as of yet be recommended. However, a less deeply-programmed Giga version of this library that does translate into other samples will be available as well.

You can always drop Kirk a line at MuzkGuy@aol.com and ask him directly, he’s always been really helpful when I’ve contacted him.

/Yoss

sghoughton · Post by **sghoughton** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 12:45 pm

Sorry, didnt see that

Steve

Armadillo · Post by **Armadillo** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 12:53 pm

woah.....25 GB for $249. Suddenly EWQLSO Gold and Philharmonik's price tags doesn't seem that attractive.

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 1:01 pm

Armadillo wrote:woah.....25 GB for $249. Suddenly EWQLSO Gold and Philharmonik's price tags doesn't seem that attractive.

You know, size doesn't necessarily make it.
There's still some pretty useful instruments to be found in Vitous MINI, and just because they were all looped doesn't mean you'd notice it all the time.
It's just that these days programmers don't care about looping anymore, at least that's what it seems to be like.
In addition there's proper programming. Again, it seems as if programmers are getting lazier. The "hey, just load a new instance and there's your staccatos" or so approach.

Armadillo · Post by **Armadillo** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 1:19 pm

Size doesn't matter....
Hmm...
I do believe you can make something small that still sounds good, but I've yet to see something big that doesn't sound good.
Is there any libraries out there big than 10 GB which doesn't sound good?

sghoughton · Post by **sghoughton** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 1:22 pm

Another thing too is, good programming tries to make up for limitations in the source - if you have a better source, with fewer limitations, then you might not need such good programming. And with the price of these libraries these day, and the power of pcs, really whats the point half the time of going to the programming effort when you can just give people the real deal.

steve

Markleford · Post by **Markleford** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 1:27 pm

sghoughton wrote:And with the price of these libraries these day, and the power of pcs, really whats the point half the time of going to the programming effort when you can just give people the real deal.

Unfortunately, sometimes those huge Giga libraries still outstrip the power of a single PC, such that you have to network a few together to fill a whole performance!

It's quite silly, really.

- m

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 2:08 pm

Armadillo wrote: Is there any libraries out there big than 10 GB which doesn't sound good?

I'm no expert, but one thing's for sure: There's small libraries also sounding good, due to proper programming.
And, regardless how cheap HDDs are these days, size still does matter. Smaller file sizes will not tax your RAM as much, will not tax your disks as much and, most interesting for me, they will allow you to work on laptops. I just hate carrying 2-3 external harddrives with me all the time.

In addition, what Markleford said...

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 2:29 pm

Sascha, I agree with you that lugging around hard drives is a pain and personally I am not a fan of powering hardware via usb, it seems to cause instability for me. I too use a laptop and love it (Gateway 400vtx, 1 gig ram. 2.2ghz, 40gig).

However now that I have had this set-up two years I can honestly say that I don't use it on the road much...but I am probably the exception not the rule.

The reason for my response is to ask if you do have an external hard drive? I just got one, 200 gig seagate 7200 rpm...it needs it's own power so it's not portable. However the main reason I bought it was to house al the samples for Dfh Superior, for which it works flawless. However if I took my laptop somewhere I'm cut off from those samples. So I use Dfh 1 in my laptop mapped exactly the same way, as a scratch pad. You could do the same with anything really.

However I never thought about the back-up feature of a hard drive...instead I have an ever growing mountain of cd's...now I can set a schedule to back-up folders, so if I forget

. I really think every laptop user should heed my words (all users actually) and spend the few bucks for an external hard drive. If ports are an issue (which it was for me) Check this out http://sewelldirect.com/usbfirewirecombopcmcia.asp

This makes for a very simple set-up, and very reassuring to have everything backed up all the time...

Distorted_Mastermind · Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:05 am

wow.....thanks hink. already have the external drive, but have no firewire ports on my computer. the better audio interfaces these days seem to be firewire which i hear is faster than usb as well. not a bad price to add 2 usb ports and a firewire. hopefully those are plug and play like most stuff on windows nowadays and it will read like a firewire.....do you know if that's the case?

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 1:19 pm

Distorted_Mastermind wrote:wow.....thanks hink. already have the external drive, but have no firewire ports on my computer. the better audio interfaces these days seem to be firewire which i hear is faster than usb as well. not a bad price to add 2 usb ports and a firewire. hopefully those are plug and play like most stuff on windows nowadays and it will read like a firewire.....do you know if that's the case?

I'm pretty sure they are...

Distorted_Mastermind · Sat Oct 01, 2005 2:16 am

cool. i realized next time i have a question like that...the pm option would be better. luckily enough you saw it, and i remembered what post it was

Bennett · Post by **Bennett** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 2:55 am

Man this looks awesome - I've used KH Virtuoso Solo Strings for a while and they are fantastic. I've been considering VSL Opus 1, but this looks like a winner.

New orchestral sample libraries from Kirk Hunter