How to audition Kompakt / Halion Player libraries ?

[timmyo]

I'm perplexed - to date I've made do with freebie samples and soundfonts, but time may have come to pay up for something like Halion Player or Kompakt with their extensive included libraries. But: the Kompakt demo has only a couple of samples in it - for example I'm interested in the brass and string stuff included but it doesn;t feature in the demo.

As for Halion Player - you can just listen to mp3 demos - which is like shopping for a guitar based purely on hearing a Clapton track - I won't necessarily be able to mix and compose to that standard.

I tried a couple of outlets in London to see if any had them installed to demo but none did - is this the norm ? Just have to pay your money and be done with it ?

[uselessmind]

Find people who have what you're interested in and get on their nerves , or rely on opinions of users.
Some companies like PMI,Sampletekk or SAM have playable demos though.

[cyanogen]

I wasn't that impressed with most of the sounds included with Kompakt. The basses and vibes are pretty good, and some of the synth stuff is decent, but that's about it. The Fazioli piano was especially disappointing. I compared it to a free Roland soundfont, and the font blew it away. The acoustic guitar is decent, but the electric guitars just sound odd to me.

If you're looking for strings, you're probably better off getting EWQLSO or Garritan or whatever. For guitar, I've been able to get some good sounds using the Ultimate Guitar Kit soundfont through DSound's GT Player.