Bargain Center: discussion, gossip, etc.

[mutantdog]

I've managed to find a demo for the Best Service Complete Orchestral pack. It's not that great really. It does contain A LOT of stuff but none of that high a quality. The basic orchestra has more articulations than Kontakt's factory but all patches are very small in size (a few MB in many cases). The extra stuff is extremely varied and may be useful if you want some specific things but a lot of it seems more like a generic sample pack of fills and stuff than a usable Kontakt instrument.

There's all sorts of extra pad-type patches which in most cases are just a sample or two with loads of reverb, there's better stuff to be found in this regard elsewhere. There's some tempo-based string stuff that looks like it may be useful in some disco-house type tracks but not my area really. The pianos are rubbish.

I've only briefly scanned through, there's a lot of patches, so maybe I've missed much of the better stuff. I'm not gonna say its one to avoid cos there's a lot there for the money and it may be more useful to someone else than it is for me. If though like me you are just looking for a nice sounding orchestra to complement your synths then I don't think this is the right place to look.

[Nspace]

May someone find the actual bit depth & resolution this library was actually recorded at?
The SOS review explicits "the recording quality is superb" and furthers "the name of the game with all of these sounds is quality and flexibility as opposed to saving on memory space. This can sometimes be a mild inconvenience to anyone working with anything less than 32Mb of sample memory, and some mono or lower-bandwidth alternatives of the most important sounds would have been a great help, but this is only a mild gripe set against a huge sonic backdrop of sheer quality and pure technical musicianship." An 97 SOS' review that seems contradicting mutandog's review here; "The basic orchestra (...) patches are very small in size (a few MB in many cases)" and adds "There's all sorts of extra pad-type patches which in most cases are just a sample or two with loads of reverb." Which sounds strange; reverb!! on a carefully recorded library? One that SOS describes as mostly consisting on stereo oftenly long sustained samples of notes...

To me, with the available info, it does look good. SOS' 97 review main complaint was its taxing nature by way of too big samples (not a problem for nowaday's DAWs) and a few lacks -notably on the Harp content- that the manual http://files.bestservice.de/demo_files/00005127.pdf confirms was completed on a later included update "The included Upgrade ‘97 adds functionality and features new instruments that could not be included in the original library including Bass Flute, Harp Single Notes, Percussion (...) and Hollywood Strings."

///So the resolution and bit size question remains, assuming noise and mics were well handled...

@MutantDog: A user posted some insight earlier this year, at Best Service http://www.bestservice.de/en/complete_o ... ml#reviews

4.0 of 5: This is an amazing sound library/collection. For what I know, all products associated with [the dev] are always impeccable however the reason why I offer 4 stars instead of 5 is because many of the sounds of the ADVANCED ORCHESTRA part of the library are not that good, especially compared with most recently developed products, however ALL THAT BEING SAID, the real value of this product lies on the rest of the volumes on it , especially Orchestral Colors, Smart Violins, String Tools and Classical Choirs. These parts are AMAZING, I mean, AMAZING especially if you think within the $200 price range context. I remember back in the days of Best Service's ProSamples, volumes 11 & 51 (around 2001-2004), I paid $100 (for both) just for 400 mb worth of Advanced Orchestra from the same library from Best Service, nowadays we are talking about 27 GB worth of sounds, however and believe it or not, some of the sounds, after 10 years, are the same samples from those old ProSamples volumes. But please as a reviewer, don't take me wrong THIS IS AN AMAZING PRODUCT, and I guess it offers way more than what might represent its price range. Without any doubt I guess many of the included libraries will never go out of date.

Edit: Doing a bit of searching, it seems the samples were recorded almost 20 years ago: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_ar ... may97.html

So it is a case of old samples in new packaging.

[mutantdog]

A '97 review that refers to users with 32Mb of sample space. By the standards of modern instruments, I would consider that quite small. Certainly Kontakt's factory orchestra contains larger patches. I've deleted it now so I can't offer any further info but, to be fair, it sounded good for such a small size, nothing to get excited about however.

The reverb-laden patches were somewhere in one of the extra folders and seemed more pad-like in nature than orchestral, they weren't really presented as part of the main attraction but seemed worth mentioning in the context of its 2000+ patches.

Like I said though, i scanned through it very quickly (about half an hour in total) and decided it wasn't for me. If someone wants to buy it and offer a better review, go for it.

[Hans25]

ups

[Tomgu]

For the next 48 hours only, choose any three sample libraries from a selection of 50 titles that are normally priced $25.99 each, and you'll pay only $19.99 in total for the bundle (save over $57!) - -
http://www.zero-g.co.uk/store/products- ... s-c112.php

For those who haven't got them yet this is a good chance to get Analog 2 Digital Vol 1 & Vol 2 plus maybe TechTrance

I think I've found a short demo track for (the original) Analog 2 Digital Vol 1 & 2 libraries: http://www.everythingturns.com/ET-V2/a2d20-samples.html , although this seems to be a remastered bundle.

Does anyone have other recommendations for Zero-G libraries in that price range?

[natufian]

50% off Complete Orchestral Collection by Peter Siedlaczek

I'm sorry if this has been asked already, but I didn't see it mention in the thread anywhere: Has anyone bought this and managed to upgrade it to Kontakt fulll version at NI's current sale price? Is it worth overlooking it's shortcomings to save the extra coin on Kontakt? I've been intending to get Komplete for a while now whenever it goes on sale, but I'm considering snatching this up in the meantime. I'd love some friendly suggestions. Thanks!

[Numanoid]

Does anyone have other recommendations for Zero-G libraries in that price range?

I would get the artist series, Skinny Puppy x 2 + Heaven 17 = $20

Funky elements, Freak Beats and eVolution, would be another OK deal, almost 1,5GB of content for $20

Avoid Sabroso, Smoke, Reggae connection, Gloss. These libs have been given away free by Zero-G earlier, not top qulity

Avoid Cuckooland and DreamZone, better deal to pick this up included in a special Ian Boddy bundle

[jsp1979]

Hi everybody!

I am looking for a budget Orchestra library. So far my options are :

Garritan Personal Orchestra -+-150
EastWest Symphonic Orchestra Silver +- 200 Edit: Right now $95 + Ilok +-30 = $130

Both seems to be quite hard to find in the second hand market...is the Symphonic Orchestra Silver nfrs?

Also, as you can see, I am looking for big array of instrument, a complete library on a budget. Based on that, wich other alternatives would you guys consider?

I'm not a huge fan of Personal Orchestra, but you can buy it at Time+space right now for 93 Euro (including VAT).

http://www.timespace.com/product/GPO4-1 ... ad%29.html

In fact, all of the Garrtian libraries are on sale by 30%. Instant Orchestra is the top choice of that group (but is not likely what you're looking for).

[SirKen]

I've managed to find a demo for the Best Service Complete Orchestral pack. It's not that great really. It does contain A LOT of stuff but none of that high a quality. The basic orchestra has more articulations than Kontakt's factory but all patches are very small in size (a few MB in many cases). The extra stuff is extremely varied and may be useful if you want some specific things but a lot of it seems more like a generic sample pack of fills and stuff than a usable Kontakt instrument.

There's all sorts of extra pad-type patches which in most cases are just a sample or two with loads of reverb, there's better stuff to be found in this regard elsewhere. There's some tempo-based string stuff that looks like it may be useful in some disco-house type tracks but not my area really. The pianos are rubbish.

I've only briefly scanned through, there's a lot of patches, so maybe I've missed much of the better stuff. I'm not gonna say its one to avoid cos there's a lot there for the money and it may be more useful to someone else than it is for me. If though like me you are just looking for a nice sounding orchestra to complement your synths then I don't think this is the right place to look.

If you have been looking at the stuff under the Advanced Orchestra folder, then yes they are from older recordings. However, String Essentials is more recent and supposed to be the main highlight of the library. I found the tone fabulous. I think it is very usable with some layering with Kontakt default library or with other third party libraries (like Xsample stuff).

EDIT - Seems like String Essentials is from 2008 and 17GB in size.

http://vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... 3a784d0676

Also, some additional opinions from VI-Control
http://vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... 76#3826620

[MIDICH1]

These are old samples!

True, some were recorded two decades ago, but frankly the only difference between a well recorded sample then and a well recorded sample now is length and length does not always equal quality (though it does bring some realism in sustained notes, especially those that are soloed). If the samples were done with care (and they were) then they'll sound good 20 years from now.

For about $100 in this sale, this is a no-brainer and much better than Garritan's (which I own and find uninspiring). I also own Cameron's Diamond Orchestra and Symphonic Orchestra Gold, both of which are great! (and Diamond is a bargain, imho).

[Fleer]

Then again, Garritan Instant Orchestra is quite special ...

[bigcat1969]

The String Essentials are roughly between a 1/2 and 3/4 gig in size when you load the full patch set and choose sampler to load them all into memory. The basic sustain seems to have 3 velocity layers, but pretty smooth transition between them. While not up to the modern monsters, they sound reasonable and you can tell that care went into sampling them.
The rest of the package varies wildly, but tend more toward being 10 to 40 meg patches with the main piano being 88. Many of solo instruments seem to have two velocity layers and to have 4 samples per octave. There tend to be a lot of patches and they are fun to play with. They also sound like nice 'patches' which is basically what they are.
So nice fun package with decent strings and lots of old school orchestral sounds created with loving care for 100 bucks.

Using just a midi of the first minute or so of Beethoven's fifth and the basic patch, I made a couple quick and dirty demos. Obviously you guys can do much, much better.
First the String Essentials which are the nicest thing in the pack
https://soundcloud.com/bigcat1969/the-5 ... sentials-1
Then the much much older Advanced Orchestra string patches
https://soundcloud.com/bigcat1969/the-5 ... -orchestra
To compare with even great vstis suffer at the hands of amateurs especially when plugged into a midi file, Session Strings Pro
https://soundcloud.com/bigcat1969/the-5 ... trings-pro
Against for comparison the freebie Sonatina Orchestra
https://soundcloud.com/bigcat1969/the-5th-sonatina

[audientronic]

Tried this out over at try-sound and posted my thoughts here:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 7#p6162937

[toby]

Black Octopus sound is having a huge annual summer sale.

Sample packs are up to 50% off until June 28th.

View shop: http://blackoctopus-sound.com/product-c ... pus-sound/

https://soundcloud.com/black-octopus-so ... -main-demo

[omiroad]

Does VSL ever have any sales? Their samples are so nice that I even accept an eLicenser, but those prices...