EastWest Instruments - how are they in 2022? is the engine improved?

[inaheartbeat]

I am a very happy EastWest customer. I purchased Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition which also comes with the Hollywood Orchestrator. I also subscribed to the Composer Cloud since the Black Friday sale prices were really good. I didn't use their stuff when it was Play instead of Opus so I have no bad memories to get over. Opus is great and the Hollywood Orchestrator software alone made the purchase of Hollywood Orchestra worth it. The newest feature is the ability for the software to record what you are doing in Orchestrator and then you can drag the midi generated for each of the parts directly into your Ableton Live (or other DAW) projects. Not only is this really cool for orchestral parts but the magic sauce is that you can swap out instruments for the generated parts (like synths) and really get creative with it. The orchestral library really sounds good also.

The other offerings in Composer Cloud are very good also. I think the choirs are fantastic with the WordBuilder software options available. I like the interface to the whole package and feel like it has definitely been worth the money I spent for it. I got rid of my Arcade subscription because that interface is not nearly as good as Opus and the EastWest library offerings were just better. The instrument preview ability in Opus is really helpful also. Very fast to browse options.

[wagtunes]

This question is for EWQL customers who had their old libraries and have recently purchased Opus.

1. How is it delivered? I can't imagine downloading 130 gig or whatever it is.

2. Is the main difference the ease of which to use the libraries and no so much the sound? If the sound isn't really that much improved, I can live with the Play engine as I am quite used to it.

$300 isn't a ton of money but if I'm spending it simply to maybe save some time in setup and performance, I'm not really sure it's worth it. I already have the entire EWQL collection so to duplicate so many instruments just for a player seems pointless.

What am I missing?

Thanks

[noiseboyuk]

Hi Wags:

1. Any existing Play libraries stay where they are on your hard drive, and Opus in my case just picked them up. I'd bought Hollywood Orchestra, and that download was a whopping 900 tb. I have a good net connection, it took just over a day IIRC.

2. The main difference from my perspective is being able to purge all samples and stream directly from disk, dynamically loading as it goes. This is GREAT. Sonically no difference. Oh, and patches load quicker. Oh and for Hollywood Orchestra they've got far less patches with arcane nomenclature (though the default CCs are still all over the place from instrument to instrument, which is really annoying).

So with regard to HO vs the lovely named HOOPUS, if you already had all the elements (strings, brass, wind, percussion, solo strings, harp) then the only new things are the player, the new instrument patches (the 18 violins are brilliant) and the Orchestrator. That latter app is a huge ton-o-fun, surprisingly playable and would be a godsend for anyone scoring to picture on a budget where you can fill out some underscore very quickly (reality shows etc). I only had Strings and Brass Gold, so I got a lot of new stuff.

[mountainmaster]

1. Any existing Play libraries stay where they are on your hard drive, and Opus in my case just picked them up. I'd bought Hollywood Orchestra, and that download was a whopping 900 tb. I have a good net connection, it took just over a day IIRC.

The installation took 2 full days for me. The download was by no means the slowest part. The installer took a ridiculously long time unpacking the files once they were downloaded. I think EW uses some kind of platform independent Java unpacker.

I could have unpacked the files much faster with a native Windows program but since the installer was busy doing its thing I did not want to interfere. Plus that would have meant figuring out the proper location for the library files on my own.

[wagtunes]

Hi Wags:

1. Any existing Play libraries stay where they are on your hard drive, and Opus in my case just picked them up. I'd bought Hollywood Orchestra, and that download was a whopping 900 tb. I have a good net connection, it took just over a day IIRC.

2. The main difference from my perspective is being able to purge all samples and stream directly from disk, dynamically loading as it goes. This is GREAT. Sonically no difference. Oh, and patches load quicker. Oh and for Hollywood Orchestra they've got far less patches with arcane nomenclature (though the default CCs are still all over the place from instrument to instrument, which is really annoying).

So with regard to HO vs the lovely named HOOPUS, if you already had all the elements (strings, brass, wind, percussion, solo strings, harp) then the only new things are the player, the new instrument patches (the 18 violins are brilliant) and the Orchestrator. That latter app is a huge ton-o-fun, surprisingly playable and would be a godsend for anyone scoring to picture on a budget where you can fill out some underscore very quickly (reality shows etc). I only had Strings and Brass Gold, so I got a lot of new stuff.

Thank you for the response.

Well, I own everything these guys came out with prior assuming that Hollywood "Orchestra" is actually comprised of Hollywood Brass, Woodwinds, Strings, Percussion, etc and not some other product.

My confusion is that in reading the FAQ on their site is that these libraries are NOT compatible with OPUS leading me to believe that I have to redownload all the old stuff in some new format.

In any case, previously I had them send me a hard drive and they still have that option. I suspect, however, that I'm not getting that for $299. So there's that.

I absolutely want the orchestrator (would make my life so much easier) but the uncertainty of whether or not the old libraries will work with it and the hassle of having to download 1 TB of stuff I already have, has me on the fence.

Don't get me wrong. I love their stuff but am I actually going to be getting $300 worth of value from this. Granted, it's 70% off and otherwise I'm spending a grand. So there is that.

Eventually, I will figure this out. The orchestrator is really the main selling point for me. Right now spending countless days creating a score is far from fun.

[noiseboyuk]

Wags - I'm honestly not 100% sure if you'll need to download it all again, you could ping their support. I suspect the answer is "yes you do". There's new instruments of course, but as a total percentage probably only about 5-10% or something.

It's a shame there's a one-price-for-all for upgrading. I got a very good deal, but if you have Diamond of everything, it's much less tempting I agree.

[noiseboyuk]

The installer took a ridiculously long time unpacking the files once they were downloaded.

I don't remember it being especially slow. I'm on an NVMe (same for download and install), don't know if that made a difference.

[wagtunes]

Wags - I'm honestly not 100% sure if you'll need to download it all again, you could ping their support. I suspect the answer is "yes you do". There's new instruments of course, but as a total percentage probably only about 5-10% or something.

It's a shame there's a one-price-for-all for upgrading. I got a very good deal, but if you have Diamond of everything, it's much less tempting I agree.

I just chatted with support. I only have to download the additional content which is 130 GIG.

The better play engine is nice but it's the orchestrator that's the game changer for me. What now takes me days will only take me hours, if that. So I'm going to pick this up.

Thanks for your help with all this.

[wagtunes]

Purchased and downloading. Thank God only the additional content is needed. This will still take some time. Most excited I've been musically in 8 years when I first got my EWQL collection in 2014.

Can't wait to dive into the orchestrator.

[noiseboyuk]

Let us know how you get on with it Wags, good news it’s just the extra stuff you need to download.

I’ve not done much with it yet, I want to put the new instruments in the template early next year, set up all the CCs properly then I can start to integrate it into all my other stuff.

I remember when I first got a Play library in about 2007 it was just catastrophic. They’ve come a long way.

[wagtunes]

Let us know how you get on with it, Wags, good news it’s just the extra stuff you need to download.

I’ve not done much with it yet, I want to put the new instruments in the template early next year, set up all the CCs properly then I can start to integrate it into all my other stuff.

I remember when I first got a Play library in about 2007 it was just catastrophic. They’ve come a long way.

I'll post my first track here along with any comments on performance, etc, when I complete it.

Really looking forward to this.

[wagtunes]

Okay, I have one problem. The Solo Violin library for Opus downloads but the zip files won't extract. I can do it manually but I don't know where to put the files. Can someone check their system to see where these files are stored? I just need the folder name(s)

Thanks

[JonSolo]

You will enjoy the update. The woodwinds are better (rescripted) and Orchestrator is a beast. It is the The Orchestra Complete but with the fantastic samples offered by EWQL (for the record I love both of them and have and use them both...but in different settings).

[noiseboyuk]

Okay, I have one problem. The Solo Violin library for Opus downloads but the zip files won't extract. I can do it manually but I don't know where to put the files. Can someone check their system to see where these files are stored? I just need the folder name(s)

My file path is:

East West/EW Hollywood Solo Violin Diamond

(Downloads and installs were the same location for me)

[wagtunes]

Okay, I have one problem. The Solo Violin library for Opus downloads but the zip files won't extract. I can do it manually but I don't know where to put the files. Can someone check their system to see where these files are stored? I just need the folder name(s)

My file path is:

East West/EW Hollywood Solo Violin Diamond

(Downloads and installs were the same location for me)

I figured out the problem. Download didn't finish. I saw an option "force completed download" and used it. The remaining files downloaded and the unpack routine took over from there and finished the install.

All is good.

Will report back my results ASAP