Hi,
Here's a review of ORB COMPOSER 1.5 / 1.5.1 after 4 months.
My conclusion: wait for a few years, if they survive.
3 VERSIONS
- Demo is fully functional but shuts down after 2 hours
- Artist S 1.5.1: only 4/4; only pop, rock, piano, electro, ambient; only major & minor (149€)
- Pro S 1.5.1: all time signatures, also orchestra & strings, all modes (399€)
I bought version 1.5 in late Oct 2019 with the Black Friday deal. I have been using it on both a Mac and a PC for 4 months.
GOOD
- Certainly very comprehensive for people who can read and write music
- The midi editor is quite good
- You can upload your own melody for orchestration (midi files only)
- Very flexible, sometimes too much (articulations, midi editing, melody / motif / bass / chords / arpeggio, voices, polyphony, etc.)
- The menus on the left make it very easy to add instruments, blocks, chords, chord progressions,
- Youtube channel with lots of videos
BAD
- you need a minimum of 64GB of RAM to use quality sample libraries because you will be loading dozens of instances of Kontakt (or whatever software you use)
- Interface is quite complex for beginners, there is no “simplified mode”.
- The logic is hard to grasp at first (which is OK) BUT there is no help file with an index for reference, only videos on some aspects (The “help” menu is just a short "what’s new in the latest version". (I asked them about this and they said, I quote “Yeah. We are aware that we have a significantly lacking software manual.”)
- Many - many - display problems (interface is crammed / the different visualisations of the same blocks are not aligned / windows overlap without being easily distinguishable / on a PC popup bubbles or right click menus appear for 1/10th of a second). And many more problems...
- The website is extremely slow and buggy; connections are dodgy, display is a massive pain. I stopped using it
- Orchestral arrangements are not realistic: too many notes, and too many blocks that need to be changed entirely with so many options
- Changing one little thing will often completely change all your patiently composed blocks, even if they are “locked”!
- You cannot create new templates that will appear when you open Orb or start a new file.
- when you add instruments to an empty file in order to create a template, importing a midi melody with result in nothing in the blocks.
- Sample libraries are not included (except piano): you need to link Orb with an external application like Kontakt, etc. And a full orchestra loaded in Kontakt linked with Orb will freeze or crash the system (I quote “it’s a known bug”)
- Presence on Discord is limited, maybe because the forum itself is quite empty. No other online community that I know of
- With midi import, the tempo and meter of the original file are not respected (I quote “This isn't a bug as much as it a feature”: ?!?!). For example, uploading a simple 6/8 tune at 200bpm will produce an orchestration as a 4/4 tune at 120bpm, which does not recognize the structure of the tune at all and is 100% useless
- Crashes often, both on Mac and PC (eg 1/ on Windows 7, once had to completely reinstall after deleting all Orb references with regedit; eg2/ on Mac, crashed when clicking on a clip after importing a very simple midi file)
- Staff is really not helpful even for paying customers (I have seen so many times: “it’s a known bug”). And bugs don’t seem to be seriously tackled over time.
- Very complex integration with Logic and other DAWs (even if templates are provided, still very complex); staff not very helpful again (I mentioned a problem on Logic and was told: “I don’t have access to a Mac”).
- clicking on the left arrow (at the top) to go back to the beginning doesn’t bring the display to the beginning.
- Nothing for SONAR / Cakewalk-BandLab
- Full version is 399€!
- Doesn’t seem ready, more like a Beta v0.5.
- Staff refuses to acknowledge the problems.
ANNOYING STUFF
- No warning to save when you open another file with midi import
- Never opens in full screen mode on Win. You cannot change this.
- When Orb is opened or a new file created, it is automatically in loop mode. You cannot change this.
- Cannot change the musical mode after midi import (eg from C to C Dorian) or else, it changes the chords you have chosen. You cannot “lock” the chords.
- No general “solo off button” and “mute off button”
- Many functions that open a folder do not go to last used folder (but systematically to Library/Music on Win and Music on Mac): you need to create your own shortcuts/aliases
- Undo and redo (in the edit menu) do not name the operations in question (eg undo paste, undo delete block, etc.)
- for some reason, the first note of your imported melody will disappear most of the time
- the space bar will start playing, as in every serious music software, but the 0 key does not take you to the beginning of the track
CONCLUSION
+ Very comprehensive and flexible
- The learning curve is quite steep, needs a very powerful computer, direct staff support is almost non-existent and certainly not helpful, very expensive.
Aimed at pro composers with a solid experience in composition. But they will need to seriously rethink their software and listen to customers if they want to survive.
CONTEXT
I wanted to learn about orchestration. I’m 55 and I’ve had a digital home studio since 1988 (Atari + Steinberg Pro24). I can’t read nor write music but I play a couple of instruments and I can explain what D Dorian means.
I have followed Orb since early 2019, and bought Orb Pro S 1.5 with 50% off (200€) for Black Friday in late November 2019.
After testing Orb Composer 1.5 for 4 months
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- KVRAF
- 1722 posts since 21 Sep, 2007 from USA
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience as a paid customer with the Orb Composer 1.5 software. I, too, am a paid customer of Orb Composer, but I have unfortunately been too busy to really play around with it on my Windows 10 PC. Your remarks regarding your experience with Hexachords ring true to me, as well. The developers do eventually fix the bugs which can easily be reproduced on their test machines.
[Core i7 8700 | 32GB DDR4 | Win11 x64 | Studio One 7 Pro | WASAPI ]
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- KVRer
- 1 posts since 15 Apr, 2020
Hi Erickfp
Good write-up, this certainly corresponds to my own experience. I’ll add a few more things:
I originally purchased a license for version 1.2. When 1.5 came along my assumption was that a lot of the bugs I had complained about would be fixed. Not so. In fact, the only major change that I could see was that for some unfathomable reason, V1.5 is NOT backward compatible with earlier versions. That is to say, V1.5 will not open files created in previous versions. In almost 40 years of using, buying, writing and specifying software, this is a first for me! We’re not even talking about a major revision; we’re talking 1.4 to 1.5.
More bad stuff:
- In the options, there is a section for where to add your projects. Why it’s there I’ve no idea since it always wants to save and open to a default directory which has nothing whatsoever to do with the location the user specifies. Basic, basic stuff.
- Midi out. Orb has it’s own Midi emulator. This is a complete disaster. The user cannot specify the channels each instrument sends its output to. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it worked as intended, but it doesn’t. The actual outputs aren’t always the ones listed and quite often multiple instruments are sent to the same channel. This means using Orb with a DAW is completely broken. I reported this bug and all they could tell me was that it was broken because it was too difficult to do. Seriously – they admit they have no real idea, but they’re selling the product anyway.
- VST paths are hardcoded. This is super stupid. I use 2 PC’s, one desktop and one laptop. My plugins on my laptop are on drive D. On my desktop they’re on drive E. Orb can’t open a file on my desktop that was created on my laptop because it’s looking for VSTi’s in the wrong location. I have multiple DAW’s and they can all handle this without issue.
- As you say, locking doesn’t work. At all.
- Help desk people are super rude and totally useless.
- I disagree with your assessment that this is a 0.5 beta. I’d say 0.01. The GUI is rudimentary rubbish littered with schoolboy errors.
- Navigation in the Midi editor pane is buggy and almost completely useless. Playing back the section you’re working on doesn’t work, it always defaults to some random place way back from where you are. Adding a note on an instrument track quite often results in another instrument popping up and the note going there instead.
- It doesn’t pick up all VSTi’s. Some just don’t load. No reasons are given. The included piano comes with synth pad and for some bizarre reason, they both play at once with no way to stop it, unless you use your own VSTi.
Your forward says “…if they survive” This is a BIG if. They’ve managed to create an appalling buggy piece of software and marry this up with extreme technical incompetence with a huge dose of arrogance and rudeness.
It’s a shame. The underlying algorithm, though not brilliant is very promising and is definitely something worth pursuing. Sometimes when inspiration is lacking I pop it open, add a few bars and this leads me somewhere – so it’s good from this perspective, but the GUI is an unmitigated disaster. I would hesitate to call it buggy since some of the functions simply don’t work at all. It seems that there is no real testing done by the developers, let alone regression testing. There is no way on earth this junk is worth the money they’re asking.
Good write-up, this certainly corresponds to my own experience. I’ll add a few more things:
I originally purchased a license for version 1.2. When 1.5 came along my assumption was that a lot of the bugs I had complained about would be fixed. Not so. In fact, the only major change that I could see was that for some unfathomable reason, V1.5 is NOT backward compatible with earlier versions. That is to say, V1.5 will not open files created in previous versions. In almost 40 years of using, buying, writing and specifying software, this is a first for me! We’re not even talking about a major revision; we’re talking 1.4 to 1.5.
More bad stuff:
- In the options, there is a section for where to add your projects. Why it’s there I’ve no idea since it always wants to save and open to a default directory which has nothing whatsoever to do with the location the user specifies. Basic, basic stuff.
- Midi out. Orb has it’s own Midi emulator. This is a complete disaster. The user cannot specify the channels each instrument sends its output to. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it worked as intended, but it doesn’t. The actual outputs aren’t always the ones listed and quite often multiple instruments are sent to the same channel. This means using Orb with a DAW is completely broken. I reported this bug and all they could tell me was that it was broken because it was too difficult to do. Seriously – they admit they have no real idea, but they’re selling the product anyway.
- VST paths are hardcoded. This is super stupid. I use 2 PC’s, one desktop and one laptop. My plugins on my laptop are on drive D. On my desktop they’re on drive E. Orb can’t open a file on my desktop that was created on my laptop because it’s looking for VSTi’s in the wrong location. I have multiple DAW’s and they can all handle this without issue.
- As you say, locking doesn’t work. At all.
- Help desk people are super rude and totally useless.
- I disagree with your assessment that this is a 0.5 beta. I’d say 0.01. The GUI is rudimentary rubbish littered with schoolboy errors.
- Navigation in the Midi editor pane is buggy and almost completely useless. Playing back the section you’re working on doesn’t work, it always defaults to some random place way back from where you are. Adding a note on an instrument track quite often results in another instrument popping up and the note going there instead.
- It doesn’t pick up all VSTi’s. Some just don’t load. No reasons are given. The included piano comes with synth pad and for some bizarre reason, they both play at once with no way to stop it, unless you use your own VSTi.
Your forward says “…if they survive” This is a BIG if. They’ve managed to create an appalling buggy piece of software and marry this up with extreme technical incompetence with a huge dose of arrogance and rudeness.
It’s a shame. The underlying algorithm, though not brilliant is very promising and is definitely something worth pursuing. Sometimes when inspiration is lacking I pop it open, add a few bars and this leads me somewhere – so it’s good from this perspective, but the GUI is an unmitigated disaster. I would hesitate to call it buggy since some of the functions simply don’t work at all. It seems that there is no real testing done by the developers, let alone regression testing. There is no way on earth this junk is worth the money they’re asking.
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- KVRist
- 93 posts since 13 Mar, 2020
Orb Composer disappeared from their website Orb-Composer.com.
Studio One 6, Waveform Pro 11, Acid Pro 10, NI, Pigments 4
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- KVRist
- 85 posts since 19 Jul, 2004
....which is often a sign that development has stopped. I was interested but think I'll skip it for now.
Intel Mac, OSX 10.8x, RME Fireface, Logic 9
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- KVRer
- 17 posts since 16 Feb, 2019
It's back on their website, but not for purchase. Plugin boutique must be the new home for legacy software i'm assuming, & they left the documentation up for the people that purchase. It was a nice idea, but they probably came to the realization that you can get the same thing done with Producer suite.
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- KVRer
- 1 posts since 30 Apr, 2022
Thank for all the thoughtful feedback, folks. This is on sale on Plugin Boutique this week for a pretty good price. After reading this, regardless of the promising bits it would seem like maybe a few minutes of fun and inspiration, a lot of frustration, and soon-to-be deadware; e.g. ultimately a waste of money.
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- KVRer
- 1 posts since 5 Oct, 2020
Thanks for all the reviews. The Pro 1.5 is on sale for $40 right now. It was pretty tempting until I read the above comments. The last commenter cemented it for me as a no thanks. Even free, it's not worth the major time sink and frustration. Too bad.
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- KVRAF
- 1722 posts since 21 Sep, 2007 from USA
It seems that its status as deadware is official now. Orb Producer has been the logical successor to Orb Composer S Artist, and now the new Orb Orchestra is the apparent successor to Orb Composer S Pro.
[Core i7 8700 | 32GB DDR4 | Win11 x64 | Studio One 7 Pro | WASAPI ]
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- KVRer
- 5 posts since 27 Feb, 2022
I bought it... and as a software engineer and music producer, the best feature of this was the 30 days money back working (with some help of Paypal and PG boutique)
I would get it again if they pay me $400 actually, even in deadware state.
You have to deal a lot of issues being poured in your system (I have an i9 12th with 120GB of RAM and it was a nightmare of bugs, it also flooded my system with virtual Bone MIDI ports).
This was surely a very low budget outsourced piece of crap development, ordered by the guy who demoes this **** on YouTube, who is btw the only one on the support line, and who is a pain and mean a*****.
I got my money back, but reminds me a little of many companies who promised the Holy Grail on something like Theranos being a rip off at the end.
What really pisses me off is why Plugin Boutique has this piece of garbage still alive there, kind of faith and trust loss, shame on them.
If someone see or hear a single good quality composition made out of this crap let us know (Good luck)
"The fast, easy and fun" is not always true ...
I would get it again if they pay me $400 actually, even in deadware state.
You have to deal a lot of issues being poured in your system (I have an i9 12th with 120GB of RAM and it was a nightmare of bugs, it also flooded my system with virtual Bone MIDI ports).
This was surely a very low budget outsourced piece of crap development, ordered by the guy who demoes this **** on YouTube, who is btw the only one on the support line, and who is a pain and mean a*****.
I got my money back, but reminds me a little of many companies who promised the Holy Grail on something like Theranos being a rip off at the end.
What really pisses me off is why Plugin Boutique has this piece of garbage still alive there, kind of faith and trust loss, shame on them.
If someone see or hear a single good quality composition made out of this crap let us know (Good luck)
"The fast, easy and fun" is not always true ...
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- KVRer
- 2 posts since 20 Dec, 2022
I registered to say thanks for the review. I, too, saw it on PB and was curious. Anyone try the Orb Production Suite? Anything else comparable to it?
Would Scaler 2 be the best option at this time?
Would Scaler 2 be the best option at this time?
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- KVRist
- 134 posts since 28 Feb, 2007
I bought it during summer sale and I'm surprised how nice melodies and arps it can create. I also have Scaler so I can choose nice chord progression and put it in ORB and very basic structure is done. On the other hand it's not necessary plugin and nothing you can do by yourself. But still nice little helpermwills wrote: Tue Dec 20, 2022 5:05 am I registered to say thanks for the review. I, too, saw it on PB and was curious. Anyone try the Orb Production Suite? Anything else comparable to it?
Would Scaler 2 be the best option at this time?
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- KVRer
- 2 posts since 20 Dec, 2022
Thanks for the info. To be clear you bought Orb Production Suite 3 and feed Scaler output into it?boriskarloff wrote: Tue Dec 20, 2022 8:28 am
I bought it during summer sale and I'm surprised how nice melodies and arps it can create. I also have Scaler so I can choose nice chord progression and put it in ORB and very basic structure is done. On the other hand it's not necessary plugin and nothing you can do by yourself. But still nice little helper
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- KVRAF
- 1722 posts since 21 Sep, 2007 from USA
I own Orb Production Suite 3; I was keen on using the feature to harmonize an existing MIDI melody. Unfortunately, it does not actually analyze the melody and pick suitable chords for it. It appears to simply be picking a random chord progression which matches the selected/detected key.
[Core i7 8700 | 32GB DDR4 | Win11 x64 | Studio One 7 Pro | WASAPI ]
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- KVRer
- 4 posts since 13 Feb, 2014
That was a very detailed explanation. Thank you all.
One more thing I found out is for a given instrument in a single project, the midi port and channel numbers change between blocks - which is super silly. For example a Flute is Port:6 Channel:1 in Intro block and in the theme block it is Port:6 Channel: 7.
I asked their support if they can make the instruments/Midi Ports/Channels static - the response was "That it was the nature of the software"
I also heard that they are coming up with a new update and it is going to be called "Orb Orchestra". I hope it is a free update for Orb Composer 1.5 owners.
One more thing I found out is for a given instrument in a single project, the midi port and channel numbers change between blocks - which is super silly. For example a Flute is Port:6 Channel:1 in Intro block and in the theme block it is Port:6 Channel: 7.
I asked their support if they can make the instruments/Midi Ports/Channels static - the response was "That it was the nature of the software"
I also heard that they are coming up with a new update and it is going to be called "Orb Orchestra". I hope it is a free update for Orb Composer 1.5 owners.