Amicus717

Agreed. That's a good deal. FWIW, the product page at Cinesamples has some good walkthrus. I've been watching them this morning, because that price is very tempting... https://cinesamples.com/product/voxos-epic-choirs

I have "Voices of War: Men of the North" from this collection of libraries, and it's great. It's a very specific library, in terms of the vibe and purpose, but its got a great sound and some nice features. Basically, if you're after that "Norse-pagan-dark-age-snow-and-raging-seas-under-the-aurora-borealis" kind of cinematic sound, it's a beauty of a library, and $79 is a great price. However, if that is not your thing, then you probably won't find a ton of useful stuff in it. Just FYI.

I grabbed this because I qualified for the $49 crossgrade price, and it's actually pretty cool. I don't traditionally use a ton of plug-ins on my projects, but I can see MixBox being pretty useful, and I think it does have some effects not found in T-Racks(?). For hybrid-orchestral projects, where I'm mixing synths and traditional orchestral stuff (and where I often try for a rather ethereal kind of sound), I think MixBox will be extremely handy.

Thanks, Matt, really appreciate the info. I'm a really heavy Albion ONE user, and I have Albion 2: Leogria which I pull out every now and then. Beyond that, I don't have a lot of interest in the other Albions aside from Tundra, which I may try to pick up next. BBC sounds amazing in the walk-thrus, but I have reservations about the Spitfire player. The quality of the samples is meaningless if the player can't keep up.

I'd be really interested to hear from anyone who has used the BBC Symphony Core library. I recall some folk saying it had issues in Windows -- poor resource management or similar, and so glitchy and a major resource hog. I got the impression it was really only optimized for MacOS. It certainly sounds nice, and that price is tempting, but I don't wanna get saddled with a library I can barely use.

I've yet to come across anyone praising the Opus stuff in any significant way, and lots of folks expressing disappointment. I was hoping it would be at least an interesting additional color to add to my library set, but judging by what limited experience I was able to get, they don't really offer anything revolutionary compared to EastWest's other libraries.

I have these, and they are ok. Some nice patches, especially the curated stuff like the Big Hits, Harvested Hits, etc. The smaller percussion patches sound good, as do the metals, cymbals and gongs. I don't like the snares or the timpani -- they're not bad, per se, but I personally don't like how upfront and in-your-face they are, especially the snare drums. The timpani samples are nicely recorded, but to my ears there aren't nearly enough velocity layers and so they change way too abruptly. I also don't like the timpani crescendo or roll patches. Most other orchestral timpani libraries offer way more useable options. I'd definitely buy these as a set, as they don't overlap much and each library has fairly essential patches in it: eg, Orchestral Percussion has the timpani and snares, but Cinematic Percussion has the suspended cymbals. There are also some nice loops in each library, also, and I have found those quite useful. YMMV, as always, but I think $25 each is a pretty good price for these.

I signed up for Composer Cloud so I could give Opus a try, and see if the Opus Editions were anything to write home about. I quit before I got far enough to tell. To start with, the installation process was a huge fail, with most of the Opus editions refusing to install with the error message "Disk is full", even though it wasn't. To their credit, EastWest support was prompt in offering help -- and I appreciated that -- but their solution was byzantine: manually delete select product chunk files in the Program Data folder, download and unzip barebones installation folders (minus the actual sample data) from EastWest, "fake" install the libraries by asking the installer to find the location where these bare-bones installation folders are located, then uninstall the libraries via the installer, then reinstall the libraries from scratch using the installer. Sounds a bit confusing, but for what it's worth, it almost worked. I managed to get HW Brass Gold Opus Edition installed. I played around with it, concluded it sounded pretty much exactly the same as the original, and offered nothing I didn't already have in a bunch of other brass libraries. I never did manage to get HW String Opus edition installed. I went through the kabuki-theatre process outlined above, and HW Strings Opus edition looked like it was installed, but refused to actually show up in the Opus player, no matter how many times I tried, re-tried and re-tried again. After two or three hours of downloading, installing, uninstalling, deleting, reinstalling, folder copying and (yes) drinking, I decided life was too short and just deleted the whole collection, cancelled my subscription and got on with my life. There was a time when I used the EastWest libraries quite a bit, but as my library collection got deeper, I began to shift away from their products -- I never really liked their granular patch setup, and their midi control setup, and I always thought Play was pretty awful. Possibly Opus may have changed my mind about that, but I'll never know. As always, YMMV...

Does anyone have any of these libraries? This is very tempting, and the walk-thrus sound pretty good. However, a few years ago I bought Cornucopia Strings 2 and didn't particularly like them, so I'm a bit hesitant about the Strezov stuff...

Hi folks, Has anyone had problems installing the Opus libraries using the EastWest Installation Center? I signed on to Composer Cloud this week in order to give them a try, and every time I attempt to download and install via the app, I get a "Disk is Full" message. The drive in question has 4 TB free, so I'm pretty sure that's not the problem. All of the other drives in my system are not full either, so I have no idea why I'd be seeing this. Other large libraries (like 83gb Stormdrum 3 library) will start to install without a problem. But any of the Opus Libraries..."Disk Is full." I've opened a case with EastWest, but have not heard back yet. Curious if anyone here has experienced this. Thanks, Rob

Thanks a lot, folks. Great information. Jürgen - great review of both devices, really appreciated the input.

I always saw Bill as one of those indispensable personalities that have made the Cakewalk forum such a great place. I don't post a ton, and don't recall ever directly interacting with Bill on a thread, but always read his posts when they went up and I'm really saddened to hear of his passing.

I've collected a fair number of their libraries via the two big Native Instrument bundle sales that they participated in, which gave pretty good value IMHO, and the two bundles matched up really well together. I do like their stuff, and pretty much every library I bought has been incorporated into my template and seen some use.

Site looks fixed! Sale prices are now in evidence...

I would assume a site update issue. Someone on the web producer side missed a memo.

It's a bit weird that the page for this Sale says "There are no products on sale." I've asked their support team for a bit of clarification. Looks to me like the site hasn't been updated or something...

This looks (and sounds) like something worth picking up. I have their Adventure Strings and Brass and Soaring Strings libraries, and they are all pretty good.

FWIW, I inquired of Behringer support if they were discontinuing or phasing out the XTouch series (a whole bunch of online and brick-n-mortar stores in Canada are listing their stuff as “discontinued”), and the reply I got was: “The Xtouch series is still in production. There are some retailers not carrying our products anymore because of our recent transition to superpartners like Sweetwater, thoman and andertons.”

Great stuff, Bats. Slickly recorded and mixed, with your usual high-end polish. Really enjoyed it.

Great stuff, Wook. As always. Enjoyed the listen.

This is great info, thanks Jim. I was wondering about this myself, as I’m shopping for a new build.

Anyone familiar with the Icon Nano? Looks intriguing. I've heard of Icon's stuff before and have seen a few of their larger products reviewed, but was not aware they had a smaller unit like this... https://iconproaudio.com/product/platform-nano/ I currently have an older MCU on its last legs (faders are getting sticky and starting to fail) and am looking to upgrade, but I don't really need much beyond the shuttle controls and one fader, and I'd like to reclaim some desk space. So the Faderport v2 and the XTouch One had been on my radar, although I'm not sure either of them will be what I'm looking for. The FaderPort v2 seems a bit too threadbare for me (I'd still like a rotary encoder and a digital readout), and the XTouch One is getting hard to find -- most Canadian stores seem to be removing it from their product lines and a few places even list it as "no longer available / EOL", so I wonder if Behringer is phasing out the XTouch products. The Icon Nano looks like it has lots of nice features in a small footprint...

I think the Taylor Davis violin, CinePiano and the Solo Strings would be a nice addition to anyone's collection, regardless of what you already own -- they're standalone products and they're great. The Woodwinds Pro library doesn't have the bread-and-butter essentials found in the core library - flute, oboe, bassoon and clarinet - but does have a lot of really nice additional instruments that are good to add if you do the kind of music that needs them. I can see it being a worthwhile addition if you already have another basic woodwinds library. The Brass Pro library is really intended to accentuate the Brass Core library, and I suspect it would be much less useful on its own - it's got a few nice standalone patches (12 horns, and a couple of solo patches for Trombone, Horn and Trumpet), but is also has a lot of FX patches and muted patches etc that are intended as direct extensions of the ones in the Core library. They may be useful, but they'd be a lot more valuable if you have both libraries. CineBrass Core and Pro are two libraries that really should go together as a pair, and the Pro one on its own is very incomplete. The Descant Horns library is a nice addition to my library, but is kind of niche; the descant horn is a agile, lighter sounding French Horn variant that is great at playing high range notes, and very handy to have around, but not exactly a game changer. Nice to have, but not essential. So, there is definitely stuff here that would be useful to anyone, for sure, but if you don't have CineSamples Brass Core, then you're not getting full value for the package. There is also the matter of the CineSamples sound and vibe -- to my ears it's pretty specific to their products, and may not suit everyone. Their stuff is all recorded on the MGM scoring stage, and its got a similar sound across all their libraries, and it's kind of big and bold and a bit in your face. They do have lots of mic options, so that helps you tailor it to blend with other stuff, so it can be flexible. But it is something that should be noted. Hope that helps!

So, I did take the plunge and grabbed the Toolset bundle. Couldn't resist for that price, and I spent yesterday evening playing around with them. So far, they're great. The Woodwinds Pro library, in particular, is absolutely killer. Totally fits into the kind of music I like doing. It's got ensemble versions of the Woodwinds Core library (which is all solo instruments), and adds new solo instruments (bass clarinet, contrabassoon, contra clarinet, alto flute, bass flute, Eflat clarinet, etc) - but also has an extensive list of historical and world woodwinds and pipes: Irish whistles, a duduk, shawms, tenor and soprano recorders, baroque and renaissance flutes, a collection of bagpipes (border pipes, renaissance pipes, uilleann pipes), and a few patches worth of recorded phrases for some of these instruments. It's an awesome addition to my collection. Really happy I got that one, and I've already used the border pipes in a new piece I'm assembling. The walkthru for this library is here, and I think it is worth watching: https://cinesamples.com/product/cinewinds-pro The CinePiano library is basic, has four flavors (basic grand, a more ambient classical grand, a soft and intimate cinematic grand, and a hard edged rock grand) and they are all excellent - clean, clear and nicely calibrated. CineBrass Pro has additional ensembles and solo brass instruments, including a really delightful 12 Horn power ensemble, and lots of FX, mute patches and the like. Great addition to their already very nice CineBrass library. Taylor Davis solo violin is excellent - clean, expressive with a nice legato. I've only briefly fired up the CineStrings Solo library, and haven't really explored it much. But what I have heard sounded great. As always, YMMV. These libraries perfectly suit me, my working style and my musical preferences, and they sound very good, but they may not suit everyone. However, if you are already in the Cinesamples ecosystem as I am, then adding these for $400 is a total must-have, no-brainer. Frankly, I'd have paid $400 for the Woodwinds Pro library, and called it a good day. Rob

Info here: https://www.sonokinetic.net/sale?utm_source=drip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sonokinetic+Flash+Sale