40% off UVI World Suite 2

[Larry Shelby]

An epic collection of traditional and ethnic sounds

Explore thousands of years of musical culture from every major continent and ethnic tradition through 369 instruments, browsable by region and type, and over 10,000 authentically performed loops and phrases.

$179

https://www.uvi.net/world-suite-2

[jngnz]

I bought this during BF sales and am fairly disappointed in the quality of most samples. This is really more of a "background support" library than anything you would put front and center. Then again, what did I expect of a 40 GB library with 12 billion instruments.

Anyway, has anyone compared this to EastWest Ra? Judging from the YouTube walkthrough, it sounds a whole lot better than World Suite.

edit: I should mention I have zero interest in loops and phrases and consider them to be a waste of disk space.

Edited April 13, 2023 by jngnz

[Reid Rosefelt]

My advice would be to get Ethnoworld.  During Black Friday you can get the instruments only part for around $145.

But I am also a big fan of world Suite and eastWest’s SILK.   I don’t have RA. 

[jngnz]

8 minutes ago, Reid Rosefelt said:

My advice would be to get Ethnoworld.  During Black Friday you can get the instruments only part for around $145.

But I am also a big fan of world Suite and eastWest’s SILK.   I don’t have RA. 

That seems like a lot, A LOT of instruments for 15 GB. Are you sure the same criticism I had about World Suite won't apply to Ethno World as well? Being more of a "background sounds" kind of library?

[Zolton]

There are many -- many, many, many, many, many -- threads discussing Ethno World, World Suite, EW's Ra/Silk/Gypsy, Tarilonte, Strezov libs and NI Discovery series, among others, in the usual places (including right here) over the past couple of years.

My overall impression is that out of the set of: modern, playable, affordable, comprehensive, realistic and flexible, you can get two, or possibly three, with any given choice. Personal preference, familiarity with specific instruments/styles and individual priority for each characteristic above heavily influence the available opinions.

Personally, I'm a hobbyist with great interest but not great expertise in various "world music" styles, and have tried to lean on the less expensive, more playable and mostly-Kontakt-based side, perhaps at the expense of precise authenticity, wide scope or other perks. I'd venture to guess the most relevant opinions would be the ones from people with the same general use cases / priorities as you, if you can glean those from the comments here or elsewhere.

 

[Fleer]

As for East West, I prefer Silk to RA: less instruments but more deeply sampled with more articulations. 

[jngnz]

5 hours ago, Zolton said:

There are many -- many, many, many, many, many -- threads discussing Ethno World, World Suite, EW's Ra/Silk/Gypsy, Tarilonte, Strezov libs and NI Discovery series, among others, in the usual places (including right here) over the past couple of years.

My overall impression is that out of the set of: modern, playable, affordable, comprehensive, realistic and flexible, you can get two, or possibly three, with any given choice. Personal preference, familiarity with specific instruments/styles and individual priority for each characteristic above heavily influence the available opinions.

Personally, I'm a hobbyist with great interest but not great expertise in various "world music" styles, and have tried to lean on the less expensive, more playable and mostly-Kontakt-based side, perhaps at the expense of precise authenticity, wide scope or other perks. I'd venture to guess the most relevant opinions would be the ones from people with the same general use cases / priorities as you, if you can glean those from the comments here or elsewhere.

 

Thanks. Seems like there's no clear winner and WS2 as well as EW6 have some well sampled and some badly sampled instruments. Consensus on EastWest stuff seems to be it's dated and there's better stuff out there. Silk is less dated than RA, but doesn't contain any of the stuff I am mostly looking for (sitar, oud, frame drum/daf).

If I'm being honest, I will probably pick up EW6, be mostly unhappy with it, and proceed to buy a million other specialised libraries like the addict I am. Although there doesn't seem to be a single well respected sitar library out there.

[shawker]

1 hour ago, jngnz said:

Although there doesn't seem to be a single well respected sitar library out there.

Impact Soundworks has Sitar Nation, it may be worth checking out.  I don't have it, but the libraries I have from them are quite good.

https://impactsoundworks.com/product/sitar-nation/

[Fleer]

4 hours ago, shawker said:

Impact Soundworks has Sitar Nation, it may be worth checking out.  I don't have it, but the libraries I have from them are quite good.

https://impactsoundworks.com/product/sitar-nation/

Yeah, ImpactSoundworks have some good ones, also Gamelan, Guzheng and Turkish Oud.