Ableton Orchestal Instrument Collection - are they any good?

[merges]

That is really helpful; thank you for posting such a detailed review!

[theophilus]

thanks. and btw, i have put up some short samples here of each one:

http://soundcloud.com/prophet3000/sets/cello-test/

so you can sort of hear it for yourself. I used the same line from garritan here:

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/sho ... nstruments

the score reference 7, tchaikovsky 6th symphony 2nd movement, though they are using ensemble strings there.
i may redo this with ensemble strings later if it's worthwhile.
note that i left out the ewql cello, as it was pretty obvious later the way different sound was because it was an ensemble patch

not the best orchestration.. i intentionally left the line very static, all notes are velocity 100, so you can hear any inconsistencies in the phrasing.
also, kontakt factory patches come with reverb on, so I used that. for miroslav, i added some of the internal csr reverb, and for the rest,
i added a little reverb using liquidsonics reverberate, the 'large gentle cathedral' preset with slightly different wet/dry settings per part.

one final note... i didn't include it, but if you have kontakt and the emu factory library CDs, there is a 'stereo cello' patch on the 'standard 2' cd
that i had imported into kontakt and tried too... expecting to show it as a 'how far we have come', but actually it was pretty good! so you
could try that.

[Cezband]

Cheers for going to the trouble of comparing them all and posting up your findings...I had a listen to the samples you put up, the inconsistencies in Kontact were pretty shocking...maybe with more expressive playing it would improve but yeah, did not like.

The other ones do sound nicer than Live's own strings, but not to an extent where I feel like I'm missing out at the moment. Perhaps if I need to do some grandiose string arrangements I'll have to have another look. Certainly, if I didn't have adequate strings from EIC then I'd think twice about going the Ableton route after hearing those examples.

Thanks again, man!

[ansiaaa]

thank you for taking the time to write the review and record the demo!

[theophilus]

no problem... glad someone found them useful

i am curious to see how much the ableton solo sounds can be helped by EQ... they seem harmonically rich, just dark, if that makes any sense.

and dimension LE (garritan pocket orchestra) is only $5 right now...

[marra]

Yes indeed - wish I saw this before I made my The most realistic orchestra sound possible thread