Orchestral Library Recommendations?

[Jennerstein]

Hello,

I've been spending the last few days doing extensive research into various different types of Orchestral Libraries currently available. The thing is, my current rig/DAW is a Q6700 quadcore with 4 gigs of RAM attached to a DIGI002 running ProTools LE 7.4. This seems to limit my options.

For example:
Vienna Symphonic Library. I was looking at picking this up, but then I read that it only supports RTAS in Mac OSX. So that got nixed.

East/West packages. The newest package out there uses the PLAY software, which seemed to be a bit sketchy in Pro Tools about half a year ago. I can't find any info on how it loads on Pro Tools in XP/Vista. I know there's an East West Structure Version, but I'm not sure if I want to buy Structure over another sampler (i.e. Kontakt)

GPO - Seems to work well, using the Kontakt 2 player. However, the quality of the sounds aren't as good as VSL or East West.

Kontakt 3 + Kirk Hunter (or some other Kontakt 3 sample library). I still have doubts about whether Kontakt 3 runs ok on a PC using ProTools LE 7.4. But this might be the best compromise between stability and decent sounds.

Anyway, just wanted to see if I'm missing any options here, or if anyone purchased an orchestral library for a similar ProTools setup.

-J

p.s. I'm half contemplating moving to OSX, but I've always been a PC guy.

[markblasco]

I have been using PT 7.4, and I purchased the Kirk Hunter Strings to use with Kontakt. They are pretty good. Some of the patches are great, and some of them are not so great, but there are tons! (if you are going to download them, be prepared to put about 8 hours of time into just unzipping all of the files. That is about how long it took me on a brand new i7 machine! The Diamond bundle is broken down into over 300 separate zipped folders)


If you are thinking about the Vienna strings, you could try using Reaper as a plugin in Protools, and run it in Reaper. That is how some people are using Kontakt 3.0 with PT8. I haven't tried it yet, but playing around with Reaper is one of the things I'm going to try doing in the next couple of weeks.

[kelldammit]

i'm in a similar position to you...for strings, i'm definitely buying the downloadable vienna string stuff to at least get the ball rolling.
i'm likely gonna snag independence pro at some point too, as i could use it to load the vienna strings if i so choose (from what i understand on their forum, this is possible...), and it seems to be a very flexible sampler in general. however, it also only supports rtas mac if i remember correctly.
also, independence pro likewise includes some variant of the kirk hunter orchestral stuff. the bass/guitar/drum/percussion samples are very nice (you can check out the free version to see what they're all about...but no strings or orchestral except for the pro version).
i use reaper to deal with vi's mostly (very low cpu overhead = LOTS of vsti's at once)...but for some projects i rewire it into ptle.
you can at least get an idea how it'd works for you before you drop cash...

kell

[markblasco]

Originally Posted by kelldammit

i use reaper to deal with vi's mostly (very low cpu overhead = LOTS of vsti's at once)...but for some projects i rewire it into ptle.
you can at least get an idea how it'd works for you before you drop cash...

kell

Do you record your midi info into Reaper, or do you record it in ProTools and than send it to Reaper? I am trying to figure out how to send midi data from a ProTools track, so that Reaper is just used for the sounds, and doesn't save any midi data. I can't seem to figure out how to do that, however.

[pianosound]

Have you guys checked out the Ilio line of VI's?!!! I have their 'Ivory' piano VI,,, what can I say?? I had searched for years, and looked, and listened to Kontakt, and the other most popular VI's. But they are no where near the quality of the Ilio products. Ilio uses profesional instrumentalists and samples every note 6 to 10 different velocities!! I've listened to their string product, and the things you can do are absolutely amazing!!! Since I am not very experienced with VI's I would like to know what you guys think (if you get a chance to check it out), one thing I see is that the strings support VST with a PC, and both RTAS and VST with the MAC?? Not real sure about that, I'll have to check it out a little more.
I could also use a little more info on 'independence pro and reaper' if anyone has the time???
Thanks,,,,,,,,,,,, Mike

[Shan]

Originally Posted by markblasco

Do you record your midi info into Reaper, or do you record it in ProTools and than send it to Reaper? I am trying to figure out how to send midi data from a ProTools track, so that Reaper is just used for the sounds, and doesn't save any midi data. I can't seem to figure out how to do that, however.

Launch the ReWire version of REAPER from within PT.

This might get you there(I've only quickly skimmed through it).

Shane

[markblasco]

Originally Posted by Shan

Launch the ReWire version of REAPER from within PT.

This might get you there(I've only quickly skimmed through it).

Shane

I can get Reaper to play Kontakt instruments and hear them through ProTools, but what I can't figure out is how to get the midi in ProTools to send to Reason. Right now I can only get it to work if I record the midi notes into Reaper.

[pianosound]

This might not be exactly what your looking for,,, but,,, have you tried 'copy' and 'paste'?? I use it a lot to move midi files from (older versions) midi tracks, to the new instrument tracks. ,,,, Maybe not the easiest way that your looking for, but should get the job done???? Good Luck,,,,, Mike

[AndyJCP]

@markblasco:

The Digirack Plugins Guide says:
"6 In the Mix window, click the track’s MIDI Output
selector a and select the ReWire client application.
Some ReWire clients (such as Reason)
may list multiple devices. If so, choose the device
that you want."

Hope this helps.

Andy

[kelldammit]

i always set this up in the pt mixer. in the instrument pulldown, just select reaper, and then the appropriate audio channels. in the midi output for the track, there should appear 16 channels that weren't there before (they don't specify that they're reaper...they just show up as a list of 16 new channels). just select the midi channel you'd like to use.
make the corresponding settings in reaper, and you're good to go. i can send an example project with independence free as the vi in reaper, with audio/midi set up in pt if that would help...
caveat: i've started seeing crashes whenever i try to exit pt (8cs2) after any rewire has been used though...grrrrr

kell