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Complete Composers Collection


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East West has a 67% off deal on their composer's collection 7-11 of their products. I'm probably not going to buy it yet, but I was wondering to avoid redundancy which packs should I select together. Tentatively I'm thinking:

Symphonic Platinum, Piano Platinum, Symphonic Choirs, Goliath, Ra, Ministry of Rock, Voices of Passion... and possibly gipsy.

Secondly, exactly how do the ilok and license work. I have two computers a part of a studio (my laptop and my desktop) Could I use 1 ilok and 1 license between the two computers or 2 iloks and 1 license?

And finally, what DAW do EWQL Vsts tend to work best with?

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You only use one iLok. The license resides on the iLok. The software can be installed on any computer but it won't run unless the iLok is in the computer's USB port. So you could install on both your desktop and laptop and move the iLok around as needed. (Obviously this means that you can't run the software simultaneously on both computers.)

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You need to read a bit deeper, dude. Composer's Collection is still regular, full price.

The 67% off you're reading is off each individual item. It's ALWAYS 67% off, that's the point of the bundle.

Don't get Voices of Passion, Goliath, or Ministry of Rock. Voices of Passion is a niche vocal library, Ministry of Rock guitars suck, and

(and why get a smorgasbord within a giant smorgasbord bundle? That's redundant.). Goliath has a lot of orchestral, ethnic, and band/synth sounds. You're going to use Symphonic Orchestra for the orchestral and Ra/Other stuff for the ethnic. If you want to avoid redundancy, don't go Goliath.

Here's what I would do for least redundancy and most ground covered, as far as cinematics:

Symphonic Orchestra Gold

Pianos Gold

Symphonic Choirs Bundle

Storm Drum 2 Bundle

Ra

Silk

Gypsy

This doesn't have band instruments, so you could swap out Pianos for Fab Four/Ministry of Rock if you really wanted.

Or you can just blow $1800 and get their whole collection, since they allow you to make it more than 7 instruments now.

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The drums in Ministry of Rock (and even some of the bass) make the VST worth it though, not the guitars. I negate that criticism and recommend it again. :P

Goliath I haven't tried yet. I used to have Colossus, which was a previous version of it, but I think I only found like 1/3rd or 1/2 of it useful. I kinda wish I had it now, but I don't. Oh well. If you were going to change that out for anything, change it out for Stormdrum 2. That fucker's got incredible drums for acoustic, ethnic, and electronic.

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Besides, Storm Drum 2 has the Black Kit, a great sounding acoustic drum kit.

And I think Stormdrum 2's Black Kit is taken from Ministry of Rock, so that's another reason not to get Ministry of Rock if you only want the drums and are trying to reduce redundancy. (And yes, it IS definitely a great drumkit.)

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I kept Goliath on the list because it has pop/jazz brass which I kind of like, I know its not cost effective, but do you know if any other set has that? Also the guitars in gipsy and ministry suck, what's the point of the package lol that sucks

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And I think Stormdrum 2's Black Kit is taken from Ministry of Rock, so that's another reason not to get Ministry of Rock if you only want the drums and are trying to reduce redundancy. (And yes, it IS definitely a great drumkit.)

It's not the exact same drumkit, but both have a good sounding kits in them. I liked the basses in MOR too, though I hadn't found many uses for them. I thought there was also a clean guitar sound in there that I liked but can't find now.

Anyway, truth be told, yeah, you'd get a much better deal with Stormdrum 2 switched out for it and yeah, the already distorted guitar samples aren't good, but I still quite contend any idea that MOR is useless. Iv'e found it quite useful :P

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Gypsy has a very nice guitar. Not as bad as MoR guitars, which sound bad in the FREAKIN PRODUCT DEMO SONGS.

I'm using the guitars more as place holders until i find a real guitarist for any project I work on. I'm not crazy about the drums either so I use SSD instead.

Has anyone tried MoR2? Some of the improvements I've seen make it seem worth looking into but based on my experience with MoR i won't be getting it anytime soon. :)

I have heard MoR guitars used in Duke Nukem Forever and Soul Calibur 5 but they were restricted to a background role (where I think they actually can sound pretty good).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFd4UT5Cqok It's real guitars until around 0:38 where the background guitar squeaks from MoR come in. At least, i'm 95% sure it's the les paul deluxe lead from MoR. I could be wrong on this one.

1:04 clearly a fake lead. I'll have to do a comparison to be sure but it's the Les Paul Standard lead and possibly the Les Paul Deluxe for the, single, power chord.
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I've heard MoR2 product demos, and the guitars STILL sound like Gameboy. >_>

(If anyone has ever seen my comparisons from fake guitars to Megaman Zero, it's because I love the Zero series and fake guitars constantly remind me of that series' OST's.

Some of the Choirs demos also sound awful, but that's still a good library that can be used much better than it is in the demos. Don't know if that's the case for MOR, though, since I haven't used it.

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I don't know if I'm just not using the library properly, but I've never been too satisfied with the EWQL bundle. I purchased the following:

EWQL Symphonic Choirs

EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Platinum

QL Gypsy

QL Ministry of Rock

QL Pianos

QL SILK

QL Stormdrum 2

I can't really judge EWQL Symphonic Choirs. The main feature that's advertised is the Wordbuilder (programming the choir to sing something specific). Unfortunately, that feature is rather intensive on the average computer. My 2008 machine can't keep up, though it will be interesting to hear it once I have a new machine. Keep in mind, there have been other other choir packs out there that have been recently released that include their own syllabus builders. One pack my friend suggested was Requiem Pro.

EWQL Symphony Orchestra is probably my most used pack. I'm still getting used to it, but it's got some decent instruments in there. I believe Sam Dillared used this pack for his remix "The Crimson Depths" and it sounds fantastic.

I rarely use QL Gypsy. The acoustic guitars were rather stingy, but worked for one of my mixes. There's not much else to the pack though.

QL Ministry of Rock was probably the most disappointing pack of the bundle. The guitars just sound awful. I didn't even like their Bass or Drum instruments. The one bass guitar I DID like is a demo for another pack!

QL Pianos is an iffy one. Firstly, you're going to need a very fast machine. It has so many different samples. It takes my machine about a minute to load an individual piano. Even when everything is setup, I'm not convinced it's sounding as good as it should. I have used the pack for a piano solo project though, and I have fooled a few people into believing it's a real piano. I can't really judge until I get my hands on some other piano libraries. I should be receiving Komplete Ultimate 8 sometime this weekend, so that should make things interesting.

QL SILK has some very unique instruments. I can't say much about it, but I do like it. I'm experimenting with the pack in one of my current WIP. I'm interested to see how it turns out.

QL Stormdrum 2 has a great variety of percussive sounds. They sound very good, and I tend to use something from them in most of my mixes.

Something to keep in mind is everything runs on the PLAY engine. The UI looks nice (and has a lair of complexity underneath). The knobs are very sensitive but not very precise. To explain, if you move a knob from its default position at 0.00dB, it's almost impossible to return it to its same value. The biggest issues I had with the engine was the lack of 64-bit support and white-noise explosions. On the Mac side, they took a long time for them to update their engine, but it's all smooth sailing now.

So, with all that said and done, is it worth it? I'm not sure if I'm the best person to judge this pack, as I have little experience with other libraries (as I've said, I've just purchased Komplete and Omnisphere). On the whole, EWQL products are very intensive on the computer. The PLAY engine used to be terrible, but it has become much more stable over time. The included WD Caviar Black HDD is a very nice bonus. Keep in mind, it's a good idea to have a backup for it. Also, you might desire to have a faster configuration - say, a RAID setup (or even SSD, if you have the money).

If you have a killer machine, willing to take the time, and are looking for a decent real-sample library (specifically the orchestra), the Complete Composer's Collection is a good buy. Otherwise, I think you might be better spending a little more to get a premium instrument library that focuses on a specific instrument set (for example, LASS), or go with something with a broader range (Komplete Ultimate 8 ).

Please keep in mind, this is from experience with CCC and analysis of fellow friends. I'm not sure if I'm the best person to judge all of this... I still have a lot to learn. But then again, that might be perfect for someone else who is new to all of this. If anyone has anything to add to my comment, please do. :-D

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Hans Zimmer uses EWQL Symphonic Orchestra, just an FYI for those who didn't know that. >_> I mean, not on everything, but it's undoubtedly the most popular orchestrating software, and for good reason.

Also, I would like to build on the recommendation for Komplete 8 Ultimate: Don't get the regular version. When people say it's good for bread and butter sounds, they don't realize that they're actually talking about Kontakt's default library (which isn't that good as far as the band instruments go, has great synth pads I've found, and its orchestral section is Vienna Symphonic, so that's good). Without it, Komplete boils down to:

Effects, synths, drums, bass, and keys.

Whereas Komplete 8 Ultimate has so many more tools for cinematics as well, which is why I would say that's more of a "bread and butter" than regular Komplete 8. Sure, it's $500 more, but it's also the same price as Composer's Collection, so you could get one or the other.

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How much ram do EWQL libraries demand? I only have a laptop with 4 gb of RAM and I'm kind of worried it might max out my machine. Also is there a daw that could best optimize my usage of these libraries?

And in terms of Spaces which is sold separately, is that plug-in worth getting, or should I just stick to the different mic positions in platinum?

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I was going to expand my memory to 8 gigs to see if I could get more from my laptop in general, would that help with running EWQL. Also, I know the learning curve is steep but does the software come with tutorials or are there tutorials anywhere for the interface?

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I was going to expand my memory to 8 gigs to see if I could get more from my laptop in general, would that help with running EWQL. Also, I know the learning curve is steep but does the software come with tutorials or are there tutorials anywhere for the interface?

I have 8gb memory and I can handle about 20 separate EWQL tracks, perhaps a little more. But that's around where it can't handle it any more.

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