CRAZY East West Deal! Buy 1 Get 1 Free!

[big giant circles]

If you've ever had your eye on any of the East West stuff out there (which is some of the best stuff you can get) but just couldn't bring yourself to splurge on the prices, here's your change to justify at least ONE large purchase.



Eastwest 20th Anniversary Buy One Get One FREE Sale!

Happy Birthday to EastWest! We’re celebrating our 20th Anniversary with our biggest promotion ever!
Buy one qualifying EastWest product and get one of equal or lesser value, FREE!!!

http://www.soundsonline.com/Anniversary-Sale-p-208.html

and here's the rebate form with all the details:

http://images.guitarcenter.com/downloads/633437925498497876.pdf

Also, remember that if you buy it, try to go through the OCR shop, so you can help the site out as well! And remember, you only have until April 24th, so GET TO IT!

*EDIT*
This month at Guitar Center, same deal is going on. Deal lasts until 6/30/08!

[Moseph]

I was thinking about getting VSL SE sometime in the not too distant future, but I may just spring for an EWQLSO Gold/Symphonic Choirs combo. Decisions, decisions.

EDIT: I take it the rebate form means that you don't actually have to buy directly from East West?

[big giant circles]

nope. that rebate (as you can see :P ) is hosted by guitar center.

[SnappleMan]

What's the point of going through the OCR shop? Do we get a discount?

I'd personally go through some of my ReMixer friends who work in these places and help them out with commission, not to mention get their employee discount and whatever else they can throw at me. But thanks for the heads up, I'll be sure to pick something up!

[big giant circles]

well, i just mentioned going through OCR because i believe OCR gets a percentage of the sales.

but if you go your route, that's pretty cool too.

(p.s. i work at guitar center, so if you wanna hook someone up with commission, i'm just throwing that out there).
:<

[Vivi22]

I'm wondering if EWQLSO Silver edition is worth getting, or if I'd be better off with the Gold edition. I've wanted to get the Gold edition for a while, but it's a little out of my price range. I'm considering getting Stormdrum though, so I figured the Silver edition might not be a bad idea since it'd be free. Is there any major benefit to getting the gold edition instead? I find it hard to believe I could go wrong if it's free, but if Gold is substantially better...

Arghh, I'm starting to ramble.

[zircon]

Gold has more samples, release tails, and way more articulations. Whether or not you NEED those articulations is another story entirely. Many of them may be extraneous for you. I suggest looking at the comparison chart at SoundsOnline (I think you can see it in the page w/ the Platinum orchestra.)

[Vivi22]

Thanks Zircon. I may go with the silver edition afterall. Either that or see if I'm willing to dig a little deeper into the old bank account to grab the gold bundle and then get Stormdrum for free. I'll think about it for a bit once I get through my exams in the next couple of days. No need to decide this minute I suppose.

[Sole Signal]

If you're just starting out, silver is a great pickup. However, it's readily noticeable in orchestral-only pieces; it takes a bit of work to get it sounding halfway realistic. The thing I love about it, though, is that it mixes very well in an electro-orchestral style (i.e. with Stormdrum.)

Also, I'm pretty sure you can upgrade to gold at a reduced price in the future, although I don't know if this 2 for 1 deal will negate that.

[Jago]

I agree with the assessment about EWQLSO Silver. You can't go wrong with that purchase, and it's worth getting the expansion as well. While there are some samples that aren't the greatest, there are others that I find to be excellent. Among my favorites are some of the trombone samples, the piano (Steinway if I remember correctly), and it has decent percussion. Silver is a good library to start with, and I've had absolutely no problems using it on my Toshiba laptop with a 1.73 GHz Centrino processor and 2GB RAM.

[SnappleMan]

EWQLSO Silver is a basic necessity at this point. It's very well articulated for the price, and contains some really good strings. When you learn it well enough that you can notice all the limitations, is when you should upgrade to Gold.

[Moseph]

I was thinking about getting VSL SE sometime in the not too distant future, but I may just spring for an EWQLSO Gold/Symphonic Choirs combo. Decisions, decisions.

EDIT: I take it the rebate form means that you don't actually have to buy directly from East West?

Doh! They've just released a set of extended articulations for VSL SE which can be bought bundled with the base library for $850. Perhaps I'll hold out for that.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

God damnit, this deal was announced just AFTER I got Gypsy.

:(

[Fishy]

I'm clearly getting Silver and the bass one next week.

[Vivi22]

Well, since so many of you recommended the silver edition and after checking out a few reviews online (and since it's free) I grabbed that and Stormdrum. I think the gold definitely would have been a little too pricey right now, so I figure I'll work with the silver edition for a while and upgrade when I'm able/want to.

[big giant circles]

God damnit, this deal was announced just AFTER I got Gypsy.

:(

Ouch, bummer man. Maybe you should call them. The same thing happened to me with my IK multimedia purchase, but I called them, and they were gracious enough to send me a DL link.

Also, remember, you should either try to buy through site, or like Snappleman suggests, try to hook us music-employee people up so we can get some extra $$$. If you live in states, and you're going to buy one from Guitar Center, let me know before you do. If you hook me up, I'll donate half of whatever I get to the site.

[Zephyr]

How do the EWQLSO bundles work with your DAW? Do they come with any sort of VST or is it just samples and I'd need to purchase a sampler like Kontakt? What's the cheapest way to use these samples fairly easily?

Edit: Never mind, found it on the site that it comes with Kompakt, I'll replace my question with one about that, what can kompakt do? Or is it just a basic sampler? For a point of reference how does it stack up against Direct Wave? Oh, and what would happen if you bought an expansion EWQLSO without the original? Thanks.

[Kanthos]

Don't know enough to answer your other questions, but the Silver XP needs the normal version to function.

[big giant circles]

How do the EWQLSO bundles work with your DAW? Do they come with any sort of VST or is it just samples and I'd need to purchase a sampler like Kontakt? What's the cheapest way to use these samples fairly easily?

Edit: Never mind, found it on the site that it comes with Kompakt, I'll replace my question with one about that, what can kompakt do? Or is it just a basic sampler? For a point of reference how does it stack up against Direct Wave? Oh, and what would happen if you bought an expansion EWQLSO without the original? Thanks.

It's a step above Direct Wave, I'd say. DW is really easy to use, but while Kontakt's learning curve might be a bit higher, it's still arguably one of the best and most recognized samplers in the industry. I will say that Direct Wave has shown some nice improvements since it's first incarnation.

And yes, it should work fine with most if not any DAW that supports the standard formats. (VST, RTAS, AU, etc etc etc)

[SnappleMan]

Kompakt has some great features but nothing I'd want to use unless I was forced (like in the case of anything that comes bundled with it). You can't use the samples with anything else, they're packed in .lib files which you can't use with anything but that version of kompakt. So even getting full version Kontakt wont let you use your EWQLSO samples with it. The EWQLSO expansions require the original version to run.

[zircon]

That's completely incorrect, bro. ANY Kompakt, Intakt, or Kontakt Player format library will load into Kontakt. I load all my Kompakt-format stuff into Kontakt 2 every day.

[SnappleMan]

Sorry to burst your bubble, bro, but it when I try to load EWQLSO into Kontakt 2 (legit, if you're wondering) I get "THIS LIBRARY IS PROTECTED FAGGOT LOL!"

[zircon]

Update your QLSO to the latest version of Kompakt. Run it once as a standalone and once within your sequencer. Then it should load fine into Kontakt.

[Lunahorum]

which one are you trying? I have silver and I can run it fine in Kontakt 2.

I think I had this problem before and you get around it by running the stand alone first then loading it in kontakt 2. Do you know how to search using kontakt 2 and add the multis to whatever it is called (database?)

If not then I don't know what to say.

[SnappleMan]

<3...<3...<3

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Ouch, bummer man. Maybe you should call them. The same thing happened to me with my IK multimedia purchase, but I called them, and they were gracious enough to send me a DL link.

E-mailed them, and no such luck :(

[big giant circles]

E-mailed them, and no such luck :(

no such luck as in, they haven't got back to you, or they just said "sorry, mang"?

[Vurez]

Hmmm... this IS tempting, though I'm not too keen on getting another dongle. I've been trying to just stick with syncrosoft.

[Geoffrey Taucer]

no such luck as in, they haven't got back to you, or they just said "sorry, mang"?

The second one.

[DZComposer]

Damn it, why didn't they do shit like this before they pissed me off with their new dongle-sold-seperately crap?

Meh....

Oh well, not like I could take advantage of it even if I didn't swear never to buy another EastWest product again. I already spent my samples budget on Garritan and Steinway's new piano library. :/

[Argle]

Criminey that's a good deal. Shame all the new products require dongles. I will never ever buy music software that requries a dongle.

[big giant circles]

Criminey that's a good deal. Shame all the new products require dongles. I will never ever buy music software that requries a dongle.

Why not? Dongle may be a slight inconvenience, but nothing severe enough to damn a product forever from one's endorsement (for that reason alone, anyway)

[zircon]

Yeah, there are worse things than dongles IMO... I just wish there were a universal dongle brand so you didn't need two or three kinds.

[Jago]

That's the biggest reason why I won't buy dongle-based products, because there isn't a universal one. There are some EastWest products I'd be interested to get, but thanks to the dongle (and the fact it's a separate purchase - grr!), I'll pass.

[zircon]

That's a stupid reason not to use ANY dongle-based products. You could, for example, say you only want to use iLok. Thus you'll only have one dongle.

[Jago]

Must you call people's reasons stupid because you don't agree with it, zircon? :|

[big giant circles]

stupid may sound a bit harsh if one is easily offended, but i believe the politically correct way of saying it would be that it's simply not practical to boycott a plugin just because of that.

otherwise, (and don't take this personally--i'm not calling YOU stupid) i agree that it is a pretty weaksauce reason.

but wuteva. to each their own. that's what makes the world go 'round.

[DZComposer]

How else can you really show a company that you disapprove of a decision they made than to not buy a product for that reason?

Dongles annoy me. I don't want to buy a damn USB hub and install as many protection device drivers as dongles just to use my software.

Plus, it illustrates a mindset that I, the customer, am not to be trusted.

Of course, a dongle alone won't stop me from buying, but when a company decides to stick it to their customers to buy a protection device for THEIR benefit (what benefit, besides unlocking the software, do I, the customer, get from that purchase?) then I have a serious problem.

I don't want them to stick me, the legitimate customer, with the costs of their paranoid fears of 13-year-olds who couldn't afford to buy the product anyway downloading it over BitTorrent.

If we, the customers, keep bending over and taking it, this practice will not stop.

[big giant circles]

stupid may sound a bit harsh if one is easily offended, but i believe the politically correct way of saying it would be that it's simply not practical to boycott a plugin just because of that.

otherwise, (and don't take this personally--i'm not calling YOU stupid) i agree that it is a pretty weaksauce reason.

but wuteva. to each their own. that's what makes the world go 'round.

[Jago]

stupid may sound a bit harsh if one is easily offended, but i believe the politically correct way of saying it would be that it's simply not practical to boycott a plugin just because of that.

otherwise, (and don't take this personally--i'm not calling YOU stupid) i agree that it is a pretty weaksauce reason.

but wuteva. to each their own. that's what makes the world go 'round.
No worries. I don't offend easily. Otherwise, I'd be going completely apeshit during my tour here in Iraq (still have some ways to go before I go home). But to call ANYONE's reason stupid could discourage an otherwise informative discussion.

[big giant circles]

How else can you really show a company that you disapprove of a decision they made than to not buy a product for that reason?

Dongles annoy me. I don't want to buy a damn USB hub and install as many protection device drivers as dongles just to use my software.

Plus, it illustrates a mindset that I, the customer, am not to be trusted.

Of course, a dongle alone won't stop me from buying, but when a company decides to stick it to their customers to buy a protection device for THEIR benefit (what benefit, besides unlocking the software, do I, the customer, get from that purchase?) then I have a serious problem.

I don't want them to stick me, the legitimate customer, with the costs of their paranoid fears of 13-year-olds who couldn't afford to buy the product anyway downloading it over BitTorrent.

If we, the customers, keep bending over and taking it, this practice will not stop.

not to sound argumentative, but you make it sound like they're some evil entity who has just murdered your parents and raped your sister. i agree that dongles are an inconvenience, but as i stated, they are a SLIGHT one at best, and a VERY MINOR one at worst.

the general public is absolutely NOT to be trusted. thieves look and generally act just like regular people. do you get mad when a cashier asks to see your ID if you pay with a card? does that mean she is intentionally sticking it to you the customer because you cannot be trusted?

also, i currently have a USB hub, because i currently have my interface, mouse and keyboard, 2 external HD's, my axiom 61, camera, printer, iLok, and Dongle hooked up. with the exception of the mouse and keyboard, none of the other things are *necessary* to use my computer. i didn't pitch a fit for any of the other items--why does a dongle make any difference? that's just how it is, bro.

what benefit do you the customer from that additional purchase? when you buy something and batteries aren't included, what benefit do you get? well, you get to use the product. do you expect compensation when you go buy those batteries? and bear in mind, they didn't sell any of it to you. they licenced it. it reminds you each time you install it, they explicitly state that you do not OWN their product.

at any rate, again, you're free to do and think as you please, and i'm not really that concerned about trying to *convert* you or anything, but i thought i'd at least provide the counterpoints to your concerns. it's alwasy good to hear both sides of every story, regardless of the outcome.

cheers.

[TheLeviathan]

For anybody who has bought and used any of the new PLAY soundbanks, I ordered the free trial pack a few months ago to test them out, and while stand-alone worked fine, I could not get them to work in FL6 for the life of me (they load, but there is no sound after loading an instrument). Is there something I need to do? I'm pretty sure they should work in FL. Please help/correct me if I'm wrong. I'm gonna buy a couple if i can figure this out.

[zircon]

With <48 hours left in this sale, I've decided I want Ministry of Rock. Anyone want anything else on the list? We can go in 50/50ish.

[big giant circles]

This deal is going on this month at Guitar Center. I think that's the only place--I haven't found anywhere else that has mentioned it yet.

http://gc.guitarcenter.com/rebates/

Still a great deal!

[Zephyr]

It's on again? I thought it was just for that month... is it up every month this year or what?

[Geoffrey Taucer]

So do I have to actually buy it through guitar center in order to get it?

[Moseph]

Not only that, but according to the rebate form (http://gc.guitarcenter.com/rebates/pdf/eastwest_Quantum_063008.pdf), you need to make the purchase at a physical store and not online:

PRODUCTS MUST BE PURCHASED AT A GUITAR CENTER STORE
(NO ONLINE SALES)

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Not only that, but according to the rebate form (http://gc.guitarcenter.com/rebates/pdf/eastwest_Quantum_063008.pdf), you need to make the purchase at a physical store and not online:

Where's it say that?

EDIT: nevermind, I'm stupid

[big giant circles]

Don't let that stop you though, you can always just get someone there to order a physical copy from another store (called a Sit/Dropship). Mention those words and they'll know what to do. And I guarantee they're not going to give you any crap over it.

(Sit - item sent to store, you go pick it up. Dropship - Item sent directly to your house.)