DZComposer

JABB isn't as horrible as people say it is. Now, like most Garritan products, this isn't aimed at the uberealistic spend $5000 on a library crowd. So don't expect it to sound 100% like a real big band. Yes, the saxes aren't great, but that cat analogy is a bit of exaggeration. They're not that bad. I've heard way worse. I put them in the "okay" range. That said, it isn't bad. It is amazingly flexible in terms of what you can do with a single loaded instrument. Most articulations can be triggered by MIDI CC instead of requiring you to load tons of patches. Dynamics and vibrato are entirely controllable. Here's the rundown on JABB: The Good: cheap compared to other libraries of this type, and better sounding than anything else in this range. If you take the time to learn it, you'll find that it is VERY controllable. Totally awesome brush snare stirs. Amazing customer support. They go out of their way to help you if you have a problem and the engineers and ever Mr. Garritan himself are active on the company forums. No pre-recorded reverb The Bad: Learning curve: The #1 reason Garritan libraries get called junk is because people don't take the time to learn how to properly use the library before dismissing it. If you just load it up and start punching notes, it will sound horrible. No section samples: Everything in JABB is sampled solo. No section samples exist and all winds are limited to single-note "polyphony." I think this is part of the reason why the library can sound a little weak at times. No velocity layers for winds: The way these libraries are coded, it is impossible to have velocity layers. Timbre is controlled by the mod whell along with dynamics. Other controllers are required to get anything resembling to a realistic experience. higer CPU load that plan samples: Since so much processing is done, these libraries are more CPU intensive that ones that are just straight sampled. Now, I'm not saying that you need to buy this one. If you can afford one of those awesome ones, by all means go for it. But, for the budget, it isn't half bad provided you take the time to learn it. It has gotten many positive reviews and won a few awards, so it isn't utter crap as some suggest. With most libraries, you just wear the composer's hat. With Garritan ones, you need to wear the musician's hat too. It has strengths and it has weaknesses, as others do. Don't count them out based on comments from people who decided that it sucked before they learned to properly use it.

Meh... This one be a dud for me. Maybe next time.

I thought the mix of orchestral and electronic instruments at the beginning and end was neat. I liked the piano near the end a lot. I am not generally a fan of electronic music, due to a lot of it being very repetitive, but you managed to not get too bad with that. That said, however, this suffers from the thing that plagues like 90% of Corneria mixes out there: You focused on the 2 measure phrase from the begining of the original song. Where is the rest of the song? A nice melody starts about 20 measures from the start of the song that I never heard. There is more to Corneria than those two measures. I know that phrase meshes well with the genre's fascination with eighth noes, but there is more material there. Also, keep a check on those electronic instruments during the mixed parts. Sometimes they stuck out of the orchestra sound and it ruins the balance and causes the synth to sound out of place. Also, the ending left me hanging. You had set up a path to a destination towards and after the climax (which I haven't seen too much in these kinds of mixes), but then you just stopped. Give it a final destination. A lot of these mixes (that don't pass the panel at least) have a lack of musicianship. They are thrown together by someone hooked on bass-n-beats. But, in your case, I sense a kernel of musicianship at the core of this piece. Tap into it more. You have the beat down and the parts hashed out, now finish it. Fix the balance, maybe add more of the original song, and PLEASE write a real ending. It doesn't matter if you are doing orchestral stuff of electronic stuff, always, always, use your musical sense, musical ear, and musical judgment to it's full capacity.

If you have the cash, look into ProjectSAM for your brass if you're satisfied with the rest of GPO. Also, you can purchase just the brass from EWQL, but the price is comparable to Project SAM, which is a better power library anyway. One thing about EWQL. EastWest has developed their own sampler platform and has ported all of their libraries to it. I think they might stop selling the Kontakt/Kompakt versions soon. iLok dongles will be required, unfortunately.

It looks like I killed PRC.

It depends on what you want to do. GPO can actually out-perform EWQLSO Silver, but to do so requires a lot of skill and practice. Few can get it. I wasn't able to either. I now mainly use EWQLSO Gold with the pro XP. The Pro XP essentially adds more articulations. It isn't a sample quality improvement. The main difference is the way the libraries are programmed. GPO is designed as a playability library. You don't have to load an articulation instrument for each articulation. MIDI CC controllers create the articulations. An advanced MIDI controller with aftertouch is a must-have for GPO (or at least a sequencer that allows you to draw-in the needed controllers). A cheap Yamaha PSR won't be able to use it with full potential. It has a learning curve. GPO is not sampled with reverb. You must add reverb yourself. Panning is pre-set, but can be changed to your liking. EWQL is a traditional library. Different articulations are sampled and used as MIDI instruments. You may find yourself splitting parts between instuments to get the sound you want. The learning curve isn't as high and the brass sounds are pretty decent. The woodwinds, though, could be better. The long release tails can get you into trouble on fast sections if you are not careful. I've hit the instrument polyphony on some woodwind runs before and it is noticeable. Reverb is included as a release tail. That is less work for you. The reverb can be adjusted, but if you want to use external reverb, you may need to remove the tails if you can still get the Kontakt version. Once again, panning is pre-set but changeable. GPO is more flexible in terms of playability. If you want to write a lot of expressive, dynamic music you may want to consider GPO. It excels at that. It can do real-time vibrato control, both intensity and frequency, and better single-note dynamics due to it's mod wheel volume/timbre control. For some reason in EWQL when I do a diminuendo with the expression controller, bringing it back full for the next phrase, the release trigger of the previous note will pop back louder. If you want power, though, go with EWQL. GPO can't do powerful brass very well, with the exception of the horns. Also, EWQL does staccato much better. GPO's is weak due to the way it is programmed. EWQL has sampled staccato. Also, EWQL has more effects. So, think about what kind of music you want to write and choose appropriately. GPO does better "classical" music, while EWQL is better for "film score" style music. Also, think about how much time you want to spend mastering the use of the library. GPO takes a lot of practice and the right reverb settings to get it to sound really realistic. If this matters, Garritan's customer service is amazing and there is a healthy user community in which the designers, programmers, and Gary Garritan himself regularly post. They are both excellent libraries. GPO is different and gets a lot of flak for it because people don't really sit down and use it the way it was intended to be used. Choose the library YOU feel more comfortable with.

No takers yet, eh? O_o

I thought I sent it. I typed it, but it seems as though I didn't send it. I'll PM you now. Sorry about that.

I Won? Me? Wow... I guess I'm not the rotten Yoshi egg after all. Heh. Thanks for voting for me.

God Damn I'm a dumbass sometimes. >_< I didn't even think to try that. Thanks.

Does anybody know if it is possible, and if so, how, to copy the Tempo Track from one file to another? I have an upcoming project that I will need to split into multiple files for system resource reasons, but if the tempo changes aren't perfectly together, it will ruin the final mix. I'm either blind, stupid, or wishful on this one, methinks. Heh. Oh, and my Cubase is SL 3.

I'll withhold my vote until the final piece is uploaded as well. Man, I wish I had more time to finish my pit parts. Oh well. Maybe it's Certified Good Enough.

I err, attempted I guess is the best way to put it, to arrange this for drum corps! However, the short time hurt me, and I had to cut corners to make it in time. Sadly, it shows pretty obviously in my entry, but nonetheless.... The piece is called "Marching Through Sky Garden" because I suck at titles. http://www.corneriasound.com/music/103final2.mp3 Sample Libraries: Garritan Concert and Marching Band, Virtual Drumline 2 Oh, and my appoligies for it being on the quiet side. I was having some weird clipping issues that time did not allow me to fix.

I hope I can finish mine in time.... It took longer than I expected to get to this point. Sadly, the time crunch will affect the quality of the piece, but I'm to far to call it quits. I may just be the rotten yoshi egg.....

Hmm... I have an idea for this song that also could fulfill a need to me to practice with a new sample library. Methinks I'll give it a shot.

I'll also put in a recommendation on EWQLSO Gold Pro XP. It is indeed a well-rounded library, with decent Brass. Be warned, though, it is a large library and will require lots of RAM. It comes on 8 DVDs, if memory serves correctly. It does have it's limits, though. Project SAM is the way to go provided you have the cash. I have the first editition of the sAM Horns, and it is quite impressive. I just don't use it because I no longer use Gigastido. I need to but the new Kontakt version. I'm mostly satisfied with EWQL for now, so I am currently filling in holes for areas that I do not have any sounds for.

Some keyboards support the aftertouch CC, but don't actually support it on the action (keys). Mine is that way, so I use an analog foot pedal to send aftertouch data.

If vista gets in your way, then downgrade to XP. Just because your PC was built for Vista doesn't mean that it won't run XP well. The hardware doesn't care provided there are proper drivers. Due to XP not being anywhere near dead yet, I am pretty sure you would be able to find XP drivers for all of your hardware. "Optimized for Vista" only means that there are proper drivers in place for the hardware.

I have written to the ending of the reduced length version. After the castle town BGM, the piece transitions into the Twilight BGM and then into "Midna Says Goodbye" as the ending. I've done the Twilight BGM in a tonal avant-garde style. That may not sit well with everyone. Midna Says Goodbye should make up for that, though. http://www.corneriasound.com/betamusic/lbtpred001.mp3 The full version will have a longer Twilight BGM plus more songs. The reduced version itself is over 7 minutes. I may have to cut some out of it still because of the 6 meg filesize limit. I still have a few things to clean up, but this is close to finished. I am debating on whether or not to submit it when this version is done or wait until the full version is done.

The Kontakt 2 Player update is available for GPO (the official one, not the buggy POS that got leaked in March) and JABB. It also adds MacIntel support. A new serial number is required, though. You need to download them and get a new serial from Native Instruments ( http://www.nativeinstruments.com ).

I changed the title a little. It is now "Lylat Brass #1: Twilight Brasscess." Though I'll likely just submit it as "Twilight Brasscess." Sadly, I do not have two trumpet players, a trombonist, and a tubist to play with me (I play horn) so samples are the only way to go. The Black Hole piece is on my site, with some other things that aren't on OCR either. I don't submit everything here. Click my sig pic to get there. Don't forget, the version I will be submitting will only be about the first half of the piece, so check my site when it's done.

Ah, much better. It still has that removal request clause that I don't like, though. I think I'll wait before voting.

Yeah, cheesy title, I know. This is a work in progress, no ending has been written yet. This medley from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess takes the listener on a musical journey though Hyrule in the form of a Brass Quintet. This piece is the first in a new, revitalized Lylat Brass series that uses better samples, and somewhat more reasonable part writing (perhaps the Trombone “wolf howls” aren’t so reasonable…). A note about the Lylat Brass series: I am writing these as if they were written for a concert. Medleys are common in the series and in some places there may not be much difference from the original BGMs. There will likely be two versions of this piece, as the idea has grown much larger than I had originally anticipated. OCR's 6 meg filesize limit would definitely get in the way of the full version, so a reduced OCR version is a must. As of now, I am bout 85% complete with the OCR version. I plan to add one more song to the medley and then put the OCR ending. The final piece will be much longer, possible breaking the 15 minute barrier. http://www.corneriasound.com/betamusic/lbtp004.mp3 Current order of songs in the medley: Intro/Title Screen Ordon Ranch Leaving Ordon Hyrule Field Zelda's Theme Midna's Theme (with a hint of the Cleared Boss Chamber BGM) Castle Town East Instrumentation: 2 trumpets (players occasionally switch to flugelhorn) 1 F Horn 1 Trombone (responsible for the "wolf howls") 1 Tuba I am pretty sure the Trombone "howls" will be controversial, but as of now I do not plan on removing them. Sample Libraries: EWQLSO Gold Pro XP (primary instrument sounds) Garritan Personal Orchestra (Muted Trumpet) [not used yet] Garritan Jazz and Big Band (Flugelhorn, howl trombone)

This statement is scary, and the fear isn't relieved unless one reads the whole document. Of course someone should read the whole thing, but maybe rewording it so that "unless otherwise stated" means "when relating to the OCR name" wouldn't scare people off before they go further. Hmm... I don't like this, but it isn't a huge deal to me. I don't foresee myself asking to have my stuff taken down. If OCR receives a DMCA Takedown Notice, how would this be handled? Would the offending song be pulled in a knee-jerk fashion, or will an attempt be made to determine the viability of the notice? The DMCA has been widely abused, and things that do not violate the DMCA are being removed by some sites based solely on the abusive notices. Knee-jerk reactions to DMCA notices can cause censorship. I don't like the "violation of submission standards" clause, as it implies that accepted songs can be deleted later if it is decided that they no longer fit any new submission guidelines. I feel that once in, it should stay in unless the artist wishes it removed. Even though you later say "Additional credit to the original artist(s) responsible for each OverClocked ReMix used is requested, whenever possible," I think the artist's name should be in the 'minimum' as well. Most people will only do the minimum, it's humnan nature. I do not understand why the artists name isn't in the minimum to begin with. :/ The other stuff looks good to me. None of these concerns are "OMG! This is horrible!" but I do think they should be considered. Thanks for giving us the opportunity for input.

Garritan recommends that you place a modwheel setting at the very beginning of each track that uses mod for volume control, which is pretty much everything that isn't "percussive." This is especially true when using these libraries in the full version of Kontakt2, though K2 updates for both should be coming down the tubes shortly. If you don't know how to change the mod setting in the player, it is the "wheel" closest to the lowest key on the "keyboard." Click on it and drag it up.