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I'm curious as to what companies/products all of you typically use or are particularly fond of. There's a lot of stuff out there, but I want to get a feel for what everyone digs the most. As of now, my list consists of:

EWQL - pretty much everything they make is legit; just expensive

Native Instruments - same as EWQL, but cheaper; I'm a fan Absynth, Battery, FM8, Massive, and Reaktor, though I haven't quite mastered the use of these yet.

XNL - Addictive Drums

I have BFD's old v1.5 drum pack also, which is a decent addition. I've also heard good things about Camel Audio stuff, like the camelcrusher, but have yet to use that.

Aside from the software sample packs and synths, I mainly hover around using FL Studio, but I've kinda been curious to experiment with Sonar, Reason, and Cubase, though I'm not sure which. I've also used my girlfriend's Macbook and played with Logic.

I know this is very open-ended, but I just figured it could bring up interesting discussion regarding the various resources out there, since there are so many.

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There are alot of good possibilitys out there...

Nexus - a pretty high Quality Synth Plugin, the negative part is the hardcore stereo room it uses

Melodyne - one of the Best Plugins to edit Vocal records

Ozone Izotope - pretty amazing Mastering tool

Eldirol - mid to high-quality Plugin for Orchestration

Garritan Virtual Instruments - like the Cello or Stradivari

...but you pocket will suffer from all of them massively T_T

Btw.. there was an official free Version of EWQL Silver with amazing Quality (Strings, Brass...)

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There are alot of good possibilitys out there...

Nexus - a pretty high Quality Synth Plugin, the negative part is the hardcore stereo room it uses

Melodyne - one of the Best Plugins to edit Vocal records

Ozone Izotope - pretty amazing Mastering tool

Eldirol - mid to high-quality Plugin for Orchestration

Garritan Virtual Instruments - like the Cello or Stradivari

...but you pocket will suffer from all of them massively T_T

Btw.. there was an official free Version of EWQL Silver with amazing Quality (Strings, Brass...)

Hey, finally a reply! Thanks.

Yeah, I got the EWQL free version - it's amazing. As soon as I get enough money saved, I'm purchasing their gold version.

Another few companies I realized had a lot of products were Propellerhead (the Reason people), Cakewalk (the Sonar people), Camelaudio, and Spectrasonics. I dunno how I missed all of these big guys, but now my problem is trying to choose which products to use from which companies! There are so many to choose from.

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As soon as you can afford Izotope, I'd get that - if you have any ear at all for mastering it will help a lot. A lot of people however will still prefer to outsource their mastering, which ultimately I recommend, but when you have time and budget constraints - Izotope is the way to go. (Just avoid presets, use them as starting points only)

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There are alot of good possibilitys out there...

Nexus - a pretty high Quality Synth Plugin, the negative part is the hardcore stereo room it uses

Melodyne - one of the Best Plugins to edit Vocal records

Ozone Izotope - pretty amazing Mastering tool

Eldirol - mid to high-quality Plugin for Orchestration

Garritan Virtual Instruments - like the Cello or Stradivari

...but you pocket will suffer from all of them massively T_T

Btw.. there was an official free Version of EWQL Silver with amazing Quality (Strings, Brass...)

edirol orchestral is pretty poor overall quality. it's nice to get a whole orchestra for so cheap, but you get what you pay for.

similarly, while garritan's gofriller is very easy to play live, it's poor compared to other, similarly priced options when it comes to sequenced stuff.

melodyne is the best for fixing vocals. no questions asked.

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  • 2 weeks later...

EWQL's free promotional ended, huh? Crap...

I'm looking for really good orchestral, brass, and maybe electronic guitar. I've heard of native and was going to look into it, but anyone know any other company that might have all of these with decent quality?

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electronic guitar? i think you mean electric guitar. combine Impact Soundworks (zircon and bustatunez) Shreddage with Guitar Rig 4, and you've got instant metulz.

as for orchestral and brass (i'm assuming you mean strings and brass, since 'orchestral' refers to anything in an orchestra), there's a ton of different levels of quality based on what you want to pay. edirol might be good enough if you're on a limited budget.

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electronic guitar? i think you mean electric guitar. combine Impact Soundworks (zircon and bustatunez) Shreddage with Guitar Rig 4, and you've got instant metulz.

as for orchestral and brass (i'm assuming you mean strings and brass, since 'orchestral' refers to anything in an orchestra), there's a ton of different levels of quality based on what you want to pay. edirol might be good enough if you're on a limited budget.

well I'm trying to write jazz, orchestral sounds/band arrangements (including both strings, brass, and woodwinds), and I guess rock or fusion. I'd record with real guitars but the guitarists I know are unreliable and I'm still learning the instrument. >_<

Do you know if there's one company that would provide such a wide range of vsts for a decent price?

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there's little out there that's specifically for jazz, sounds good, and is cheap or free when you get away from bass, keyboards, and drums. good jazz horns are hard to find.

edirol orchestral includes all of the major strings, winds, brass, and percussion.

as for rock and/or fusion, recorded stuff is always better than sampled. Shreddage is primarily a rhythm guitar thing, and doesn't have a lot of the flexibility you'll want with lead guitarist. so that's kind of up to you. i still recommend guitar rig, though, since it's easily the most versatile amp modeler and effecter plugin i've ever seen.

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If you're patient and learn how to record in small segments and edit together multiple takes, it's not too difficult to make an electric guitar sound decent even if you don't play well. I'm an awful guitarist, but I can still fake both rhythm and lead by editing creatively. If the guitar is going though some sort of overdrive or distortion, you can get away with sloppy edits that would sound terrible with an acoustic instrument.

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