CineSymphony LITE

[Dissidia]

Anyone hyped or excited for this? http://cinesamples.com/product/cinesymphony-lite

The only thing to me that is a little lackluster is the lack of legato but it could be worth getting despite that depending on the price, which hasn't been announced yet - how many $ bills do you think it'll cost?

[DusK]

Definitely interested, though dreading to discover what the price tag will be.

[Dissidia]

Definitely interested, though dreading to discover what the price tag will be.

Yeah I think the price tag will be up there, considering they have 50% off for full time students and teachers. If it is 200 it'd be 100 for students, that sounds really low.

[Meteo Xavier]

Wow, it's actually going to be $400.00 at it's base, and then $200.00 with a 50% student discount.

Damn. :S

Edit: Clarification.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Meteo Xavier

[Nabeel Ansari]

Wow, it's actually going to be $400.00 with a 50% discount.

Damn. :S

Anyways, I'd have to think carefully about it. I'd only get it after I sell EWQLSO (I'm sick of PLAY and iLok bullshit), but the thing is, I need to think about what I'm losing by going from a giant individualized library to what is essentially a few ensemble patches. It won't do me much good to learn proper orchestral arranging with ensemble patches, but then again, I do own Miroslav Philharmonik and can layer the two libraries to both have the high quality sound and the proper arranger's control.

Another factor is deciding if I want to buy the actual "Cine" line. It'll be a waste to get this if I get the full versions later on. This would be $200 for me, and the Cine line after discount is $1105. Really steep, but so much more control.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Neblix

[Meteo Xavier]

I think a quick clarification for admittedly vague semantics would've been a lot better than a big fuckin' picture that overflows with snide sentiment.

[Dissidia]

That's disappointing, since I'm neither a student or full time teacher I won't be getting this. Lately the price vs content hasn't been very good in orchestral ensemble libraries in my opinion, DaCapo feels overpriced to me as well as the ranges of the instruments is unfortunate. I wish I bought EWQL when it was on Kontakt (no scripts now and have to use usb). Back to waiting for a new orchestral sample library release.

[Meteo Xavier]

The yearning for EWQLSO on Kontakt is starting to reach the level of people yearning for another season of Firefly. :S

And like Firefly, it's time to move on and accept the present. EWQL with PLAY and the iLok REALLY isn't that bad. I'm the most problem-prone person active on Ocremix and I still have had more good come from modern EWQL than problems. I get more convinced it's just something "serious" computer musicians say so that everyone else knows they're "serious" computer musicians. Like how kids today use slang to sound cool. (Edit: To be fair, I don't have a huge crazy-ass setup for doing music, I just have this one computer and sometimes a USB thing, but still I would've expected to see more of the things people bitch about on it by now, and if EWQL really was that terrible now, why do other professionals still buy it and use it in their work? Doesn't add up.)

It's also time to accept that you're not going to get a high quality full orchestra set these days without putting down some benjamins. If you're that serious about doing orchestral music, than save your money up like a man, purchase it, and claim it on your taxes. Or wait until Christmas when they have huge discounts on it. DaCapo had a really nice Christmas discount last year that I almost bought.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Meteo Xavier

[Nabeel Ansari]

I think a quick clarification for admittedly vague semantics would've been a lot better than a big fuckin' picture that overflows with snide sentiment.

Two people arguing about a price isn't as informative as the official word from the site, so I literally brought what the site said.

I get more convinced it's just something "serious" computer musicians say so that everyone else knows they're "serious" computer musicians. Like how kids today use slang to sound cool.(Edit: To be fair, I don't have a huge crazy-ass setup for doing music, I just have this one computer and sometimes a USB thing, but still I would've expected to see more of the things people bitch about on it by now, and if EWQL really was that terrible now, why do other professionals still buy it and use it in their work? Doesn't add up.)

Not paying $50 to buy another iLok. Someone else can do that, and I can instead get a better library on a superior engine, taking advantage of modern scripts, having all of my instruments from one instance of a plug-in, better file compression methods, etc. (and also not have to pay $50 when I lose a dongle during a move).

There's nothing inherently wrong with EWQLSO. There's also no reason to get it over a modern library, "if you're serious". It's old, it sounds old, and the software behaves like it's old.

That's disappointing, since I'm neither a student or full time teacher I won't be getting this. Lately the price vs content hasn't been very good in orchestral ensemble libraries in my opinion, DaCapo feels overpriced to me as well as the ranges of the instruments is unfortunate. I wish I bought EWQL when it was on Kontakt (no scripts now and have to use usb). Back to waiting for a new orchestral sample library release.

That's a pretty reasonable price for a full orchestra. Do you understand the kind of work it takes to bring a library like this together? The musicians and studio time you have to pay for? The vast amounts of editing and mic control?

Edited October 7, 2014 by Neblix

[Dissidia]

Yeah I understand it's obviously not going to be cheap but this library isn't even a separate project? It's a collection of work that they have already done before and it's only 1 mic position. It also bothers me that the non student price vs student is so massive.

I would've gotten DaCapo during last sale as well if it wasn't for the very small ranges of the instruments.

Yes I'm very picky but I'd rather stick with what I have atm with the options available. Albion is really the only one I'm considering, which is not cheap either but it has a lot more going for it in my opinion.

[Meteo Xavier]

Did you see Sonokinetic's newest one? http://www.sonokinetic.net/products/classical/grosso/

I liked the way this one sounded. I don't really need another huge, hollywood-sounding orchestral thing, but some good stuff in here that tempts me all the same. Website also features work by Reuben Cornell who I've worked with a couple times - that dude kicks all kinds of ass and his demos on here are no exception.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Grosso isn't an orchestral sample library, it's an orchestral phrase library. It has pre-recorded phrases and chords, you don't get per-note control. It's like Action Strings from NI.

It's a personal issue of what you consider composition, but if you're after the kind of composition where you write all the notes manually, it won't help you with that. That's its difference from Da Capo.

[zircon]

Orchestral sampling is expensive... seconded :[ Someone.... should do a good job creating a $200-300 library....

[Meteo Xavier]

Grosso isn't an orchestral sample library, it's an orchestral phrase library. It has pre-recorded phrases and chords, you don't get per-note control. It's like Action Strings from NI.

Ohhhhhh... I didn't see that. Now that's a post that would've been worthy of snide. *legitimately dumb*

Oddly enough, it took me quite a while to figure out NI Action Strings was like that too and not a string sampling thing. I must have some sort of specified difficulty in that region I should work on.

Orchestral sampling is expensive... seconded :[ Someone.... should do a good job creating a $200-300 library....

Do it, Andy. We know you want to. >

[Dissidia]

Orchestral sampling is expensive... seconded :[ Someone.... should do a good job creating a $200-300 library....

Would buy

I was thinking about buying rhapsody but percussion is the least I need in orchestral sampling right now, unless it's a dedicated chime library (Revo please hook me up). An orchestral library with decent legato from Impact Soundworks, that'd be something. I even have my 10% off coupon from purchasing shreddage+bass bundle.

[Meteo Xavier]

The more I think about it, the more I really could use a phrasing program that does all that orchestral shit for me. That stuff's a huge pain in the ass, and all that shit sounds the same and is what everyone wants anyway...

[Argle]

The more I think about it, the more I really could use a phrasing program that does all that orchestral shit for me. That stuff's a huge pain in the ass, and all that shit sounds the same and is what everyone wants anyway...

If you need to crank out score for some paid project, probably the more of those loop and phrase libraries you have the better.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Ohhhhhh... I didn't see that. Now that's a post that would've been worthy of snide. *legitimately dumb*

Oddly enough, it took me quite a while to figure out NI Action Strings was like that too and not a string sampling thing. I must have some sort of specified difficulty in that region I should work on.

Basically any time you see sheet music in the Kontakt screenshots, you can assume it's a library which writes the music for you.

Do it, Andy. We know you want to. >

I know nothing about this

>_>

The more I think about it, the more I really could use a phrasing program that does all that orchestral shit for me. That stuff's a huge pain in the ass, and all that shit sounds the same and is what everyone wants anyway...

For clients, yes, it's easy to please them using this kind of software.

On the flipside, you're doing yourself an artistic disservice by not understanding what you write. Sure the end product is great, but is it really your musical voice, or someone else's that you sort of pieced together to make something you like?

The question is subjective and outside the scope of this thread, but my point is that Grosso and other such libraries are super convenient for getting good orchestral sounds really quickly, but should be treated as separate kinds of products than sample libraries because of how you use them. To someone looking for a set of orchestral instruments that they can write for (especially someone versed in the art of orchestration), Grosso may be useless to them because it takes them out of the driver's seat, which is where they are strongest.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Neblix

[Dissidia]

I see "phrase and convenience" libraries more as additions but yeah it basically almost is like working with loops to make your "own" song.

I remember there being a thread about exactly that on OCR before. At which point you are making the music or just piecing it together with blocks.

If you are going to have a chord progression it might be better to use a phrase-convenience library but a song consisting only of phrases I dunno that sounds a little boring to make to me.

[Meteo Xavier]

On the flipside, you're doing yourself an artistic disservice by not understanding what you write. Sure the end product is great, but is it really your musical voice, or someone else's that you sort of pieced together to make something you like?

I thought I'd made my position on pretentious crapola like that clear by now. Why should I care about how something is made as long as I'm legal and ok to use it? Even professionals with major artistic credibility use loops and other legal things they themselves did not generate. Yuki Kaijiura, Yasunori Mitsuda, Motoi Sakuraba and more use them regularly.

If I wanted to care about using premade loops and phrases as not being "real", I'd also have to question using samples instead of hiring a real orchestra in the first place. Then I'd have to worry about if it's really MY musical voice if I don't play the instruments myself.

Compared to how orchestra composers today steal from each other all the time anyway, I must ask why I should spend $400 on a "lite" library from Cinesamples when I could get something that actually makes the job easier instead. (Yes, that was a stretch, but I wanted to tie that back into the thesis point of the topic somehow).

[Nabeel Ansari]

Not gonna answer your other points since they are A) off-topic (I even said "this question is not in the scope of this thread" and you went and answered it anyway) and full of straw-man (nowhere did I say anything about "real music" or "originality") and not worth the retort.

Compared to how orchestra composers today steal from each other all the time anyway, I must ask why I should spend $400 on a "lite" library from Cinesamples when I could get something that actually makes the job easier instead. (Yes, that was a stretch, but I wanted to tie that back into the thesis point of the topic somehow).

Because if you're a computer arranger/orchestrator (and are trained to know how to write music) instead of just a home producer, Grosso literally disables you from doing what it is you specialize in doing. It's a waste of money because it has no pertinence to what you do.

To clarify, for you, an arranger's job is similar to that of orchestrator, but also has the ability to make musical decisions like changing chords, melodies, forms, etc. instead of only pure aesthetic decisions (like choosing when your woodwinds and which ones will do a fluttery thing). The term composer used to mean an arranger who additionally generates his own musical ideas instead of recycling other ones, but nowadays it just means anyone with a computer, some production skill, and some concept of major and minor scales.

That being said, in the case you're an arranger, orchestrator, and/or the more traditional kind of composer, Grosso limits your ability to take advantage of your skillsets (individual control over instruments, dynamics, voicings, etc.). If you're none of those things and you're the kind of composer who gets music out of his machine no matter the methods, then Grosso is probably better for you. (As I said in the last post, so I essentially repeated myself to answer your question). Not everyone writes music the same, so Grosso's usefulness depends on the person. I'm not sure how much more clear I can make that.

To someone looking for a set of orchestral instruments that they can write for (especially someone versed in the art of orchestration), Grosso may be useless to them because it takes them out of the driver's seat, which is where they are strongest.

Moving away from general advice and more specifically targeting this to someone like you, the easiest, cheapest, and most autonomous solution possible is more worth the money for you. Be careful, though, because that road is leading to being out of work, since people are making strides in computer generated music and not too far in the future this kind of generic recycling is something you won't need to pay humans to do anymore. (We've already created a categorized database of phrases, just make a system that'll piece them together. It's not as challenging as you might think.) And the more comprehensive we make accessing the phrases, the easier game devs can directly just plop them into their game without the need of a specialized "music guy".

tl;dr Some people like control. Grosso has none. It's not about originality or integrity, it's about preferred work style.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Neblix

[timaeus222]

Because if you're a computer arranger/orchestrator (and are trained to know how to write music) instead of just a home producer, Grosso literally disables you from doing what it is you specialize in doing. It's a waste of money because it has no pertinence to what you do.

To clarify, for you, an arranger's job is similar to that of orchestrator, but also has the ability to make musical decisions like changing chords, melodies, forms, etc. instead of only pure aesthetic decisions (like choosing when your woodwinds and which ones will do a fluttery thing). The term composer used to mean an arranger who additionally generates his own musical ideas instead of recycling other ones, but nowadays it just means anyone with a computer, some production skill, and some concept of major and minor scales.

That being said, in the case you're an arranger, orchestrator, and/or the more traditional kind of composer, Grosso limits your ability to take advantage of your skillsets (individual control over instruments, dynamics, voicings, etc.). If you're none of those things and you're the kind of composer who gets music out of his machine no matter the methods, then Grosso is probably better for you. (As I said in the last post, so I essentially repeated myself to answer your question). Not everyone writes music the same, so Grosso's usefulness depends on the person. I'm not sure how much more clear I can make that.

Moving away from general advice and more specifically targeting this to someone like you, the easiest, cheapest, and most autonomous solution possible is more worth the money for you. Be careful, though, because that road is leading to being out of work, since people are making strides in computer generated music and not too far in the future this kind of generic recycling is something you won't need to pay humans to do anymore. (We've already created a categorized database of phrases, just make a system that'll piece them together. It's not as challenging as you might think.) And the more comprehensive we make accessing the phrases, the easier game devs can directly just plop them into their game without the need of a specialized "music guy".

tl;dr Some people like control. Grosso has none. It's not about originality or integrity, it's about preferred work style.

I'm just gonna condense this down and analogize for people.

Basically, Grosso gives less flexibility as to how much creativity you can incorporate into your music. It consists of premade phrases, like NI Action Strings iirc, so like Nabeel said, it's just piecing together a puzzle from a box, rather than creating your own puzzle pieces from little puzzle particles and piecing those together. Some people don't want to go that in depth with orchestration, and others want to really understand how certain parts work together instead of mashing together premade ideas. If you want to write personalized orchestral-involved music, you're going to need better control than premade phrases. If you just want to throw together quick little addendums or fluorishes to accent orchestral music without being able to change the phrases played, then fine.

Edited October 8, 2014 by timaeus222

[Meteo Xavier]

I'm not exactly jumping at the gate to buy Grosso at all, I just thought it would have its advantages for how time it takes to make the same orchestral/trailer music everyone makes and wants in the first place.

I just can't stand the pretentious elitism among this stuff these days. "You're not a real artist if you use loops and phrases!" "EWQLSO sucks because it's old and uses a dongle!" "PLAY sucks because PLAY sucks!" etc. It didn't stop other professionals from being able to use PLAY to make excellent sounding music years ago, and instead I'm encouraged to dump it and buy new, overpriced Cinesamples stuff because its Kontakt, because it's new, and because it's somehow 100x better recorded and scripted and on and on.

I really don't know how much more you can improve the experience and flexibility for other composers to sound exactly like Hans Zimmer at this point (or the point it was 4 years ago) other than to purchase something like this that actually has all the action cue/trailer compositional stuff already made out-of-the-box. So much attitude and "serious business" from people who have yet to do anything significant with it. Drives me nuts.

[zircon]

I hesitate to use the term 'real professional', since it's so nebulous, but it is probably most apt here... real professionals don't care one way or the other. The only thing that matters is the end result. Whether you're using loops, phrases, presets, etc. is just unimportant. There are plenty of composers (particularly for TV) that rely on premade phrases and the Lost TV show theme is famously a single sound from Atmosphere. So, put any concerns about professional elitism out of your head - such worry is misplaced.

With that being said, there are perfectly legitimate discussions to be had about how PLAY functions vs. Kontakt for example, and whether a $200-300 phrase-only library is worth your hard-earned money compared to one that is far more versatile. When people say PLAY sucks it's not because of elitism (Hollywood Strings debuted at nearly $1600, that's pretty 'elite') but because so many people have trouble with it and they're frustrated that improvement on the software side has been so slow.

On the other hand, Kontakt - for MOST people - is a way more reliable platform with superior tweaking/editing controls, more efficient CPU/memory allocation, and better stability. But YMMV. Likewise if you want to get a phrase library, knock yourself out. I think they're very useful tools that fit well into any setup. I just wouldn't use them exclusively because I would have a harder time realizing full melodies, chord progressions and so forth.

[Nabeel Ansari]

I just can't stand the pretentious elitism among this stuff these days. "You're not a real artist if you use loops and phrases!" "EWQLSO sucks because it's old and uses a dongle!" "PLAY sucks because PLAY sucks!" etc. It didn't stop other professionals from being able to use PLAY to make excellent sounding music years ago, and instead I'm encouraged to dump it and buy new, overpriced Cinesamples stuff because its Kontakt, because it's new, and because it's somehow 100x better recorded and scripted and on and on.

I really don't know how much more you can improve the experience and flexibility for other composers to sound exactly like Hans Zimmer at this point (or the point it was 4 years ago) other than to purchase something like this that actually has all the action cue/trailer compositional stuff already made out-of-the-box. So much attitude and "serious business" from people who have yet to do anything significant with it. Drives me nuts.

Agreed. I don't like it either. People tend to bandwagon and it's a little nauseating.

But I do take issue with more objective points:

1) "Somehow 100x better recorded"

Recording techniques and equipment are far superior than those over a decade ago. As are the digital representations (sample rate, bit depth) and additional detailing (round robins, recording time for more articulations).

2) "scripted"

Do you know what scripts are? It's obviously fruitless to tell you something is great because of scripts if you're not even aware of their purpose. Scripts are code pieces designed to carry out particular functions. A common use of scripting is achieving legato; I can smoothly trigger "note into note" noise when I am playing legato on an oboe library, for example. EWQLSO doesn't have this. Specifically, it tries to brute force some amplitude enveloping to try and approximate it when you hit the "legato" button, but honestly it sounds pretty terrible. A huge blow to realism right there. This is why EWQLSO composers don't write music with lots of space and attention on a single instrument group, it would sound dry and with jagged attacks.

3) "sounding like Hans Zimmer is easy now"

I hate to break this to you, dude, but Hans Zimmer hasn't been writing any meaningful music for a long time. Maybe back in Lion King days. The reason it's easy to sound like Zimmer is because his music is just sound design; once you capture the sound, just lay down some 16th tonic runs and a horn crescendo and that's it. It's not an achievement and it doesn't take talent.

The goal of creating virtual instruments is not to make it easy to sound like a Hollywood composer, it's to ease the pain of not having access to live musicians. If you don't consider yourself to care about what the instruments bring you, that's fine. You're one person out of many others who do care, and that's why they buy this shit. Because it makes writing music easier. The music they want to write (not the music YOU want to write). Not everyone is trying to emulate Hans Zimmer.

4)"action trailer/cue"

I think you again misunderstand the demographic of these libraries. It's not specifically targeted at people who want to make generic Hollywood cues, it's generally targeted at the computer music community, which also greatly consists of people who are looking for instruments that sound good and offer performance control. It's not about giving people a library that'll make them a quick buck. That's a very naive way of looking at things.

I think you need to learn to accept that not everyone aims for commercial success with least effort and involvement (like you do) and these people may find the labor of music composition and orchestration... *gasp*, PURE FUN.

For fuck's sake, dude. You're talking about this on OverClocked ReMix forums. The amount of people on here who are trying to be professional musicians is smaller than you'd think.