Symphonic Orchestra Gold: original vs current sounds?

[Des1964]

Hi all,

I’ve got the original EWQL Symphonic Orchestra (Gold) for NI/Kompakt, bought it for Xmas 2004. There’s an excellent upgrade price to the latest version in the current sale, which includes the Pro XP and Play bits. I’ve read about the many improvements, but before clicking “Buy Now” it’d be great to get some info or opinions about aspects of the sounds that I had problems with.

At first the sounds were very impressive! They sounded fantastic. But some notes had imperfections. It's hard to remember precisely, but IIRC there were things like...

● One of the 3 (?) trombones playing a wrong note somewhere.
● A little click (like an organ chiff) at the start of some string notes; because most notes were so silky-smooth it really stood out.
● Quite a few wind instrument notes didn’t seem to play in time, in spite of sounding excellent. It was as if the attack portion of the notes before the smooth sustain kicked in was varying in length, and it seemed to vary from one sample to the next and from one velocity layer to the next. Or something.

I wanted to replace the cheap sounds in the Roland JV-1010 (with orchestral expansion card) with which I’d written some light classical pieces with a vastly superior orchestral library. I thought it’d be simple, but it wasn’t, mostly because of the timing problem. I eventually gave up, the pieces still aren’t finished, and EWQLSO has been sitting in a box, unused, for about 11 years.

But after a couple of major upgrades and an excellent upgrade price I’m prepared to have another bash at it, especially if anyone here can assure me that the same problems don’t exist in the current version. Are the current sounds better? More consistent? Or am I the only one who had these problems? Any comments or opinions?

(And BTW, major kudos to Sounds Online for even having this upgrade path!)

Regards, Des

[jspencer]

Originally Posted by Des1964

Hi all,

I wanted to replace the cheap sounds in the Roland JV-1010 (with orchestral expansion card) with which I’d written some light classical pieces with a vastly superior orchestral library.

Good God man! Just do the upgrade, you won't regret it (especially at those prices). I think your concerns about the sounds are ancient history; I still use EWQL Symphonic Orchestra, it is still a great library, and I don't recall any of the issues mentioned.

What are your computer specs?

PS- I retired my old JV-2080 around 2004 as well, but I can't part with it! Looks cool sitting in it's rack space. At the time, it was a high end unit, and the orchestral expansion sounds were pretty good.

[Des1964]

Thanks for your response, Jeremy. :-)

Originally Posted by jspencer

Good God man! Just do the upgrade, you won't regret it (especially at those prices)

Just so I don’t sound like a complete miser: I’m on a pension, i.e. below the poverty line, so any spending has to be carefully considered. The low price is still nearly 1/2 a week’s income, plus I’ll need to do something about another hard drive. I bought a few other orchestral things around 2004 and, unfortunately, do regret all of them. EWQLSO was the best of the lot, and the upgrade policy and price are BY FAR the best - it’s the only one worth considering.

Originally Posted by jspencer

I don't recall any of the issues mentioned.

I do, though. Paying *any* price and having the same issues would be really disappointing.

You had the original version, I take it?

Originally Posted by jspencer

What are your computer specs?

Late 2012 Mac mini, 2.6GHz quad-core, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD. Can’t remember what I had in 2004.

Originally Posted by jspencer

I retired my old JV-2080 around 2004...(snip) At the time, it was a high end unit, and the orchestral expansion sounds were pretty good.

I suppose you had the SR-JV80-02 Orchestral card, same as mine? Yeah, it was very good, although nowhere as realistic as EWQLSO. It was very disappointing that MIDI sequences for the JV-1010 couldn’t simply be moved to the better sounds.

I’ll probably still get it, but it would be great to hear someone say “Yeah, I remember those issues, too, but they’re definitely long gone”.