I bought EastWest Symphonic Orchestra

Steinberg Lounge
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Yes, I have read the reviews and threads elsewhere. The opinions range from it being dated to dealing with some instruments that just don’t sound good.

Well, it was on sale and after a couple of discounts it was only $94. Not bad for something that I think originally cost $300+. I was discouraged with the sounds from Steinberg’s Halion Symphonic Orchestra. They just weren’t cutting it and I didn’t want to spend a lot of cash on a new library since I’m quite new to these orchestration libraries. After a couple of days I have to say I’m liking it and happy with the purchase.

Anyone else using it? Opinions? Your favorite patches etc?

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Well I spent the spondoolicks back in 2005 and it still works for me in Kontakt! It still has its place in my vsti collection. It’s noisy but the strings capture the scrapes of bows on strings and the room ambience. It’s a cut above other general purpose orchestras such as in HALion which I also have (imho) if you are looking for something realistic. I think everything has its place and it all depends on the kind of music it’s being used for. Favourite patches? Well I guess it’s moved on from my 2005 edition. I just cobble together whatever I need from the samples in Kontakt and balance them out accordingly. I think the UI has improved somewhat so good luck with it.

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Thanks for the reply. I know asking about “favorite patches” isn’t really too valid of a question but I was just looking for some opinions and what direction might be best to pursue with this software.

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What drew me to East West Symphonic was the ambient miking of individual instruments. For someone brought up on Edirol Orchestral, this seems like the holy grail of Orchestral emulations. But that was 15 years ago.

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I know what you mean. Times have surely changed.

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Good times.

I am still very fond of some of my tracks that I made with EWSO.

I had the Silver edition which was very limited (no mic positions, everything awash in reverb) but despite that I made some good tracks with it. Here’s one:

The HD where I had the original projects had an accident, but I sometimes wonder what would become of this with more modern libraries, and less baked-in reverb.

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