# EastWest announces Hollywood Brass, with a little jab



## reddognoyz (Jun 9, 2011)

http://www.soundsonline.com/Hollywood-Brass

The mailer includes the phrase "no shortcuts!"

There's a very recently released brass library that kinda touts itself as a very quick and easy way to get your brass sounding good. Almost as if there actually was a short cut. 

There are no shortcuts evidently using Play and Hollywood Brass, you'll have to do it all by hand.


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## noiseboyuk (Jun 9, 2011)

reddognoyz @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> There are no shortcuts evidently using Play and Hollywood Brass, you'll have to do it all by hand.



Ha ha!


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## MaestroRage (Jun 9, 2011)

sure is big, sitting at 150gb.


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## paoling (Jun 9, 2011)

No shortcuts, in my opinion refers to the DIVISI sections in HS that was a bit criticised because it's pratically emulated with very close micing.


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## Mike Connelly (Jun 9, 2011)

It's possible, there's also the simulated sordino.

It's amusing to see the same guy who was adamant that people shouldn't pass judgement on HS until they've spent weeks really digging in, learning it, and reading the whole manual bashing the competition less than 24 hours after getting the library.


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## noiseboyuk (Jun 9, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> It's possible, there's also the simulated sordino.
> 
> It's amusing to see the same guy who was adamant that people shouldn't pass judgement on HS until they've spent weeks really digging in, learning it, and reading the whole manual bashing the competition less than 24 hours after getting the library.



For starters. Then saying after 1 day "they should fix what they have already" when a year on HS still has major issues! It's not exactly endearing me to them, they really would be far better just not mentioning CineBrass and letting their own product do the talking.


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## Stephen Baysted (Jun 9, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> Mike Connelly @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> 
> 
> > It's possible, there's also the simulated sordino.
> ...



Or the rice krispies impressions...


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## TheUnfinished (Jun 9, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> Then saying after 1 day "they should fix what they have already" when a year on HS still has major issues!


They seriously said that? Bizarre.


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## Ed (Jun 9, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> It's possible, there's also the simulated sordino.
> 
> It's amusing to see the same guy who was adamant that people shouldn't pass judgement on HS until they've spent weeks really digging in, learning it, and reading the whole manual bashing the competition less than 24 hours after getting the library.



True, if it weren't for that fact and his tone I think CineBrass *is *a lot less detailed than HS Brass will be, and probably always will be, I think we always knew that and if not I don't think people were really paying attention. I think they are two very different approaches and from my point of view I hardly even see the two are really competing with each other, not from a "detailed" perspective but also because of how Play works.

The point is with CineBrass, its easy to use, *zero *loading time, fantastic sound, amazing reverb mic included, low RAM intensive etc. Play I think will never have zero load times, or at least not for a good while and we know it will be more annoying to use unless they really pull out something amazing. I for one don't need 4,000 mic positions and is a total waste of system resources. I would like it if I could just choose to only install certain ones or uninstall mic positions I know I'm never going to need. I would buy Gold, except I want all the articulations, just not all the mic positions.

Back to CineBrass though, I think the low price reflects its limitations at this point and with the extra sessions and updates will surely help make this a uniquely developed library that we haven't seen before. The fact that the Mike's are so open to making changes and updates is also really refreshing and is completely different to East West's way of doing things. If it weren't for HB, CineBrass would be the best brass library for what they recorded IMO.

I'm rambling again, so I'll stop.


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## NYC Composer (Jun 9, 2011)

Ed @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> I would buy Gold, except I want all the articulations, just not all the mic positions.



If I understood the advertising correctly, Gold will have all the articulations.


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## reddognoyz (Jun 9, 2011)

I was pleasantly surprised with the intro pricing gor HB


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## Rob Elliott (Jun 9, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> Ed @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> 
> 
> > I would buy Gold, except I want all the articulations, just not all the mic positions.
> ...




That would be great. After having HS for a while I have settled to the MID MICS (with their Divisi A and B) in about 99% of the time.

Sure would be great to audition this HB somehow and buy only what we will need AND use. This is key as it will influence the SSD size. It's really not the library cost as much as the puter I need to have built to run it.


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## Ed (Jun 9, 2011)

NYC Composer @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> Ed @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> 
> 
> > I would buy Gold, except I want all the articulations, just not all the mic positions.
> ...



I may be just being lazy, but what will it lack? If its just mic positions I am there! But I bet it will lack some brilliant thing I'll want.


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## NYC Composer (Jun 9, 2011)

Ed @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> NYC Composer @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> 
> 
> > Ed @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> ...



I know-ask The Lurker! :wink:


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## NYC Composer (Jun 9, 2011)

Rob Elliott @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> NYC Composer @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> 
> 
> > Ed @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> ...



I have always felt that EW is a little cavalier about this issue. The year that EWQLSO Platinum came out( or maybe it was the year after, dunno) I saw Nick doing a demo at NAMM. I think he was using a trailer he did for Superman as a demo. It sounded freakin' awesome. I walked up and asked him how in heck he had achieved it with the limited hardware of the day. He said "I used 8 computers." I slunk away and went home to my EW Gold and my Roland system, muttering.


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## jamwerks (Jun 9, 2011)

WE’ll soon see what MIR pro will be able to do to "dry" samples. We may only need 1 mic position (close or mid) from now on!


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## jamwerks (Jun 9, 2011)

The articulations list looks impressive and the price is right. Let’t hope Play 3 (64 bit) will be rock solid and ridded with features!

I’m wondering if there will be a time stretch feature, & how much control we’ll have over varied attacks? o=<


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## Mateo Pascual (Jun 9, 2011)

Ed @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> NYC Composer @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> 
> 
> > Ed @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> ...



From the HB description:

_"ABOUT HOLLYWOOD BRASS GOLD EDITION

Hollywood Brass Gold Edition is 16-bit, with one mic positon (mid-tree) and all articulations. Upgrades to the Hollywood Brass Diamond Edition will be effortless as all articulations are included in the Gold Edition, and can be done at any time. The Gold Edition ships on DVD"_

So yup!  Gold will have all articulations. If that's correct it looks like a great deal. I hope they will release gold at the same time than diamond...


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## Rob Elliott (Jun 9, 2011)

Mateo Pascual @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> Ed @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> 
> 
> > NYC Composer @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> ...




Good find. Now I hope they do extensive A/B comparisons of mic positions (vid demos). The default would be to buy Gold and upgrade if it's not doing it for ya. Actually a good strategy on EW's part as it will get many more early adopters.


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## NYC Composer (Jun 9, 2011)

I agree. Also, competition is starting to benefit us greatly, notice?


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## Justus (Jun 9, 2011)

Mateo Pascual @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> So yup!  Gold will have all articulations. If that's correct it looks like a great deal. I hope they will release gold at the same time than diamond...



Yes with all the features and articulations it's a very good deal for 339€.


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## kdm (Jun 9, 2011)

> From the HB description:
> 
> _"ABOUT HOLLYWOOD BRASS GOLD EDITION
> 
> Hollywood Brass Gold Edition is 16-bit, with one mic positon (mid-tree) and all articulations. Upgrades to the Hollywood Brass Diamond Edition will be effortless as all articulations are included in the Gold Edition, and can be done at any time. The Gold Edition ships on DVD"_



I would prefer to see the close mic position for Gold - I just don't need the mid/distant mics the way I mix. A bit of a waste for me to buy Diamond just to get the close mics, but certainly worth it for those that do. Just my .02 for EW.


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## Ed (Jun 9, 2011)

kdm @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> I would prefer to see the close mic position for Gold - I just don't need the mid/distant mics the way I mix. A bit of a waste for me to buy Diamond just to get the close mics, but certainly worth it for those that do. Just my .02 for EW.



Definitely disagree. Close mics on their own are useless IMO. I just hope that the mike they do give us is the "best" one ie. the one people most like to use.


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## Rob Elliott (Jun 9, 2011)

Ed @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> kdm @ Thu Jun 09 said:
> 
> 
> > I would prefer to see the close mic position for Gold - I just don't need the mid/distant mics the way I mix. A bit of a waste for me to buy Diamond just to get the close mics, but certainly worth it for those that do. Just my .02 for EW.
> ...




Good point Ed. I am also thinking that with brass - the 'room' plays more into the sound (more perhaps than strings) - so we may likely have to combine at least two positions to get the optimal sound (mid+close, mid+far, etc...). But my gut is saying the mids (with an M7) will be the ticket.


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## Pochflyboy (Jun 9, 2011)

reddognoyz @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> There are no shortcuts evidently using Play and Hollywood Brass, you'll have to do it all by hand.



Well damn... I was hoping it would write for me... CineBrass doesn't either. AudioBro did an nice job with auto divisi stuff. Maybe they will come out with a nice auto compose.


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## Pochflyboy (Jun 9, 2011)

Rob Elliott @ Thu Jun 09 said:


> But my gut is saying the mids (with an M7) will be the ticket.



Yeah I would guess tree mics. Which is perfect by me... especially for brass. Close by its self just does not work.


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## Simon Ravn (Jun 10, 2011)

So I guess it means there is 120GB of stuff on the DVD's, and you need to do a "reinstall" if you upgrade to Diamond?


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## wesbender (Jun 10, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Fri Jun 10 said:


> So I guess it means there is 120GB of stuff on the DVD's, and you need to do a "reinstall" if you upgrade to Diamond?




The 20 GB Gold version is on DVDs. If you upgrade to Diamond, I'm guessing they'll just ship you the hard drive it's on.


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## Simon Ravn (Jun 10, 2011)

wesbender @ Fri Jun 10 said:


> Simon Ravn @ Fri Jun 10 said:
> 
> 
> > So I guess it means there is 120GB of stuff on the DVD's, and you need to do a "reinstall" if you upgrade to Diamond?
> ...



I don't think so. From what I read the only thing you need to upgrade to Diamond is to enter a new activation code (and do a new install from the DVD's). But it would be nice to get the harddrive if you upgrade to Diamond


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## Dan Mott (Jun 10, 2011)

I wouldn't mind if the close mics weren't included.

I have been playing with verb and such lately, and I find that if I put a hall verb on an instrument that's dead dry.. it just sounds totally odd. Therefore I like to put it in a room first, or maybe put a plate on, then add any hall ambiance afterwords.


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## noiseboyuk (Jun 10, 2011)

Dan-Jay @ Fri Jun 10 said:


> I wouldn't mind if the close mics weren't included.
> 
> I have been playing with verb and such lately, and I find that if I put a hall verb on an instrument that's dead dry.. it just sounds totally odd. Therefore I like to put it in a room first, or maybe put a plate on, then add any hall ambiance afterwords.



Another vote for stage mics. However, if I do use a close miced sound on anything, I find I have to use liberal amounts of Early Reflection on top of the reverb tails - not as good as stage mics of course, but it does blend much better. So something like SPACES is great I'm sure but won't work on its own without a separate instance to handle the ERs. I've been getting pretty good results with the IRs bundled with LASS.


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## wesbender (Jun 10, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Fri Jun 10 said:


> I don't think so. From what I read the only thing you need to upgrade to Diamond is to enter a new activation code (and do a new install from the DVD's). But it would be nice to get the harddrive if you upgrade to Diamond



Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but maybe I'm missing something.

I don't have HS so I don't know how the upgrade path works with it, but I would imagine it'd be the same scenario for the brass.


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## Tanuj Tiku (Jun 10, 2011)

Having Close mics is important if you want true flexibility. While its nice that all these new libraries have the room dialed in - we have to be careful with this as you definitely need to mix seperate libraries into one sound.

I dont neccesarily think that dry samples sound bad if put through a reverb. This happens all the time on a Pro level with engineers. In fact, they prefer dry-ish sounds mostly so that they can control and mix properly. I use VSL a lot and they sound as good as any library out there if used correctly. 

The problem is that if you dont think about mixing different spaces together then you get a weird proble.

Certain sections may sound great on their own - but they really need to sit with your existing material. Suddenly the Brass might sound coming from another (although good sounding) room.

But I think anyone who buys the complete version is in a great position because you can really mix this stuff in because you now have control over the different levels. Its not like back in the day!

From a pro mixing point of view, you would definitely need the most control available. These things really matter when you score for feature films - when the stems go down for mixing in 5.1 and even for music pre-mixes, you really want all the control you can.

Often, us composers dont have the skill or a great sounding room (in the true sense - not auralex stuff) to hear everything.

Exciting times!


Best,

Tanuj.


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## Dan Mott (Jun 10, 2011)

Hey guys.

Hmmm. You got me thinking. I take my comment back. I think the close mics are really important.

Generally, I like to start with a dry sound, then I will put some room verb or plate verb on it, depending on how upfront I'd like the sound of course. After that, I then like to add what ever ambiance to the sound, or in other words... what type of environment or space I want it to sit in, considering I don't often put everything sound in a hall.

I agree that you wouldn't have much control without the close mics. I too love alot of flexibility in samples and I think it's a big advantage to start as dry as possible so that the user can do what ever he or she likes with it and also add however much mid or main mix to the dry mix before adding hall verbs and such.

I'd go with diamond though. When I look at the price for diamond brass, compared to what HS was when it first came out, it seems so cheap to me. Oh... I'd have to hear it first of course.


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## chimuelo (Jun 10, 2011)

Close mic'd instruments are so much easier to mix. Especially if your reverb/space emulating effect can handle parameter modulations in realtime.
Close Mic'd Brass for example with Decay Time modulated by velocity mimics what you would hear in a real performance in a certain space. 
Kind of difficult removing the space others chose for you.

Hats Off to EW for another fantastic sounding instrument.


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## Simon Ravn (Jun 10, 2011)

I'd take the decca tree over close mics anytime. A little close mic mixed in can be good sometimes, but I think the sound of the decca tree mics is a very good starting point, and often that's all you'll need. There's still no way to convincingly mimic the real acoustics in a recording by running the material through a reverb, being it Altiverb, Bricasti etc.

So I definitely think they made the right choice for their Gold editions.


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## noiseboyuk (Jun 10, 2011)

Yeah, this is a very old debate really. VSL represent the closed mic'd approach, and it can work very well. For many, this is no substitute for real space and air of course when recording instruments.

Personally I think the problems associated with mixing different libraries are overstated AS LONG as you make everything match the biggest library. I'd bet SO Gold and Symphobia stage mixes with Cinebrass very well out of the box - all good stages (of which the latter might be best of all). LASS or HS would need more room round to mix, VSL or dry libs even more and Early Reflections. AS for HB, I'm presuming it sounds in the same space as HS (quite perverse if it doesn't), so it would probably need extra room round it to get a sound like CineBrass.


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## kdm (Jun 10, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Fri Jun 10 said:


> Yeah, this is a very old debate really. VSL represent the closed mic'd approach, and it can work very well. For many, this is no substitute for real space and air of course when recording instruments.



Yes, it is an old debate to some degree. My reason for wanting close mics is that with any sample that is recorded in a space, there is a static nature to that space, and it is contained in every sample - there is no way around that (which is why VSL took the approach they did). This creates a muddier and more disconnected mix, no matter what you do with release tails, additional (or no) ERs or ambience, EQ, etc. The degree to which this is the case varies, but I run into it quite frequently. Usually we end up just working with what the library gives us, but that's not really ideal from a mixing perspective. 

Fwiw, when you combine instruments, you are in effect layering different separated room responses from those different instruments on top of one another. In a full recording, all instruments interact within the space to some degree at least, and often quite significantly. This isn't possible with wet samples as any additional reverb/ambience/tail (whatever you decide to add) is being fed by the existing ambience and adding an unnatural additional ambient behavior. That adds to the mud. 

Then there is the smear or disconnect of the performance itself when changing articulations, esp. quick changes in a phrase (or between articulations in sample library terms) where the true space would be reacting to the change itself, not just each individual part of that change separately. And when ERs are short and close, they are part of the sample beginning a few milliseconds after the attack and effect the actual sound of the sample itself. 

Everyone has their preferences - no intention of starting a debate on this. Some find it easier to work with samples recorded in a space and have a great sound on their own - I find I get a better overall mix with drier samples, and have more flexibility to decide what that space is as well.

Regardless, I assumed EW would opt for the mid-tree so it's moot point - Diamond would be the only option for guys like me - but perhaps developers will take this into consideration down the line.


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## Rob Elliott (Jun 10, 2011)

Good points for sure on having total flexibility at the 'witching hour' (final mix). Its really not the cost of the library for me. The full Diamond price (as a HS owner) - is really a no brainer. The key for me is - does having Diamond push me to a NEW SSD farm unit - thus tripling the cost of the library. Not a complaint - that's reality - software has always pushed hardware - but just a major consideration.


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## Danny_Owen (Jun 10, 2011)

Well, HB is 150GB and conveniently enough there are quite a lot of 160GB SSDs out there. Around £225 Over here in the UK which isn't too bad, but yes there are certainly upgrade costs to be considered when going for HB. For one thing I'd need a lot more RAM if I were to go with HB.


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## Simon Ravn (Jun 10, 2011)

A bit OT, but did anyone find a way to split HS across two drives? I want to keep some of it (say, 1st violins + 2nd violins) on an SSD, and the rest on a regular HD. The manual to PLAY says that you can right click in "favourites" to add another product but that doesn't work for me. It seems you can't add anything to favourites apart from specific patches.


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## noiseboyuk (Jun 10, 2011)

Danny_Owen @ Fri Jun 10 said:


> Well, HB is 150GB and conveniently enough there are quite a lot of 160GB SSDs out there. Around £225 Over here in the UK which isn't too bad, but yes there are certainly upgrade costs to be considered when going for HB. For one thing I'd need a lot more RAM if I were to go with HB.



Ah, sadly it's not quite as convenient has you'd think - you only get a tantalising 147gb of free space on 160gb drive!

What I'd do if you just want a drive for this library is get a cheaper 60/80gb drive and put junctions in to point to a regular drive for the 3 mic positions you use least. 95% of the time you'll have everything you need on SSD, then just grin and bear the extra load time for the other positions!

EDIT - cross posted with Simon. I used a program called Junction.exe to create this sort of virtual folders - to Play it looks like its all on one drive, but it really points somewhere else.

EDIT 2 - I lied, the easiest program I found is called DirLinker.exe for this job.


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## Simon Ravn (Jun 10, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Fri Jun 10 said:


> Danny_Owen @ Fri Jun 10 said:
> 
> 
> > Well, HB is 150GB and conveniently enough there are quite a lot of 160GB SSDs out there. Around £225 Over here in the UK which isn't too bad, but yes there are certainly upgrade costs to be considered when going for HB. For one thing I'd need a lot more RAM if I were to go with HB.
> ...



Thanks, I will try that. However, I just am not allowed to add ANY paths to my "Favourites" list in PLAY. So the ONLY link I have there is to the original HS install location. I can change that to anything I'd like but I can't add new locations.


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## noiseboyuk (Jun 10, 2011)

Simon Ravn @ Fri Jun 10 said:


> Thanks, I will try that. However, I just am not allowed to add ANY paths to my "Favourites" list in PLAY. So the ONLY link I have there is to the original HS install location. I can change that to anything I'd like but I can't add new locations.



You should be ok - you just put a link in the original location(s) and point to the new. The thing to be v careful of (this is Windows 7) - if I remember correctly, if you delete a link, it deletes everything that it points to! So move any samples first if you need to delete a link for any reason.

Make sure to try the other program I suggested once I engaged my brain on the 2nd Edit to my post - DirLinker.exe is much easier to use than Junction.exe.


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## chimuelo (Jun 10, 2011)

Get 12 x SSD 256GB's and a different mic position for each drive... :mrgreen: 
Label them as Static Wasteful Large Room #1.........etc.etc....


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## Mike Connelly (Jun 10, 2011)

I generally use the mid mics on libraries that have multiple positions. It's nice to have the close mics but I really only use them if I want the mix to be fairly dry. And I've never had an issue getting different libraries in different spaces together in the same mix, I've always been happy with the result with minimal tweaking. Really the only libraries that give me trouble fitting into orchestral mixes are Vienna and SampleModeling.

The ability to easily handle libraries split over multiple locations would definitely be a major improvement for PLAY.


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## Danny_Owen (Jun 10, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Fri Jun 10 said:


> Ah, sadly it's not quite as convenient has you'd think - you only get a tantalising 147gb of free space on 160gb drive!



Guy, where are you getting your intel on this? I've looked about on the internet and couldn't find anything about what you're saying. I've got a 128GB capacity SSD who's actual capacity is 127.69GB. It's hard to imagine a 160GB drive being 13GB under what is advertised (and a bit of a con if that's the case!)

*Edit* I've found what you were on about- bugger. I'll have to check with individual suppliers to see if there are any where this is not the case. Hmm.

**2nd edit** Been looking specifically at individual drives to see if there have been any complaints that they only get 147GB out of a 160GB drive- it mainly seems to be an iPod thing, I haven't seen anything about the specific SSDs I've been looking at. I think contacting the manufacturers to be certain would be in order, if it is actually 160GB it'd be perfect, but certainly don't want to waste money here on something that is 3GB short.


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## Antibalas HiFi (Jun 12, 2011)

re: close mics vs mid mics in Gold edition

In the case of HB Gold, I have to say that this is the only case I can remember where I would prefer close mics over mixed.

Let's take into account that the stage EW probably records on (EastWest Cello) isn't the biggest room, and while this can sound fine for strings, it's very possible that brass overloads the room at louder volumes. For strings I would of course prefer the mid-mic shawn murphy mix, but for brass I'm going to wait and see if anything other than the close mics (with reverb in the mix) can sound good at louder velocities. Who knows, maybe EW added some reverb themselves....

just speculating.


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## bryla (Jun 12, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Fri Jun 10 said:


> Ah, sadly it's not quite as convenient has you'd think - you only get a tantalising 147gb of free space on 160gb drive!


nope.....

you wanna know why?

read: http://www.glyphtech.com/support/diskcapacity.php

Basically the types of GB's advertised are not the binary GB but only the reflection of how mane billion bytes they contain.

Mac OS X 10.6 and up shows the advertised size.


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## Danny_Owen (Jun 12, 2011)

Hrm yes I found this as well. It seems it varies from company to company about their policy on this though.

A 128GB SSD from Crucial gives you 128GB visible free space (I have one). I just hope I can find a company that does 160GB drives that has the same, straight forward and honest approach to their specifications.


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## sin(x) (Jun 12, 2011)

Danny_Owen @ 2011-06-12 said:


> I just hope I can find a company that does 160GB drives that has the same, straight forward and honest approach to their specifications.



The horrible thing is that the companies that sell you a 160 GB drive that shows up as a mere 149 GB in your OS actually have it right :twisted: The SI prefixes (Mega, Giga, …) were never meant to refer to binary powers (1024, 1024^2 etc.) and only were handled like that in the IT sector for some 40 years out of convenience. So the current situation (which has been going on for 10 years or so) is that storage manufacturers regard a Gigabyte as 1000^3 bytes (because it helps sales, and is also correct), whereas operating systems still mostly regard it as 1024^3 bytes (because that's how we always did it and how the lord intended it to be, dammit). The correct way to refer to 1024^3 bytes would be a Gibibyte (GiB).

-jan, and yes, I'm a blast at parties.


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## tabulius (Jun 13, 2011)

Regarding of the demo, East West should really do a mockup of James Bond theme. If they can pull off that, well they have my money. But I might still get both Cinebrass and HB. We'll see...


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## jamwerks (Jun 13, 2011)

Can’t wait to hear some demos and understand how it works, especially how playable the altering dynamic levels are, control over the attacks, note lengths, etc...


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