# Is there a reason why East West are much cheaper than it's competitors?



## bwmusic (Feb 13, 2015)

Seriously I cannot believe my eyes that they keep having their products on sale all the time at 70%. 

And I just did the math. It'll cost me 10 times more to get an equivalent amount of libraries on Kontakt than it would get me with East West....


----------



## Mystic (Feb 13, 2015)

You tend to sell more of your product when you're low cost. They typically don't drop the price till they have made back what they spent on producing the product. After that, it's all profit so why not take over the market by making it more affordable than competitors?


----------



## playz123 (Feb 13, 2015)

In addition, each company has their own business plan, and I guess EW's is to sell a lot of libraries at a low price than to sell a few at a higher price. Looks like they are successful, but sadly, based on the EW forum, a lot of people are buying their products because they are inexpensive, but without any idea how they work or how to use them. Certainly some good 'bargains' though once they have made back their costs. BUt much depends on how one rates their libraries with the competition and whether or not one likes Play.


----------



## JohnG (Feb 13, 2015)

I hear you -- I am totally baffled by EW's pricing policy.

I use their stuff every day. I have HW Strings and HW Brass and have certainly substituted those for most of the old EWQLSO library. That said, I still use some patches from the original EWQLSO and use the EWQL Symphonic Choir all the time. 

I also use a lot of other companies' libraries -- they are great too -- but EW is right up there, in my view.


[note: I have received free products from East West]


----------



## José Herring (Feb 13, 2015)

I remember Nick talking about it many years ago. Though I know it's Doug that makes these decisions. Basically I think he said it's just part of their philosophy. They make the product. Offer it to pros at full price as they can afford it and need it immediately and are willing to pay. Once they've recouped and then some. The like to offer their products at a price point that everybody can afford. To put it in the hands of as many people as possible. 

Makes sense business wise and also makes sense kind of from a benevolent point of view. It's never bothered me. I've payed full price for stuff and have waited as well. I think it's rather gracious of them. 'Cause the opposite really sucks. Look at SISS and Broadway Big Band as opposite examples.


----------



## NYC Composer (Feb 13, 2015)

Broadway Big Band totally alienated me, a jazz ensemble afficianado, with their pricing policies. Various reasons have been given for it, but I find it bizarre. Of course, it's their choice to price their products as they wish, but I went with Chris Hein, SampleModeling and a few others.

Meanwhile, I have a lot of East West products and have put up with the non-Pro Play for years.


----------



## Mystic (Feb 13, 2015)

The biggest thing that bothers me about the way East West does things is that they are tools made for professionals. For a long time I wasn't using them properly because there were essentially no detailed courses on using it to get good sound out of it. Unfortunately, being a pro tool, it's not the easiest series to use and if you don't have much experience working with orchestras, can have a hard time with it because out of the box it requires a lot of editing. Many new users don't understand that and buy it not knowing what they are getting into or spending money on, only that it's a great piece of software.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 13, 2015)

Larry, I'm curious - what price would you have paid for BBB?

The question isn't loaded in any way - I'm sincerely curious.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 13, 2015)

josejherring @ Fri Feb 13 said:


> I remember Nick talking about it many years ago. Though I know it's Doug that makes these decisions. Basically I think he said it's just part of their philosophy. They make the product. Offer it to pros at full price as they can afford it and need it immediately and are willing to pay. Once they've recouped and then some. The like to offer their products at a price point that everybody can afford. To put it in the hands of as many people as possible.
> 
> Makes sense business wise and also makes sense kind of from a benevolent point of view. It's never bothered me. I've payed full price for stuff and have waited as well. I think it's rather gracious of them. 'Cause the opposite really sucks. Look at SISS and Broadway Big Band as opposite examples.



Exactly. Those who want/need the latest and greatest, presumably those who make money with it, pay top dollar. Those who do not need to or are simply not so inclined, get a real bargain later if they choose to.

Makes sense to me, not that anyone at EW has ever asked my opinion


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 13, 2015)

Pretty great sale going on at Soundsonline this weekend in fact.

What are the must-have libraries? I really wish there was a way to try Play on my system beforehand given the reputation. Also, Silver or Gold? Don't think I want Platinum.


----------



## JohnG (Feb 13, 2015)

what kind of system do you have?


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 13, 2015)

Brand new Macbook Pro 15, fully maxed out with SSDs (including my sample drive).


----------



## Fleer (Feb 13, 2015)

These are the ones I went for (see sig).


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 13, 2015)

How do the Hollywood series work on your machine? Seems like you have the same set up as me basically.


----------



## tmm (Feb 13, 2015)

For must-haves, I love Stormdrum 3. The level of detail is top tier, and the selection of deep sampled instruments you get for the $ is pretty unbeatable.

I own it, and use it sometimes. The one thing that keeps me from using it more often is ease / quickness of use vs some similar libs I have in Kontakt.


----------



## Michael K. Bain (Feb 13, 2015)

5Lives @ Fri Feb 13 said:


> Pretty great sale going on at Soundsonline this weekend in fact.



Yeah, but I think they have the pricing wrong (at least on SO). The banner ad says 60% off products and upgrades, but they've got upgrades and full listed at the same price.


----------



## NYC Composer (Feb 13, 2015)

Nick Batzdorf @ Fri Feb 13 said:


> Larry, I'm curious - what price would you have paid for BBB?
> 
> The question isn't loaded in any way - I'm sincerely curious.



A grand. I have a good friend who felt the same. We both felt that would have been a high but fair price. How bout you, Nick-did you buy BBB?


----------



## muk (Feb 14, 2015)

If the pricing scheme is transparent (as it is with EW) that's good for all parties. A different example would be the Garritan CFX. When it came out it cost 300$. A month later MakeMusic dropped the price to 199$, and now it can be had for 150$. Somehow it doesn't look very professional if the price goes down so quickly. And it isn't fair for the customers who bought early on.
Anyway, the deals that EW offer are absolutely fantastic in my opinion. It's great to see such high quality samples offered at such an affordable price.
By the way, VSL started to do regular special offers as well some time ago. I remember them not doing any sales at all for some years.


----------



## Hanu_H (Feb 14, 2015)

Also one thing that affects the pricings is the updates. EW has a policy not to update "old" libraries and so if they don't work on your system well or there is hickups in the patches, most likely it will not get better. These never developers have taken this living library thing to the next level offering regular updates and new sample content for the same price. I think that also justifies the bigger price tag.

-Hannes


----------



## Guy Rowland (Feb 14, 2015)

Hanu_H @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> Also one thing that affects the pricings is the updates. EW has a policy not to update "old" libraries and so if they don't work on your system well or there is hickups in the patches, most likely it will not get better. These never developers have taken this living library thing to the next level offering regular updates and new sample content for the same price. I think that also justifies the bigger price tag.
> 
> -Hannes



Yes, that's a good point.

My take on EWQL these days is simply "sold as seen". They may do some basic maintenance updates, but that's it. I'd always spend a long time getting user feedback before buying anything. I'll likely never buy HS no matter how cheap it gets - partly cos I don't really need it in truth, but also because it seems to cause so many problems for people (unless a future Play update sees something magical performance-wise). However, HB had a much better reception, and turned out to be a phenomenal bargain. I've used the analogy before of them and a low cost airline - they end up selling stuff so cheap that they're practically irresistible. And in the same way you could either get a phenomenal bargain or a hellish experience - the good news though is that by doing your homework you can make a good guess as to which you'd get (unlike with the airline).

It's interesting to me to see all the devs have such different financial models. Some do the reverse of EWQL effectively and only do introductory discounts, but give more in the way of updates. I guess pretty much anything can work if done right. Personally I like Spectrasonics model the best - pay once, only modest retailer discounts forevermore so no stress about when to buy, years of fantastic free new content.

I agree on the BBB pricing tangent btw - $1k is the most it should be. Like it though I do, its a very long way from perfect - it doesn't justify a price above everything else on the market imo.


----------



## PeterKorcek (Feb 14, 2015)

EW CCC was my first sample library "kauf" and I still use it, although I use HW series and Stormdrums (which sound fantastic btw) more often.

I think its a great starting point, although the Play might be "scary" in the beginning - me personally never had big issue with it


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 14, 2015)

If you own a library already, is it possible to still get CCC but discount it based on what you already own? I have Spaces and during the sale, I wanted to try one of the Hollywood libraries - just to confirm Play works fine, before I dive into anything more.


----------



## Guy Rowland (Feb 14, 2015)

5Lives @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> If you own a library already, is it possible to still get CCC but discount it based on what you already own? I have Spaces and during the sale, I wanted to try one of the Hollywood libraries - just to confirm Play works fine, before I dive into anything more.



You can completely customise what's in it, so you only get what you need.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 14, 2015)

Right - but they make you buy at least 7 things. I already have a couple of items and don't really want another 7 all at once without confirming Play is ok. So was hoping I could say try Hollywood Brass to make sure it worked on my machine and then get the other 6 as part of CCC. I don't think that's possible though.


----------



## Hanu_H (Feb 14, 2015)

Not possible. That's one of the tricks when getting CCC. You are stuck with the libraries even if they don't work on your system. And what I have heard, Hollywood Strings is the most demanding one out there, so you better test that one first.

-Hannes


----------



## Guy Rowland (Feb 14, 2015)

5Lives @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> Right - but they make you buy at least 7 things. I already have a couple of items and don't really want another 7 all at once without confirming Play is ok. So was hoping I could say try Hollywood Brass to make sure it worked on my machine and then get the other 6 as part of CCC. I don't think that's possible though.



Yeah, the deal is 7 of some kind or other. But other deals appear - this weekend I saw there was a 60% off thing, in the past they've done deals on trios, though not for a while.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 14, 2015)

Think I might take your advice Hannes - though I need another string library like a hole in the head (have LASS and CS2 plus Session Strings Pro).


----------



## MA-Simon (Feb 14, 2015)

Does EW send out purchase mails on a weekend?
I purchased something this morning... without thinking.

Well, I'll just have to wait it out.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 14, 2015)

MA-Simon @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> Does EW send out purchase mails on a weekend?
> I purchased something this morning... without thinking.
> 
> Well, I'll just have to wait it out.



AFAIK, generally, no.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 14, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> MA-Simon @ Sat Feb 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Does EW send out purchase mails on a weekend?
> ...



Sorry - does this mean if I buy something today, I won't be able to download it until Monday or Tuesday?


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 14, 2015)

5Lives @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Sat Feb 14 said:
> 
> 
> > MA-Simon @ Sat Feb 14 said:
> ...



No but you might not get the license deposited to your iLok until then. AFAIK, though.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 14, 2015)

That's pretty disappointing. Basically nullifies the plan to try one library first and if it works, buy others during the sale...


----------



## MA-Simon (Feb 14, 2015)

Ah welll... okay. Thank you! 



> That's pretty disappointing. Basically nullifies the plan to try one library first and if it works, buy others during the sale...


It could still work for you though. I purchased an update, and I think they check your licenses manually on that. So if you purchase a new product, you might get an automated download link asap.


----------



## kitekrazy (Feb 14, 2015)

The market is very competitive trying to get the hobbyist's dollars. 

I assume EW is a larger company. They can afford to do this. At one time NI was not affordable. I would have never been able to afford Kontakt or Komplete if it weren't for GPO.

In every version of Kontakt there is VSL. For a person who needs their first orchestra you really can't beat it. Even VSL is very affordable. They have 2 get one free. They have the a la cart model. As for developing their own software they are in a class all by itself.

People I've come across in other forums that are not orchestra savvy usually have EW Orchestra Gold. I guess it's easy enough for them to do something with it and make it sound good. 

Let's not forget that this happens a lot with audio software. IK gives away a lot of their products.


----------



## kaiyoti (Feb 14, 2015)

East West seems like it's not Canada friendly though, I can't imagine the amount of brokerage and taxes one would have to pay for the Diamond packages.


----------



## LoungeLizard96 (Feb 14, 2015)

Yes, they do seem to have good sales don't they.

60% off at the moment for valentines day... So at least there's one good thing to come out of the day for use single beings :D

I'd like to get something from them while the sales on, any recommendations? 

I've never bought anything from East West before


----------



## Anders Wall (Feb 14, 2015)

LoungeLizard96 @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> I've never bought anything from East West before.



Great products, get as many you can afford!

But.
Their support is really slow. I have a case that's been unresolved for weeks.
The ticket is about missing samples so I can't be that hard to fix (or just to send me the missing files).
But nothing... Yet...

I have other libraries so there's really no big deal.
But buying for the first time I would have loved if someone made me aware of their slow support.

/Anders


----------



## lpuser (Feb 14, 2015)

I - for one - am very happy with EW and their pricing. EWQLSO was the first library I purchased (alongside with the Symphonic Choirs) and did not regret it.

Many companies seem to target their products at professionals only - and yes, those who earn good in making music can certainly afford them without a problem.

But for somebody who just started to glimpse into orchestration and orchestral / hybrid compositions, most of the competition is way off in terms or pricing. 400$ for one chair of strings? 300$ for sampled melody lines? This may all be worth it (from the vendors point of view), but how can anyone with music as a "2nd job" afford this?

EW is certainly doing something very good by offering small studio or private folks affordable yet great-sounding libraries at a reasonable price point. I wished more vendors would do this (and not only offer rebates to teachers).


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 14, 2015)

Well - I went for it. Grabbed Hollywood Brass. The activation was instantaneous, so no worries there.

So far, running very smoothly on my machine. No problems whatsoever and loading time is pretty fast off my SSD. Getting the very rare crackle / pop even though CPU is showing < 10%.

Initial impressions compared to Cinebrass - well, seems to have a lot more dynamic range. Can especially do the softer stuff really nicely, while Cinebrass always seems bit epic. Wish the patch names were a little more intuitive - like 5 legato patches, but no idea what each does - guess I'll have to read the manual.

All in all, pretty pleased so far (given, only been 2 hours).

Sort of want to grab Hollywood Strings and Woodwinds as well - how do folks like them? I have Cinematic Strings, which are nice, but finding them a bit "synthy" and LASS 2.5, which is also nice, but have never gotten along with the ARC stuff and they sound harsh to me. I even prefer Session Strings Pro to them.


----------



## Hanu_H (Feb 14, 2015)

If you are getting any crackles I advise you to try to push it first before purchasing more. If you have some songs ready, try to replace your old brass with Hollywood Brass and then you will see if it works on your system. Of course it's impossible to predict how well Hollywood Strings works even if Brass works well, I have heard that Brass is a lot better on your CPU than Strings. Have fun with your new library!

-Hannes


----------



## JohnG (Feb 14, 2015)

I like HS a lot -- a very sweet sound but still can do big stuff. A very different sound from LASS (I also have LASS v2.5 and like it, but it's different).

I would suggest that, if you decide to get HS, use the light patches, not the "big system" patches. They sound very good and are far less demanding, much more like the HB patches.

In the mean time, consider SILK (if you want that sort of thing), plus Stormdrum 2 and 3. They are superb.

Whether or not you decide to buy more, you likely will hit a limit with your system. It is very tough to run any full orchestral sound with dense orchestration off a single computer, especially a laptop.

[note: I have received free products from East West]


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 14, 2015)

WallofSound @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> LoungeLizard96 @ Sat Feb 14 said:
> 
> 
> > I've never bought anything from East West before.
> ...



Did you email this to me?


----------



## Damon (Feb 14, 2015)

If I had more room on my SSD, this would be a no brainer. Amazing deals at East West for sure. I wish 'Lumina' would go on sale. 800 bucks is a little steep for me right now. Btw, anyone talked to Maarten lately? I haven't spoken to him in years.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 14, 2015)

Interestingly, I'm finding Play MORE efficient than Kontakt in some cases - for example, the 6 horn patch in Play vs. the 6 horn patch from Cinebrass in Kontakt - in Pro Tools 11, the Play patch is way more efficient...but then in Cubase, Play makes the CPU meter go wild while Kontakt doesn't.


----------



## Anders Wall (Feb 14, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> Did you email this to me?


Hello Jay.

No, I used the Sounds-online support site.

@5Lives o=< 
Congrats!

Best,

/Anders


----------



## Fleer (Feb 14, 2015)

5Lives @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> How do the Hollywood series work on your machine? Seems like you have the same set up as me basically.



Using SSD is essential for Hollywood Strings. But these Gold libraries are a lot lighter than their Diamond counterparts. You could also get EWQLSO Silver on the cheap and later upgrade to Gold. Still a very nice library, voted best by SoundonSound readers for the third time a month ago. 
As for EastWest support, nothing but good experiences. Joey Medina is a great guy, very dedicated.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 14, 2015)

WallofSound @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Sun Feb 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Did you email this to me?
> ...



Email it to me then and I will try to get you some help. 

[email protected]


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 14, 2015)

Fleer @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> Using SSD is essential for Hollywood Strings. But these Gold libraries are a lot lighter than their Diamond counterparts. You could also get EWQLSO Silver on the cheap and later upgrade to Gold. Still a very nice library, voted best by SoundonSound readers for the third time a month ago.
> As for EastWest support, nothing but good experiences. Joey Medina is a great guy, very dedicated.



Thanks - yes, seems like Hollywood Brass is working well for the most part on my machine (though have to investigate if the occasional audio pops while playing are really due to Play or something else). Main concern right now is the "playability" of these compared to other libraries I have. The Hollywood series is very detailed with their patches, but that also can make it more complicated. For example, Cinesamples has a single "articulations" patch which contains shorts and legato longs. Very easy to play a variety of lines - but of course, doesn't have all of the detail that HB does.


----------



## Fleer (Feb 14, 2015)

Yeah - should look into CineSamples too. But for now, I've still got a long way to go with these fine EastWest libraries. Got 'em together only two months ago. Carefully selected: EWQLSO as a "wet" sketch pad including strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion; the three Hollywood libraries for "dry detail", Symphonic Choirs for amazing voices and Word Builder; Fab Four 'cause I love those authentic Beatles' sounds, Gypsy for the greatest solo violin and acoustic guitars and Ghostwriter because of Steven Wilson's sonic realm. Added convolution reverb behemoth Spaces and Duende-style SSL FX for effects. 
Gotta love EastWest


----------



## sinkd (Feb 15, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> Nick Batzdorf @ Fri Feb 13 said:
> 
> 
> > Larry, I'm curious - what price would you have paid for BBB?
> ...



Bingo. Exactly what I thought when I read Nick's question.

DS


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 15, 2015)

Fleer @ Sat Feb 14 said:


> Yeah - should look into CineSamples too. But for now, I've still got a long way to go with these fine EastWest libraries. Got 'em together only two months ago. Carefully selected: EWQLSO as a "wet" sketch pad including strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion; the three Hollywood libraries for "dry detail", Symphonic Choirs for amazing voices and Word Builder; Fab Four 'cause I love those authentic Beatles' sounds, Gypsy for the greatest solo violin and acoustic guitars and Ghostwriter because of Steven Wilson's sonic realm. Added convolution reverb behemoth Spaces and Duende-style SSL FX for effects.
> Gotta love EastWest



Given just the sheer amount of patches in the Hollywood series, what's your workflow setup? Would be interested to know how you're handling them and if it takes a long time to program something out.


----------



## reddognoyz (Feb 15, 2015)

Just pulled the trigger on SD3. Hard to pass up at $158

Thinking about getting HB and HS as well, gold versions.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 15, 2015)

5Lives @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> Fleer @ Sat Feb 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Yeah - should look into CineSamples too. But for now, I've still got a long way to go with these fine EastWest libraries. Got 'em together only two months ago. Carefully selected: EWQLSO as a "wet" sketch pad including strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion; the three Hollywood libraries for "dry detail", Symphonic Choirs for amazing voices and Word Builder; Fab Four 'cause I love those authentic Beatles' sounds, Gypsy for the greatest solo violin and acoustic guitars and Ghostwriter because of Steven Wilson's sonic realm. Added convolution reverb behemoth Spaces and Duende-style SSL FX for effects.
> ...



You can compose probably 90% of what you will ever want to compose with 6-8 patches per instrument IMHO


----------



## tokatila (Feb 15, 2015)

Play virginity soon to be lost. Silk bought.

I have understood that it should be one of the best libraries both resource and sound-wise.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 15, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> You can compose probably 90% of what you will ever want to compose with 6-8 patches per instrument IMHO



Thanks Jay - would love if you could elaborate if possible? Does this apply to the rest of the Hollywood series as well (ex. Brass)? Would love to know which 6-8 patches are your main patches in your template. Assuming you do one track per patch then vs. a keyswitch?


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 15, 2015)

5Lives @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Sun Feb 15 said:
> 
> 
> > You can compose probably 90% of what you will ever want to compose with 6-8 patches per instrument IMHO
> ...



IMHO, yes.

Typically for HS Vln 1 I might use: Legato Slur, Sus KS (includes trills, tremolos,etc.) Mod Shorts, Stac On Bow, Pizz, Bartok Pizz, 1 Playable Runs KS, 1 Pre-recorded runs patch.


----------



## proxima (Feb 15, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> Typically for HS Vln 1 I might use: Legato Slur, Sus KS (includes trills, tremolos,etc.) Mod Shorts, Stac On Bow, Pizz, Bartok Pizz, 1 Playable Runs KS, 1 Pre-recorded runs patch.


Interesting, that's more KS instruments than I'd expect. How many tracks do you use?


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 15, 2015)

proxima @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Sun Feb 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Typically for HS Vln 1 I might use: Legato Slur, Sus KS (includes trills, tremolos,etc.) Mod Shorts, Stac On Bow, Pizz, Bartok Pizz, 1 Playable Runs KS, 1 Pre-recorded runs patch.
> ...



One.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 15, 2015)

Sadly, getting a lot of crackle on some patches with Hollywood Brass - don't understand why since my CPU meter is not even close to spiking (this is with one track in Logic). Similar patch in Cinebrass shows a HIGHER CPU meter, but absolutely no crackling.

Don't understand it - but don't think I'm going to grab anymore of the EW stuff for now.


----------



## Guy Rowland (Feb 15, 2015)

5Lives @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> Sadly, getting a lot of crackle on some patches with Hollywood Brass - don't understand why since my CPU meter is not even close to spiking (this is with one track in Logic). Similar patch in Cinebrass shows a HIGHER CPU meter, but absolutely no crackling.
> 
> Don't understand it - but don't think I'm going to grab anymore of the EW stuff for now.



Which DAW are you using? I used to have terrible problems in Cubase 7, but Cubase 8 and the latest version of Play seem good.


----------



## proxima (Feb 15, 2015)

5Lives @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> Sadly, getting a lot of crackle on some patches with Hollywood Brass - don't understand why since my CPU meter is not even close to spiking (this is with one track in Logic). Similar patch in Cinebrass shows a HIGHER CPU meter, but absolutely no crackling.
> 
> Don't understand it - but don't think I'm going to grab anymore of the EW stuff for now.


HB works pretty well for me, but lately I've been struggling with HS. Perhaps someone can replicate the following behavior:

Single HS track, 1st violins sus 6 RR 4th pos NI. Sustained C3 note for 2 measures, pause, another C3 for 2 measures, etc. Perhaps half of the time I get a small pop about 2/3 of the way through the note, which seems like an issue with looping. Because it didn't happen 100% of the time, I started digging into lots of other stuff, but I can replicate it on a single Logic track with nothing else open and definitely no CPU spikes. Most strangely, I can't replicate it on other notes, only C3. Cellos, Violas, and 2nd violins don't have the problem. 

I do have enough issues running a bunch of HS on Logic that I'm going to try out VEPro (without slaves). The 30 day demo is great and should give me a chance to see how well it works (I guess for the cost of a dongle which should arrive next week).


----------



## Hanu_H (Feb 15, 2015)

5Lives @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> Sadly, getting a lot of crackle on some patches with Hollywood Brass - don't understand why since my CPU meter is not even close to spiking (this is with one track in Logic). Similar patch in Cinebrass shows a HIGHER CPU meter, but absolutely no crackling.
> 
> Don't understand it - but don't think I'm going to grab anymore of the EW stuff for now.



That's one of the "system specific" problems of PLAY I think. There is probably nothing you can do about it and their support might try to solve it, but most likely it will end them saying it's your system and we can't replicate what you are experiencing. Did you try it already in a arrangement? When you have 5-6 instruments playing at the same time you will see the truth if it's gonna work on your system or not.

-Hannes


----------



## JohnG (Feb 15, 2015)

Hannes, forgive me, but you are guessing.

A pop or click can be a bus being full, a disk drive not able to stream fast enough, too much gain in a channel, or a CPU spike.

It can be caused by from too many voices streaming from a single channel in some DAWs because the cores are not being spread evenly.

If you describe what seems to cause the problem, you can perhaps get some help. Many / most problems in HS can be resolved by using a lighter version of the same patch.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 15, 2015)

This was in Logic, loading Play directly. I just tried with VEP and didn't have any issues - the inconsistency is really what is worrying though.

Ultimately, as I've been playing around with it, I'm missing the playability as I mentioned earlier that you get with something like Cinebrass or LASS - specifically, I really like being able to manipulate the articulation in realtime via velocity (like in LASS, how easy it is to go from Legato -> Portamento -> Gliss in one patch - similarly in Cinebrass, the shorts and legato are all on one patch with velocity switching). The detail of Hollywood Brass is great and the x-fading layers are very nice for sure, but at the moment, the detail and amount of patches is overwhelming me - I'm not a professional. I want it to be fun to play. My 2 cents.


----------



## JohnG (Feb 15, 2015)

Hi 5 lives

I'm no Logic expert, but I think it's generally agreed that you get mucho better results loading PLAY (and other v.i.s) inside a VE Pro instance than directly into Logic.

As I understand it, this isn't an "inconsistency," it's just that VE Pro adds an extra bit of help spreading over multiple cores.

Experts, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, if you are overwhelmed, check out the "quick start" menu that is in HS.


[note: I have received free products from East West]


----------



## Guy Rowland (Feb 15, 2015)

I'm no Logic expert either I'm afraid. But sounds similar to how things were in C7 for me. It was more of a Play issue than a resource one, but Logic users here should be able to better advise if that's the same in your case.

As for the real time playing a la LASS / CB - yeah. That's a real drawback of Play libs.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 15, 2015)

JohnG @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> Hi 5 lives
> 
> I'm no Logic expert, but I think it's generally agreed that you get mucho better results loading PLAY (and other v.i.s) inside a VE Pro instance than directly into Logic.



With multi-timbral instruments, yes. Otherwise, no.


----------



## Fleer (Feb 15, 2015)

5Lives @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> This was in Logic, loading Play directly. I just tried with VEP and didn't have any issues - the inconsistency is really what is worrying though.
> 
> Ultimately, as I've been playing around with it, I'm missing the playability as I mentioned earlier that you get with something like Cinebrass or LASS - specifically, I really like being able to manipulate the articulation in realtime via velocity (like in LASS, how easy it is to go from Legato -> Portamento -> Gliss in one patch - similarly in Cinebrass, the shorts and legato are all on one patch with velocity switching). The detail of Hollywood Brass is great and the x-fading layers are very nice for sure, but at the moment, the detail and amount of patches is overwhelming me - I'm not a professional. I want it to be fun to play. My 2 cents.



Well, I'm afraid I won't be much help for you right now, as I clearly am much more of an amateur, going one step at a time. You may want to check EastWest's own forum, as their admin support responses are quite good. Also, other forum members (and Logic users) like Marcusmax will jump in and help you out.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 15, 2015)

I switched to Cubase 8 and tried to mock up a slightly larger piece using Hollywood Brass (plus CinePerc, Albion, Ivory, etc.) just to see what it would do. So far, not a single problem and the CPU usage is very low (also noticed making sure no tracks are record enabled on playback helps a bunch in Cubase 8).

Still on the fence whether I want to dive into Hollywood Strings or get something like CineStrings (or nothing at all).

Edit: Never mind, getting the crackle with HOB. Like the sound - even can manage all the patch options in my workflow (nice to have the options to be honest), but will need to freeze the tracks or something.


----------



## Gregg Chmara (Feb 15, 2015)

I started with EW in the days well before play (I am 73) with hopes the anything would be better that the cheesy "synthicated" sample sounds that never sounded like anything but a synth orchestra trying to masquerade as the real thing, but coming off as a badly recorded bootleg recording unless tons of effects and work were added during and after compiling a final piece.

I was not disappointed in the EW quality as much as I was put off by the original versions of Kontakt by Native Instruments and its then limitations. But, with some work EW was (and remains) great for my simple (non professional personal pleasure) needs. Much more than adequate.

Over the years I have paid the costs to upgrade Kontakt and some of the work available exclusively under its operations -- as well as upgrading to play and keeping it up-to-date for my various libraries. At the time -- fully employed -- they affordable, one at a time during a sale period. And play, while not "settled" was easy to use, tweet and get what I needed -- and so to speak -- has continues from grace to grace since that time.

Kontakt -- powerful as it is and was -- apparently has not been a priority for Native Instruments and seems now to take 3rd chair to the DJ business. Support and new featuring seems intermittent at best. And all the updates on version numbers, even at an update price, were hefty. Luckily with some work it is mostly backward compatible.

I had to skip lunch (social security only income) for three months to get Logic Pro X and was worried that neither Play nor Kontakt would work - and was gratified to find that with some updating and downloads this is not a problem and a reasonable investment in time (I have plenty) and not money (I have none) to invest.

Both companies economic models and pricing are based on their experience and the marketplaces that keep them going. EW, to me is more professional in its approach to musicians who are traditionally based and can create soundtracks and demo classic style works using no orchestra and still sound "real."

Native Instruments in my opinion, however, has moved on from a musicians resource to a party DJ's source -- or a source for a musician who works by ear rather than traditional methods to create popular songs, beats and sounds. Their samples, for what they are -- seem good and mostly clean and clear.

I must include, however, one other thrust into the world of music generation in this diatribe: Spectrasonics.

I have found Spectrasonics Omnisphere (1.5 updated free constantly as needed) Trillion and RMX to cross into a world of new music mixing samples and synth AND beats easily and well beyond my comprehension but well within my use. They are now issuing Omnisphere 2.0 at very close to the original 1.5 price -- and upgrade prices are -- if you have money exceptionally reasonable for the work and effort that will truly upgrade something that started at the top of its class -- and seemingly not upgradeable because it started with so many feature.

I have been using Trillian exclusively for my acoustic Bass sounds since I got it and only miss a library of bowed sounds of the same quality -- switching to EW (Gold) for this as needed.

But, as a hobbyist, non-professional unpublished composer and not having worked as a paid musician since 1965 - this is only my opinion.


----------



## JohnG (Feb 15, 2015)

Hi Greg -- thanks for posting. Good to get your perspective.


----------



## tokatila (Feb 16, 2015)

Ok, so I dl'ed and installed Silk.

To my ears, the instruments sound very nice. And there are so many. 

I would call it a bargain.

Very nice so far.


----------



## mk282 (Feb 16, 2015)

Gregg Chmara @ 16.2.2015 said:


> Native Instruments in my opinion, however, has moved on from a musicians resource to a party DJ's source



This cannot be further from the truth.

NI has diversified their product range, correct. But each product range (Komplete, Maschine, Traktor) has DIFFERENT people working on them. Those who work on Kontakt, work on Kontakt only - they have nothing to do with Traktor or Maschine!

And Kontakt remains extremely important to NI - just like Reaktor is. Otherwise we wouldn't see so much 3rd party content for it, or indeed things like much better filters, new effects, new scripting features in Kontakt 5, etc.


----------



## Hanu_H (Feb 16, 2015)

JohnG @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> Hannes, forgive me, but you are guessing.
> 
> A pop or click can be a bus being full, a disk drive not able to stream fast enough, too much gain in a channel, or a CPU spike.
> 
> ...



Non taken, but that just sound really familiar with my experiences of the PLAY software and one of the main reasons why I have dropped PLAY from my template. Just too many problems that cannot be explained or solved. I am not saying it won't work, but it's unlikely that the OP will get a full orchestra of PLAY instruments to work if already one patch is crackling.

-Hannes


----------



## gsilbers (Feb 16, 2015)

mk282 @ Mon Feb 16 said:


> Gregg Chmara @ 16.2.2015 said:
> 
> 
> > Native Instruments in my opinion, however, has moved on from a musicians resource to a party DJ's source
> ...



he is definilty entitled to his opinion. i too think NI is diversifed but at the same time it leans heavy on the DJ or mobile musician. which i would too based on market value. 
I think action strings could of been better, action strikes is good and its partnership with heaviocity is a big plus on the media composer market. 
the real great feature of NI is kontakt scipting which lead to 3rd party developers create content to whomever. that imo is why NI is better for composers.


----------



## gsilbers (Feb 16, 2015)

Hanu_H @ Mon Feb 16 said:


> JohnG @ Sun Feb 15 said:
> 
> 
> > Hannes, forgive me, but you are guessing.
> ...



I agree. Play is still not a good sampler. on a mac the main argument is that mac processes memory diferently and thats why its unstable. but then we see kontakt working as it should. and of course, anyone objecting to play means they are doing something wrong.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 16, 2015)

Oops, my mistake on this post.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 16, 2015)

gsilbers @ Mon Feb 16 said:


> Hanu_H @ Mon Feb 16 said:
> 
> 
> > JohnG @ Sun Feb 15 said:
> ...



I will only say that there is a thread on Gearslutz complaining about how unstable Kontakt 5 is, so clearly YMMV.


----------



## mk282 (Feb 16, 2015)

There's a thread on wherever how anything unstable is. There are tons of factors with these things, of course it can't always work for 100% of people. 

Just my 2c, but K5.4 has been extremely stable over here indeed. Sure there were bumps in 5.0.3-5.3.1, but these have been remedied by and large.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 16, 2015)

mk282 @ Mon Feb 16 said:


> There's a thread on wherever how anything unstable is. There are tons of factors with these things, of course it can't always work for 100% of people.
> 
> Just my 2c, but K5.4 has been extremely stable over here indeed. Sure there were bumps in 5.0.3-5.3.1, but these have been remedied by and large.



Agreed, I am not having any real issues with the latest versions of Kontakt, Play, Engine, and UVI. They all are very stable on my rig.


----------



## Gregg Chmara (Feb 16, 2015)

I was not aware that NI had separate people (teams?) working on each product -- but I am aware that Kontakt is very stable and has some very interesting features I am not sophisticated enough to use.

BUT, the marketing packages reaching me all seem to be for DJ equipment and beats. I have not been on their support lines or forums in a while either -- as early on I found then very lean on information I could use. I will give the a try again.

On the original ideas of cost -- samples are not cheap to produce well. The effort to put them into some semblance of order for playing on a keyboard and making them sound as (not just "like") a string section horns and saxes is a creative challenge taking genius in both programming and sample capture.

I wonder about the high end Vienna packages and their integration between takes and issues and whether they too take as much tweaking as earlier programs to get real dynamics and solid live performance sound?

(The above question is somewhat academic as I cannot afford any modules at this time of life and even the upgrades coming on Omnisphere are requiring major budget overhauls for food and electricity use.)


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 16, 2015)

To be honest, unless we're a developer, it is unlikely to know the details on how NI is handling Kontakt. 80-90% of the functionality and power of Kontakt is for developers, not the average user. That's why their marketing is focused on "DJ" stuff - why would they spend marketing budget advertising "the latest in scripting technology and SSD optimization, etc."? Kontakt is by far the most popular sampling PLATFORM these days - and given NI gets a steady stream of revenue from each library built on it, I would bet it isn't going anywhere and will continue to be supported.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 16, 2015)

5Lives @ Mon Feb 16 said:


> To be honest, unless we're a developer, it is unlikely to know the details on how NI is handling Kontakt. 80-90% of the functionality and power of Kontakt is for developers, not the average user. That's why their marketing is focused on "DJ" stuff - why would they spend marketing budget advertising "the latest in scripting technology and SSD optimization, etc."? Kontakt is by far the most popular sampling PLATFORM these days - and given NI gets a steady stream of revenue from each library built on it, I would bet it isn't going anywhere and will continue to be supported.



Sounds right to me,5 Lives.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 16, 2015)

So just to follow up on this, in case anybody is interested - some of my initial thoughts after using Hollywood Brass for a bit (for some perspective, running a maxed out 2014 retina Macbook Pro with all samples on an SSD - it is a very powerful machine, just check Geekbench).

Wrote a short piece using Ivory American D, CinePerc, Albion 1 for strings, and then for brass, compared HB to CineBrass Core. Using Cubase 8 btw.

*Play vs. Kontakt*
- Play does take a lot longer to load (I'd say 5x roughly). This may not be apples to apples though because Kontakt does true background loading - that is, you have full control of the DAW as it continues to load the samples in the background, while Play loads everything and then gives you back control of the DAW. In either case, you cannot fully play the instrument until they have fully loaded. I'd still say Kontakt is faster to fully load - probably 2-3x as fast. Keep in mind this is very dependent on the size of the patch as well, but I was comparing similar patches (size-wise).
- Cubase's CPU meter shows about 5-7% MORE usage when using CineBrass in Kontakt compared to Play. However...
- Play DOES give me the occasional (but consistent) pops and crackles on playback and on recording even though CPU meter shows plenty of headroom. No idea how to fix this unfortunately.

*Composing with Hollywood Brass vs. CineBrass*
- For the same brass part, I used less than half of the tracks for CineBrass vs. HB. This was because CineBrass has a "master patch" and it is pretty easy to do everything in there. With HB, you have to break all of the articulations out - though some instruments do have keyswitch patches. I happen to like the playability of the CineBrass articulations patch - makes it much faster for me to play in the same line.
- The nice thing about HB is how detailed it is - lots of different articulations to get you the sound you want. Takes a while initially to go through them of course, but once you learn the library, it'll be faster. This is not to say that CineBrass falls short - I've noticed with a lot of these libraries, their simple UI hides a lot of advanced scripting and additional samples that are underneath. For example, although HB has a legato runs patch, using the 1/8 shorts to do the run, I felt CineBrass sounded equally good.
- Play has no customization from the looks of it in terms of configuring CCs, etc (or even seeing what can be configured - you have to dive into the manual every time). Didn't really bother me much, but it would've been nice to have stuff presented in the UI as reference.

*The Sound*
- HB feels like it has a bit more dynamic range in terms of getting really soft and smooth to loud and buzzy. CineBrass feels like a subset of that, but covers a pretty wide range as well.
- For the finished piece, THEY BOTH SOUNDED PRETTY GREAT! Would've been happy with either of them to be honest - and layering them is wonderful!

So, if I had to pick ONE, I'd probably choose CineBrass. I think it sounded slightly better to me (FOR THIS PIECE at least) and was easier to work with it (plus no Kontakt issues).

Hope that's some useful information to other folks who might be considering either library.


----------



## HardyP (Feb 16, 2015)

Gregg Chmara @ 2015-02-16 said:


> I had to skip lunch (social security only income) for three months to get Logic Pro X


Whow, THAT is dedication…
Very haunting post, Gregg - THAT is dedication to music!
Hope that also some Devs may read this, bcs I think it´s not a quite small number of their customers who are really wrenching out their wallet to get at least a handful of small tools "just for pleasure"...


----------



## HardyP (Feb 16, 2015)

Even if Greggs story sets our "problems" into perspective, I would like to add sth to this:


5Lives @ 2015-02-16 said:


> *Play vs. Kontakt*
> - Play DOES give me the occasional (but consistent) pops and crackles on playback and on recording even though CPU meter shows plenty of headroom. No idea how to fix this unfortunately.


It seems to me, that PLAY may a "bit more sensitive" to some system specifics. I have an ongoing problem with Pianos, where EW support every times mainly points towards HDD bottlenecks. The voice count is quite low, so I really wondered how that could be the issue. And most important: If it is only a system performance problem, an offline bouncing should be fine (which is not in this case)! I even purchased an SSD and appropriate external USB3 (UASP capable) in order to take supports concerns serious, but no success.
I am pretty shure, that it´s no lie when they are saying "we can not reproduce it"  - but that doesn´t help in the end. It just underlines my statement at the beginning concerning the sensitivity.

@Jay: BTW, maybe you can look into Case #64213, please? My last mail did not see a response since 3 weeks, and today I saw that the case is marked as "closed"…? Thanks in advance!!


----------



## Fleer (Feb 16, 2015)

5Lives @ Mon Feb 16 said:


> Hope that's some useful information to other folks who might be considering either library.



And their prices? Are they comparable during promotions?


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 16, 2015)

Fleer @ Mon Feb 16 said:


> And their prices? Are they comparable during promotions?



CineBrass will end up being more expensive - especially if you get the Pro expansion as well. Would say during promotions (which are going on right now), looks like $280 / 520 for CineBrass Core / CineBrass Bundle vs. ~$200 for Hollywood Brass. Question is how much are the points I made above worth? To me, they're worth the difference - had I known them before, I would've spent my money differently.


----------



## MA-Simon (Feb 17, 2015)

Still waiting for my update e-mail...


----------



## Hanu_H (Feb 17, 2015)

HardyP @ Tue Feb 17 said:


> Even if Greggs story sets our "problems" into perspective, I would like to add sth to this:
> 
> 
> 5Lives @ 2015-02-16 said:
> ...



I had a a bit different problems with PLAY. Had everything working in the playback, but when bouncing, there were random clicks and pops always in the different places. My CPU was not overwhelmed and I streamed from 7 different HD's, libraries split to them. And that was when using Symphonic Orchestra, RA, Symphonic Choirs, SD2...My template used about 15 gigs of ram. After that I was too afraid of the whole PLAY to even consider buying HS or HB. Now I run 23 gigs of Kontakt(well and some others) instruments in the same computer without any problems, including LASS, CineBrass, CinePerc, CineHarp, Drums of War, Hollywoodwinds, Piano In Blue, VSL Woodwinds, Spitfire Solo Strings, Spitfire Felt Piano, Da Capo, Tutti, DSS Orchestral Strings FX, some small instruments from Impact Soundworks. There might be more, this is all I can remember now. All of those are with all the instruments and articulations loaded. + for the synths some Zebra, Evolve series etc...

Some great sounds in the PLAY but definitely not worth all the hassle to me when equal or even better sounding libraries are available in the Kontakt and it actually works without clicks and pops. And with Kontakt I basically have one midi track per instrument, with PLAY it was at least 5-6 per instrument sometimes even more...

-Hannes


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 17, 2015)

HardyP @ Mon Feb 16 said:


> @Jay: BTW, maybe you can look into Case #64213, please? My last mail did not see a response since 3 weeks, and today I saw that the case is marked as "closed"…? Thanks in advance!!



Can you tell me which tech support person was handling it, Hardy?


----------



## reddognoyz (Feb 17, 2015)

well, just pulled the trigger on Hollywood Brass gold at $200. At that price 3 good patches would make it a bargan.

Bought SD3 on the 13th. awaiting the Ilok auth deposit to my account.


----------



## Anders Wall (Feb 17, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Feb 15 said:


> Email it to me then and I will try to get you some help.
> 
> [email protected]



You've got mail 

/Anders


----------



## kitekrazy (Feb 17, 2015)

I was soooooo tempted buy the HWB Gold upgrade at $100 and SD3 for $158 but I need to upgrade hardware. I'm still using Phenom IIs and a Q6600 - vintage gear.


----------



## Fleer (Feb 17, 2015)

5Lives @ Tue Feb 17 said:


> Fleer @ Mon Feb 16 said:
> 
> 
> > And their prices? Are they comparable during promotions?
> ...



Quite costly, whereas you can get EastWest Hollywood Strings, Brass and Woodwinds for not much more than the price of a Cinebrass Core / Cinebrass bundle


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 18, 2015)

Fleer @ Tue Feb 17 said:


> Quite costly, whereas you can get EastWest Hollywood Strings, Brass and Woodwinds for not much more than the price of a Cinebrass Core / Cinebrass bundle



Doesn't matter if they were all free if they didn't work for you though :wink:


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2015)

5Lives @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> Fleer @ Tue Feb 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Quite costly, whereas you can get EastWest Hollywood Strings, Brass and Woodwinds for not much more than the price of a Cinebrass Core / Cinebrass bundle
> ...



true, but assuming that one's rig is up to it, there is no reason it should not that cannot in theory be diagnosed and fixed. I mean EW had sold a ton of these and the number of issues that come across my email are really quite few these days.


----------



## Hanu_H (Feb 18, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> 5Lives @ Wed Feb 18 said:
> 
> 
> > Fleer @ Tue Feb 17 said:
> ...



That is of course true, but I also know that many people buy EW stuff as first library because they are cheaper than others. It's a good starting point, but after they get serious and build templates and get all the problems, they change to Kontakt, VSL... Of course there is people who stick with it and buy dedicated computers for PLAY and so on. But many people own PLAY libraries and never use it, maybe that's why you are not getting as many e-mails anymore...

-Hannes


----------



## olajideparis (Feb 18, 2015)

You're definitely right Hannes. A couple of years ago when I was looking to upgrade everything I did the math and realized that it would be cheaper to buy Hollywood Strings and a dedicated PC than to spend the same money on kontakt string libraries. I was right about that but that little experiment didn't really work out, so I'm planning on ditching HS and HB completely as soon as I can afford to spend a few thousand on Kontakt based libraries. HS is cheap, sounds amazing but is just not worth all the hoop jumping one needs to go through to get it to work.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2015)

Hanu_H @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Wed Feb 18 said:
> 
> 
> > 5Lives @ Wed Feb 18 said:
> ...



I doubt that is true in too many cases because when people spend their money they want their products to work. I know I do. In the years I have been doing this I have only seen a couple of cases where the tech support guys could not get things to work on someone's rig. 

But yes, those of us who use a lot of the more demanding libraries do tend to end up building a slave for it.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2015)

olajideparis @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> You're definitely right Hannes. A couple of years ago when I was looking to upgrade everything I did the math and realized that it would be cheaper to buy Hollywood Strings and a dedicated PC than to spend the same money on kontakt string libraries. I was right about that but that little experiment didn't really work out, so I'm planning on ditching HS and HB completely as soon as I can afford to spend a few thousand on Kontakt based libraries. HS is cheap, sounds amazing but is just not worth all the hoop jumping one needs to go through to get it to work.



Obviously I cannot help you with Cubase, which you switched to from Logic Pro, but I certainly can help you with VE Pro. AFAIK, if you have a powerful PC with SSDs, that is the only "hoops" you should have to jump through and even with the Kontakt libraries you are better off with VE Pro than directly in your DAW.

Let's Skype if you like.


----------



## olajideparis (Feb 18, 2015)

Thanks for reaching out Jay. Its really just the loading times and sample burden at this point. I would like to be able to create a massive template with all instruments purged and I just can't do that with HS like I can with Kontakt. And for the size template I would want to have it would just take ages to load up. I'm not angry or anything it's only what $500 or something so its not a big deal.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2015)

olajideparis @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> Thanks for reaching out Jay. Its really just the loading times and sample burden at this point. I would like to be able to create a massive template with all instruments purged and I just can't do that with HS like I can with Kontakt. And for the size template I would want to have it would just take ages to load up. I'm not angry or anything it's only what $500 or something so its not a big deal.



Well my 32 GB Hollywood Series VE Pro template loads from 2 SSDs on my PC is app. 5-6 minutes. I don't think that is awful and I pretty much can compose anything orchestral I would ever need to with it exclusively, although I also use Kontakt libraries in VE Pro on my Mac.


----------



## JohnG (Feb 18, 2015)

olajideparis @ 18th February 2015 said:


> You're definitely right Hannes. A couple of years ago when I was looking to upgrade everything I did the math and realized that it would be cheaper to buy Hollywood Strings and a dedicated PC than to spend the same money on kontakt string libraries. I was right about that but that little experiment didn't really work out, so I'm planning on ditching HS and HB completely as soon as I can afford to spend a few thousand on Kontakt based libraries. HS is cheap, sounds amazing but is just not worth all the hoop jumping one needs to go through to get it to work.



I did that and it works really well. PC / Windows machine, PCIe SSD for samples, VE Pro as host. I put all my strings on that machine, PLAY and Kontakt, and they rock (EW, Spitfire, LASS, Symphobia).

I don't use all the "Powerful System" patches, because I've found they really are only necessary for special situations. The lighter patches work fine for me.

If you want, PM me and I would be glad to work it through with you, if I can help.

[note: I have received free products from East West]


----------



## Guy Rowland (Feb 18, 2015)

olajideparis @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> Thanks for reaching out Jay. Its really just the loading times and sample burden at this point. I would like to be able to create a massive template with all instruments purged and I just can't do that with HS like I can with Kontakt. And for the size template I would want to have it would just take ages to load up. I'm not angry or anything it's only what $500 or something so its not a big deal.



Yes, there's no equivalent to running purged with on-the-fly background loading. If you want to run a full Play-based template, you'll need a lot more ram than with Kontakt.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> olajideparis @ Wed Feb 18 said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks for reaching out Jay. Its really just the loading times and sample burden at this point. I would like to be able to create a massive template with all instruments purged and I just can't do that with HS like I can with Kontakt. And for the size template I would want to have it would just take ages to load up. I'm not angry or anything it's only what $500 or something so its not a big deal.
> ...



Really? So if you were to create an equivalent full orchestral template to mine using e.g. Spitfire libraries it would not take about 32 GB of RAM on your PC? Just asking because I don't know.


----------



## mk282 (Feb 18, 2015)

It would take less because with SSDs you can purge complete Kontakt instances and, since SSDs are extremely fast with random seek times, you can basically play out directly and only stuff that actually gets played will be loaded immediately. This will end up consuming a decently smaller amount of RAM since any unused notes/vel layers/RRs are simply not loaded.

And for the coup de grace - this is all remembered in the project file, so the next time you load that project, it will load ONLY the samples that were actually used.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2015)

mk282 @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> It would take less because with SSDs you can purge complete Kontakt instances and, since SSDs are extremely fast with random seek times, you can basically play out directly and only stuff that actually gets played will be loaded immediately. This will end up consuming a decently smaller amount of RAM since any unused notes/vel layers/RRs are simply not loaded.



I see. That is a nice feature but with 64 GB of RAM on my slave PC I don't really have to think about it. I load up the template in the morning and I am good to go.


----------



## mk282 (Feb 18, 2015)

That's one way of thinking about it - the other way is "hey, I can load EVEN MORE instruments in my template, putting to RAM only what actually gets played!" 


Also, not everyone has 64 GB of RAM!


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2015)

mk282 @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> That's one way of thinking about it - the other way is "hey, I can load EVEN MORE instruments in my template, putting to RAM only what actually gets played!"
> 
> 
> Also, not everyone has 64 GB of RAM!



I understand and I have always told prospective buyers "if you are going to want to run a _large_ amount of the Hollywood Series as I do, you are going to want to have a lot of RAM."


----------



## PeterKorcek (Feb 18, 2015)

these threads start to look like Mac vs PC debates (Play vs Kontakt), and its not about that at all. I can see myself in many posts here. Music is my hooby, started with EWQL CCC because it was a bargain and, later on I bought Hollywood series and because I was to upgrade PC after many years as well I bought powerful custom PC for this and I have Mac for Kontakt libraries, etc (Logic pro X). 

Every library has something unique to it, was designed and produced and PLAYED by different people so if one can afford it, take advantage of as many of them as you can (assuming its not redundant). I personally like sound of many EW libraries - String, Brass, Silk, Stormdrums, etc and like my Kontakt libraries as well - Symphobia, Heavyocity, Storm Choir, Drums of War, etc.

If I ever leave EW stuff and be Kontakt only...I dont know, but I doubt that as the sound of those libraries is really excellent and my system can take it (did not have any major issues with play, usually having around 40-50 tracks, powerful patches, etc)


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 18, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> true, but assuming that one's rig is up to it, there is no reason it should not that cannot in theory be diagnosed and fixed. I mean EW had sold a ton of these and the number of issues that come across my email are really quite few these days.



True - but to look at it from a customer's viewpoint: I just bought Hollywood Brass and did a completely unbiased test and ran into issues on a brand new computer that far exceeds the recommended specs. I mean this machine is literally a new clean install of OS X - no cruft on it. It might be the machine, might be the interface (Apollo Twin), might be a number of things - but from an end user perspective, I paid $200 and the library doesn't work flawlessly while other libraries I own do.

Now, of course, I could email support and try a number of different things but given that I'm a technology professional and feel I'm very well versed in this field and also haven't found that there is necessarily a fix given other forum threads, although I like the sound of HB, I am a bit put off from buying additional libraries that use Play. And most unfortunately, due to other customer viewpoints, I'm almost scared to email support based on the general reputation - fair or not. I'm a hobbyist who wants my free time to be stress-free and fun - trying to troubleshoot with support seems like the opposite. I think that is fairly understandable.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2015)

5Lives @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Wed Feb 18 said:
> 
> 
> > true, but assuming that one's rig is up to it, there is no reason it should not that cannot in theory be diagnosed and fixed. I mean EW had sold a ton of these and the number of issues that come across my email are really quite few these days.
> ...



Obviously there are a million variables that I would need to know but it runs fine on my iMac and there is nothing that special about it.

And I am sure it happens to some people with the more demanding Kontakt libraries when they first get them. In fact, I know for a fact it does because I have helped some of them.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 18, 2015)

Well I'd be happy to try and solve it with you or the right person.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2015)

5Lives @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> Well I'd be happy to try and solve it with you or the right person.


Are you a Logic guy?


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 18, 2015)

I own Logic - but was using Cubase 8 for the test. Prefer Cubase for orchestral work thanks to their MIDI editor.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2015)

5Lives @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> I own Logic - but was using Cubase 8 for the test. Prefer Cubase for orchestral work thanks to their MIDI editor.



I am not your guy then. It would have to be tech support.


----------



## Fleer (Feb 18, 2015)

You're right, 5 Lives, your position's understandable indeed. 
Still, wonder if it's Cubase related (and secretly hope it is ).


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 18, 2015)

I've emailed tech support - will report back so hopefully others can benefit.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 18, 2015)

5Lives @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> I've emailed tech support - will report back so hopefully others can benefit.



Let me know if you don't get a timely response.


----------



## rgarber (Feb 18, 2015)

Just wanted to add that I got Fab 4 from EW about a week ago and the only issue I had was with the iLok security. Support did it's job, sort of, but not really. The tech guy seem not to know anything about how with iLok you can now activate libraries without having an iLok key but you're limited to that computer only. I had an iLok key laying around so I solved my own problem but activating the library through it and the EW support guys were just more than happy to congratulate me on that. But the tech guy was pretty fast in telling me nothing helpful.

The crackling you all were talking about, I suddenly had Chris Hein's Harmonica start that stuff up except it was maxing out my cpu. Nothing else was going on but we seem to think it had something to do with the layering technique the library uses. Then in my latest tune the Harmonica isn't giving me any trouble at all. I wish someone could figure where the crackling comes from.

Reading through the whole thread a couple of guys mentioned BBB and their pricing early on. My problem with BBB isn't so much the price, though it's pretty expensive to me, but more so I have to buy everything to get what I want the most, the horns. I don't need any more basses, guitars, pianos, and drums. I'd wish Yuval would make the library purchasable in sections.

Rich


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 27, 2015)

Well, thought I'd follow up on this thread after contacting tech support.

Long story short - the Play issues are still present and tech support was not able to fix them. They were pretty responsive, but in the end, suggested what anybody here should expect - change your audio buffer for your interface, change the buffer for Play, etc. The pops and clicks still occurred on playback even at high buffer settings. The most frustrating response of all was "it works fine on my machine". Anyway sadly, doesn't look like I will be able to fix the Play issues. Cautionary tale for other folks looking to jump on that boat.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 27, 2015)

5Lives @ Fri Feb 27 said:


> Well, thought I'd follow up on this thread after contacting tech support.
> 
> Long story short - the Play issues are still present and tech support was not able to fix them. They were pretty responsive, but in the end, suggested what anybody here should expect - change your audio buffer for your interface, change the buffer for Play, etc. The pops and clicks still occurred on playback even at high buffer settings. The most frustrating response of all was "it works fine on my machine". Anyway sadly, doesn't look like I will be able to fix the Play issues. Cautionary tale for other folks looking to jump on that boat.



Please refresh my memory, have you tried running Play in VE Pro rather than directly in Cubase?

For whatever reasons it seems that most of the issues that come into my mailbox are with Cubase. Not blaming Steinberg, just relating what I have seen.


----------



## HardyP (Feb 28, 2015)

Hey Jay,

I sent you a PM on the 18th, but again didn´t get an response from EW support. So sent you another PM today - just in case you missed it.

Regards, Hartmut


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 28, 2015)

I haven't tried VEPro - would take some time to switch this project over. Also, I'm lucky I have that as an option, but if that was really the only solution for Cubase users (based on this forum, one of the most popular DAWs for orchestral work), that'd be a pretty expensive fix.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 28, 2015)

5Lives @ Sat Feb 28 said:


> I haven't tried VEPro - would take some time to switch this project over. Also, I'm lucky I have that as an option, but if that was really the only solution for Cubase users (based on this forum, one of the most popular DAWs for orchestral work), that'd be a pretty expensive fix.



Here's the thing: it is not only a better solution for Play, it is a better solution for large Kontakt libraries.

If you read through a bunch of threads here(and unfortunately the Search on this forum sucks) you will see that for orchestral templates, Logic Pro AND Cubase AND DigitalPerformer AND ProTools guys rely o it because it does core distribution of multis better than ANY DAW.

That said, there are _tons_ of Cubase users successfully using Play and I wish I knew Cubase the way I know Logic Pro so that I could help you figure it out. Maybe some others here can help you.

BTW you are not still using Cubase 6 I hope.


----------



## Guy Rowland (Feb 28, 2015)

...and also to ask 5Lives if you're on Cubase 7? Could never get Play to work right hosted in 7.5, the CPU went like a mad thing without a note playing. Cubase 8 though is happy as Larry.


----------



## 5Lives (Feb 28, 2015)

I'm on Cubase 8 - but on OS X. Though I have VEPro, I haven't found a strong need to use it - my template isn't really big (I don't really have a template TBH) and loading directly into the DAW is much easier workflow for me (I don't need to maintain the template between projects). And I don't believe this has anything to do with core distribution since my CPU usage is very low - I'm running less than 10 tracks.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Feb 28, 2015)

5Lives @ Sat Feb 28 said:


> I'm on Cubase 8 - but on OS X. Though I have VEPro, I haven't found a strong need to use it - my template isn't really big (I don't really have a template TBH) and loading directly into the DAW is much easier workflow for me (I don't need to maintain the template between projects). And I don't believe this has anything to do with core distribution since my CPU usage is very low - I'm running less than 10 tracks.



As I say, sadly I don't know Cubase at all but apparently Guy is having good results in Cubase 8.

Guy, I know it is not your job but maybe you can be a good guy (pun intended) and help 5Lives out by exchanging Cubase 8 project?s


----------



## Anders Wall (Mar 15, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Thu Feb 19 said:


> Let me know if you don't get a timely response.


Hello Jay!
Case: 70811 
HOW oboe runs KS patch does not load the different runs.

Best,

Anders


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Mar 15, 2015)

WallofSound @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Thu Feb 19 said:
> 
> 
> > Let me know if you don't get a timely response.
> ...



Which version?


----------



## Anders Wall (Mar 15, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Mar 16 said:


> WallofSound @ Sun Mar 15 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ Thu Feb 19 said:
> ...


The latest, downloaded from you site.

/Anders


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Mar 15, 2015)

WallofSound @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> 
> 
> > WallofSound @ Sun Mar 15 said:
> ...



I mean, Diamond, Gold, or Silver


----------



## Anders Wall (Mar 15, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Mar 16 said:


> WallofSound @ Sun Mar 15 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> ...


Diamond on PC
/Anders


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Mar 15, 2015)

Since that is also the version I have I will try that patch tomorrow morning here and see if I see that too.


----------



## Anders Wall (Mar 15, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Mar 16 said:


> Since that is also the version I have I will try that patch tomorrow morning here and see if I see that too.


Great!

If it works could you please send/pm me yours...
Or is the patches somehow locked to a user?

Best,

Anders


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Mar 15, 2015)

WallofSound @ Sun Mar 15 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> 
> 
> > Since that is also the version I have I will try that patch tomorrow morning here and see if I see that too.
> ...



OK, here is what I have discovered:

C 0 - Eb 0 trigger the expected runs, as does F natural. E natural, F# and G natural do not trigger any runs. I just reported this so thanks!


----------



## Anders Wall (Mar 17, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Mar 16 said:


> OK, here is what I have discovered:
> 
> C 0 - Eb 0 trigger the expected runs, as does F natural. E natural, F# and G natural do not trigger any runs. I just reported this so thanks!


Great, I also have a case no. (or if you/they call it ticket)

*Case: 70811* 

Now to HOW's Bass Flute legato that crashes my system every time I hit the low C(!?!)
But that could also be my system...
About to switch the whole Hollywood series to my main MAC.

So, let's keep this between us 

Best,

Anders


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Mar 17, 2015)

Anders, Play and the Hollywood Series is simply much more efficient on the PC in my experience, so I would think twice about that.


----------



## Anders Wall (Mar 17, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> Anders, Play and the Hollywood Series is simply much more efficient on the PC in my experience, so I would think twice about that.


Jay!
I didn't know that, thank you for the heads up!
/Anders


----------



## kdm (Mar 21, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Wed Feb 18 said:


> I see. That is a nice feature but with 64 GB of RAM on my slave PC I don't really have to think about it. I load up the template in the morning and I am good to go.



Jay - how much of the EW libraries are you loading if I may ask - just HS fully stocked with alternate articulations and mic positions, or winds, brass as well? Just curious as I look to build the next slave in the coming months, and considering the full Hollywood series, and where I will divide up the various always-active libraries around the network. 

On the power/ram/Play discussion that's always surrounded Hollywood Strings and Play - 

I just added Hollywood Strings Diamond to replace another popular Kontakt-based library that wasn't giving me what I wanted most of the time. I'm running HS on a slightly aging i7 slave (16G ram) in VEPro, single mic position (mains), and no power system patches (for the template setup) with the full Sample Modeling Brass set (which is rather cpu-intensive). It runs great. All off of a SATA drive. I'll add an SSD soon just to boost performance. Play runs just fine. Just as efficient as the other library did in Kontakt 5, with a comparable full articulation set. And HS sound great. I mix everything on the host to fit the space I want, so I really only need one mic position of any library I run (with very few exceptions). 

The tradeoffs between system requirements and sonic quality with most libraries seem to have leveled out quite a bit now. The more ram, disk and cpu power the better of course, but that's really true for running any sizable complement of libraries. I considered other current string libraries (and all have their strengths), but I didn't see the sound/performance/price tradeoffs weighing significantly more in any other library's favor. 

(For reference, I tend to run as much of each section as I can as my template is always active on slaves versus the single-system approach others might prefer.)

I see no performance or quality reason why EW would run sales the way they do. They just want to sell more copies. Imo, HS is one of the best. Play 4.x (latest) runs just as well as Kontakt 5 (latest) on my slaves and my host (all PCs - Win7). No complaints. Quite the contrary.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Mar 22, 2015)

KDM, I run a 32 GB template with HS, HB, HOW, and HOP on my slave.

Glad to hear that like me it HS works well for you.


----------



## Anders Wall (Mar 28, 2015)

WallofSound @ Tue Mar 17 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> 
> 
> > OK, here is what I have discovered:
> ...



Is it really hard to make a keyswich instrument in Play and is that why it takes so long for the "support" to send a new patch?
Oh yes, I put support in brackets.
It's been weeks since I reported this and not even a reply from "support".

The individual patches are all there, just fix the KS file.

Regards,

/Anders


----------



## Mystic (Mar 28, 2015)

Message Jay directly on here if you want help with support. You'd be more likely to see a pig with wings farting fire as it flies overhead before you get a reply from their support email without continuously nudging them.


----------



## Anders Wall (Mar 28, 2015)

Mystic @ Sun Mar 29 said:


> Message Jay directly on here if you want help with support.


Yes, and that is what I did some two weeks ago...
Cheers,
/Anders


----------



## Fleer (Mar 28, 2015)

Did you post about it in the EW forum Support thread?


----------



## Anders Wall (Mar 28, 2015)

Fleer @ Sun Mar 29 said:


> Did you post about it in the EW forum Support thread?


As far as I know EW doesn't have one, they specifically say no support posts.
But yes, I have open support ticket. That was before I contacted Jay.
/Anders


----------



## Mystic (Mar 29, 2015)

If you log into their forums, the support forum will appear towards the bottom if you have products registered with them.


----------



## Anders Wall (Mar 29, 2015)

Mystic @ Sun Mar 29 said:


> If you log into their forums, the support forum will appear towards the bottom if you have products registered with them.


Sorry my bad.
I should have been less sarcastic, I'm working too much.

I've seen recent post by admins and creator to keep it civil here so I just erased a couple of sentences.
Let me just end this here and now.
I hope that East West will update the oboe ks runs patch sometime soon.

Best,
/Anders


----------



## Anders Wall (Apr 6, 2015)

Mystic @ Sun Mar 29 said:


> Message Jay directly on here if you want help with support. You'd be more likely to see a pig with wings farting fire as it flies overhead before you get a reply from their support email without continuously nudging them.


Great news!

Got a message from [email protected] Support.



> Update for Case #70811 - "HOW oboe runs KS not working"
> 
> Hi,
> 
> ...



/Anders


----------



## Anders Wall (Jun 11, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Mon Mar 16 said:


> WallofSound @ Sun Mar 15 said:
> 
> 
> > EastWest Lurker @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> ...



Jay!
What's the normal turnaround for something like this?
Ie a faulty "Multi" or KS-file.

Regards,
/Anders


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 11, 2015)

It's entirely unpredictable,in my experience.


----------



## dimtsak (Jun 12, 2015)

Do you think it is possible to run the hollywood series gold smoothly with an AMD 1090T cpu and 24 GB ram?
An SSD could be added if necessary.

In fact, is there anyone running his template with an AMD build?


Dimitris


----------



## Anders Wall (Jun 12, 2015)

WallofSound @ Thu Jun 11 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Mon Mar 16 said:
> 
> 
> > OK, here is what I have discovered:
> ...





EastWest Lurker @ Thu Jun 11 said:


> It's entirely unpredictable,in my experience.



So ,never, is also an possibility?



bwmusic @ Fri Feb 13 said:


> Seriously I cannot believe my eyes that they keep having their products on sale all the time at 70%.
> 
> And I just did the math. It'll cost me 10 times more to get an equivalent amount of libraries on Kontakt than it would get me with East West....



Back on topic.

This is most likely why East West are much cheaper than their competitors.
*They do not have any customer support.
*
No attack against East West, love their stuff, and I've seen them help people install their Play software and other simpler things.
But as soon as there's any real prob. they just leave it, and after awhile they just remove your ticket without any comments or any fixes.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4pjvcya5wjdgefa/eastwest.jpg

My ticket has been removed without comments, isn't that great work from East West :roll: 

I think this is valuable information to have when or if you're investing in a company.

Best,

Anders


----------



## FriFlo (Jun 12, 2015)

Well, usually this is what happens with companies run by a pimp.


----------



## Hannes_F (Jun 12, 2015)

Here we go again with language from the shadowy worlds. Gentlemen, criticise as you want but keep your contenance please.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 12, 2015)

Yes, WallofSound, I am sorry but it is true that in libraries with hundreds of patches it seems that sometimes there are a few patches that do not function properly that do not seem to get fixed.

But man, if a composer cannot get their work done with as many patches as the Hollywood Orchestra has, well, I just don't know what to say.


----------



## NYC Composer (Jun 12, 2015)

No need for that sort of verbiage at all.i knew what friflo meant, but never a need to be insulting in that way.

I figured out that East West's libraries were going to have glitches but also a lot of great content, and that the glitches were very unlikey to be dealt with in a timely fashion if at all. Having accepted that, I could decide whether the glitches would keep me from buying a good sounding, very reasonably priced product with some programming annoyances.

Once one accepts realities, it's hard for me to understand the constant quests to complain about or try to change the (most likely) immutable. Accept the facts on the ground. Buy the products or don't .
Move on.


----------



## Hanu_H (Jun 12, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> No need for that sort of verbiage at all.i knew what friflo meant, but never a need to be insulting in that way.
> 
> I figured out that East West's libraries were going to have glitches but also a lot of great content, and that the glitches were very unlikey to be dealt with in a timely fashion if at all. Having accepted that, I could decide whether the glitches would keep me from buying a good sounding, very reasonably priced product with some programming annoyances.
> 
> ...



Isn't this the bread and butter of this whole thread? Thread is called Is there's a reason why East West are much cheaper than it's competitors? I think this is a big factor in the price. If you buy from AudioBro, CineSamples, etc, you get high class customer support with free updates and free content. If something is not working and you contact their support, most of the time it gets fixed and you can use the library like you want as a customer. They even set some custom patches sometimes to make the library work the way you want. With EW, it's other way around. You have to use it the way they want and if there is a something wrong with the patch, you need to ditch it and try something else...

-Hannes


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 12, 2015)

I don't own any of the newer competitor's products but I was under the impression, perhaps erroneous, that you don't get anywhere near as many patches. If I am wrong, correct me. And if someone now is going to write "well you don't NEED as many with Library X I am going to say then you have not learned how to combine the HO included patches well enough.

IMHO the reason, and the ONLY reason EW is cheaper, is that they have a philosophy of pricing that lowers the price greatly once the r and d costs and a significant profit have been accrued.


----------



## Ian Livingstone (Jun 12, 2015)

Jay - is there any word on a fix yet for the 100k combined samples loaded limit in PLAY?

I've recently gone from multiple slaves to doing everything in the DAW, but as soon as you hit 100k samples (you can monitor from PLAY->settings->streaming tab) things start to get very unstable. Currently means I can't use EW Choirs or SD2/3 as my HS/HB template alone take up 100k so I'm running out of samples in PLAY way before I run out of ram.

Ian


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 12, 2015)

Ian Livingstone @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> Jay - is there any word on a fix yet for the 100k combined samples loaded limit in PLAY?
> 
> I've recently gone from multiple slaves to doing everything in the DAW, but as soon as you hit 100k samples (you can monitor from PLAY->settings->streaming tab) things start to get very unstable. Currently means I can't use EW Choirs or SD2/3 as my HS/HB template alone take up 100k so I'm running out of voices in PLAY way before I run out of ram.
> 
> Ian



Ian, I am unaware of this limit. I am out of town this week but when return I will check out my 34 GB template and check that out. If I can verify this then I will ask about it.


----------



## Ian Livingstone (Jun 12, 2015)

Thanks Jay - there was a discussion about it here on VI in 2011 in which Nick P confirmed the limit (near bottom of page1)

http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22574



> Also, for me, going over 100,000 samples makes my PC not perform as well.



That was 4 years ago, 64gb RAM is much more common these days so I'd imagine anyone using PLAY extensively in a large single-machine template is going to hit the same issue.


----------



## Hanu_H (Jun 12, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> I don't own any of the newer competitor's products but I was under the impression, perhaps erroneous, that you don't get anywhere near as many patches. If I am wrong, correct me. And if someone now is going to write "well you don't NEED as many with Library X I am going to say then you have not learned how to combine the HO included patches well enough.
> 
> IMHO the reason, and the ONLY reason EW is cheaper, is that they have a philosophy of pricing that lowers the price greatly once the r and d costs and a significant profit have been accrued.



Who needs many patches anymore if one patch does it all? Isn't that kind of old-fashioned and impractical to have multiple tracks for one instrument these days? And if you start counting patches, I think LASS will win that one pretty easily. + you can make your own KS patches with the preferred articulations. Also there is not a single patch at LASS that doesn't work as promised and sometimes even better than that...and with updates, only sky is limit.

I am also EW customer, but in few years the company went from the pioneer of the industry to a quantity over quality seller. It is of course their own decision but no point to hide it and try to suffocate every negative post you see...

-Hannes


----------



## Craig Sharmat (Jun 12, 2015)

A lot of composers I know self including myself like to work with individual articulations. I usually prefer working in that manner (there are a few exceptions where switching arts in a performance is needed) and it can keep the footprint down so your DAW is not crunched with arts you may not need.


----------



## Hanu_H (Jun 12, 2015)

Craig Sharmat @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> A lot of composers I know self including myself like to work with individual articulations. I usually prefer working in that manner (there are a few exceptions where switching arts in a performance is needed) and it can keep the footprint down so your DAW is not crunched with arts you may not need.



Sure if you prefer it. But with Kontakt libs you can work with individual arts or with only one track. With PLAY, not possible. I used to work with individual patches as well but not anymore in years. I use some libraries that are not "up to date" and require many tracks and they are always pain in the ass to use when comparing perfectly configured LASS tracks, where you got all the articulations you want, under the right KS.

-Hannes


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 12, 2015)

Hanu_H @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Fri Jun 12 said:
> 
> 
> > I don't own any of the newer competitor's products but I was under the impression, perhaps erroneous, that you don't get anywhere near as many patches. If I am wrong, correct me. And if someone now is going to write "well you don't NEED as many with Library X I am going to say then you have not learned how to combine the HO included patches well enough.
> ...



When you say quantity over quality are you referring to programming or sample quality. Both are subjective, programming to a degree that I will not argue about it. But sound? While I have great respect for the efforts of many of EW's competitors, there is not a single one, and I have played all of them pretty much and happily can afford any of them so I could use them and not talk about it, there is not a single one that e.g sounds as good to me as HS. Not even one.


----------



## Simon Ravn (Jun 12, 2015)

C'mon, the only reason there are so many patches in EW strings etc. is because there are 10-15 versions of each patch: One with 6 layers, 4 layers, without RT's, with "niente" dynamics. In reality there is a sustain patch, a legato patch and then the short notes for each section.

The reason for all those version is that at the time of release, the big patches would be too demanding for many users, so a ton of lighter options was created. That's fine, but it really doesn't count as extra patches - ie there is nothing different regarding playability or articulation.

It says a lot if your best argument is that you have "many patches" 8) (My **** is bigger than yours).


----------



## JohnG (Jun 12, 2015)

I use East West libraries in every composition. Sometimes, a lot gets replaced by live players, sometimes it goes straight to air. My clients include well-known media and game companies, and I choose EW because I like the sound.

All our clients are demanding, so to me cost barely registers -- on the one hand, there are lots of very inexpensive libraries I'd never use, but on the other hand, I don't hesitate to buy expensive libraries if they meet a particular need. That said, it doesn't hurt that I can get a lot of great-sounding libraries from EW inexpensively, even when including the cost of a powerful computer required to run HS.

As I have noted before, I have received some free products from East West, but I also have paid full retail on plenty of them. I am a fan.

[note: I have received free products from East West]


----------



## NYC Composer (Jun 12, 2015)

Hanu_H @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> NYC Composer @ Fri Jun 12 said:
> 
> 
> > No need for that sort of verbiage at all.i knew what friflo meant, but never a need to be insulting in that way.
> ...



Yes. The answer is that there will be some problems in the programming, some glitchy patches that will not be fixed, and Play will not allow you to get under the hood. The upside is most of the content will work and sound great and the price is quite low for a comprehensive sample library. It's a choice. It doesn't seem complicated to me. Caveat Emptor.

On a side note, I own HW Strings Gold. It surprises me that all these years later, EW didn't follow the model of EWQLSO and give us Master patches (keyswitched with numerous articulations on one MIDI channel). That was great for my personal workflow.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 12, 2015)

Until recently I used a combination of individuals articulations and the few KS patches but lately I have split all the articulations out, even in the Kontakt libraries I use and with Logic Pro X new folder stacks, I am liking it better I think. (see my thread about Templates Anonymous


----------



## NYC Composer (Jun 12, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> Until recently I used a combination of individuals articulations and the few KS patches but lately I have split all the articulations out, even in the Kontakt libraries I use and with Logic Pro X new folder stacks, I am liking it better I think. (see my thread about Templates Anonymous



If your reply is to me, Jay, i don't use Logic and I don't even use Expression maps. I prefer keyswitched Master patches per instrument. 5 MIDI tracks for strings, done.


----------



## clisma (Jun 12, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Fri Jun 12 said:
> 
> 
> > Until recently I used a combination of individuals articulations and the few KS patches but lately I have split all the articulations out, even in the Kontakt libraries I use and with Logic Pro X new folder stacks, I am liking it better I think. (see my thread about Templates Anonymous
> ...



This is my preferred method of working with HO as well, mostly for score preparation reasons. However, faulty scripting in Play (like the Reverb automatically activating when triggering the legato script via CC) make this more of a chore than it has to be. I happen to think that Play could be great for the get-your-stuff-done-quickly-without-having-to-tinker-much-guy, but the pace of maintenance seems subpar to me.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 12, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Fri Jun 12 said:
> 
> 
> > Until recently I used a combination of individuals articulations and the few KS patches but lately I have split all the articulations out, even in the Kontakt libraries I use and with Logic Pro X new folder stacks, I am liking it better I think. (see my thread about Templates Anonymous
> ...



No, not at all, Larry, which is why I didn't quote you.


----------



## Stradibaldi (Jun 12, 2015)

I don't like the many-patch philosophy. In the end I spend a lot of time splitting up a line into articulation-bits and it still doesn't sound _real._ It's also a pain managing all the tracks, though Logic's new track folders make it easier.

With LASS set up properly (which I won't deny is a large initial chore) I just have 10 tracks covering the entire string orchestra, it's wonderful. With HWB Gold I have something like 75 tracks for just a traditional orchestral brass section.


----------



## Anders Wall (Jun 12, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> Yes, WallofSound, I am sorry but it is true that in libraries with hundreds of patches it seems that sometimes there are a few patches that do not function properly that do not seem to get fixed.
> 
> But man, if a composer cannot get their work done with as many patches as the Hollywood Orchestra has, well, I just don't know what to say.


I'm not arguing the amount of patches or the quality of them.
Just the facts.

*Open a ticket with East West and a couple of months later they will have done absolutely nothing about your problem and they will most likely have deleted your ticket.*

I remember reading, something in the lines of, that the East West software as sold "as is" without warranty and such. It's in the license agreement, do not quote me I'm not quoting the agreement just what I remember reading.

So, East West have no obligation to help us or fix any problems with their software.

*But, why wouldn't they want to improve their products?*

And that is my conclusion to why East West is cheaper than other libraries.
Support personnel cost money and it's easier to delete tickets than to fix them.

Something to keep in mind when investing in software or samples.

Best,

/Anders


----------



## prodigalson (Jun 12, 2015)

> Open a ticket with East West and a couple of months later they will have done absolutely nothing about your problem and they will most likely have deleted your ticket.



I'm afraid I have to strongly disagree with this. I'm currently in the middle of a lengthy email chain with Mike from EastWest support about a specific issue that randomly came up in the use of Hollywood Strings. It's a strange issue and has taken some time to rectify but Mike has been incredibly helpful and very dedicated to getting the issue resolved. 

I'm not saying that there haven't been horror stories from people about EW support but there are also horror stories regarding support from most major developers. In fact, 
I opened a ticket about an issue with Spitfire *9 days ago * and have yet to even get a response. In the meantime, I managed to resolve the issue myself so I let it go but still...9 days later, no response. 

That being said, I am a loyal customer of Spitfire and generally have had very positive experiences with their support. My point her[/b]e is that no developer is perfect and everyone has tickets slip through the cracks.


----------



## Anders Wall (Jun 12, 2015)

prodigalson @ Sat Jun 13 said:


> > Open a ticket with East West and a couple of months later they will have done absolutely nothing about your problem and they will most likely have deleted your ticket.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Great that you are able to get support.
Would be great to know if East West (Mike?) are able to solve your problem.
Please (no sarcasm here) update when or if they do.

*This is not the first ticked that have been deleted without any notice.*

I had one years ago regarding the HS Violas not triggering the right sample.
Deleted without any fix.

Another one with missing samples from HOP
Deleted without any help or fix.

...


Best,

Anders


----------



## kurtvanzo (Jun 12, 2015)

prodigalson @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> > Open a ticket with East West and a couple of months later they will have done absolutely nothing about your problem and they will most likely have deleted your ticket.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I can't agree with you on this. I've gotten excellent support multiple times from Cinesamples. Orange Tree Samples, and Spectrasonics... Heck, Eric Persing talked me through installing Omnisphere personally just a year ago- but it was a Saturday and everyone else had gone home.  Customer service isn't dead, you just have to do your research before you buy, then make your choices with all the facts (hopefully). And guess what? Every patch I own from the above companies works without exception (unlike HO, which I also own), because they want to be known as a reliable and responsive company. 

It's a shame, since I think East West has a lot of potential and great sounds. With some support, some updates, a Pro version of Play that we could make our own KS patches, it could be THE top contender in the future- but that's not what they've decided to do. Cut corners and save where you can, that's their prerogative- I realize it's all sold "as is". But don't think that doesn't factor in when you come up with a new drum library. With all that's out in the market, It could be amazing and $99- I still wouldn't bite. That's the future.


----------



## prodigalson (Jun 12, 2015)

I wouldn't disagree with you. 

I was just responding to the suggestion that every support ticket to EW will be ignored and deleted without any comment and that that was some kind of fact. 

Only felt it was fair to recount my current positive experience and compare it to other developers with whom I have also had both positive and negative experiences.


----------



## Hanu_H (Jun 13, 2015)

kurtvanzo @ Sat Jun 13 said:


> I can't agree with you on this. I've gotten excellent support multiple times from Cinesamples. Orange Tree Samples, and Spectrasonics... Heck, Eric Persing talked me through installing Omnisphere personally just a year ago- but it was a Saturday and everyone else had gone home.  Customer service isn't dead, you just have to do your research before you buy, then make your choices with all the facts (hopefully). And guess what? Every patch I own from the above companies works without exception (unlike HO, which I also own), because they want to be known as a reliable and responsive company.
> 
> It's a shame, since I think East West has a lot of potential and great sounds. With some support, some updates, a Pro version of Play that we could make our own KS patches, it could be THE top contender in the future- but that's not what they've decided to do. Cut corners and save where you can, that's their prerogative- I realize it's all sold "as is". But don't think that doesn't factor in when you come up with a new drum library. With all that's out in the market, It could be amazing and $99- I still wouldn't bite. That's the future.



And that is the biggest issue and mistake they are doing. They have fallen from the sledge of this industry. The future is in the long lasting, regularly updated libraries that give the customer all the options they want. These "new" companies care about the customers and wants their samples used. EW only care about the amount of copies sold, it doesn't matter if they work or not. You buy a product as is and if it's not working for you(or with your system, even if you have the specs) you are on your own. No refunds, minimal customer support. You have given your money already, no point to waste time on you anymore. And if you complain, EW tries to shut you down, not only on their own forum but here as well.

-Hannes


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 13, 2015)

There are two issues getting conflated here:

1. Getting assistance with reproducible problems that are related to the libraries being installed and working.

2. Broken patches getting fixed.

In my years of working with the tech support people and trying to help people get problems resolved I have seen a high success rate with #1. 

#2 has not been as good as I would like.

And I am not, as is being suggested trying to shut any discussion down. But the reason that I was offered the job in the first place was that when I see things written that I think are unfair or inaccurate, I will say so.

Heck, I have done it on behalf of developers who are NOT paying me.


----------



## NYC Composer (Jun 13, 2015)

Stradibaldi @ Fri Jun 12 said:


> I don't like the many-patch philosophy. In the end I spend a lot of time splitting up a line into articulation-bits and it still doesn't sound _real._ It's also a pain managing all the tracks, though Logic's new track folders make it easier.
> 
> With LASS set up properly (which I won't deny is a large initial chore) I just have 10 tracks covering the entire string orchestra, it's wonderful. With HWB Gold I have something like 75 tracks for just a traditional orchestral brass section.



I'm still in the "setting up LASS" phase, though I defaulted to their starter templates. Mind sharing which ten patches?


----------



## TintoL (Jun 13, 2015)

I am not a professional on this, just a passionate lover of music. Nevertheless, as a customer of EW, I think my complains can be valid too. 

These days I started to feel upset by East West "pricing/promotion" policy. 

I bought HS and HB almost full price. And see the product been practically given away makes me feel a victim of fraud or something. I mean solid %50 price reduction after two years or so. Plus, If you buy it in a orchestra package even lower price. 

Every Developer seems to have bundles to lower the overall price and I think that is fine, and promotions are fine too. BUT ONLY WHEN THEY ARE TRULY A PROMOTION. Like VSL or Spitfire or Cinesamples or 8Dio promotions. They truly keep their prices solid and the promotions seem real. But, seen a full price "that low" after few years, simply makes EW look bad.

VSL still keeps their prices solid after years and years. And that's one of the things that keep their developer status so high.

If I where to be pricing my work the way they do, people will start looking at me as a cheap solution, a second "not so great" option. 

And it's a shame, because the sound of their product is great. But, again, the relationship "pricing policy / play engine" simply turns EW into a "starters tool".

There, I finally took it out of my chest.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 13, 2015)

Understood, but once you accept as reality that has been well known for a long time now the fact that when it is new you are going to pay top dollar and when it has been out for a whileyou can get a bargain, then the choice is yours.

The one thing that some people do, NOT saying you, is buy something knowing going in what the policies are and then complain later. IMHO, that is not adult behavior.


----------



## Anders Wall (Jun 14, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Sat Jun 13 said:


> There are two issues getting conflated here:
> 
> 1. Getting assistance with reproducible problems that are related to the libraries being installed and working.
> 
> ...


Hi Jay.

Could you please elaborate.
Is there a reason why East West doesn't want to fix broken patches?
They would get an even better product and a even happier fan/user-base.
It's a win win if you ask me.

Best,

/Anders


----------



## Hanu_H (Jun 14, 2015)

WallofSound @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> Hi Jay.
> 
> Could you please elaborate.
> Is there a reason why East West doesn't want to fix broken patches?
> ...



I can only guess, but fixing patches on a "old" product means that someone has to work on it = investment. Not something you want to do on a product that is -70% from it's starting price and has already lost it's momentum. And that's one of the reasons why I think EW is more of a quantity over quality company nowdays. Same thing with MAC computers, they are more interested in selling iPads, iMacs, Macbooks, than computers for pro use. And I am not saying there is something wrong with that approach but it's just not for me. I like to invest on a libraries that a)Don't change my workflow b) Is updated and has a long life c) Has excellent customer support. d) Sounds good. (Well this is kind of a no-brainer nowdays.)

-Hannes


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 14, 2015)

WallofSound @ Sat Jun 13 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Sat Jun 13 said:
> 
> 
> > There are two issues getting conflated here:
> ...



I am not privy to discussions about how the developers use their time and energy so I have no insight to offer. Sorry.


----------



## NYC Composer (Jun 14, 2015)

Hanu_H @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> WallofSound @ Sun Jun 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Hi Jay.
> ...



I think you're mostly right, but there's one additional and intriguing possibility-that in some cases, the source files are corrupted. In that scenario, the only fix is a re-record and then an attempt to match the new audio to the old. In my opinion, that's even LESS likely to happen.


----------



## StatKsn (Jun 14, 2015)

If anyone related to EW's technical support is listening here, would you please check out MoR 2's Fender Jaguar Lead Slide Down (Jaguar Slide Down.ewi) patch. It has no sound - or more precisely, no sample is assigned to keys despite that it does load about 110MB of samples. I believe this is not technically a hard-to-resolve problem as it looks like a slip up.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 14, 2015)

StatKsn @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> If anyone related to EW's technical support is listening here, would you please check out MoR 2's Fender Jaguar Lead Slide Down (Jaguar Slide Down.ewi) patch. It has no sound - or more precisely, no sample is assigned to keys despite that it does load about 110MB of samples. I believe this is not technically a hard-to-resolve problem as it looks like a slip up.



I am out of town and therefore away from my rig until late Tuesday but I will check it out on Wednesday and report back.


----------



## bbunker (Jun 14, 2015)

Was just browsing through here this early morning, and saw the LASS - HWB comparison: Basically, the gist is that LASS uses 10 patches when 'properly set up' in a template and HWB uses 75.

First, I'll call BS on LASS using 10 patches. If you're using 10 patches, then it means you aren't using trills, that you aren't using any tremolo, that you're not using any sordino patches, and that you're using ensemble patches for your stacc, spicc, pizz and harmonics articulations. 10 Tracks is a pretty severely reduced template footprint where you can't possibly have much control over what sections are doing what, and have no way to control divisi.

Also, comparing LASS to HWB in terms of patches is somewhat ridiculous. A comparison with HWS would be more appropriate, and I think they're on about the same level in terms of the number of patches needed to represent a full range of articulations. Considering that the number of 'instruments' represented in HWB is much higher (1, 2, 3 trumpets, 1, 2, 6 horns, 1, 3 trombones, bass tbn, tuba, cim, with mutes for ALL of those instruments) then if you built a template with JUST shorts and longs for each, then you'd be at 44 tracks. It just doesn't make sense to compare the number of tracks needed between these two.


----------



## Fleer (Jun 14, 2015)

I for one welcome Jay's presence here. As for EW support, I have experienced prompt reactions and complete dedication by him and his colleagues, such as Joey Medina. 
Concludingly, I am very pleased that they offer their amazing instruments at low prices during promotions, allowing us mortals to also enjoy sheer musical beauty.


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 14, 2015)

Thank you Fleer.That means a lot to me and I know that Joey will appreciate it as well when I pass your comment on to him.


----------



## Guy Rowland (Jun 14, 2015)

bbunker @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> First, I'll call BS on LASS using 10 patches. If you're using 10 patches, then it means you aren't using trills, that you aren't using any tremolo, that you're not using any sordino patches, and that you're using ensemble patches for your stacc, spicc, pizz and harmonics articulations. 10 Tracks is a pretty severely reduced template footprint where you can't possibly have much control over what sections are doing what, and have no way to control divisi.



Oooh dear.

With LASS 2 and the ARC, you can set up the program exactly how you want to use it. Many (including I) use keyswitches to control multiple patches simultaneously (such as the A, B and C sections). Moreover, using CCs you can control auto arranger on / off, legato on / off etc. That way you can indeed use very few tracks to control a huge number of articulations and other parameters elegantly and simply. My template actually has 20 LASS tracks - longs and shorts for A, B and C on 10 tracks, and another 10 for first chair longs and shorts. I use pretty much every articulation in the library and am always switching between different configurations.

As for EW (since I'm here and LASS is OT really), they have some of the best bargains to be had. Play is pretty inflexible of course, and everyone needs to do their homework before buying any particular library, taking into account resource demands, iLok and Play limitations. Anything I buy from EW I take on a "sold as seen" basis, assuming there will be no further updates as they are thin on the ground as discussed elsewhere. Approach it with all that in mind, wait for the sales and you shouldn't go far wrong. Hollywood Brass Gold I got for about $200 I think, and that's just incredible value.

No other developer has the pricing policies that EW does - a wise consumer buys from EW knowing how they work. In answer to the OP, I think that's mostly because they are not living libraries and further significant work on them doesn't occur after release - it's usually just a couple of patch fixes (HW might be an exception there and has had more significant updates).

There have been plenty of poor horror stores regarding individual support (and I had my share back in the day), but I've heard really good stories too. Jay does a fine job of trying to help individual issues - while I was initially baffled as to why EW need an intermediary to do this at all, it's become clear over time that they are not the only company who would benefit from someone in this role.


----------



## Anders Wall (Jun 14, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> WallofSound @ Sat Jun 13 said:
> 
> 
> > Hi Jay.
> ...


Fair enough. Thank you, I think I've misjudged your status with East West.
For some reason I thought that you had "direct access" being the "Online Coordinator". 



EastWest Lurker @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> Thank you Fleer.That means a lot to me and I know that Joey will appreciate it as well when I pass your comment on to him.


Could you please pass my question to him as well?
I only ask since when I open a support-ticket, East West deletes it.
Would be great to hear from someone within the company.

Kind Regards,

Anders Wall


----------



## bbunker (Jun 14, 2015)

Hey, Guy Rowland!

You've actually just educated me on a key difference between LASS and LASS Lite - you're using ARC to do the keyswitching, right? Living in the LASS Lite ghetto, we aren't given such lofty tools.  Oh dear indeed! I'll be in the corner taking my foot out of my mouth while you grown-ups continue the conversation...


----------



## Guy Rowland (Jun 14, 2015)

bbunker @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> Hey, Guy Rowland!
> 
> You've actually just educated me on a key difference between LASS and LASS Lite - you're using ARC to do the keyswitching, right? Living in the LASS Lite ghetto, we aren't given such lofty tools.  Oh dear indeed! I'll be in the corner taking my foot out of my mouth while you grown-ups continue the conversation...



Ha! No worries. Yes, LASS Lite is ARC-less, but of course much simpler and, well, lighter.


----------



## NYC Composer (Jun 14, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> bbunker @ Sun Jun 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Hey, Guy Rowland!
> ...



I believe you were the one who led me to the Lass 2.5 starter templates, Guy. Is that the basis for your setup?

(Actually, since OT, I'll PM you later cheers)


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 14, 2015)

WallofSound @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> EastWest Lurker @ Sun Jun 14 said:
> 
> 
> > WallofSound @ Sat Jun 13 said:
> ...



Anders, these days Joey's job is to help people with license depositing, etc. so that question would not be for him.

As for me, I deal directly with Doug but after doing this job for a few years I understand what my role is and my role is not and on which subjects what he feels he needs to hear from me about and those he does not and I have to respect that.


----------



## Anders Wall (Jun 14, 2015)

Thank you Jay.
I think you and mr. Rowland have given great answers.

On topic!
When/if you invest in East West what you see is almost what you get.
There might be issues but again wysiawyg.
If you need help installing libraries you... mostly get help.
But else, the libraries are dead ie. no regular updates or room for improvments or communication.

See East West products as buying an pre internet synthesizer.
With some basic support.

Best,
/Anders


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 14, 2015)

WallofSound @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> Thank you Jay.
> I think you and mr. Rowland have given great answers.
> 
> On topic!
> ...



Hmm, not quite accurate IMHO. With the Hollywood Orchestra for instance, for a couple of years after each one was released there were two or three updates for each over the next couple of years, if my memory serves me.


----------



## Anders Wall (Jun 14, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> WallofSound @ Sun Jun 14 said:
> 
> 
> > Thank you Jay.
> ...


That's true.
But they are still not fully functional.
It's like being sent a rom-chip that's missing a leg or two.
IE. What you see is still almost what you get.

I really like East West's products, just wish the company was more 2015.
But as you yourself write East West doesn't "feel" the need to be listening to their customers.

Kind Regards,
/Anders


----------



## EastWest Lurker (Jun 14, 2015)

Anders, I am going to make a blanket assertion with no disrespect intended: If you cannot write 98% of what you want to write with all the patches in HO that DO work as intended, the issue is not the libraries but your skills with them.


----------



## NYC Composer (Jun 14, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> Anders, I am going to make a blanket assertion with no disrespect intended: If you cannot write 98% of what you want to write with all the patches in HO that DO work as intended, the issue is not the libraries but your skills with them.



Which is, of course, non-responsive to his (imo correct) assertions, and a horse of an entirely different feather. Eg.-

Assertion 1. The product has flaws that the company does not care to address, nor is it concerned with the complaints from its customers.

Assertion 2. You can make good use of the product despite its flaws.

Combined and from my own p.o.v.- the company makes great products and eventually sells them at amazingly low prices, but their cavalier attitude towards their customers who are "not always right" can be maddening. Especially when they ARE right.

Gotta tell you though, Anders, at some point you have to make the determination that what is is and move on, eh?


----------



## Anders Wall (Jun 14, 2015)

EastWest Lurker @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> Anders, I am going to make a blanket assertion with no disrespect intended: If you cannot write 98% of what you want to write with all the patches in HO that DO work as intended, the issue is not the libraries but your skills with them.


I've used 100% of East West sounds on several projects, and I really like the sound and feel of the Hollywood series, but that's not what to topic is about.

The question was. East West, why and cheaper?
I think You and Guy has made brilliant and clear explanations to why this is.

But,
I can only speak for myself and think it's sad that someone that has something so well (or do you say good?) -sounding doesn't want to make their product better.
I know I would want to, but again, can't stress this enough, this is my opinion.

Re: some of my own ranting.
I felt a bit "unseen" having several issues/cases removed without even a "sorry we can or will not help you" message from East West.
I thought, really(!?!) is that the way to treat your customers.
For some reason I've must have misread it or misunderstood you, English is not my native tongue, I thought you had insight into East West and could get information through to them.

Now we know better.
I like to get feedback on what I do and improve myself.
East West doesn't.
At least that's my experience with them, and you confirm that in a previous post.

This is why forums like this are important and helpful.
Next time someone is buying a product they can find relevant information about it here, on forums like this, and make their own conclusions before investing in a company.

To be 100% clear about the last statement.
I'm not saying that you should or should not invest in East West.
Make sure you do your research and... JUMP! :D 

Kindest Regards,

/Anders


----------



## Anders Wall (Jun 14, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> Gotta tell you though, Anders, at some point you have to make the determination that what is is and move on, eh?


Case closed :wink: 

/Anders


----------

