Semi off-topic, but does it drive anyone else nuts the way the guy in the walkthroughs flagrantly mispronounces certain words (i.e. Wagner, Cimbasso, Col Legno)? I know this shouldn't be a huge deal but it makes me cringe. Beyond that though, the same thing happened in prior Ark walkthroughs, so don't you think that someone at OT would have informed the guy of his error so that he could correct it? If I were running a VI company I couldn't imagine letting an error like that go uncorrected. But then again ... I don't run a VI company, so there's that.
Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark 4 - Elite Orchestral Forces
- Thread starter Fry777
- Start date
Too true.
I just remember sitting in a voice leading class, surrounds by music majors who, (presumably) could all follow ( because they were, like , proper musicians) the six part counter point in Bach and thinking ... 'what the ....'And maybe Bach would gone for 7 part fully orchestral counterpoint if only he'd only he had Ark 4.
Although I think Verdi has a go at 9, I think its somewhere in Othello, quite unaided by OT.
Regardless, lots of potential for Ark4 to be genuinely very fun.
aelwyn
Member
OT's a German company, and considering the voice in the walkthrough videos is an unaccented American one, I'd guess he's just a hired voice actor. At my company, we occasionally have to hire out voiceover actors for videos we produce, and, speaking from personal experience, if you don't give them a script with pronunciations spelled out phonetically, there's no telling what you'll end up with. I'll admit I actually sort of get a kick out of it. But I'm weird.
Land of Missing Parts
Grumpy Monkey
Yeah...most of the time I think Orchestral Tools is brilliant, but sometimes I have no earthly clue what is going through their heads.
Bansi
New Member
He is a german guy from OT probably, doing his best
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Land of Missing Parts
Grumpy Monkey
A German who pronounces Wagner like that?
Maybe a German doing an impression of an American.
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jbuhler
Senior Member
No power legato on the kick drums. How disappointing!
More seriously, having listened to walkthrough 2 now, I thought the woodwinds have a few useful articulations, the flute/picc shorts and overblown are excellent, but mostly they seem oddities, especially the ones that mix winds and brass ("edgy and quirky" indeed). (I'm going to keep my ears peeled for some of these stranger combinations to see if they start making regular appearances in film, television, and game scores.) Aside: "Wagner Tube" sounds like a water park ride. Really not hearing anything in the brass that I find compelling. Nothing bad, just seems pretty redundant with things I already have. Why they didn't do something with muted brass sections is beyond me.
I mostly like the women's choir, though it has moments where individual voices pop out. It works in the walkthrough, but might get tiresome if the same sample keeps getting hit and that one voice just refuses to blend every time. The men are good soft, but as they pass to the mf samples the voices become uneven, especially as they climb in register. The power legato for the voices, especially the men, sounds especially odd to me, beyond the issue of the voices not blending, to the legato samples not fitting well with the sustains—or something. Maybe it's just me. Perhaps it will be fine in context where you have the orchestra to distract and cover and more reverb on the sample. On the other hand, I adore the shouts, which brings the Arks one step closer to the complete Carmina Burana sound—that rather than Huppertz's score to Metropolis has always seemed to me to be the actual musical inspiration for the Arks. (The elements of the Arks that extend beyond the Carmina sound world—aside from the rock band of Ark 1 and some of the percussion—belong mostly to the post-Wagnerian world of Austrian/German music between 1900 and 1930 that inspired both Huppertz and Orff.)
I also rewatched the first walkthrough. I disliked the power legato multi—not surprising since I disliked the power legato pretty much every time I heard it whatever the instrument—but the staccatissimo multi sounded great. The ricochet multi just sounds weird, though I generally liked the articulation in the individual instruments. The strings sound very good indeed, albeit they seem to be limited. (I'll be interested to hear the reports on this when folks get their hands on it.)
Overall impressions: The strings are the strongest element of this library. That's a good addition because strings have imho been the weakest element in the other Arks. Except for the choir, the high volume fff stuff is best and would add an edgy sound that most of my existing libraries don't really have. The choir shouts, especially the men, are great. And most of the combinations just seem peculiar rather than offering an interesting new timbre (like the combinations in libraries BHCT or the Symphobia series).
I'll be most interested in seeing what people make of it once it's released. At this point I don't think I'll be buying it unless I hear things from those who do that convinces me that this will add enough value to what I have.
More seriously, having listened to walkthrough 2 now, I thought the woodwinds have a few useful articulations, the flute/picc shorts and overblown are excellent, but mostly they seem oddities, especially the ones that mix winds and brass ("edgy and quirky" indeed). (I'm going to keep my ears peeled for some of these stranger combinations to see if they start making regular appearances in film, television, and game scores.) Aside: "Wagner Tube" sounds like a water park ride. Really not hearing anything in the brass that I find compelling. Nothing bad, just seems pretty redundant with things I already have. Why they didn't do something with muted brass sections is beyond me.
I mostly like the women's choir, though it has moments where individual voices pop out. It works in the walkthrough, but might get tiresome if the same sample keeps getting hit and that one voice just refuses to blend every time. The men are good soft, but as they pass to the mf samples the voices become uneven, especially as they climb in register. The power legato for the voices, especially the men, sounds especially odd to me, beyond the issue of the voices not blending, to the legato samples not fitting well with the sustains—or something. Maybe it's just me. Perhaps it will be fine in context where you have the orchestra to distract and cover and more reverb on the sample. On the other hand, I adore the shouts, which brings the Arks one step closer to the complete Carmina Burana sound—that rather than Huppertz's score to Metropolis has always seemed to me to be the actual musical inspiration for the Arks. (The elements of the Arks that extend beyond the Carmina sound world—aside from the rock band of Ark 1 and some of the percussion—belong mostly to the post-Wagnerian world of Austrian/German music between 1900 and 1930 that inspired both Huppertz and Orff.)
I also rewatched the first walkthrough. I disliked the power legato multi—not surprising since I disliked the power legato pretty much every time I heard it whatever the instrument—but the staccatissimo multi sounded great. The ricochet multi just sounds weird, though I generally liked the articulation in the individual instruments. The strings sound very good indeed, albeit they seem to be limited. (I'll be interested to hear the reports on this when folks get their hands on it.)
Overall impressions: The strings are the strongest element of this library. That's a good addition because strings have imho been the weakest element in the other Arks. Except for the choir, the high volume fff stuff is best and would add an edgy sound that most of my existing libraries don't really have. The choir shouts, especially the men, are great. And most of the combinations just seem peculiar rather than offering an interesting new timbre (like the combinations in libraries BHCT or the Symphobia series).
I'll be most interested in seeing what people make of it once it's released. At this point I don't think I'll be buying it unless I hear things from those who do that convinces me that this will add enough value to what I have.
sostenuto
AKA _ doubtingtom37
Good to hear these impressions, and decision to wait seems sensible …. of course impacted by current set of libraries.
One issue now, is the stated 'eventual' price increase of ~57%, which can have marked impact for some.
Your initial strong points can make a case for 'gambling' that the current Intro price will bring reasonable returns …. and possibly more for some users. Obviously no conclusion for that; but keeps Ark 4 'on the table' for at least another 4 days.
Many thanks, especially after a tough work day !
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jbuhler
Senior Member
The choice is also not so stark for me, as I can use an EDU discount at a later time rather than waiting to see if OT puts it on sale next year.
jcrosby
Senior Member
Yeah, this is why I prefer librararies recorded in the same space. No matter how close I can get using reverb, placement, filtering etc, there is a cohesiveness that I haven’t been able to achieve with disparate libraries. (Let alone the gorgeous character the Telfex stage already imparts...)
This is one of the few libraries where I truly love the baked in reverb.
Jimmy Hellfire
Senior Member
Which is incredibly overrated!
ProfoundSilence
Senior Member
I too prefer Hendrik's walkthroughs... I think the issue is the misconception that foreign company means little to no product support.
and arguably, there are plenty of german companies who basically don't have support for anyone outside of their home country. Roland is decent, but still some products only have support phone numbers 3 days a week in English. Back in the day if something Behringer broke it might as well get thrown away(not sure if this has changed the past few decades, because I haven't ever purchased anything from them again)
Ive had no problem getting ahold of OT support, but many companies(like Native Instruments) feels like pulling teeth to get support for, and again, no US phone support or anything.
That's the only thing I can imagine OT is trying to appeal to with a voice actor... But anyone with a brain should probably already know that teldex is in germany, so all in all - we just get some cheesy American sounding guy who can't pronounce words like pianississimo, and just says pianissimo. Normally his weird errors don't mean much(other than erking some musicians) but in this case, he completely understated one of the key features of this library - which is that the recorded dynamics are from ppp-fff, not pp-ff(which is basically just berlin series)
personally, I've never had an issue with Hendrik's accent or anything... I have a harder time understanding some of the people I follow from NZ/AU
and arguably, there are plenty of german companies who basically don't have support for anyone outside of their home country. Roland is decent, but still some products only have support phone numbers 3 days a week in English. Back in the day if something Behringer broke it might as well get thrown away(not sure if this has changed the past few decades, because I haven't ever purchased anything from them again)
Ive had no problem getting ahold of OT support, but many companies(like Native Instruments) feels like pulling teeth to get support for, and again, no US phone support or anything.
That's the only thing I can imagine OT is trying to appeal to with a voice actor... But anyone with a brain should probably already know that teldex is in germany, so all in all - we just get some cheesy American sounding guy who can't pronounce words like pianississimo, and just says pianissimo. Normally his weird errors don't mean much(other than erking some musicians) but in this case, he completely understated one of the key features of this library - which is that the recorded dynamics are from ppp-fff, not pp-ff(which is basically just berlin series)
personally, I've never had an issue with Hendrik's accent or anything... I have a harder time understanding some of the people I follow from NZ/AU
Well the thing is it's one thing for it to happen on the walkthroughs for the first Ark let's say, but the fact that the mistake keeps repeating? It would almost make one think that the OT guys are even watching the vids before releasing ... which wouldn't really make any sense. I mean it's not a big deal of course, but it's just ... bizarre.
Or maybe they said "fuck it, it's good enough" because it would cause a delay of 1 or 2 days to get the voice actor to re-record a couple of errors he made, re-edit and re-upload the video while the vi:c thread is wrecking havoc and screaming for a walkthrough? I'd rather have such a video sooner than have it more polished, so I'm willing to cut them lots of slack there.
Not been following in too much detail, but just watched/listened to the walk-throughs. From what I heard I'm slightly relieved, it didn't demonstrate enough to properly sway me. There were some parts I liked but it ultimately came down to getting $400 of value out of this library (either in terms of offering something amazing/new, something versatile or speeding up my workflow). I got the sense that a number of these patches aren't going to work well on faster passages. I need to save some money after all these Black Friday/Christmas deals, so I'll tune back in after it's released to see if I missed something obvious. For the money, I'd rather pay a little more to know it's a good choice than to rush into it...
Lassi Tani
Senior Member
I have similar thoughts. I've watched the trailer and walkthroughs, and I haven't heard anything for which I would pay the price. I like some parts of it a lot, e.g. strings, but I wouldn't need the combinations for my writing style at least for now. They sound great, but I think I'd like to separate the parts in some passages. The choirs especially men sound weird in higher dynamics.
I'll wait for the next year's black friday
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aelwyn
Member
Good — it's not just me, then. I'm normally seduced by everything OT does and I've loved Arks 1-3, but this one isn't moving me for some reason. I wish I could buy the strings portion separately, frankly. I hardly spent anything on libraries for this year's crop of Black Friday sales, so I'm not even struggling with guilt about overspending... but Ark 4 sort of seems overpriced. Even with the pre-order discount. I'm surprised to feel that way, given my past enthusiasm for the series.
Perhaps. And yeah if it's between correcting it or a delay then I probably agree. I'm just saying that if it were my company ... after the mess-up on the first Ark 1 walkthroughs I would have notified the guy of the mistake and before he recorded himself for the Ark 4 walkthrough I would have been like "Hey Joe, remember what I told you about the pronunciation of those words a couple years ago? Let's be sure to get it right this time." Apparently that didn't happen though
On a completely separate note it looks like a lot of people on this forum are not particularly psyched about this lib. If this forum is a representative population of their users (which I actually believe it is, though I could be wrong) then it would appear that their sales of this Ark will fall far behind the others (or at least 1 and 2).
