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What do you guys think of PLAY?

saboo

New Member
Hey everyone, basically last time I checked, everyone seemed to hate EastWest PLAY because of bugs, and that it didn't have as efficient purging as Kontakt. Has this changed? Is PLAY good now?
 
PLAY is just a 'generic' sample player at this point.

Missing a lot of QoL features, somewhat cumbersome to work with. I would say it's still nowhere near as efficient as something like KONTAKT; PLAY takes longer to load. I've also encountered some very strange bugs where the sample playback gets truncated if you mess with the ADSR envelopes. If you have a lot of instances on PLAY, on some machines and with some DAWs, it causes CPU spikes.

I think it's not just the sampler, it's the samples themselves—10+ dynamic layers on Hollywood Strings patches, for example—and the compression/encryption applied to the samples.
 
I just downloaded Play6 this weekend, the result of purchasing Ghostwriter. I have tried all (almost?) the previous versions and found them wanting, sufficiently so that I had not yet purchased one of their libraries. Play6, by all reports from several friends who do use it, is at least stable, so I am giving it a try (I really like the Ghostwriter library, have been considering it since their contest when it was released).

So far it is stable, and it behaves well on my computer. A previous version would grab the audio driver (in stand-alone mode) and required a reboot to release it. That's fixed.

The rest? Well I am very accustomed to Kontakt, so the user interface is a bit of a mystery, even more so than Vienna Instrument. I am plodding along, learning how to use it. I find the ability to load a bunch of patches using add or replace to be a little easier than Kontakt, the rest remains a challenge.

Eventually I'll figure it out! If asked I would not tell someone to avoid it if there is a PLAY library they want to use.
 
Play is fine as a sample playback engine. Haven't had problems with it in many years now.

I don't like to tinker with samples. I will do it sometimes but most of the time I'm just looking for a sound that I like and use Kontakt (or Play, or SINE, or UVI etc.) as a passive playback engine.

Much of the criticism leveled at Play is either years out of date (bugs, for instance, that long ago disappeared) or arises from lack of familiarity. Some of that criticism, consequently, is long out of date or just "it's different," which isn't really justified.

Tweaking

That said, if you are someone who likes to really massage your patches, Kontakt (depending on the library -- some are locked) offers far more latitude than Play. I don't enjoy tweaking, so it's not usually an issue for me.

It's the Sound

I strongly feel that, if you're creating orchestral mockups, it's the sounds that matter, not the engine. Accordingly, if you like the East West sounds, Play will not interfere with making great music. Moreover, other engines are ok these days as well. UVI works fine too, so does Omnisphere and many others, at this point. Orchestral Tools' SINE also is working for me although again, I'm using it for playback, not trying to tweak.


[note: I have received free products from East West]
 
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The only thing I do with Play and with Kontakt is ... load the samples and play them in Cubase. So stability would be the only thing here. In fact, can't remember when I had to open either plugin (given that my template is now complete and how I want it).

Only one thing I wish for, from Play, and that is a Purge option that's similar to Kontakt. That would make a WORLD of difference for my low-RAM machines, and template.
 
Hey everyone, basically last time I checked, everyone seemed to hate EastWest PLAY because of bugs, and that it didn't have as efficient purging as Kontakt. Has this changed? Is PLAY good now?
Not bad. But does screwy things. You can add an instrument to your MIDI setup via the browser and if you have it set to automatically/incrementally add that instrument to the next MIDI channel, it's a breeze. Unless it decides to put it somewhere else and give it a non-consecutive channel. If you're not paying attention, this can be trés annoying.
 
The first stable Play for me was Play 3 which I used in my template for 10 years because I refused to upgrade it based on previous Play experience and Play 3 was rock solid. Unfortunately Play's reputation suffered from it being probably the worst roll out of any software I've ever owned. Took 3 versions just to get it to work.

Last year I finally upgraded to Play 6. Play 3 was actually more stable but Play 6 is fairly stable too. I don't mind the fact that it is just a sample Play back engine and I don't know why people keep on trying to say "it's not as good as Kontakt". It was never meant to be a full on sample player/editor/scripting. But, for hosting EW samples, it's great.

At anyrate I look forward to Play Pro. I hear it's coming soon.....
 
I do use a few instances of PLAY per project, and for the most part it works just fine. I do like its immediate interface.

My only discontent with it is that it randomly stops sounding at times for no reason. But that happens with Kontakt too so yep.
 
The only thing I do with Play and with Kontakt is ... load the samples and play them in Cubase. So stability would be the only thing here. In fact, can't remember when I had to open either plugin (given that my template is now complete and how I want it).

Only one thing I wish for, from Play, and that is a Purge option that's similar to Kontakt. That would make a WORLD of difference for my low-RAM machines, and template.
Ain't that the truth!! So far, judging from everyone else's comments, Play 6 is very playable (lol). However me and my sorry ass 16 GB of RAM won't be having any of that before proper purging like in Kontakt comes along
 
Ain't that the truth!! So far, judging from everyone else's comments, Play 6 is very playable (lol). However me and my sorry ass 16 GB of RAM won't be having any of that before proper purging like in Kontakt comes along
What computer do you have? Just curious.
 
A Razer Blade 15 which only supports up to 32 GBs of RAM unfortunately :(
If you could find a way to upgrade to the Max you could be killing it with Play and HO. You'd only be able to probably do one mic position but that's fine. I just use Gold and it still sounds great.
 
@saboo Some laptops actually support more RAM than what it says on the official specification sheet.

Try installing 2 sticks of 32gb RAM from Samsung: "Samsung 32GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM Memory Module for Laptop Computers (260 Pin SODIMM, 1.2V) M471A4G43MB1" on Amazon.

If it doesn't work, just return the RAM, I guess.
 
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I like it a lot now. It's stable, looks better, loads in fairly quickly. I like that you can now access the mixer from a dedicated page instead of the instrument GUI. Setting up multi instruments is about the same as Kontakt but maybe a bit more newb friendly.

there really is nothing PLAY could do at this point that would make it more convenient than Kontakt, but for what it is, it's certainly usable now. Back in like 2012-2013, I really dunno how people risked having it in their permanent templates. It would crash on me all the time.
 
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