Are you talking about actual percussion or are you saying it needs sharper transients?

They are planning on expanding the line of Synful stuff, but the premise is synthesizer based and they readily admit that samples are best suited to percussive (including the piano) instruments.

I just use soundfonts for my percussive needs. Usually there's fantastic FREE soundfonts including Orchestral Percussion. One of my favorites is a Roland soundfont dumped from a Roland rom...absolutely free! Then you get a VST Soundfont player and you can tweak ADSR's all you want. Toss in some shaping EQ and you can really get busy. Finally put it all through a convolution reverb, like the FREE one you can get from Knufinke and you can really start to emulate the sound you want.

I know there's lot to samples and huge orchestral libraries in the way of reasons to own them. Something about taking control of the sound and making it your own just appeals to the audio engineer in me, and the price tag ensures my safety at night from the wife.

So if you spend $479 on Synful and an evening finding the best free soundfonts (and other sample formats) and get them happening on your machine then I think you will be very far ahead and very frugal.

Tony

I'm talking about actual percussion. But from listening to the samples I'd also have to agree with the percussive sounds of all instruments in general.

and for $479 i could just as well get ewqlso gold... (425€)

...looks like you have your answer then!

Synful is impressive technology, to be sure; but on some of their sample MP3s (especially the string-quartet ones) I noticed some severe pitching issues, and some very bizarre sounding articulations. None of their demos really demonstrate a lush orchestral sound, as is (I assume) capable with MOTU or the EWQL products.

That being said; it's phenomenal technology, and hopefully it continues to mature. I can see it being a very valuable addition to existing sample-based orchestrations for say, incorporating some more articulate solo instrumentation, but it doesn't seem like it's the tool for recreating a lush string ensemble.

I can only speak about GPO, which is the only orchestral plugin I own, and I think it's really great. It isn't perfect, of course, but for the money I've found it to be indespensible over the course of the last year.

What Arglebargle said.

hm, i just read that kontakt 2 also contains a 7.5 GB orchestra library by vsl (vienna symphonic library). that seems like a great deal to be included, and considering that i will want some kind of sampler at some point and kontakt 2 seems like a good choice...

Kontakt 2 is a VERY good sampler, as is GS 3. I use K2. I like it. If you own any EW, KH, Garritan, or VSL stuff, buy K2, you will thank yourself :)

I cannot speak for GS3 as much, but few libs are coming out for that sampler, as many companies (EW,VSL, WGWW, Synful, BBB, Maybe Garritan), are developing proprietary software for their samples.

Sean Beeson

as you own kontakt 2, is the orchestra library included good? considering that its by vsl and larger than both garritan and ewqlso silver, i guess it is and i guess these budget libraries wouldn't be of too much use to me then (except perhaps ewqlso silver which i could get 140€ "cheaper" by getting that and kontakt as a crossgrade, which would mean if i want ewqlso gold someday i would have paid less for it, otoh i could get a really cheap oem ni lib and actually save real money and get a few free samples...)

EastWest is awsome! I took http://www.digitalneo.net/misc/adventure.mid , and converted a section of it for a test, and it gave me: http://www.digitalneo.net/adventure.ogg in response, definatly great software!