The breadth of tonal colours is excellent. EastWest provide you with a broad palette of sounds capable of delivering subtle distant metals, full-on hammering timpani, and beyond. Listen to any big Hollywood score and it's often the percussion that adds the final dramatic touch. Banging the drumįinally comes the Percussion section. The woodwinds are the same.įrom bass flute and clarinet right through to piccolo with all the usual articulations and styles through to flutter tongue techniques and lots of multi-dynamic runs, it is possible to build up incredibly realistic wind parts quickly. There is a great cross section of instruments available and again articulations aplenty.īeyond the normal dynamics and articulations there are plenty of FX patches that give falls, clusters and other brass exclusive effects. The brass sounds available go from soft and warm portato patches to blaring sustains and staccatos. "If you are looking for the best in orchestral sampling you would be very unwise to overlook them" Legato patches across the strings, brass and woods all use the mod wheel to control dynamics, so it is even possible to quickly double lines across instrument groups with the right dynamics (say a Cello line doubled by French Horns) by copying a MIDI part. There are slurred, portamento and bow changes for the legato sections and multiple key switch options so it is very simple to program complex lines without having to switch patches and MIDI channels. There are articulations aplenty, especially in the strings. We found ourself not wanting to add any reverb on many of the passages we tried them on. The close mics allow you to bring forward solo instruments just as if you had spotted them during a recording and the room sound of EastWest's studio 1 is excellent.
Each microphone position can be loaded separately so it is possible to mix between them to place each part of the orchestra exactly where you want it the added depth of field this gives provides an extra layer of realism. The sounds themselves are superb, having been recorded by Shawn Murphy, a hugely successful film scoring engineer, and produced by a group of highly experienced Hollywood scoring experts.Īll instruments have been recorded with five different mic positions simultaneously with close, intermediate, main, surround and vintage RCA ribbons.