Garritan of EastWest?

[Jamie Klenetsky]

I'm looking to buy an orchestra sampler VST, something inexpensive that serves basic needs (submitting decent realizations to competitions, messing around with Live, etc). Does anyone have a recommendation - Garritan Personal Orchestra or the EastWest equivalent? Or is there another program that I don't know about? Thanks :)

[Kento]

Do you have a preference between the silver and gold editions for Garritan?

[Michal Cielecki]

IMHO it is slight exxageration - VSL samples sound dry and uninspiring themselves, without life. I agree they have great portamento though.
Regarding orchestra sounds - in my opinion, the overall best sound, with punch and with life behind them are ProjectSAM's sample libraries. But those are also expensive. And Los Angeles Scoring Strings - really beatiful stuff. But personally I'm waiting for Hollywood Strings by East West. ;)

Cheers,
Michal

[Roger Noren]

I think it depends also on which type of music you want to make. If natural smooth sounding orchestra pieces is preferred - go with Garritan. If impressing film music is closer, EWQLSO is a must. But the latter is IMO not very naturalistic, classical records doesn't sound that way, film music (Zimmer and others) do.