Vienna Enemle Pro & Epic Orchestra?

[michael diemer]

Can anyone comment on this? I currently have Vienna Special Edition 1, plus GPO5, EWSO Gold and Cinematic Strings2. Using Cakewalk for my DAW (formerly Sonar). Would this be worth my while? Is the Epic Orchestra useful?

[Dane Aubrun]

I’ll be following this in case others more experienced reply.

I researched a bit before settling on VSL with standard Ensemble player and individual collections. Epic Orch demos put me off. They sounded like routine soundtrack orchestrations about which there was nothing subtle. Epic Orchestra seems to bulk instruments together with just a couple of solos which may be more suited to someone needing quick and simple scoring rather than more detailed stuff.

That may be what you want and fine. An associate of mine, a composer who’s done a stint in Hollywood, spoke of the pressures they work under so it’s inevitable - but for personal work where someone wants detailed control over instruments it probably won’t work.

I’ll be looking at Pro 7 soon I suspect. It offers a few things the Vanilla Ensemble doesn’t. Although I don’t anticipate multiple computers running DAW/Sampling VSTs just yet  it’ll be there if I need it. But there are things the Pro Ensembles have like polyphonic legato/portamento in the strings, integrated FX etc.

I haven’t got Eastwest. It was on the list but Vienna won out. That doesn’t mean I thought it was second rate, just that VSL was closer to what I wanted. (For example, EW doesn’t have solo violas or basses, and various exotics that I happen to like!) For Cinematic-styled work, VSL’s Appassionata Strings are in tight competition with Hollywood Strings….with VSL losing out on price. 

So apologies for chipping in without offering much help.

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

[michael diemer]

No that's helpful Dane. I suspected that the Epic Orchestra was what you described, and no that probably would not be helpful for me. But maybe the juiced-up Vienna Ensemble would be worth it. The one draw with the EO is that it does have some Appasionata violins. As violins are always the most problematic of my string groups, maybe it would be worth it just for them.

BTW here's the link I got for this in my email (forgot to post it):

https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Vienna_Ensemble_Pro?utm_source=newsletter&...

[Dane Aubrun]

That's certainly a good idea. If you have the Special Edition 1 you're already familiar with VSL - boy, did it give me a few headaches at the outset?! So if you wanted to go with Pro 7 at least you get Epic Orchestra free! Could be useful for quick mock-ups. 

[michael diemer]

Actually, I don't think you get it for free. It's kind of ambiguous. It looks to me like you can demo it or try it out. but that's a hefty download for just a demo. Need to look into it further.

[Timothy Smith]

Good luck finding an answer on that Micheal. There are lots of guys on the VI forum with multiple libraries who would probably comment on that. I'm not familiar enough with these to make an educated comment.

It is getting so that they are all pretty good and depending on the material it can be tough to tell the difference. What's not to like about Cakewalk? A free DAW that once costed 599.00 and has any capability most would ever want of need :)

[Timothy Smith]

Good luck finding an answer on that Micheal. There are lots of guys on the VI forum with multiple libraries who would probably comment on that. I'm not familiar enough with these to make an educated comment.

It is getting so that they are all pretty good and depending on the material it can be tough to tell the difference. What's not to like about Cakewalk? A free DAW that once costed 599.00 and has any capability most would ever want of need :)

[michael diemer]

Well, it does look like the Epic Orchestra is included free with purchase of VE Pro. You actually get to download VE Prp 6, I guess v. 7 is not quite ready. I am very tempted. As time goes on, I realize that Vienna does have the best instruments, and the Ve Pro mixer is something I should have gotten years ago. Looks like about 165.00 US $. Could be a no-brainer.

[michael diemer]

So I went for it. I won't have Epic Orchestra until tomorrow as it's a big download. But I've already checked out VePro. Looks very similar to the free version, but I'm sure there's a lot of features I don't know how to use yet. I really need to do something to improve my sound, hopefully this will.

[Colin Dougall]

Hi All

I purchased VE Pro 7 and got Epic orchestra for free (the free version is the same as the purchasable version - I think if you are going to spend €105 on EO you would be as well to pay the extra €40 for VE Pro). I downloaded it and had a go at using it on my current working  composition for piano and orchestra. I'm just about finished it using Dorico & noteperformer and my plan is to take it into VSL SE to finish it of. I will them complete it in Cubase Pro.

I decided to take a detour and see if i could make use of EO. Here's what my experience is.

First up, EO uses 75gb of samples from the Synchron libraries - sounds like a lot and you do get some pretty stuff but in my opinion it's not much use. You do get a "lite" version of the appassioanta violins and chamber violins but not much more. The Wagner tubas sound ok as does the solo oboe d'armoure plus there are one or two other baubles, but no separate woods section and what you do get is limited to very few articulations.

I prefer to work from a notation program and I find EO (and the Synchron approach in general) very limiting and not much fun. I can get a much better sound from SE 1 and MIRx than I than from EO - plus I can do a whole lot more. The only downside with VSL SE in Dorico is that I'm having to create my own expression maps for each instrument - very time consuming.

The main problem i find with EO (and by extension other libraries like it, i.e €100 price point) is that there is no access to the individual string (and other) sections - the whole string family is mapped across the whole keyboard which I find pretty much unusable.

While I don't think it would be of any use to the "serious" composer you can quickly put together some impressive phrases (the demo sound files are impressive), but not much more than that.

I would say that it would be better to buy SE 1 than EO but of course it's more expensive, plus you would probably want VI Pro and a couple of the MIRx sound stages. 

So, I found that I couldn't use it effectively in what I currently working on which uses all four string section plus woods and brass. I can get much better results with VSL SE 1, VI Pro, VE/VE Pro & MIRx.

But that's not to say that it would not work perfectly well for you!

Colin

[michael diemer]

Hi Colin, I also have SE1 and use a lot of it. I agree, Epic Orch. only gives me a little bit for my money, but I now have Ve Pro where before I only had the free edition. I'm assuming that will pay dividends somewhere along the line. As for EO, I can use the high violins, they are stronger than what I currently have in Cinematic Strings. also the timpani is very good, and I now have a cornet, which sounds better than any of my trumpets (I'll probably use it in place of them). And the oboe d'amore is excellent as you said, not that I have much call for it. But the library was free, the 165.00 (US) was really for VePro. Which will serve me well as I gradually acquire more Vienna sounds.

[michael diemer]

Any comments by those familiar with Ve Pro, as to how to use it, what it does well etc; would be most appreciated.