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Post by JohnG on Sept 11, 2009 12:10:01 GMT
It depends what you want to do. If you want to play live then you'll need access to the keyswitches as you play. Like the guy in the video. If you want to change patches "on-the-fly".
I guess if you can create a split and get the bottom octave (the most frequently used area for switches) on the left, then have the rest of the keyboard playing an octave or two (or even three) up, then you should be able to use the upper split for playing the instrument, and the lower for changing articulations. Except when it comes to Voices of Passion whose keyswitches seem to occupy nearly three octaves!
Three octaves playing area should be adequate for a large variety of instruments, whose range usually doesn't exceed this, but not for all. Make sure you have a sustain pedal and a swell pedal assigned to controller 11. You'll need that a lot.
I've settled on an Intel core 2 quad 2.83GHz, with 8GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM and two WD SATA 500GB Black drives. Drives are so cheap at the moment I'm tempted to add a third 1TB slower drive to store the audio. Maybe later. I think the sample library is going to take up most of the 2nd drive. I've got room within a fan cooled cage for up to four! And two eSATA expansion ports ... insanity!
All the best,
JohnG.
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Post by JohnG on Sept 22, 2009 13:17:58 GMT
Further thoughts, I've been reading the manual about East West pianos collection. Here's something that blew my mind. It includes samples of 4 of perhaps the world's best known pianos. Bosendorfer, Steinway, Bechstein and Yamaha grands. The library comprises 270 Gigabytes of samples. Yes, 270 GB, not a misprint.  Hope you've got a disk big enough?  Definitely NOT for the faint of heart.  JohnG. |
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Post by rainbow on Sept 22, 2009 20:47:30 GMT
Yeah, I've been reading on the EWQL forum that it takes 12 hours plus just to load the pianos collection!!
My iMac 24" has CPU of 2.66GHz (intel duo core) with 4GB RAM and 750 GB of memory. Now, originally I read the whole CCC set to be 230GB but this info. blows that away! I've got 2HDDs (320GB and 500GB respectively) which I'm not using at the moment but I thought I'd use for archiving completed projects thus leaving plenty of working room on my iMac's hard drive. I'd love to play those piano samples, especially as I'll have a full 88 keys (though the Bossendorfer's got 96 keys I believe ... but I won't worry about that!) but it sounds like the pianos ought to be loaded onto the 500GB HD ... will that be feasible John or will it take longer still to load that set?
I'm hoping to load the rest of CCC on the iMac's hard drive (bit by bit) ... I hope that's feasible?
Many thanks for the pdfs btw and I'm head down and reading thro' when I can ... seems like an especially good idea now, after that info. re: the pianos!!
Best regards ... Graham:)
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Post by JohnG on Sept 23, 2009 6:21:37 GMT
Hi Graham, Well, I'm not sure that the set that comes with the CCC is the complete set or the cut down Gold set. It comes as 9 DD DVDs. If my arithmetic is any good that comes to 9x8GB=72GB. But, of course, if the data is compressed it could be a lot bigger. However on the Pianos Gold page at the foot it says it needs 55GB hard disk space. Ah, and I've just noticed that it says the CCC has the Gold Pianos. So panic over. Glad I waited until my pay cheque arrived before buying the new processor, it's just dropped 16 Euro in price! BTW being an old fashioned kind of guy, not surprising entering my mid sixties, I like to print out the manuals and be able to read them away from the computer. 5 or 6 years ago I got myself a Canon ip5000 (separate ink tanks and print head) which has a duplex facility (the old printer died). I found that I could print the manuals as a booklet thus getting 4 pages onto 1 sheet of paper. I found I had to select "Custom Size" paper as the manual is 8x9.5". The vertical is full printing but the horizontal has wide margins. I found if I set the paper size to 6.8x9.5 I got a much improved print out, big enough to read without glasses.  JohnG. |
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Post by rainbow on Sept 23, 2009 13:02:37 GMT
55GB is not so bad I worked out the total space required for the other 6 sets is 148GB and I'd already made up my mind to install the Goliath first (as it's a virtual instrument) and leave the Pianos to last and just see how the others load first. I've 'skim read' all the manuals now but spent a bit of time with the Play & Goliath to get the feel of how it all works. Thanks for the info. John Best regards ... Graham:) |
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Post by freeway on Oct 7, 2009 7:11:59 GMT
Well guys got my "Goliath" series delivered and installed but having a small issue with sound . ......I was on the phone to Rainbow(Graham) trying to sort this out.......can't for the life of me get sound out of it set it up as a plug and play using my new MAudio 88 key controler before I incorporate it into my DAW I.m seeing the keys playing on my screen but no sound ..setup and authorised my iLock key with "Goliath"..Im using a Soundblaster Soundcard which is working fine playing my midis and audio files no prob.....downloaded all the updates except the latest Play update ver 1.2.5 seems to be corrupt tried numerous times to download even changed my download manager with no luck.......Im using Vista unless that could be the prob whats new eh Any ideas greatly appreciated Im also posting this in the EWQL forum.....many thanx guys (Latest finally managed to download the update but made no difference but downloaded an up to date Asio driver and prob solved Yippee!! ;D and a very special thanx to Graham Barry |
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Post by rainbow on Oct 7, 2009 19:42:30 GMT
Glad you're past that hurdle Barry ... pleased to be able to help mate  |
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Post by rainbow on Oct 22, 2009 7:03:30 GMT
Hi John & Barry,
Thought I'd best continue the EWQL thread over here rather than hijack the studio sale thread completely!! Yesterday I started to try and load 'Goliath' as first of the CCC libraries and couldn't get past first base ... kept getting instal failed message every time I tried to load up the first of the six dvds!! After an hour I e-mailed sounds online and got an e-mail back to submit a ticket re: the prob ... still no reply to date ... a crap system in my opinion!!
A couple of hours after, realising there would be no quick reply/solution to the prob in the offing, I rang Digital Village & asked for the European Tech Support telephone number and soon after got to speak to Michael, a Dutch bloke who was short in replies but very helpful!! Basically 'Goliath' is one of the older libraries and I had version 1.0.048 and I had to firstly go to the sounds online updates & download and instal the latest version (1.2.5 I believe) of the Play engine and then create a seperate East West Library folder and drop that into my Mac HD 'root'folder (to use Windows term) and the load up first dvd again and only check the 'Goliath' instal and 'Authorisation Wizard' update boxes and under 'Location' drop down menu click on Macintosh HD and click on this again and it gives 'other' option and I then installed the Goliath library to the newly placed East West folder in the 'root' folder.
So far so good! Then spent next four hours or so feeding in consecutive dvds as my new 'mistress' required! ;D Just managed to get this lot loaded and got the welcome instal successful message and then had to leave everything and rush straight out to keep a doctor's appointment ... all go!!
An hour or so later I set to and managed to get the iLok registration completed along with the authorisation process and then it was time to try and get a sound ... error message 'The installed version of this product (66053) is not compatible with this version of Play (65582)'
... OK!! So I figured I needed to update the Goliath instrument library and downloaded and installed this and still no joy. Despite the fact that I'd already downloaded and installed the updated Play engine, I thought it was worth repeating the excercise ... did just that and yes, that did the trick.
Then did the setting up audio routine and finally got sound from the onscreen keyboard via mouse and also finally got sound via the controller after checking the box in set-up screen and was able to change sounds OK ... soon found out that if you keep adding sounds you get a mix so need to remove existing selected sound first and then add new one to correctly preview sounds. Tried opening up GarageBand to see if I could use Play as a plug in or stand alone within the DAW and no real joy there yet ... that is today's mission!! I finally called it a day at 10pm and noticed that the articulations end of the keyboard is showing as brown, not blue ... so another thing to sort out today!!
Will post on progress later ... if I make any!! ;D ;D
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Post by freeway on Oct 22, 2009 7:50:36 GMT
Yep Graham ... .....that all sounds so familiar been through the very same as you although I did mention to you about checking the updates before running the prog......you were prob just like me just wanted to get at the sounds pronto ;D I'd say also the updates need to be installed in a specific order took me a while to figure that one out......I presume you.ve added the Play Vst to the Garageband root folder already ......you should find it in the Easwest /Commons folder if I'm not mistaken (not at the main pc right now)should then be in the drop down list in Vst's ...of course Im working in Cakewalk but the same principal shouldapply I'd say ..... are you using an Asio driver in your sound setup or maybe its different in Garageband couldnt get sound until I installed that one ....let me know if your still stuck I might have had the same issues you never know.......best of luck later on and keep us up to date on your progress...catch you later....regards btw still looking out my window waiting for "postie"to arrive with my Sonar  Barry  |
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Post by JohnG on Oct 22, 2009 10:06:03 GMT
Hi Graham and Barry, Yes, all too familiar. I suffered the same with the first pack. EWQLSO Gold. Updated the Play engine, then had problems with the next install. SO ... I went the custom install route. What the normal install does is assume you are just loading the one library. So it reinstalls Play each time. Consequence, you have to reload v1.2.5 after each library install if you want to try each one out as you go. Crap writing of the installation package if you ask me. BUT I didn't buy the package because of their programming skills, or lack of them. I bought them, most definitely, for the amazing quality of the samples. With the Custom install you can choose just which bits you want to install. But I then decided to forego the pleasure of trying them out for a couple of days (I still have EWQLSO Gold and Silver on my laptop to play with), and just spent the time loading the DVDs, doing the update to the samples and individual engine, if necessary, and defragmenting after each set. Right at the end I reinstalled the latest Play. I registered all of the packages using the laptop to the iLok key before I even started the installation. Then went to the EW site and downloaded all the updates, even the ones I don't need (yet), e.g. Fab Four (0.5 GB !!!!!!). Then I burnt them all to a CD including the Play update, the Sonar 7 updates, graphics card latest drivers, sound card latest drivers and so on. I just know I'll be glad I did sometime in the future! The replacement HDDs have just been delivered, so it's PC cover off and install them. Whilst I'm at it I shall replace the heatsink on the NorthBridge chip,as it's likely to get rather warm, I suppose, handling four drives. The current one is just a 1/2 inch deep so I've got one double the size from Zalman. Hope that'll suffice. My advice, don't be in any hurry to get them all loaded, or just stick with one library for the time being. I started with just SO silver and cut my teeth on that. Be prepared to have to reload stuff as you go along. Remember East West is relatively new to creating software, they are above all, a sound creation factory, if I may call them that. Be prepared for some glitches as they learn their way. They have come a long way since the first stuff that was all hosted on Native Instrument sample players Kompakt and Kontakt. They've taken a huge leap forward by diving straight into 64 bit programming. There's many other, more experienced, companies who still haven't mastered this yet. Added later. They also have authored for both platforms, Mac and PC. I can think of some, e.g. Pro Tools and CakeWalk, who are still, years on, just writing for one or the other. I think EW have written Play from scratch, and only started a year or so ago. Actually amazing progress in such a short time. Er, IMHO. Original post You are working now at the cutting edge of this technology. Sometimes it involves a little pain and needs some patience as the innovators find their way. Personally I believe the quality of their sounds just shines through and they will be (they already are) considered one of the best. Just look at some of the rave reviews. So, if you can, stick with it. The rewards when it all works are substantial. I think you knew, when you started out, that this is a rather new way of rendering a MIDI file. In my experience learning new stuff, and then implementing it, is ALWAYS a bit painful. Perhaps too long spent in the computer, telecoms and satcom industries. And sorry, I don't mean to sound patronising. University of life, degree in hard knocks. Just my 2d as usual, and I'm ready to help if I can. All the best, JohnG |
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Post by JohnG on Oct 22, 2009 11:18:30 GMT
BTW, Graham, which libraries did you finally settle for in your CCC?
I got the standard set but with Silk replacing the EWQLSO Gold.
Actually wish I'd swapped one of them for Fab Four now, but what the heck, there's always next year!
JohnG.
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Post by rainbow on Oct 22, 2009 20:39:50 GMT
Hi John & Barry, Thanks for the words of encouragement both I received an e-mail from Micheil at sounds online europe (same bloke I spoke to by phone yesterday) in reply to my ticketed call for help re: the instal issues and I gave another quick call this morning to get some pointers on plug-ins and recording in GarageBand ... got a couple of pointers and then advised to read the manual Anyway, seem to be making progress now ... learned how to record and work with plug-ins (basics) and applied that to a Vangelis cover I sequenced from scratch a few weeks ago using just a couple of female solo vocal sounds from Goliath and they definitely improved that project. Then went on to load Voices Of Passion/Ra & Stormdrum2, checking sounds out on each library as I went, after the authorisation process, and I'm pretty happy with the quality of the sounds and really knocked out with more than a few to say the least ... does make it all worth while. Had to download and instal Play update again to update today's intalled instruments, which otherwise would not load, but getting used to this now!! The Mac and Windows operating systems work in a slightly different way with the Play engine but it seems we are all getting to where we need to be by degrees. Hope you get your Sonar and get going properly pretty quick now Barry John, I purchased the standard Complete Composers Collection from Digital Village and will be looking to purchase Fab Four with either Silk or Gypsy when a 'buy one get one' offer comes along again. I like the sound of the Titan synth set too but though that's available thro' the sounds online site (but not the European site) it is not an EWQL library. Cheers for now ... Graham:) |
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Post by JohnG on Oct 23, 2009 6:41:50 GMT
Hi Graham, Thanks for the update. Good to know it's finally coming together and that you're starting to get results. May I suggest that you download all the updates even those that are inapplicable at the moment, all in one session, and burn them to a multi-session CD? You just know you are going to need them again, and that there will be further updates to add. Being something of a control freak in this area, actually bitter experience (when you've had the hard disk crash on your main work laptop, you attain a different perspective on life), now I tend to do regular backups, and keep (and label) copies of all sorts of things that I might need. As far as synths go, I have a Yamaha PLG150-AN card, which is a copy of a Prophet 5 plus extra waveshapes, oscillators and so on. It sits inside a Yamaha MU1000 and gives me almost all I need. The FM stuff is provided by a similar DX card which emulates a DX7, again plus some extras which sits alongside the AN. Can't see me getting rid of those any time soon. The last is the famous VL card that is so expressive when driven by a wind controller. I shall leave the rig in my will to my son! All the best, Keep Playing, JohnG. |
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Post by JohnG on Oct 24, 2009 7:30:48 GMT
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Post by freeway on Oct 24, 2009 8:29:05 GMT
Thank for that John. They really went out of there way to authenticate the Beatles Sound eh... .. quite amazing they more or less reconstructed Abbey Road Studios 40 years later with the same recording equipment ..instruments .....engineers and top class musicians who worked with Paul McCartney as well......couldn't get more real than that eh.....like Graham Im gonna wait up for the 2 in I offer to make my next purchase it'll also gimme a bit of time to accumulate some funds....ssshhh wife's just entered the room. ah don't matter I can always blame you for starting all this lol.. ;D thinking also about maybe getting another much larger hard drive maybe a TB to store all these editions on a seperate drive altogether ......happy days eh......Cheerz for now Barry |
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