EastWest set out to capture the sound we have grown accustomed to in movies and on commercial recordings, and they succeeded. Pinnacle Studio 15 Free Download For Windows Xp. The sound of Hollywood Strings is lush. East. West Hollywood Strings. Reviewed by Dave Stewart in Sound On Sound September 2. When it comes to keeping an audience interested, Los Angeles based sound company East. A sampler is an electronic or digital musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer, but instead of generating new sounds with filters and oscillators. West have the instincts of a showman. Their latest release was originally announced over a year ago, raising expectations sky high and setting Internet forums ablaze with gossip. For months on end, visitors to the companys web site were confronted with a set of red theatre drapes concealing the object of desire, so it was a dramatic moment when show time finally arrived and the curtains drew back to reveal the new star turn Hollywood Strings, the worlds largest self contained string library, 1. A recurring question has been what kind of system do I need to run this library One strong recommendation from East. West is that users seeking optimum performance should use Solid State Drives SSDs to house the samples. While these devices have much faster access speeds than regular hard drives, they are considerably more expensive. Happily for those hit by the current economic doom fest, the library runs without problems on conventional fast drives, though some of its bigger patches do demand a pretty hefty system. See below for East. Wests specifications. Contrary to rumour, installing gigantic orchestral libraries from 3. DVDs is not the thing I enjoy most in life, so it was a relief to discover that HS ships pre installed on a hard drive. However, I was surprised to find that the drive in question is a bare internal type, which means that you either have to put it in a spare drive slot inside your computer or buy a suitable external case for it. At the time of writing, East. Wests web site states that the drive is supplied for installation purposes only and is not intended for daily use such as for storing the samples for streaming, a caveat repeated on the product box. The company have now upgraded the drive to a 5. GB Western Digital Caviar Blue 7. MPC_Software_Main_Screen_700x438.jpg' alt='Akai S1000 Samples Download Free' title='Akai S1000 Samples Download Free' />RPM SATA model which they say is suitable for sample streaming, and they advise that this warning message is now out of date. The library was created by a quartet of Hollywood heavy hitters. East. West supremo Doug Rogers and Nick Phoenix of Quantum Leap need no introduction having enjoyed a professional partnership since 1. For this project, the pair enlisted talented Norwegian composerorchestrator Thomas Bergersen. Like Phoenix, Bergersen is an experienced film trailer music producer, and having created a number of orchestral sound libraries for his own use no, theyre not commercially available, he shares EWQLs sampling and programming pedigree. The fourth team member has a CV as long as your arm, and a display case full of Academy, BAFTA and Emmy awards enter Shawn Murphy, the veteran sound engineer who has recorded andor mixed the soundtracks of over 3. In the words of Doug Rogers, Who better to obtain that quintessential Hollywood sound than someone with his credits An excited forum user put it more emphatically DUDES Shawn F ing MURPHY recorded it It IS gonna be sick. Since early 2. 00. East. WestQuantum Leap releases have been formatted exclusively for their proprietary Play sound engine. Play 5 comes in 6. PLAY 4 for 3. 2 bit compatibility, both of which are included with the library. The chief advantage of the 6. RAM, but in order to run it, your operating system, computer motherboard and if you intend to use Play as a plug in host sequencer also have to be 6. The Play sound engine was reviewed along with East. Wests Fab Four and Ministry of Rock libraries in SOS March 2. Read the article at www. In the interests of musical expression, Hollywood Strings uses an unprecedented amount of sample crossfading, causing a hike in polyphony that required some improvements to Plays software. Play version 2. 0 not to be confused with the forthcoming Play Pro is now available as a free download to registered users. The makers claim the update also improves loading times, and while I was unable to compare Play v. I can say that on a 3. GHz PC the player took 2. MB instrument containing 7. So whats not in HS Since its selling point is a large scale, big budget cinematic sound, it doesnt contain solo instruments or chamber sections. No chords, phrases, wild card effects or glissandi are included either, but you can simulate the latter by playing a rapid chromatic run using a repetition runs script instrument. Though its probably not an issue for media composers, there are no real life muted con sordino samples the effect of the mute is simulated by a switch that activates an EQ curve modelled on sordino recordings. Enough of the prologue its time for the main feature. Hollywood Strings was recorded in East. Wests Studio 1 with 5. LAs top string players, using full blown symphony orchestra section sizes 1. In marked contrast to EWQL Symphonic Orchestra recorded in a reverberant concert hall, HS has a large room studio acoustic which, while by no means dry, lends itself to users adding their own reverb if desired. To that end, the library includes a large menu of convolution reverb impulse responses, including some derived from the hall in which EWQLSO was recorded. From the violins down to the basses, these string sections have a lovely sound, texture and feel, with a rich, full symphonic sound and an opulent quality that comes from combining great players with a great sound engineer. The looped sustains are manna from heaven for pad merchants like myself, incorporating three degrees of vibrato as well as alternating up and down bows. As one who likes to compose by playing, the provision of pre programmed, full, six octave strings sections is very helpful. You can use Plays instrument key range setting to build your own full strings setups, though youll find that the presets require fewer samples. Meeting film composers insatiable need for driving eighth note ostinatos, HS offers a generous selection of short note deliveries ranging in length from powerful short marcatos to brisk, urgent staccatissimos that will do nicely for high octane action scenes. I liked the intensity and forceful attack of the on the bow staccato articulations whose notes terminate with the bow still resting on the string and the zing and bounce of the spiccato samples great, energetic performances. Some of these deliveries incorporate as many as 1. RR sample. Following orchestral sample library best practice, the producers recorded completely different first and second violin sections. This greatly increases the timbral variety and arguably, value for money as each violinist brings in his or her own unique, often priceless instrumentThe 1. Another articulation worthy of note is the measured tremolos played by all sections, which time stretch to play their fast iterations at a user defined rate. The rhythmic effect is somewhat blurred, but a 1. The same idea is applied to the note repetitions played by the violas and basses. With these, the pulse is sharp and clear, though its real life speed is consistently a little slower than the tempo figure displayed by Play. Express Yourself. To facilitate expression, HS adopts a double modulation technique on some instruments, in which MIDI expression CC1. CC1, an approach I first encountered in Garritans Stradivari.