Darcy James Argue wrote:
John, they are exactly the same instruments you heard on the Finale
website. If the "unpleasant coloration" was absent there, then you
ought not to have anything to complain about. Have you tried the sounds
*in context* (i.e., in an ensemble), with HP and Ambience Reverb on?
I think John's point is that he is totally baffled about how to make his
files sound like the demo files. He's not saying that the GPO sounds
are bad, just that he can't seem to get them to sound good on his
computer. That's why one would hope MakeMusic would put the Finale
files from which their demos were derived (they were derived from Finale
files and not sequences played into a different application, no?) from
up somewhere for us to download and to see exactly what settings were
used to get those terrific sounding demos. For many of us, simply
switching from soundfont to GPO produces very little improvement. We
need to know the steps necessary to achieve the same quality as the
demos display.
Which brings up the question as to why the Ambience Reverb doesn't give
us Room Sizes to choose from, at least on the Windows side of things?
Is that something to be expected in the maintenance release as well?
My Altec Lansing speakers provide very good sound, so the blame cannot
be laid there. The demos I have tried from the internet all sound
good, or at least as good as would satisfy me if I could get mine to
sound as good. So, in view of the comments from members of the list
who say how superior the GPO sounds are
They are definitely superior to the Finale sound font. Clearly, they
are not superior to professional orchestral sample libraries costing
thousands of dollars. You have to be realistic in your expectations.
The following quotes, from the Garritan web-site:
"the highest quality collection of orchestral instruments ever sampled"
(doesn't say "in this price range" it says "EVER")
"Acclaimed as "the most significant sample-based instrument library ever
to be produced", GPO has won more awards than any other orchestral
library"
"it is the quality of the instruments that drives this package"
are certainly quotes which lead me to believe it superior to East-West
or Vienna Symphony libraries. Either that or Garritan was successful in
keeping those libraries from whatever competitions or organizations
handed out those awards. The first line I quoted was from Garritan's
own ad-copy on the web-site. Okay, I can understand their hyperbole
about their own product being a bit of a stretch, but the other two
quotes are from outside sources.
Those quotes are not exactly what I would expect for a product you
describe as not being "superior to professional orchestral sample
libraries costing thousands of dollars" -- it sure sounds as somebody
thinks they're the best thing since A440! And that somebody is the
company who is building up our expectations -- expectations you are
telling us we need to be more realistic about.
And that's one major aspect of this whole Finale2006 upgrade debacle --
both MakeMusic and Garritan make it seem as if we will be able easily
and without having to sell the farm to buy hardware upgrades to get
fantastic sounding representations of our scores.
We just want to know how so we can get back to engraving and composing
and be done with all this. Nobody ever mentioned "large learning curve"
in the publicity. :-o
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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