I asked this question early this month, and the consensus seemed to be that at $75 (the sale price then), it was worth it, although few seemed to be able to replicate the quality of the samples on the Garritan site, or the samples used by Chuck Israels for his Exploring Jazz Arranging book. I'm thinking you'd get better results if you were using the Garritan sounds with a DAW rather than a notation program.
That said, I bit at the $75 price for the Jazz & Big Band collection, and I found a significant improvement in sounds and volume. Perhaps it is because I spent a bit more time with the Aria player once I purchased JABB, but in any case, I'm glad I went for it. Most of my work is transcribing and arranging for smaller horn sections with rhythm section, and I use playback as an audible spellcheck, so I don't need commercial quality playback, but it's nice having something that sounds closer than the resident Finale Garritan sounds. The trumpet sounds still suffer most, but are an improvement. You'll have to decide if it's worth waiting another year to save another $25 - assuming they'll offer another half-price sale next Christmas. I think I'd still be pleased had I spent $99. Giz |-----Original Message----- |From: finale-boun...@shsu.edu [mailto:finale-boun...@shsu.edu] On Behalf Of |Dalvin Boone |Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2013 6:57 PM |To: Finale@shsu.edu |Subject: [Finale] Garritan libraries | |I would like to have better sounding Finale files; are the Garritan libraries a |significant improvement over what comes with Finale, and are they generally |worth $99.95 (each)? _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
