East West Symphonic Orchestra Gold Complete Reviews

3.8/5.0 based on 5 customer reviews

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Customer Reviews

Kevin McNally
from Los Anageles
May 15, 2013Music Background:
Pro Musician

Sweetwater Outshines East West Gold

Once again, the guys at Sweetwater came through with flying colors! Even though East West Gold turned out to be a cumbersome, awkward and outdated piece of software, Ted Hunter and Chris Braman were able to talk me through the download and get me up and running. BTW - the virtual instruments sound great, but the download was a bit on the nightmarish side. Thank you Sweetwater for taking away the pain!

Tim
from Oceanside, CA USA
October 6, 2010Music Background:
Composer, Hobbyist

THE Best Samples EVER

I LOVE EASTWEST PRODUCTS. This product, along with Goliath, Stormdrum and all the others are amazing. Just go to Soundsonline forums and listen to the amazing songs from EastWest users that were composed using only EastWest software. I love the strings, the brass, percussion, wind and all the articulations. The quality is beyond anything I've ever heard. I play songs back that I composed in my free time and everyone thinks I hired an orchestra to play it. Buy this now and you wont regret it. I promise you.

Goliath is also a good program to add to your collection, it has a little bit of everything from choirs, ethnic instruments and piano to new age, synths and guitar.

Go EASTWEST!

Alex
from Colorado Springs, CO USA
February 3, 2012Music Background:
X-pro turned Hobbyist

East West Symphonic Orchestra Gold

The sounds are amazing! This has been a great addition to my setup for film scores. The only down side is the sounds are pretty large, so there are some issues I have had with several instruments at the same time. But this is more of a user/computer issue than an issue with the product. Overall I am very pleased with the amazing sounds in this library.

Mark
from New Haven, CT
May 16, 2012

Fantastic sounds, but why the ancient auth process?

It's true that this is possibly the most effective and beautiful collection of symphonic samples at this price point, and certainly is hugely popular with good reason.

HOWEVER

Asking honest customers who fairly paid for their licenses to visit the support website to download updated authentication software immediately upon receiving the product is simply unacceptable. It's bad enough that the authentication process demands network connectivity, something hardcore DAW enthusiasts disable for performance tweaks. The software seriously comes with a piece of paper that says "THE SOFTWARE ON THESE DISCS IS OUT OF DATE" (caps original) and lists two videos one must download to get instructions to rectify the problem. Which begs the question, what the hell is wrong with shipping more up to date software, or at least integrating these downloads into the authentication process?

This is an unacceptable practice and certainly doesn't make a guy who just spent about $600 dollars on a piece of software feel terribly confident about how things are going to proceed. It simply serves to underpin the tactless and unfair approaches to licensing that DAW software developers are increasingly taking. There is nothing wrong with a hashed CD-Key. There is no need for all this bloat.

I really do enjoy the software on the whole, but I wish the company would learn to appreciate their customers a little better. I have no problem paying for my tools, and since I am not a pirate, I don't like being treated like one. This makes an awful first impression.

RWS
from S.E. PA.
April 4, 2013

Cirque du Installation

I believe this is the first review I have ever done. But, I feel that this is necessary for anyone interested in this product. I had read the previous reviews here on Sweetwater as well as many other music sites. There were several concerns mentioned about the installation process. Obviously this was not an isolated instance from just one customer. I figured I would take my chances and make the purchase based on the quality of the end product. Maybe the installation isn’t really that bad. Quite right, it was much worse.

I will not run through any of the details of the 5 hour installation, part of which was trouble with the iLok authorization. All that needs to be said is that East West Quantum Leap must (read: mandatory) update their installation process for this product. The user’s manual, over several pages, flaunts the talents of those who created this product. Is it not far easier to create an up-to-date installation disk with a dedicated installation manual?

The disks provided show a copyright date of 2008. In the box is a paper stating that the software on the install disk is out of date, then taking the user “through a 3 ring circus” in order to complete a proper install. This should not be!!! Imagine buying a new car, and before you drive it off the lot the salesman tells you, “Sorry, we have to replace the transmission first. It’s five years old and does not work”. WHAT? And then everything goes wrong with the replacement. Would YOU recommend this car purchase to anyone else?

Once the program was installed, copying the instrument/sample files was a breeze. That only took an additional 1.5 hours. Relatively quickly compared to other’s experiences.

I, without any question in my mind, CANNOT recommend this product. The day EWQL updates their installation process is the day I will gladly say, “Yes”, go ahead and buy it. But, there are plenty of other high quality products out there in the mean time.

inSync Review

Tony Dayton
7-16-2009

The Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Gold Complete blew my mind. When I first started playing with it, I couldn't believe the lush violin strings, the realistic winds, and powerful percussion instruments.

This is a fantastic choice for those who compose for film, TV, or video games. I love the convolution reverb and convincing release trails, which gave this sampling software that big Hollywood sound. It totally made my projects for my Berklee class sound full and professional (even the little ones I that I threw together in Sibelius when I had a time crunch).

I was also impressed that I could upgrade seamlessly to the Platinum platform. Plus, I could just change my 16-bit files created in Gold into 24-bit files by using the Platinum samples. That's great because my computer is too slow for the 24-bit right now.

The repeating notes that change slightly to avoid the machine gun affect adds the realism needed for compositions. The keyswitches are also rad! I don't have to pull up a new instrument track to get different articulations going (from staccato to legato on the same track). I can switch on the track with a MIDI note, or play it and hit the keyswitches with my left hand to access the change in articulation. I used this especially for a flute solo in my orchestration. It made it alive (not the stale sameness I would normally use, and it was fast and easy).

On the fly when I'm playing from my MIDI controller, it is great to just mess around and get some ideas of what I want to lay down. Not only that, it makes me sound better than I actually am, which is always a plus.

You don't need to do a lot of tweaking to get Symphonic Orchestra to sound good. Many of the higher-end samplers require a lot of finagling, but this one is ready, right out of the box.

Great price, for an amazing product. This is a definite must for media composers.