Edirol Orchestral review:
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What is it? |
Test machine |
Website |
Price |
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A plug-in simulating a whole orchestra |
1200 mhz Athlon, 256mb DDR ram, Windows XP |
£249 |
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It is Edirol's third virtual instrument in the High Quality series. All of the instruments in the HQ range have something in common - they have many instruments packed into a sleek looking interface. Orchestral is no exception and as the name suggests, Edirol have taken up on building a virtual instrument that can emulate the sounds of a whole orchestra. I am a computer musician that has never had any sort of classical training, and I don't even know my music theory well enough, so it was very interesting to get a virtual instrument that is emulating something that isn't really my first choice of style - orchestral. Don't get me wrong, I like orchestral music, Beethoven is one of my idols and probably the best music writer I have ever heard. I just love any of the symphonies being played back through a full orchestra. But making orchestral music without ready made samples is something that I can't do well at. Ok, so I am not that good at making orchestral arrangements, but listen to this piece, the sounds are pretty fantastic and it only uses two instruments! Also every instrument in Orchestral has a preview witch shows you a virtual player playing the instrument on a keyboard, good for me because I don't know how to play most of the orchestral instruments on a keyboard. Also from the examples I have learnt some basic patterns for different instruments. Furthermore a separate stereo output of all the 16 instruments can be routed to one of the four outputs of the host sequencer. The Instruments Orchestral music is all about variations of different instruments, listening back to some of the demonstrations songs such as Hungarian Dance No.1 and The Blue Danube, Edirol have really been able to create good sounds that not only are good sounding, but also give atmosphere to the song. Some of the instruments are also provided in stereo, but they can be reinforced to mono if you want to save some resources. To say more about the instruments, they are divided into 4 sections : Strings, Wind, Percussion and Keyboard, each containing The Dream Don't tell me that you haven't dreamed of becoming a big music superstar, all of us have. How about becoming Mozart or Beethoven? To think that with the Orchestral is almost like having a orchestra in front of you, its like you own a orchestra... It seems almost mad! I wonder what Mozart would think if he got his hands on this! The Effects Each of the 16 instrument channels has a 3 band equalizer plus a send to a reverb and a chorus. The effects help the instruments come alive. Style There are so many different orchestra setups, that it is very hard to decide which one if you haven't got any grips with the technique of orchestra setups. Orchestral includes a style option to where you can select form full orchestras to a baroque style and the program will load all the instruments and the pan settings, nice!
The price and the competition Although a very good instrument, I am not so happy with the cost of the virtual instrument. If compared to the price of the hardware or hiring a orchestra, Orchestral does come a whole lot cheaper, but there are other software and sample solutions that you could get away with for cheaper. for example Reason (currently 2.5) ships with the Orkester sound library. I haven't tested it yet, but the way I see it, it does almost the same thing. Other competition comes in forms of emulating/sampling a part of a orchestra. For example there are many sample CDs on strings alone. There is also a special version of Halion, Stings Edition available. One thing Edirol have done to make Orchestral more attractive in terms of price, is the inclusion of Cakewalk's Music Maker 2002. Overall Overall the package is a little on the expensive side, but with the little competition it has, it could become a standard in computed orchestral composing. Of course, if you have money - do hire the whole orchestra. A real orchestra is always better, although this package is something you could get away with. The sounds work with most projects and it is very hard for a average producer such as me to say whether it is a real orchestra or Orchestral playing. Although there is lots of good, there are some bad. The price for example is quite high and there are small problems with the way it works. Overall it is a expensive package, that will give you the stick to guide a virtual orchestra into your own orchestral compositions.
8.0 - One of the few orchestra emulations. The program has been built with care: you could conceive someone into thinking that the tunes coming out of your computer are from a live orchestra-enough said. Notes:
Reviewed by Aleksi Haapajoki |
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