alphaproject's Full Review: ProjectSAM Symphobia Symphonic Ensembles and Effec...
"SYMPHOBIA is not your traditional orchestral sample library. Instead of focusing on individual instrument multi-samples, SYMPHOBIA offers ensemble multi-samples with a rich selection of orchestrations and articulations. These playable ensembles cover all of the sections from the orchestra, as well as the entire orchestra playing together. The reason is simple: the real thing sounds so much better. A staccato note played by violins, violas, horns and trumpets, together, correctly seated at the concert stage, will sound much more cohesive than a mixture of individual sample recordings of these four instrument sections. This makes SYMPHOBIA the ideal tool for creating big orchestral arrangements and orchestrations. In addition, a number of individual instrument articulations are available, such as violin section flageolets and horn section marcatos."
That is the description from the site in a nutshell.
Knowing how to use this program is a different story however. It's less of a plug-in and play instrument. It requires you to know how to layer their sounds together like a real orchestra to be effective. You could use their premade Multis, but I find that more times than not, they put alot of useless combinations that take up too much memory. I admit it is alot easier though to use their multis than to create your own but once you do create your own, you should probably save them for later use as bread and butter combinations.
The sounds are excellent quality and are best used on a full 88 key midi controller/keyboard. I use a 61-key controller and I have not figured out how to access the lower notes using the keyboard. It's possible to enter the notes via step input, but that's not very organic now is it? (Especially for Orchestrated samples)
Strings, Brass, Woodwinds, Percussion, you name it, they got it. This has simply replaced all my needs for anything Orchestral.
Of course it's always hard to immitate a real orchestra because you might not be a master of all instrument playing, but if you are a decent enough creator, you can use alot within this program and create truelly awesome sounding pieces. Certainly mix this with other programs or custom sounds and effects and you'll be creating yuour own masterpieces in no time.
I highly, highly also recommend Evolve to go alongside this program as MUST have audio programs for Film/TV composing. Whether or not for hobby or for actually trying to make money, Evolve and SYMPHOBIA are big time "MUST HAVE" appplications.
The problem for me, is even though Kontakt allow 64 instruments to be loaded.....which is ALOT!!!!! I couldn't seem to figure out, or it was not working properly in Cubase 3.1 SX how to automate the volumes within the program. Each instrument has it's own volume, but you may want to change up the volumes every now and then right? Well, if every instrument within Kontakt is routed automatically to output stereo 1, you only have automation within Cubases mixer output not the internal mixer within Kontakt, which you actually should according to the Read/Write buttons in Kontakt(Within Cubase 3 at least)
I'm not sure who is at fault....Cubase or Kontakt. Of course there is a work around though. Use more seperate instances of Kontakt and then use a mixdown, then record more tracks....or create sub/aux outputs within Kontakt.
Each has their own pros/cons. I've tried both ways and have not had the need to dump midi to audio but if you were creating a huge arrangement you may need to do so. I usually use around 8 to 16 tracks before dumping anything to audio so it's not a problem for me. Thanks for listening.
Fantastic prices with ease & c...(Stock status: N/A)
Created by the TV and video game composers from Heavy Melody Music & Sound Design, Evolve is a virtual instrument powered by Native Instruments' Konta...More at Amazon Marketplace
Fantastic prices with ease & c...(Stock status: N/A)
ProjectSam, creator of the True Strike series and SAM Orchestral Brass, brings you Symphobia. Symphobia is an immense and malleable orchestral sample ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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