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Meh, free symphonic orchestra software!

EastWest Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Silver Edition for Free

As murphy's law would have it I just purchased the Gold edition of this companies amazing Symphonic Orchestra software two weeks ago and now they're giving away the Silver (starter) edition free for the next month. It doesn't have all the various instruments and playing styles my version does but if you have a MIDI keyboard (a musical keyboard for the computer) you can get a free copy of their basic orchestral instrument software (apx $200 value) to use with no time limit just for answering a survey which is all about your music making/instrument buying habits. You can also use your QWERTY keyboard to play the keys onscreen but it doesn't have the same expressive qualities as a real keyboard with touch sensitivity, easily playable chords and so on.

Regardless of keyboard you will need a beefy PC to use this software, Quad Core & 4+ GB is recommended. It works on Xp-Vista-W7.
 
Wow, thanks! I just started getting into fooling around with making music/mixes/beats, and this seems like it'll be a lot of fun to play with.
 
I use finale printmusic. Composing is a lot harder than one would think... I keep ending up with some version or other of Pachalbell's canon in D. I don't know if my laptop would survive anything beefy at the moment, and that wouldn't be the first time it's crashed!
 
You may have a lot of crashing with this then! lol

It took me a week to install the Gold orchestra library - add 3 days cos the Brass instrument disk was defective and I had to wait the weekend for a replacement to arrive. Some people online say this starter orchestra can work well on a P4 but if you try the Gold you'll want at least the specs I listed earlier cos with two handed playing you can be reaching several hundred voices with each finger playing a separate sample streaming from your HD (put the app on C drive and library on D drive). If the pinky finger isn't hitting as hard then that violin/violins will be playing lighter than the others, etc... This company makes composing software instruments for movies and video games so they have a lot of fun stuff to play with!

My own "trap progression" is the first song I ever wrote. Whenever I try out a new sound it's the piece I start to play. I have a hard time avoiding it on the keyboard when I'm noodling around working on something.

The best time for me to compose original stuff is when I come up with a tune in my head and then get to a keyboard to work on it. I can't do it on demand by just sitting down and writing, I have to be inspired.

---------- Post added 12-26-2009 at 03:14 AM ---------- Previous post was 12-25-2009 at 11:41 PM ----------

I guess I feel a little better, the freebie only includes 20 instruments/articulations compared to the several hundred I have on the Gold version. Still these are 20 very good sounds to play around with. If your PC is "man" enough! :D
 
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