A little while ago I finished an orchestral cover for FF IX's "You're Not Alone". This is by far my favorite video game track and I thoroughly enjoyed making this cover. I just realized I hadn't shared this here so here it is!

https://soundcloud.com/bdavisbd/youre-not-alone

This is pretty good.

Personally, I feel it sounds a little dry. Then again, the Final Fantasy games were known for having obvious orchestral mockups, like Tomb Raider.

Yeah...it is a bit dry I'll admit. I'm currently using Garritan Personal Orchestra, which are quite dry samples. I'm just getting ready to upgrade to EWQL...so soon I'll have shiny new instruments to work with =D.

Thinking of upgrading to EWQLSO? :) I'll come in and say your best bang for your buck would be Gold Edition. I don't understand why there's two different versions of Platinum, personally; most won't notice the difference, especially since most tracks and songs are still 16-bit; plus, since the PLAY conversion, you can buy the additional mic positions for Gold.

Yes I plan on getting gold. I'll make the purchase today or tomorrow...it's 50% off til the end of the month. Unfortunately I can't use it til I upgrade my laptop in a few months.

Pretty nice composition.

I agree that the samples sound dry, but aside from that, the fact that there aren't many articulations also give it an artificial feel. Maybe try fiddling more with velocity and modwheel.

When you obtain the EWQL, try experimenting with different articulations, ModXfd and round-robin patches.

If you ask me, I'd save some more money and go for a more advanced library than East West. I know it's bloody expensive, but try Vienna. I think it really is superior to EWQL.

LASS also has much better legato than East West. But be prepared to spend quite a lot of time setting the metadata right.

Kristoff

Thanks Kristoff! I'll keep articulations in mind for future projects, now that I listen to it again with that in mind i can see a few places where that would've been nice. As far as modwheel is concerned, there isn't one place in the song where the mod wheel is still. Garritan uses the mod wheel to adjust volume and timbre, so it's constantly in motion as the piece progresses.

As much as I would love to try the more expensive samples, with EWQLSO gold on sale for $250 I simply can't pass that up. Even though I could find better libraries this will still be much nicer compared to my Garritan library I'm currently using.

As much as I would love to try the more expensive samples, with EWQLSO gold on sale for $250 I simply can't pass that up. Even though I could find better libraries this will still be much nicer compared to my Garritan library I'm currently using.

My thoughts exactly, especially since the VSL libraries ARE extremely expensive.

Well...I did it! I just made the purchase! Now I get to stare at the pretty box for another couple of months until I can afford to get my new computer =D

Congrats! XD

Yeah, personally, the only thing I don't like about EWQLSO is the fact that it runs on its own sample playing engine, now, with not many features to offer other than reverb, unlike its old sample player (Kontakt), so essentially, it's virtually impossible to resort to sound design without use of external plugins. Not that that matters if you want a strictly-orchestral sound, but still....