Prosonus Orchestra

Review: Prosonus Orchestral Collection
Big Fish Audio
Format : Kurzweil CD Rom

Review by Timothy Steven Clarke
CEO,
Score! Music & Sound Design, Inc.
www.score-music.com

February 27, 2002

Hey everyone -- I bought and am using sounds from the Prosonus Orchestral Collection, so I thought I'd offer a quick review...

First of all, most of the sounds are very well recorded and as a whole, very much compliment the other orchestral libraries out there. Extra points, of course, go to the fact that the disc is native Kurzweil format for easy and fast loading. Most programs fall under 5 megs which is nice for those who haven't upgraded their ram to maximum capacity. Most of the samples seem to be in "mono", which also contributes to the economical size of the programs.

The VAST programming is adequate but not spectacular, IMHO. Many of the programs have filters or EQ applied to the samples that I promptly disabled or seriously modified. Personally, I don't like muddy-sounding strings, and would rather hear the "grind" of the rosin on the bow of the cello than have it filtered out with low pass! In addition to meat-and-potatoes orchestral programs, there are some "synthy" patches which are sometimes OK, but mostly unuseable IMO.

I wish some of the multi-samples weren't as "spaced apart" as much as they are. The upside of course is that these patches aren't memory hogs at all.

Outstanding to my ears are the string ensemble effects, which I think I've heard on various episodes of the X-files, among other places. There aren't a lot of them, but they all sound very good. For the most part the strings (ensembles and solo) are all well-recorded and useable in a mix. They are somewhat limited in scope, and won't compete with the latest mega-string libraries--but you can't go wrong for the price. I believe the ensembles and effects are available in stereo, while the solo strings are mono.

While I probably won't be reaching for the Prosonus solo strings when it comes to creating a convincing solo line, the usability of these sounds is pretty spectacular considering how very small they are in megabytes. Again, the samples themselves were recorded and performed well, which I think accounts for the success of these sounds despite their small size. The stereo pizz strings are very average, and lack some of the clarity found in the other string samples.

The brass overall is good, abeit limited in scope. On the positive side, there are some instruments not always found in other libraries (piccolo trumpet, trumpet-cup mute, flugelhorn, bass trombone, tuba) and some nice brass effects (ensemble effects, tuba glisses, short ensemble attacks). The french horn lacks "bite" but would work well for lighter passages. For those budget-minded people who buy this library but need more strident brass, I'd recommend ProSamples vol. 20 as a supplement. some of the brass samples seem to suffer from a bad performance by the player at the original session--the bass trombone in particular seems to have a tough time with the steadiness of pitch!

The woodwinds sound very nice, and the mod wheel/vibrato programming is great. In addition to the standard flute/clarinet/bassoon/oboe, you get piccolo, contrabassoon, bass clarinet, oboe d'amour, alto flute, bass oboe and english horn, as well as some additional articulations. Again, the lowpass filter sucks some of the life out of these patches, so you'll want to work with these programs to get them sounding to your liking. Worth noting is that most of these instruments were recorded/edited in such a way that they will work for fast or slow passages, though you may want to play with the ADSR for further control.

The melodic percussion (glock/marimba/tubular bells/xylophone) are all very usable sounds. These are single sample patches--no velocity switching here unfortunately. With some VAST programming, however, you can easily create programs that respond musically to velocity. The programmer used VAST EQ on all of these sounds, which you may or may not like. There's a nice stereo harp multisample along with pre-recorded glisses which sound very good to my ears.

The orchestral percussion is the weak point of the library, save for a few patches such as the marktree, bell tree, and a few other sounds. The cymbal swells aren't bad either. I really don't like the orch. bass drum, timpani (not as bad) and orch. snare (not too bad with some VAST and KDFX magic). Fortunately there are some low-priced percussion libraries (Roland and ILIO's synclavier percussion) that are very good in this area.

All in all this is an excellent value for the money--a great all-in-one collection of both common and unusual orchestral instruments.