50% off Symphobia libraries

[Killiard]

Just seen this.

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/s ... offer-2018

Slightly tempted by Symphobia 3. Any thoughts?

[Guy Rowland]

Cor, those are VERY good prices.

My order of preference is 1, 3, 2. Lumina has some terrific mystery, fantasy and comedy stuff in it imo, and a few nice legatos. Full disclosure - I got NFRs for 2 and 3.

[Killiard]

Yes, I wondered if 1 was still worth having, considering it’s age though.
Guess I’ll have a quick watch through your videos again!

[Erik]

Guess everyone will headbto Guy’s YT home for the next coming days :-))

[kpc]

Second the comment about Guys videos-they’re great.

Damn. I’ve been jonesin’ for Symphobia for a while now. Curious why NI is “sponsoring” the sale.

Edit: seems in celebration of their 10th anniversary.

[Guy Rowland]

*blush* you're all jolly kind.

Symphobia 1 is just home to me. The sound of all the elements is just perfect. So while there's no legatos, everything else is simply wonderful. The multis are the best in the range because a) all the basics are present and correct for building blocks, and b) there's lots of simple layering rather than convoluted patches that need 7 hands. Agree with Anders about S3 for comedy, but I actually use S1 as much, great combos of shorts there. Cat n Mouse, Domestic Trouble, Voliere...

Just realised - I paid more for S1 than for all three Symphobias and the two Colors in this sale. Zero complaints of course.

Kayle - this is a pattern for NI now, seemingly. Anyone who supports NKS they seem to do deals with - Waves, Arturia, whoever.

[Muziksculp]

S3 - great for comedy writing. Top picks are small harp, double bass and a lovely legato alto flute.

Best,
Anders

I thought Lumina focused more on the Orchestral Fantasy music writing, rather than for Comedy music writing.

I'm still undecided if I should get Lumina now, at the discount price, I have both Symphobia 1 & 2 .

There is also the possibility that ProjSam will delight us with something new this year.

[Guy Rowland]

I'd say Lumina has three main areas, Muziksculp, of which Fantasy is the biggest but Mystery and Comedy are also important.

[byzantium]

Great prices - I bought Lumina at Christmas for 350, it's now 290 - I thought it was worth it then.
However I haven't had time (or space) to download it yet !

[wst3]

Great prices - I bought Lumina at Christmas for 350, it's now 290 - I thought it was worth it then.
However I haven't had time (or space) to download it yet !

Care to share what makes it worth while?

I have OE 1 & 2, and I'm getting Animator, but I am still on the fence about Lumina. What do you like? Anything you don't like?

Thanks!

[byzantium]

Hi Bill, well I haven't had a chance to download and play with it (S3) yet, so I can't give it a proper assessment - I bought based only on the various demos and walkthroughs, I'd been on the fence for years about it, maybe it was just to put me out of my GAS misery! I loved some of those sounds and thought there was a lot of material in there, and I guess I thought maybe I could learn a bit from how those combinations and phrases were put together... but as I say I don't know yet if it was worth it!

[Quasar]

Posted a similar Q at VIC, but will ask here as well, because this place is loaded with heavy-hitters and I'm just a humble home studio twiddler:

I have actually amassed the entire Albion bundle (though it took a while), including both 1 and ONE, and wonder if Symphobia 1 would be essentially redundant. Guy, if you see this, I watched your superb 2015 walkthough, and really like what I heard. The PS stuff is also an escape from Spitfire's baked-in Air sound, and the multis appear to have no native equivalent in the Albion range, though one can always layer of course.

Mainly I've always wanted to have a PS library, and would start from the original, and am being seduced by the sale price that expires June 6 and will possibly never return...

In any knowledgeable person's opinion, would Symphobia add a truly new dimension of possibilities?

[Guy Rowland]

It sounds like you have a good handle on what to expect. You're right that there's no multis equivalent in the Albions, even though they appear to be similar products. And I'm a big big fan of the S1 multis in particular as I guess is pretty well known. As you say you can always layer, but I find it's never a replacement for a well set up and programmed multi for an instant hit.

If you're not going to use any of the multis and you have all the Albions, there's not so much that S1 would bring you except a change of tone and space. Oh, and the famous (and famously overused) effects.

[byzantium]

Oh no... feeling a GAS attack coming on...
(S1)
Resist...Resist... You are powerless to Resist...
(...Damn you with those fine videos Guy...)

[kgdrum]

Hi I haven't delved into Project Sam too much yet(i have Animator).I have a few questions for everyone.

I have the 5 Albion libraries(+SCS & B Herman) and the 3 Arks,I'm thinking Lumina will compliment these and be the best addition for what I already have, any opinions?
How useful is the Orchestral Colors Orchestrator?Does it only having Major and Minor chords limit it's usefulness?

My other hesitation is the String/Choral combo,I wish there was a way to have Strings without the Choral.......how noticeable is the Choral w/ the Strings?
Do users find there's too much or not too much overlap between Lumina and Orchestrator?

Thanks

[Guy Rowland]

Very briefly - IMO the Orchestrator is the least useful of the range, I honestly haven't turned to it much. In Lumina you do have some control over the balance between strings and choir in the Stories.

I don't have a great knowledge of all the Albions and Arks (I only have #1 of each). I tend to think of genre when looking across the series. S1 & S2 are focused on action, drama, thriller, horror and some comedy in S1. S3 is Fantasy, Mystery and Comedy.

[Quasar]

Very briefly - IMO the Orchestrator is the least useful of the range, I honestly haven't turned to it much. In Lumina you do have some control over the balance between strings and choir in the Stories.

I don't have a great knowledge of all the Albions and Arks (I only have #1 of each). I tend to think of genre when looking across the series. S1 & S2 are focused on action, drama, thriller, horror and some comedy in S1. S3 is Fantasy, Mystery and Comedy.

Thanks, and I agree your videos are excellent. Symphobia (with or without the "1" LOL) is clearly the most broad, but since I have the Spitfire stuff I'm going to take a closer look at Lumina. I can only get one library, if that... That fact that it goes until June 6th does make it more likely that I could swing it.

[Muziksculp]

I have Symphobia 1 & 2, after thinking about adding Symphobia 3 (Lumina) at the sale price, I decided to pass on Lumina. I just find the content of Lumina not that special, I have a lot of libraries that I can use for Fantasy style, so... Maybe ProjectSam will delight us with a new Symphobia 4, or something else that is fresh, exciting, and very useful in the near future.

[byzantium]

After three days of listening to Guy's dulcid tones, and being wracked with indecision, and it may be madness, but I finally decided to get S1 plus S2 plus Animator for a total of €667. Still quite a bit of money, but it's a hell of a lot of good sounding content I think.
Maybe it is more suited for somewhat older-school scoring (not that I get much of a chance to do that), and I'm not sure how the whole multis and mixed combination patches will work out for me - when I eventually get around to downloading it and using it - but it's a different approach and worth trying I think, and as Guy says "it's just got that SOUND, hasn't it..."

[Quasar]

After three days of listening to Guy's dulcid tones, and being wracked with indecision, and it may be madness, but I finally decided to get S1 plus S2 plus Animator for a total of €667. Still quite a bit of money, but it's a hell of a lot of good sounding content I think.
Maybe it is more suited for somewhat older-school scoring (not that I get much of a chance to do that), and I'm not sure how the whole multis and mixed combination patches will work out for me - when I eventually get around to downloading it and using it - but it's a different approach and worth trying I think, and as Guy says "it's just got that SOUND, hasn't it..."

Guy should get a commission from Project Sam, as his videos more than anything else pushed me over the edge, though I only got S1, as my budget could barely afford that.

Film scoring? I have no interest in that at all, but on the other hand I aspire to allude to various contemporary styles that - among other things - appear in films, and the sound is absolutely there and top-notch. To whatever extent the multis/effects effects have become overused and are now cliché, all the better. C'est la même chose pour moi.

[Guy Rowland]

I do worry a bit that so many people seem to buy it on the basis of my videos. Despite the nonsense I talk and my boxing-glove-gilded keyboard playing. But (I hope) I always point out the things I don't like so much or things that don't work... I wouldn't do them if I couldn't do that. So far I think I've only had one person tell me my walkthroughs are misleading. And I didn't really understand that particular one, I think his argument was that I only presented a small part of the library. I responded that since I went through literally every patch, I don't see what else I could have done...

Anyway, hope you all get on with it and don't curse my name at any gulf between what you experience and what was in the videos.

(BTW, it's such a shame that TrySound didn't continue with Kontakt - I just checked and there's a beta of 2.0, but only for Best Service and VSL libraries. I spent hours on that before buying S1, it was just brilliant and despite the birdsong and latency, far better than listening to some numpty on YouTube droning on and on).

[Lawrence]

Guy, your walkthroughs are great. Honest and fair presentations, thorough, sometimes enthusiastic about the product but that's fair dos, as y'all say. No hype.

You do a service to prospective buyers, and the accolades you've received are well earned..

[byzantium]

Thanks for your thoughts on it Quasar.

Guy, don't worry - as you say, what can you only play through the thing! And try to make it as interesting as possible - which you've done brilliantly, with a lovely splash of humour and good form. And I don't think that anyone could argue that they haven't heard what they're going to get, after listening to those videos. I think on a few occasions you're being diplomatic, so I think one can read a little bit between the lines from time to time if one wants, so that's all good.

It's quite amazing amazing how little there is out there (i.e. on youtube) on the Symphobias, apart from yours - Project Sam's walkthrough are older (apart from one or two later tutorials) and not as good. There's a new one from Cory Pelizarri 3 months ago, extolling the virtues of S2, so that was good to see.

[Guy Rowland]

Awww thanks chaps.

I wonder what it was about newer Kontakt versions that meant Try Sound dropped it - was NI unhappy I wonder? To this day, the inability to demo libraries is one of the bigger issues that hasn't been resolved in the industry.

[Quasar]

I wonder what it was about newer Kontakt versions that meant Try Sound dropped it - was NI unhappy I wonder? To this day, the inability to demo libraries is one of the bigger issues that hasn't been resolved in the industry.

Even though I'm pro end-user rights to the point of (arguably) extremism, I don't see the inability to demo as a big thing, in part because I think specs and walkthoughs translate better much better in the software arena than they do in hardware. Whereas, say, a description of a pair of shoes - no matter how vivid - cannot inform you about how they will actually feel on your feet, the sounds of virtual instruments in concert with overviews of UIs and feature sets do give you a pretty good idea, provided the descriptions & demonstrations are both thorough and honest.

I think the bigger unresolved issue is the COMBO of no demo + no refund + no resale. If I can't demo it or get my money back then I should be able to resell it. If I can't resell it, I should be able to demo it or get a refund. That sort of thing. But even if (as with Spitfire) none of those options exist it's not a deal-breaker for me, and pales in comparison to non-intrusive CP, privacy, and the option to activate offline.