ProjectSAM Symphobia 4: Price Drop and 1.1 update

[Guy Rowland]

Original thread - 1.1 update info on Feb 5 2021.

Released today:

https://projectsam.com/libraries/symphobia-4-pandora/

Intro pricing is €499 / $559.

Here's my quick overview:



And here's a link to a playlist of all 4 videos which go through everything in depth.

[kpc]

Always enjoy your videos Guy. Thanks for posting. I don't think this is something I need at this point, but it does sound good. And I do like the sync with the downbeats stuff - that is pretty cool.

[lofi]

Great work Guy!
Thanks for sharing.
/Anders

[soundbylaura]

1. Are they going to (ever) offer loyalty pricing?
2. Are they going to make adaptive sync available in the old Symphobias?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[Piet De Ridder]

Well, if you’re making, or wanting to make, the kind of music which Pandora was designed to be used for, it seems to me you couldn’t wish for better product. Even I, not having a single trailer- or action-music-fibre in my body, am tempted because Pandora’s content sounds so good. And the syncing-, editing- and performance-features they’ve fitted the library with are *very* clever.

Chapter 4 is another great chapter in the Symphobia story.

_

[Guy Rowland]

1. Are they going to (ever) offer loyalty pricing?
2. Are they going to make adaptive sync available in the old Symphobias?

Inquiring minds want to know.

1 - it looks like there isn't any on this, and therefore highly unlikely that it will appear in future. AFAIK they've only done this where there is an overlap of content (S2 has some core patches also in S1 for example). This is all newly recorded, but there's a case to say that there is some overlap in the tonal section, many of the shorts and sustains will be very similar to content in the first two volumes (not to mention that some of the risers and clusters are also similar). So personally I think that some loyalty upgrades would have been a good idea.

2 - I'd be surprised if they did as it would steal a lot of S4's thunder. But they certainly could add it in theory, though it would be less good I think... much of the orchestration has clearly be planned to be able to work across sections and you wouldn't have any of that cohesion.

[Erik]

I had a fun time listening to your reviews "warts and all" :-) The moment you said something aout our in house relatives complaining about the noise was spot on ! It definitely was a good move to close my bedroom's door.

About the library : I had a smile on my face the moment you pressed a key. But damn, at 600€ with VAT, it's a no-go for me as I'm just an hobbyist with a shallow pocket nowadays - the year has been cruel with me, as my wife decided to put an end to our 13 years story, dans she was the one who supported us as I was a home daddy, taking care of our child.

[soundbylaura]

1. Are they going to (ever) offer loyalty pricing?
2. Are they going to make adaptive sync available in the old Symphobias?

Inquiring minds want to know.

1 - it looks like there isn't any on this, and therefore highly unlikely that it will appear in future. AFAIK they've only done this where there is an overlap of content (S2 has some core patches also in S1 for example). This is all newly recorded, but there's a case to say that there is some overlap in the tonal section, many of the shorts and sustains will be very similar to content in the first two volumes (not to mention that some of the risers and clusters are also similar). So personally I think that some loyalty upgrades would have been a good idea.

2 - I'd be surprised if they did as it would steal a lot of S4's thunder. But they certainly could add it in theory, though it would be less good I think... much of the orchestration has clearly be planned to be able to work across sections and you wouldn't have any of that cohesion.

This is a hard sell for me. I don't really do this kind of music, even though I really enjoy listening to it and the demos are super fun.

I guess I'll just wait a few years until they do a permanent price drop on it. [/sarcasm]

[Guy Rowland]

Laura and Erik, I highly doubt you're the only ones. Pandora is a fabulous library, beautiful sound and execution, and must have been a huge production to record and code. But its use IS fairly specific in terms of who will really benefit, and in that sense its a slightly tougher sell for them than the rest of the series I'd say.

[GR Baumann]

...Even I, not having a single trailer- or action-music-fibre in my body, am tempted because Pandora’s content sounds so good. And the syncing-, editing- and performance-features they’ve fitted the library with are *very* clever.

Have not watched Guy's yet, must make time for that....I am sure!

As per Marteen's brief Timpani editing demo, editing indeed takes it far beyond a "cue rompler" for "painting by numbers composers", then again, for that purpose of editing capabilities alone, I would find it diffult to see value for $ if I had no need for the before mentioned painting aspects because I would write wild wind runs, clusters et al. myself and do not like pre-packed runs, regardless how very nice and professional they are performed, they would box me in, limit, constrain my imagination, "steal" way too much fun, and are designed to follow a set of predictable musical mainstream conformist aesthetics that I do not adhere to.

That being said, at a glance, a top notch library again, I did not expect anything less coming from Marteen, some very (syncing being long desired I guess) innovative features as well. Did he say 140 Gigabytes? I think I heard him saying that. I am sure it will be another well deserved success for Marteen and I can imagine a new Orchestral Essentials coming up as well perhaps. Great stuff. Come WE I have time to watch Guy's, does he walk all over the keyboard with his feet again, or did they finally strap him into the chair before recording?



Besides, has someone mentioned that here before?

https://projectsam.com/library-category ... orchestra/

[Guy Rowland]

I do indeed walk all over the keyboard in more than a few places Georg... I do have my signature sound to protect after all...

It is a great balance for instant results and also more forensic tweaking. The patches are mostly extremely well designed. The pulses are quite brilliant, providing you with a simple base where you can determine the speed, triplet etc, then with or without a synth that is itself following the main tempo or pulsating. THEN on top of that you have short notes (either clusters or tonal) which of course blend seemlessly, where you can add all the variation - pretty much scoring on the fly.

So you can go from that right down to choosing specific samples, time stretching them, setting the top and tail, reversing them etc, all in an elegantly small but uncluttered interface. And while its undeniably showy and fun to play around with the big trailer crescendo sync to downbeat feature, the same tech works brilliantly on the more mundane timp, cymbal and other percussion rolls. BTW - not sure if I should mention this but Maarten didn't say not to - they're already testing a new feature with this that I mentioned in the video, where you can select up to two beats in either direction of the downbeat, in half beat increments, so if you need it to land somewhere other than the downbeat it should soon be very simple.

[GR Baumann]

Hehehe, looking forward to watching it, heard a few minutes already. Did you loose weight?

[Guy Rowland]

Hehehe, looking forward to watching it, heard a few minutes already. Did you loose weight?

THAT's a little creepy - yes! I'm over two stone down on last year, and awfully pleased with myself.

Do you have Jedi powers, Georg?

[GR Baumann]

Absolute pitch... less resonance and all, it was in your voice Buddy! Four more stone to go and you sound like Richard Gere. ROFL

[Erik]

Absolute pitch... less resonance and all, it was in your voice Buddy! Four more stone to go and you sound like Richard Gere. ROFL

More Sherlock than Obiwan then (should we spell it OB-1 in this vincinity?)

[Erik]

About the downbeat sync : Red Room Audio introduced it 2 years ago I think with their Palette Arps and runs.

[Luciano Storti]

And Cinesamples has had it in their string runs since its debut.

[Erik]

As we say in french : rendez à César ce qui appartient à César

And Cinesamples has had it in their string runs since its debut.

[Luciano Storti]

”A Cesare quel che è di Cesare.”

[Guy Rowland]

Well it’s not quite the same level imo. Yes both sync to downbeat, but with S4 you have it selecting from multiple takes in the fly, avoiding crazy tine-stretching and working seamlessly over a huge range.

[Guy Rowland]

Absolute pitch... less resonance and all, it was in your voice Buddy! Four more stone to go and you sound like Richard Gere. ROFL

That is AMAZING!

[Luciano Storti]

Yes, from what I’ve seen in your lovely walkthrough that is indeed the case. Was just commenting on where I’d seen the idea executed first. ProjectSam seem to have done an outstanding job, even if I’m unlikely to ever own this particular library.

[Geoff Grace]

As we say in french : rendez à César ce qui appartient à César

And Cinesamples has had it in their string runs since its debut.

Et en anglais, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's."

(I don't know how to say it in the original Aramaic.)

Best,

Geoff

[Lawrence]

And Cinesamples has had it in their string runs since its debut.

Though limited, I bought both Cinesamples string runs and woodwind runs a good while ago. As long as you don’t overuse them, they’re fabulous accents, nicely recorded, reasonably priced. Sync is great.

[Luciano Storti]

And Cinesamples has had it in their string runs since its debut.

Though limited, I bought both Cinesamples string runs and woodwind runs a good while ago. As long as you don’t overuse them, they’re fabulous accents, nicely recorded, reasonably priced. Sync is great.

Yeah, same here. They get reasonable use despite the inherent limitations, happy to have them both.