What's new
By:

Is EWQL Hollywood Opus too good to be true?

R

Raw_Sounds_Creation

New Member
In my obsessive research for the string library to best fit me, I came across the Hollywood series. From what I can tell, Hollywood strings 1 seems as if it could fit a dedicated string library just as well as the Berlin series.

What makes me leery is it comes with a full orchestra and is a fraction of the price of the Spitfire abbey road string bundle or the Berlin string bundle. Every since I tried Musio (And returned it) I have been rather weary of "Too good to be true" libraries.

Is it hard to work with? Does it not sound as good? I am looking for a good bread and butter string library, I may add a chamber string later but just a base string section.

If its really as good or similar to say Berlin, its hard to pass up also getting brass/woodwind/etc.

I also have seen very few suggestions for it, and I am not sure if that's due to iLok, its player, or the resource hogginess.

At first I thought "Well some of the samples are older" but so is OT and Spitfire orchestras. Then I thought "Is it a lack of articulations?" and that doesn't seem the case, it also seems legato is on par.

Whats strange is, despite being an East west product, there isn't much on it in the way of reviews. East West has demos which are of course amazing but they were also made by the top in the industry and mixed by the top in the industry taking who knows how many hours. Any professional level VST can get great results if its used well, but how is the work flow and do you have to write *with* the VST or *for* the VST.

I had dismissed East/West for years, but is that really a good call or no?
Click to read more...
 
Welcome RSC:)

Pertinent question. I'm in a similar situation, I'm sure the experienced composers and users here can elucidate both of us. Tte community is awesome!

Thanks in advance!
 
It is a well-regarded library, and the improvements in the "Opus" engine address many of the complaints about the previous "Play" engine. There are definitely still complaints if you scan the VI-C forum threads, but that is true of most products. Right now, you can get it for $266 at JRRShop is you use the "FORUM" discount code. That is an insane price in my opinion. If that is still too much, you can also get a 1 month subscription to EW Composer Cloud and try out all of their products before deciding to commit.
 
carlc said:
It is a well-regarded library, and the improvements in the "Opus" engine address many of the complaints about the previous "Play" engine. There are definitely still complaints if you scan the VI-C forum threads, but that is true of most products. Right now, you can get it for $266 at JRRShop is you use the "FORUM" discount code. That is an insane price in my opinion. If that is still too much, you can also get a 1 month subscription to EW Composer Cloud and try out all of their products before deciding to commit.
Click to expand...

What sucks is, I run a window cleaning company. So in the summer months I have hardly any time to compose outside of the few small companies I occasional do things for so I don't have time to test too much. There are some good sales right now though, so I want to be good and ready when my "composing season" starts.
 
It's every bit as good as anything else in the very top echelon. The brass especially are just something else. The woodwinds have a nice selection, but not perfect. The strings are good recordings and the defaults are nice, but they're very inconsistent across articulations.

The two main downsides that I can think of are: (1) many people have it, so if you're trying to do the composer thing commercially, you won't sound any different from anyone else without some extra work; (2) people do say that it's hard to work with. It's extremely deep and many controls are not obvious.
 
One reason that HOOPUS is less expensive is that it has been around a long time, but with the refresh to the OPUS player and the enduring quality of the samples, I don't regret having bought it. Like any library, whether the "sound" works for you is a matter of personal choice, but there are TONS of articulations if you want to put in the work from a programming perspective.

One thing to consider is that if you can wait a few months, you can likely get HOOPUS as low as $250 with the FORUM coupon code AND an additional freebie library in the last few months of the year - typically October or so (I got Forbidden Planet last holiday season and have already used it on a number of cues).

If you subscribe to Composer Cloud for just a single month prior to that, you can also get access to the OPUS player to demo stuff before you commit to buying any libraries from EW. That way, you can also download just the articulations you want through the OPUS player, which can avoid the "900+ gb download issue" that a lot of folks mention for HOOPUS.
 
Two big things which are worth considering for it.

1. You need a 1+ TB SSD in order to use it. It's way too big and slow without it.

2. OPUS is a pain in the ass to work with at first. It's big, it's clunky, it's set up a bit weirdly in some aspects, some instruments are inconsistent in volume both in general and with articulations (string articulations are all over the place, most of the percussion section is so loud that the timpani gets easily lost, bass flute is absurdly quiet for some reason). I'm still sorting things out with it myself right now. However, once you know about the issues, you can easily take steps to fix it yourself and then you won't need to worry about it again. From then on, I don't see how it'd be any more difficult than any other sampled orchestra.
 
It's Powerful but Cumbersome
It has a great sound but filesizes are pretty Big, download and unpacking will require 2x free space based on the size of the library.
It's Resourceful but Complex
Like Many Full Orchestras they have at least one section as a weakness, in this case it would be Woodwinds.
It produces great results but with a big cost regarding programing, editing, massaging and assigning articulations to all notes + Automation

RTM is a smart way to start, most of us haven't or just skimmed. Take your time to check the manual so you can see all it can do and what to wait for. Subscribe for a month and go nuts.
 
monnui said:
It's every bit as good as anything else in the very top echelon. The brass especially are just something else. The woodwinds have a nice selection, but not perfect. The strings are good recordings and the defaults are nice, but they're very inconsistent across articulations.

The two main downsides that I can think of are: (1) many people have it, so if you're trying to do the composer thing commercially, you won't sound any different from anyone else without some extra work; (2) people do say that it's hard to work with. It's extremely deep and many controls are not obvious.
Click to expand...
All points true.

I recently upgraded from Play to HOOPUS in part because I had already invested in East West products since when they shipped you a hard drive with the libraries on it. FWIW, I still use sounds from my Symphonic Orchestra libraries as a complement to the HO libraries from time to time.

It is extremely deep if you want to go there. I did. Why? Well, the default sounds are wonderful and sound great right out of the box. However if you want to be able to really control your instruments you may find, as I did, that you have to turn off their reverb, disable their EQ on most instruments, and determine how much of the room you want to include (which mic or mics to include). To achieve a high level of control of the audio track of an instrument I ended up outputting to mono, no reverb, no EQ, and I use the close mic position. Now when I pan 1st violins 50% left that is exactly where they are in the stereo field and I can move them around if I desire. Having more control of EQ and how reverb is applied is also better (for me). This takes time, but it was well worth it to me because it is now so much easier for me to pinpoint issues and how to correct them during mixing.

You will also learn where some of the bugs are. Others have mentioned that volume levels can be all over the place on certain instruments, also true.

I’m still OK with my choice of HOOPUS. Hard to beat for the money.

#jje
 
JJE said:
All points true.

You will also learn where some of the bugs are. Others have mentioned that volume levels can be all over the place on certain instruments, also true.
Click to expand...
Between Articulations there are some inconsistencies in the volume, for instance Longs can sound Louder than Shorts or Thrills, etc... fortunately the Articulations Panel allows you to adjust each level individually, where I found myself having to push full vol on one articulation for one note otherwise it had a pretty volume noticeable drop.

It's time consuming but it also rewards properly. They're on Episode 7 of EW Academy too, a very good resource.
 
Raw_Sounds_Creation said:
What sucks is, I run a window cleaning company. So in the summer months I have hardly any time to compose outside of the few small companies I occasional do things for so I don't have time to test too much. There are some good sales right now though, so I want to be good and ready when my "composing season" starts.
Click to expand...
The sales run on & off throughout the year, so don't feel like you must buy it now. Lately it seems the EastWest stuff is almost always on sale. Usually JRRShop is the best place to buy EW products; always try discount codes "GROUP" and "FORUM". GROUP usually provides the maximum discount if it is active.
 
Hoopus is the best VFM full orchestra you can buy. Period. Nothing else comes even close (I'm not counting Musio 1 cause it's much more than a full orchestra and it's even more vfm). It's a pro sound in a price affordable even to a beginner. Strings are of the best ones out there, brass is stellar, woodwinds are better than okay and perc is fine for orchestral uses. It also includes harp, solo violin and solo cello, however you need to use the close mics almost exclusively to make them sound as solo instruments should cause with the default main mic they sound kinda muffled. Hoopus has all mics available btw. Legatos are great as well on the vast majority of the instruments. As every orchestral library in the market Hoopus has its own inconsistencies and quirks but you can work around them. The only downside is that you need at least a 1tb ssd to use it. EW instruments don't like hdds very much. Finally, to me Opus is excellent, super fast and with tons of controls.
 
Last edited:
RM 13 said:
Hoopus is the best VFM full orchestra you can buy. Period. Nothing else comes even close (I'm not counting Musio 1 cause it's much more than a full orchestra and it's even more vfm). It's a pro sound in a price affordable even to a beginner. Strings are of the best ones out there, brass is stellar, woodwinds are better than okay and perc is fine for orchestral uses. It also includes harp, solo violin and solo cello, however you need to use the close mics almost exclusively to make them sound as solo instruments should cause with the default main mic they sound kinda muffled. Hoopus has all mics available btw. Legatos are great as well on the vast majority of the instruments. As every orchestral library in the market Hoopus has its own inconsistencies and quirks but you can work around them. The only downside is that you need at least a 1tb ssd to use it. EW instruments don't like hdds very much. Finally, to me Opus is excellent, super fast and with tons of controls.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the detailed response. I guess Musio 1 is more like EW Cloud in terms of content albeit EW cloud is subscription only? Certainly lots of choices depending on taste \ tone someone is after. I still feel I need to fend off the GAS and learn my current libraries better as well as improve my skills.
 
Yeah, Musio 1 gives you access to everything from Cinesamples although I can't say if the Musio versions are better compared to the kontakt ones, especially considering the single mic position. Musio 1 at $199 is a steal. Cinebrass pro or cineperc only should cost around $300-400, let alone the rest top quality products included like cinesymphony, tina guo cellos etc. EW CC is also a great value sub including very good quality products (HOOPUS, Fantasy, HO Choirs, Ra, Silk etc). I must say that both are excellent choices for people who are just starting out. As a principal I'm always for learning what you have compared to buying new libraries except if they contain something (e.g. new set of instruments) you don't already have.
 
gramski said:
It would be interesting to hear users thoughts on how it compares to Musio 1 which seems to be regularly available at $199.
Click to expand...

I picked up composer cloud and will try it after work today but on the topic if musio, stay far far away. While the player isn't bad and they are adding mic options, I wasn't a fan. I heard a lot of praise on cinesamples and I have to say, if the musio version is ANYTHING like the regular I don't understand it. Hiss in the sample, awful slow legato, either overly raw or overly processed.

I bought a perpetual license and fortunately was able to return it due to their very good return policy. I bought it originally because I wanted the viking men and women of the north choir but it was absolutely unusable.

Very minimal control options and from what I saw, that's all the libraries. Even the praised cineperc didn't have any cymbals other than scrapes.

It's a massive quantity of stuff but it's also largely not that usable. I would honestly prefer to use BBC discover and I'm not even kidding.
 
I guess that is why it is useful to make use of the 30 day trial to find out what works for us as individuals.

Musio doesn't even require a CC and EW Cloud is at 99 cents for 2 months at the moment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom