Best orchestral sampling for around $150?

I know that probably the only one in this price range is going to Garritan Personal Orchestra, but I'm not sure if there's a way to get a discount on EWQLSO or something like that. I'm going to be using it for composing both classical and film soundtrack type scores so whichever program will fit my needs. I have an intel iMac with a 1.8ghz processor and 1 GB 667 MHZ of RAM and won't really be able to upgrade. Should I go with Garritan or see about discounts for EWQLSO or Vienna? Also if I bought one of those would I have to buy Kontakt2 also? I'm going to be using the sound library with Sibelius 5.


Thanks in advance!

Some libraries come with their player. GPO, EW and VSL have their own player. Kirk Hunter does not (needs K2)

On which one...

EW is rather better in terms of final quality than GPO, but is more difficult to use, and don't really know if it even works in Sibelius. VSL is even more difficult.

With GPO you can make great final results, according to the price of course, but it takes more effort. It also works very very well with Finale, rather than sibelius...

discounts you can get from all, pretty much, if you're a student.

Originally Posted by nikolas

Some libraries come with their player. GPO, EW and VSL have their own player. Kirk Hunter does not (needs K2)

On which one...

EW is rather better in terms of final quality than GPO, but is more difficult to use, and don't really know if it even works in Sibelius. VSL is even more difficult.

With GPO you can make great final results, according to the price of course, but it takes more effort. It also works very very well with Finale, rather than sibelius...

discounts you can get from all, pretty much, if you're a student.

Ok. How can I get the student discounts? Do you know the EWQLSO website?

EWQL - Google Search
EWQLSO - Google Search

Google is your friend

But anyhow.

EW: Sounds Online
Garritan: Garritan Home Page
VSL. Vienna Symphonic Library
Kirk Hunter: Kirk Hunter Studios - Products

Get EWQLSO silver + silver xp(if possible)
They're great, much much better than GPO. I've used the 2 of them before.

Ok, I think I'm gonna go out of my price range and get the gold edition of EWQLSO. I see though that on Intel Macs like mine I would need to have the Kontakt player already installed. Is there anyway to get this for free? I see you can get the demo of it and the only problem is that you can't save. Would I need to save if I'm using EWQLSO since it would probably have a save feature? Does Sibelius come with Kontakt?

Thanks in advance!

Should I just get Kontakt 3 and use the VSL sounds that come with it and then eventually upgrade to EWQLSO Gold? The only thing I'm worried about is that Kontakt may be too complicated for someone who has absolutely no experience with any of this stuff.

Gold comes with the Kompakt player, so you don't actually need Kontakt (2 or 3).

Originally Posted by nikolas

Gold comes with the Kompakt player, so you don't actually need Kontakt (2 or 3).

And I think it is compatible with MAC as well. Getting Kontakt is also fine, but VSL requires you to mix the sounds a lot to get a sweet sound. EWQLSO sounds sweet enough out of the box.

I contacted customer support earlier and they said I need Kontakt 2.2 to use EQWLSO Gold on an Intel Mac.

But, is EQWLSO going to be too complicated? I have no idea what any of this channels, or MIDI connections mean. Am I just going to give up because Kontakt and EQWLSO are too hard to use? I want them to be able to play when I use the playback feature in Sibelius. Is that going to be too hard to set up?