Garritan Personal Orchestra 4th Edition Review
By Paul Dakeyne
| Posted in Music Technology
Garritan Personal Orchestra 4th Edition is the latest incarnation of a sample library that has continuously balanced ease of use and affordability with an ethos based on smaller operational demands than other more storage and CPU-hogging alternatives. Now running on its own generic ARIA player instrument (replacing the previous Kontakt player format), GPO4 has introduced some new and definitely superior sound, interfacing and programming elements since the prior release version.
Both Mac and PC compatible (AU, VST, RTAS and standalone options), the software is easily installed and has a very efficient and friendly authorisation system. Simply create a user account and you’re issued a virtual ‘graphic card key’ (image) which is drag and dropped onto the instrument, and hey presto, job done (no challenge/response or dongle required either). The installation space required took me somewhat by surprise by the way, taking only 2Gb of hard disk space.
The collection of sounds included with GPO4 span the complete range of instruments within a classical orchestra stage – strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion and keyboards alongside variations of Steinway grand pianos, Stradivari violins and some renowned Project SAM brass samples. These, plus other instruments such as pipe organ, harps and celesta, enable the user to construct realistic ensembles ranging from small groups of just a few instruments to a large scale, fully fledged symphony orchestra.
The new ARIA user interface is easy to understand and use pretty much from ‘the off’ (or at least after a scan over the provided PDF ‘getting started’ guide). The array of instruments are loaded via the simple navigation routing (image below) to one of 16 slots arranged much like a standard mixer and each with their own fader gain control, pan pot, mute/solo and auxiliary [reverb] send. In addition, the user has control of pitch tuning, MIDI channel and stereo channel output assignment too. I have to say that I found the new ARIA engine blazingly fast when loading even the most complex of instruments. It certainly lives up to the manufacturer’s claim that ARIA has been optimised for ‘efficient RAM usage’, showing a minor demand on my computer’s CPU meter (tested using five stacked instruments).
As well as standard MIDI playback environment, Garritan Personal Orchestra 4 can be played in ‘notation mode’ via popular applications such as Sibelius and Finale. GPO4 cleverly interprets performance characteristics such as articulation marks, slurs, playing techniques and dynamics to provide an accurate and real performance interpretation from the score. This is great news for composers who have yet to hear their potential masterpieces physically played by an actual orchestra with a view to fine-tuning arrangements and other ‘composition to performance’ factors.
At the base of the ARIA interface is a MIDI keyboard representation, with a graphical mod wheel and a colour coded (red/brown) illustration of key switching options. The Mod wheel takes care of overall instrument volume (and expression for sustain instruments) whilst the lower MIDI keys have assignments of differing voice articulations. These address instrument names in the library that end with ‘KS’ [key switching] and when selecting articulations, the type name appears as a visual guide (for example with strings – pizzicato, sustain, whole note trill, tremelo etc). On other instruments like voices, the key switching may do just the simple job of choosing between ‘Oohs’ or ‘Ahhs’ – click the MP3 below to listen to a key switching pass using the Viola 1 Solo patch as an example.
In addition to the above expression options, note velocity from a MIDI keyboard takes care of attack control for sustained sounds and also accentuation of percussive instruments. Likewise, the expected sustain pedal control handles legato for sustain instruments and sustain for percussive ones.
The next sound shaping tools are found in the ‘Controls’ and ‘Effects’ sections. By clicking on these, the user is presented with a low, high and swept mids EQ which is quite useful for adding some extra clarity and presence to something like, for example, a Steinway Piano patch. An ‘auto-legato’ control, once engaged, detects when the user is playing a smooth line with note overlaps and automatically applies the correct note transitions. Adding much more realism to the finished orchestral sound, the Stereo Stage control is used to “breathe life” into GPO4′s samples. What it actually does is apply an emulation of a stereo image recording which in turn creates a more three dimensional image for positioning instruments on the stereo stage. Two further sections provide an array of instrument specific controllers which largely relate to CC MIDI controller numbers and load with default settings along with a simple, though useful, Ambience preset reverb selection menu next to the obvious and most useful sound editing controls.
The sound quality of just about every group of orchestral instruments in GPO4 is indeed very good. It admittedly lacks the supreme clarity of detail and playing styles of some of the more high-end instruments that cost thousands, but then again, Garritan isn’t even trying to compete. Plus, at its current price point, it vastly exceeds the plain ‘value for money’ tag that some may label it with.
The new, bespoke ARIA interface is powerful and easy to use and presents no major headaches for those with lesser powered computers or users who are struggling for spare hard disk storage space. Artists composing for film or TV soundtracks could use this for sketching out arrangements and capturing creative inspiration when it strikes. Hobbyists through to music production professionals would get great mileage from adding orchestrations quickly and easily to their studio projects and equally students could get instant gratification when scoring projects or studying orchestration. In summary, I feel Garritan Personal Orchestra 4th Edition is affordable and pretty much of use to everyone associated with composing and recording music.
Tags: Brass, Garritan, keyboards, orchestral, percussion, Personal Orchestra 4, strings, woodwind