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I know very little about Garritan products. However I'm very interested in them. Just curious if they interface well with Real Band and if Real Band is the best place to use them in PG Music products. Also, I'm using an sd2 as my synth via a sound module. I assume that I would have to change that setup to use Garritan? Thanks for any help.
Stan
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Garritan libraries work fine using the Aria VSTi player, but there are some quirks.
1) Volume control is handled by the mod wheel (either from the keyboard or via embedded CC1 MIDI controller messages.
2) Vibrato is implemented via keyboard aftertouch, which makes it more difficult to achieve.
Sounds are very good, however, especially for the price.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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Aftertouch, One of the MIDI specs that is under supported in many ways. Especially polyphonic aftertouch; a good controller keyboard is worth it for getting rid of the hassle of trying to implement otherwise.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
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I don't have a very fancy keyboard, an Alesis Q25, but it does have midi controller features. I have mainly used it to test out some ideas for segues and the like. I'm alwo wondering if some are using Garritan with RB or are they generally using some other DAW?
Cornet Curmudgeon
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I have a number of Garritan products and use them with RB and Sonar X1 with no problems. Lately, however, I have been favoring RB as my DAW of choice as it seems to fit my workflow better.
Win11, Intel i7 7700K 4.2Ghz, 32Gb RAM, 2x1Tb HD, 500Gb NVMe, BIAB/RB 2026, MOTU 828MK3 audio, MOTU Midi Express, Yamaha Montage 7, DX7II, TX802, Motif XS Rack, Roland Fantom XR Rack, Oberheim Matrix 1000, VoiceLive3 Extreme, Kontakt 6, SampleTank 4.3
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Thanks for the comments. Guess I'll look for a sale on GPO. I'm in no rush.....yet.:)
Stan
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I just discovered this tutorial: http://www.pgmusic.com/tutorial_garritan.htmThanks PG Music. This will be a big help Looks like some versions come with Aria and some do not? I'm thinking that I can add GPO instruments in RB providing that I have written the notation, is this correct? Also, if I import a BIAB tune into RB, would I be able to substitute a GPO instrument for the strings that are in the biab style imported? Not sure I may have asked that right.... Stan
Last edited by Shastastan; 07/13/12 02:33 PM.
Cornet Curmudgeon
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Quote:
I'm thinking that I can add GPO instruments in RB providing that I have written the notation, is this correct? Also, if I import a BIAB tune into RB, would I be able to substitute a GPO instrument for the strings that are in the biab style imported? Not sure I may have asked that right....
Stan
you can use the GPO for any MIDI, whether it is something you downloaded, something you notated or MIDI that was generated by BIAB or RealBand
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Right-click a 'track info' area and you'll be allowed to select a MIDI port as an option. There are 16 softsynth ports, they are at the bottom of the list for ports (17 - 32) If you select an unassigned port, RB asks you to pick a VSTi/DXi synth (like GPO) to assign to that port. Or you can select a port with a synth already assigned. In RB you get 16 hardware and 16 software ports to use. Hardware = 1-16 Software = 17-32
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
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Got it! Thanks!
Wish it was on sale right now. It's around $143 at Amazon for Prime.
Cornet Curmudgeon
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Just got a nice surprise. I decided to order GPO today at $143 and Amazon gave me a $15 promotional discount (although I don't know why) so the price was $127 with free shipping. That's better than a slap in the gut with a dead fish!
Cornet Curmudgeon
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Quote:
Just got a nice surprise. I decided to order GPO today at $143 and Amazon gave me a $15 promotional discount (although I don't know why) so the price was $127 with free shipping. That's better than a slap in the gut with a dead fish!
good price!
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Waaay Kooooool! Thanks to you guys, what I thought would be a complicated thing to set up wasn't difficult at all. I like the option of using the different synths for different tracks in Real Band. I'm really impressed with the quality of Garritan and also that Aria is helpful. Now I'll probably go broke buying more libraries, uh oh.....  I really do appreciate you folks taking time to help me out. This has opened a whole new sound area for this rookie to explore. THANKS! P.S. I just upgraded from Mixcraft 5 to 6 yesterday for $20. The new library has over 6K sound loops! Stan
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Quote:
Waaay Kooooool! Thanks to you guys, what I thought would be a complicated thing to set up wasn't difficult at all. I like the option of using the different synths for different tracks in Real Band. I'm really impressed with the quality of Garritan and also that Aria is helpful. Now I'll probably go broke buying more libraries, uh oh..... 
I really do appreciate you folks taking time to help me out. This has opened a whole new sound area for this rookie to explore. THANKS!
P.S. I just upgraded from Mixcraft 5 to 6 yesterday for $20. The new library has over 6K sound loops!
Stan
Now that Garritan has been bought by another company I was hoping for some sale prices. I got an email yesterday advertising their WORLD product... at a little reduction, but not at my jump point yet.
When it hits $99 again, I'm in.
Glad to hear you're enjoying your new purchase! That's one advantage of this group... we get to hear what others of similar interest as ourselves have found to be useful and/or a good value for the money.
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<<Glad to hear you're enjoying your new purchase! That's one advantage of this group... we get to hear what others of similar interest as ourselves have found to be useful and/or a good value for the money. >>
Right again, Pat. Thanks to everybody on the forums and Pg Music staff, I "culture" of helping out has been created. All we have to do is keep it going. I'm on a few other forums and I have to say the folks there are pretty nice and helpful also. The PG Music forums are by far the best though.
I can see why you are waiting for that price to come down. I had been wanting to try a Garritan product for a long time so now it's here.
Stan
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Yeah, I'm hoping that Garritan still holds their yearly $100 sale. It's around New Year's, if I recall correctly. Instant Orchestra would be a nice addition.
I don't use JABB as much as I thought I might. If I were more into MIDI programming, I'd probably be all over it. But "as is", the brass require a lot of work. It's a bit disappointing that the guitars and banjo aren't sampled on the lower end. The Jazz Piano isn't quite what I'd hoped it to be.
On the other hand, I really love GPO. There are some really lovely sounds in there. I was just running through the two libraries this afternoon with my older daughter, and I've now got a resolution to see if I can find more uses for the bassoon. With some work, you can get some really nice sounds from the solo strings. My main disappointment is the solo viola - there's only one, and it's too quiet for my liking.
I'm also a big fan of Reaper. I generate my tracks in BiaB, and then export them to Reaper for slicing and dicing.
But really, it's all about using the tools that best fit your workflow. There are a lot of compelling reasons to use RealBand.
-- David Cuny My virtual singer development blogVocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.
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@David. I appreciate hearing those positve comments about GPO. thanks! I just upgraded to Mixcraft 6, but I really don't know how to use it very well yet. I've never tried Reaper, but I can at least do stuff in RB so I usually go to it for whatever I need done at the time. I really like to see the tracks view to edit stuff, too.
Stan
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Quote:
Yeah, I'm hoping that Garritan still holds their yearly $100 sale. It's around New Year's, if I recall correctly. Instant Orchestra would be a nice addition.
thanks for the heads up, David!
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I was doing a little reading about Instant Orchestra. From what I read, it seems that it's main feature is various ensembles and sections. As a midi rookie, I'm curious as how the notation gets to an ensemble as compared to a single instrument. I made a hybrid style for the first time in BIAB yesterday. Of course the notation was already there for the instruments I included in the hybrid style. In Instant Orchestra, would the ensemble all be on a single track? There are some string tracks in BIAB styles. Would you just get one of these in Real Band and then copy the notation on to an Instant Orchestra track? I know these questions are a little dumb.
Stan
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I haven't got IO, but my understanding is that it's very much akin to the "multi" patches that you would get on a synthesizer. That is, one particular patch will give you various instruments spread over different parts of the keyboard. You can use the modulation wheel to dial in different layers, so (for example) the initial patch might be strings, but turning up the mod wheel will add brass on top of that. You can find some good examples of what IO sound like on YouTube. The ensemble would be on a single track, but you'd likely want to play it yourself, rather than expect BiaB to perform something that would match well. Most of the textures in IO seem to be the big, cinematic sorts of sounds, which are generally not the sorts of things you'd be adding on to a pop song. I'm not sold on it being a good match for BiaB - I suspect that in general GPO or JABB would be more useful. I've got the Mixcraft demo loaded on my machine. It's a slick program, with some nice presets. In particular, the MIDI notation editor seems nice (Reaper only has piano roll mode), and the Acoustica MIDI instruments that come with it seem very usable. BiaB doesn't seem to like the Acoustica VSTi.  On the downside, the loops that come with Mixcraft (which is what initially got my attention) have an inordinate amount of useless filler sound effects, and not enough usable material. One thing that Reaper lacks is a display of a loop's key, which seems a baffling omission to me. So if you work with loops, Mixcraft is likely a better match for you. On the other hand, Reaper seems to have a better integrated wave editor. Mixcraft doesn't seem to be designed for the sort of microscopic editing that I like to do. Again, it's all about finding a tool that matches your workflow. It's all digital, so one DAW isn't going to sound better than another.
-- David Cuny My virtual singer development blogVocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.
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