EastWest PLAY engine: Your thoughts...

[phase90]

Any experience? Please share. Is it me, or is this thing a joke?

[elambo]

I'm not sure I follow. What about PLAY is a joke? Most of those instruments were great when running under the NI player. In theory, the PLAY engine only makes them better. So what am I missing???

[phase90]

Have you used it, if so, what do you think?

I'm not too thrilled...

But I'm curious what others are thinking. If you think things were great under the NI player, maybe PLAY is fine for your needs.

I'm used to a pretty deep feature set with my samplers, whether it's Kontakt 2 or even a Roland S-7x0 or a Clav.

EW has incredible libraries but future support for apps like Kontakt won't be happening. And that - as a Kontakt user - isn't pleasing.

I just installed Stormdrum 2 today and I'm left with this awful feeling that this is what we can expect in the future ... Watered down, vanilla-esque little playback engines.

Optimization is great (and expected), but I need more control over elements and parameters. Anyone feel the same way?

[elambo]

Originally Posted by phase90

I'm used to a pretty deep feature set with my samplers, whether it's Kontakt 2 or even a Roland S-7x0 or a Clav.

Herein lies your problem. It's not a sampler. It's for sample playback of specific instruments, not importing and manipulating 3rd party samples. It's a closed system, tethered to it's own sounds, and designed that way. Kontakt 2 or 3 or a 760 or any "sampler" is not the same animal. EastWest, to my knowledge, has not made or tried to make a product as you describe.

[elambo]

Originally Posted by dylansmale

So saying that you would like to control more parameters on your instruments is who's fault: EW or Kontakt? I figure its EW, but I wonder if there are limitations to having say : Ocean Way Drums which uses Kontakt. anyone know?

It's no one's "fault," it's the nature of the beast they've created. I can't drive my car 200 mph - who's fault is that? I guess it's mine, for not paying $200k for a car that can do so. If you want a sampler, buy Kontakt.

[phase90]

Originally Posted by elambo

Herein lies your problem. It's not a sampler. It's for sample playback of specific instruments, not importing and manipulating 3rd party samples.

Oh, I'm very aware that it's a player. Believe me... And that's the problem I have with it. The player - PLAY - is the problem.

The NI player versions were never a prob because the format was NI and they were Kontakt compatible.

What I was originally saying is (I'm sorry if I wasn't too clear) in the future, there won't be the ability to use new EW libraries within Kontakt. That's a MAJOR concern.

Anyhow, it is what it is, I guess...

Best!

[elambo]

OK, I see your point now. There is something good about being able to load EW sounds into a Kontakt sampler, but I really only do that when I have to. Otherwise, the NI player for EW samples is completely fine for my purposes. The new player is supposed to be even better and if that's true I don't think I'd even want to open them in anything other than PLAY.