Garritan Personal Orchestra - A Symphony Orchestra for your Computer
reviewed by Daphne Kalfon
Garritan Box 400 Orcas, WA 98280 $199 USD Requirements: 2 GB of free hard disk space; DVD drive; Mac OS X or higher; G4 1.5 MHz, but a G5 is recommended; the Kontakt Player needs a soundcard for playing the sounds of Personal Orchestra; a MIDI interface is required if you are using a MIDI keyboard, another MIDI controller or an external sequencer, minimum 1 GB of RAM. Strengths: Garritan Personal Orchestra can be utilized in various ways i.e. as a plug-in, with a notation program or stand-alone; the key switching feature is unique and useful; the cost makes this program accessible to everyone; samples of unique and priceless instruments are an exciting feature. Weaknesses: the manual's guide of the program is a little disjointed; the program makes use of many controllers that may not be accessible in some host programs; some features are limited in scope. |
The Garritan website provides a Personal Orchestra audition here:
http://www.garritan.com/audition_hr/
Besides that, there is more information on the software, music demos created by users around the world, news, updates, reviews, tutorials, tips, techniques, and order info.
Another thing I thought is well worth mentioning, is that Garritan Personal Orchestra offers a free orchestration course based on the well-known text ŌPrinciples of OrchestrationĶ by composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. It is interactive, in that it allows you to simultaneously hear and see examples from his own works, via Personal Orchestra. The course is very comprehensive, its many chapters covering all aspects of the symphony orchestra, so I highly recommend trying it out if you are new to the world of orchestration:
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45270
Now on to the installation of the program. I followed the steps in the manual for the installation of the software, and there was one snag - the manualÕs steps werenÕt clear about the fact that installation has to be complete before the registration tool is accessible. Also, it is important to use the Enter key, and not the Return key in the process. If you donÕt install a lot of software, this may not be readily apparent, and consequently both those items caused some delay in the installation.
As well, contrary to what was indicated in the manual, I received my authorization key right from the Native Instruments registration webpage, and did not have to wait to receive the same in an Email, in order to complete the authorization process.
I would say that in general, the wording in the manual for the installation, registration and authorization process, as well as the basic guide around the features of Personal Orchestra, was not as clear and concise as it could have been, and was somewhat disjointed in its presentation.
There are three ways to use the Garritan Personal Orchestra; as a plug-in within the sequencer of your choice, with a notation program host, or run as the stand-alone Garritan Personal Orchestra Application. For the review, IÕve chosen to have GarageBand as the host application, as itÕs the program I most use these days.
The first thing youÕll see when you run the program is the Kontakt player. The Player consists of a virtual keyboard, as well as a variety of options, which are at a default setting, but can be changed, and knob controls, which I will explain in a little more detail further below. The manual takes you through on a guided tour, to explain the function and use of each item on the player, and also shows how to go about loading the various instruments into the Kontakt player.
The knob controls available on the player are both standard and specific, the former consisting of Tune, Pan and Volume, and the latter consisting of:
- portamento, which allows a slide effect from note to note, especially useful with instruments such as trombone and strings. Can also be drawn in using the host program of choice, if such a feature is available.
- length, which allows the user to control the length of the samples. Useful for simulating double/triple tonguing on the brass and woodwind instruments. This can also be drawn in.
- VAR1 which allows the user to apply random variability to intonation
- VAR2 which allows the user to apply random variability in timbre
- BD Fund, which controls the strength of the fundamental frequency of the bass drum
There is a more sophisticated form of the Kontakt player, and for those who wish to have the ability to apply more advanced programming and customization, it is recommended to upgrade to the full version.
Personal Orchestra makes use of many MIDI controllers (which create control change messages) to help create as realistic a performance as possible. These controllers enable the user to shape and play many different articulations in real time, during the recording process.
The manual then describes the four basic real-time controls:
- mod wheel, a controller whose purpose it is to effect changes in an instrumentÕs dynamics and expression. The mod wheel, found on most standard controller keyboards, can be moved up and down during recording to effect changes in an instrumentÕs volume, dynamics and expression. If desired, this controller can also be drawn in by hand in the host sequencing program, or a similar result can be obtained by making adjustments using the individual instrumentÕs volume track.
Using the mod wheel in real time to effect changes in dynamics and expression takes time and practice, and as such, for the purposes of this review, I obtained such changes by working within the instrumentÕs volume track after recording was done.
- velocity, which has to do with attacks and accentuation. This is brought about by how hard or soft the keys on the music keyboard are depressed. I found that in testing out various instruments in Personal Orchestra, that velocity control is not available on all, and when it is present, it is often not as effective as it could be. I definitely found this issue with velocity to be a drawback when trying to obtain certain articulations in my orchestration project.
- key-switching, a feature of Personal Orchestra which allows the user to change articulations in real-time and which I will explain below. I used this function for example in one of my flute tracks, switching in real-time, while recording, between regular vibrato and flutter tongue, and it worked quite well. It was nice to have access to both articulations on one track.
- sustain pedal, which is used to obtain smooth legato playing. When depressed for example, it automatically creates a legato sound in the instrument patch. If desired, sustain can also be drawn in by hand in the host sequencing program.
On the subject of key-switching, further on in the manual, there is a table which lists each of the instruments in the Personal Orchestra, along with its description, key switches if any, and the various controls that can be applied to it. So for example, the flute I used was called Flute Solo KS, KS meaning that it is a key switch patch. What that means is that within that patch, by depressing certain designated keys outside of its playable range, I can effect articulations such as vibrato, non-vibrato and flutter. Other instruments may come with a much wider array of key switches, such as violins 1,which comes with key switch articulations such as legato, mutes, upbows, downbows, alternating up and downbows, pizzicato, tremolo, and various trills.
On the last one, trills, I found the key switch feature quite handy for something like timpani, but for some other instruments, I didnÕt feel like it gave a natural sound. I experimented by playing a key switch trill, alternating with a trill I played myself, and the person listening found that the one I played myself sounded more natural than the key switch one. I am not saying this is the case for all of the instruments, but definitely for some.
Another thing about the key switch keys, is that on the Kontakt Player keyboard, they are designated in a pale yellow colour, which I often times found very difficult to see, and found that aspect a little frustrating as a result. Simply using a brighter colour would alleviate this problem.
In addition to those four basic controls, Personal Orchestra has other features such as:
- Pitch Bend Wheel, again found on most standard controller keyboards, and which allows the pitch of a note to be bent. This type of controller can also be drawn in by hand in the host application.
- Portamento, a controller which allows a slide effect from note to note, especially useful with instruments such as trombone and strings.
- Vibrato Control - a few of the instruments, such as piccolo trumpet, flute, oboe and piccolo, have readily available vibrato options, but for other instruments of the orchestra, which are capable of vibrato, vibrato speed is a ŌhiddenĶ controller in Personal Orchestra. This means it can only be activated if the host application supports that controller. If it doesnÕt, than the user has no way of having vibrato in certain instruments if it is desired.
The manual mentions that there are two vibrato controllers, one of which was just discussed above - vibrato speed, and the other is aftertouch, which controls vibrato intensity. I was able to discern some changes in vibrato intensity during aftertouch, but I didnÕt feel that the overall effect was a natural sounding one in any of the instruments that I tried it on.
In general, the instrument samples sounded quite realistic, but I did find that some were better than others. In addition, I found the scope of instruments available in the percussion family to be somewhat limited.
Personal Orchestra makes use of controllers, some of which are not available unless you are using certain host programs. Also, there is a bug with the mod wheel for which there is not yet a fix for GarageBand users, but a workaround is available. This issue is discussed here:
http://garritan.com/GPO-GarageBandPage.html
and on that page, users are directed to where they can obtain the workaround.
As part of my review, I created an orchestration project using only the instruments from the Garritan Personal Orchestra. While I was playing around with one of the flute sounds, the melody came to me, and from there, developed the rest of the piece - I guess it was an inspiring flute sound!
http://www.maccompanion.com/macc/archives/August2006/Garritanreverbed.mp3
In general, I would say that Personal Orchestra is good value for your money - for a reasonable price, it provides the essential tools that any composer would need to create music for ensembles of whatever size. In addition, this sample library is something I think both beginners and professionals alike will find very useful in their orchestration projects and can be utilized as a great add-on for those who already own other orchestral sample libraries.
