#ewqlso

Dear Walt,

I am a 14 year old composer from Kentucky, and I, and a lot of others in my orchestra, admire your work. You see, I compose music not only for my school orchestra, but for short films and other things involving music. As much as I love doing it, I haven’t been able to make the best quality music. And this is because my ‘strings’ sound fount, is well…. not the best. If you don’t mind telling me what your string sound fount is, I would be much appreciative. I compose with staff as well, so it shouldn’t be hassle. Anyway, your work is wonderful, and please keep doing what your doing!

                                                                             Thanks,                                                                                                                    James

Hey James - I use East West Quantum Leap Platinum Pro. I bought it back in 2006 (I think for $1,500 ?) but now it’s “only” $30/month or something. I tried Hollywood Strings and hate it (Nick Phoenix wasn’t as heavily involved as he used to be, which is why I think East West products have been horrible since 2010). I’ve tried Miroslav, Vienna, and Kontakt, but nothing seems to give me the sound + workflow that I needed more than EWQLSO Platinum Pro.

Could my samples sound better? Yes, absolutely.

But when you get into better sounding samples you create more problems than they’re worth. You need 32gb RAM, 4ghz supercomputer, a powerful GPU, and an extra $4,000. It takes longer to render all that reverb, your music rig isn’t portable anymore because the new samples only work on a desktop, you’ll have more rewire problems while mixing those extra microphone positions, and more than that - you have to relearn a new program all over again from scratch.

My previous college professor, Dr. Butler, told me always choose workflow more than anything else. The example he gave me was “You’re usually better owning a few plugins and trying to get the sound you want with what you have, rather than buying 30 plugins”. And I agree, it’s been one of the single biggest things that has helped me release songs on a weekly basis - I’m not spending hours testing all my plugins, instead I’m opening up only the few that I have and trying to get as sonically close as I can with them.

A few years ago I remember thinking that what took me 70 hours per week in 2012 was now only taking me 20 hours per week in 2014.

Going for a melodramatic and solemn but heroic theme, specifically in a scene where great emotional change occurs.

This was originally an orchestra only piece, until i experimented with a synth which turned out to be a magnificent addition.

New music!

Very ambient. Uplifting.