Re: Classical Instruments Plus Q-Card

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Posted by Jason on September 03, 2000 at 15:33:37:

In Reply to: Classical Instruments Plus Q-Card posted by Martyr on September 02, 2000 at 04:11:08:


: I am interested in buying the Classical Instruments Plus Q-Card, but no
: shops will get it in unless I'm going to buy it, so I can't try it out myself.
: I'm after some opions from people who have got the card or who have heard it.

: Are the presets better than the factory presets or is just an "another bank"?

I've had the Classical+ for almost a year, and think it offers plenty over and above the stock QS ROM sounds to recommend it. Especially if you can pick one up for $100 new or so. zZounds.com, I think, has been offering them for that for awhile now, and has a very liberal return policy. Throw in the 2 supplemental banks that come with it, and there are a lot of useful variations.

: I am very interested in finding out how the choir presets sound as the standard choirs suck!

They're definitely better than the onboard so-called choirs, but some of them have this hissing "airy" quality to them, in various note groups. How annoying you find it will probably depend on your overall mix, and you may be able to EQ some of it away. But Sistine is clean and clear throughout. And I must say, though, that one of my favorite vocal programs is on here, the one called North Sea....very haunting and mysterious and eerie. Not right for every use, but when it is, it's soooo right.

But another I get a lot of use out of is on the Sanctuary Card. Or rather, it's in one of the extra banks that came with that one....a modified version of Monastic. I tweaked the programming to tighten up the attack times on each of the individual layers, and find it very useful. Overall, Sanctuary has twice the number of choir programs.

: I'm going to list a few sounds that I want anyone to that has the C.I +
: Q-Card to post their opinions on-

: PROGRAMS
: 010- SoloString (or any other solo string)

Decent, but you'll never be doing Paganini's 24 Caprices with them. The richest seems to be the Solo Viola. The weepy echoing violin in the mix Lost (#55) is exquisite. And with a love of medieval & renaissance music, I appreciated the lute. I've recently come to the conclusion that the only way to come up with a truly useful solo violin, etc., would be to re-route the mod wheel to provide a variable attack, from sharp to smooth, and rely on aftertouch for vibrato. That's my project for autumn.

: 015- Deep Cello

I prefer the next one, BriteCello. Has a more noticeable bite to the attack than the stock.

: 080- ClsclGrand

My complaint here is the same as it is for most of the stock pianos: The decay seems too rushed and artificial. Maybe not a problem at quick tempos, but for a slower, legato piece they just don't cut it. For my tastes at least, the best piano patches Alesis has put out are in their Keyboard bank in the Expando Banks that are on their latest CD-ROM, and are available for download on their web site. There's also an Orchestral Expando Bank that may serve most of your needs.

: 094- Ranks
: 099- LiveChurch

A smooth cathedral organ, and an even more subdued church organ. If you really want to raise the roof, some of the layered programs on the Sanctuary Q-Card are real monsters. For sheer overkill, I prefer these. They're HUGE.

: 100- Mass Choir
: 101- Coed Choir

Mass suffers from the aforementioned hiss; Coed is a lot cleaner, and very nice between, say C-4 and C-6.

: 120- Orch Perc

Excellent selection of tympani, bass drums, snare hits, snare roll, gong, ratchets, cymbal crashes.

: MIXES
: 094- Low Boy (is this a male choir?)

No, it's a synth patch. This multilayered, atmospheric thing that starts with a kind of tubular bell that fades into various textures and another sustaining bell tone that's a fifth above.


: -Sam

: --
: Veil of Anguish
: http://www.angelfire.com/co2/veilofanguish/




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