Garritan Jazz & Big Band

This is a pretty high-quality sample bank. I think that it's a pretty easy thing to set up with Logic or another DAW. The setup didn't take me very long, and once I got started, the interface in Logic made it all pretty easy to control. It also, beyond being a sample bank, has an actual sampler, called Play.


SOUND QUALITY

The sounds in this sampler are pretty varied, and actually do a great job of covering all the basics. There's a ton of different sounds for piano, synthesizers, orchestral sounds, percussion, and drum kit. The only concern I have with these sounds is that once you pick them, you cannot manipulate too far within the interface of Goliath itself. You'd have to rely on some outboard gear or EQing to really mess with them. This is sort of limiting, as there are other sample banks that allow you to really manipulate the sounds within the banks themselves.
My style of music doesn't really call for sample banks as much, since I really would almost always prefer to use live instruments. However, this is rarely possible at home, so I would have to say that this is pretty satisfying as far as sample banks go. The actual quality of the given samples is pretty robust and full for the most part, and none of them sound very artificial, which is what I am always worried about.


OVERALL OPINION

The main problem I had with this was that I had to really be careful about not pushing my computer too hard. This is unfortunate, especially since I have about 4 GB of RAM on my hard drive. Logic would be the only program I could run and get the performance I wanted out of it. I'm not too familiar at this point with a whole lot of other sample libraries, only a few far cheaper banks that were far inferior. They ran more smoothly on my computer, but they didn't sound nearly as good. The only critique sound-wise was again, the lack of editing possible within the program itself, it gets tricky to get really creative with these sounds when you have to send signals back to outboard gear or mix them very strangely. I would say to anyone, check it out before you buy it. Its worth checking out to say the least.

Approximately 3 GB sound samples.

Config with the Band In a Box 2006 is easy, it is necessary connatre. To me, it really is not a consumer product. Especially since it must also set the asio sound card (a sound blaster x-fi platinum), thus maximizing windows.

SOUND QUALITY

I really test the piano (330 MB), acoustic bass and percussion kit noon. To play in a trio (coupled Band in a Box 2006), I find it really better than what I get with my Yamaha CLP-170.

Same attention when the piano sounds good in the treble, but in the grave, you can clearly hear the diffrence between chantillonages, according vlocits. The sound of my Yamaha (which occupies only 36 MB), is much more homogne. On the other ct the Garritan Steinway in my opinion has more personality.

OVERALL OPINION

I use it for several weeks. Really nice. AIM I have a piano sound better equilibrated (even with the latest patch of Garritan has n'amliore not much). But for bass sounds + drums, we believe it.

The report quality price: as I use only three instruments, a bit expensive. The few other instruments I test I was not excited. That said, I think we can do cool things with the sax.