Elite Orchestral Percussion | EQ Magazine

Percussion samples tend to be short, so do the math: There's 19GB of content, representing over 250 orchestral instruments including timpani, snares, orchestra bass drum, mallets, triangles, chimes, and gongs, as well as FX and some ethnic/world instruments.

Orchestral percussion is a natural for soundtracks, but there's enough percussion here to provide fodder for various types of music. The Kontakt 2 player (Fig. 6) provides the audio engine, so EOP takes advantage of its scripting features to allow for articulations (flams, chokes, rolls, and the like), randomization, and other realism-enhancing elements. Even better, these scripts are exposed; for example, you can edit the velocity, smoothness, and pitch for rolls with a step-sequencer-type interface, and edit triggering characteristics-although the well-chosen defaults generally obviate the need for editing.

The program also includes convolution impulses for rooms and halls, implemented in the appropriately-named EZRoom-basically just a drop-down menu with lots of ambience choices and wet/dry controls. 32 effects are available for insert effect slots or the four aux buses (inserts and aux buses handle up to four effects each), and there's overall 3-band parametric EQ per instrument.

EOP is a good example of why large libraries apply even to percussion: Having alternate samples for triggering and articulation makes a huge difference in terms of creating realistic, satisfying sounds. If you need only basic orchestral percussion, the samples included with samplers and general-purpose orchestral libraries will probably do the job; but for the full meal deal, EOP represents a comprehensive, well-thought-out collection.

Craig Anderton