East West Quantum Leap Goliath
Buy East West Goliath. Includes the entire content of COLOSSUS plus 8 GBs from the latest EASTWEST/QUANTUM LEAP. East or West? I am heading North.
1: Like other instruments based on Play, Goliath's Browser menu provides easy visual navigation to its sound libraries through a simple hierarchical menu. Quantum Leap Goliath combines the entire 32 GB sound set of Quantum Leap Colossus with 8 GB of additional sounds.
As with Colossus, all of Goliath's content derives from past and current EastWest collections. (For comparisons with Colossus, see the online bonus material “Goliath versus Colossus” at emusician.com/bonusmaterial.) Play, the proprietary playback engine introduced several months ago, powers Goliath's massive sample library. Goliath offers standalone, RTAS, and VST versions for Mac OS X and Windows, as well as AU for the Mac and DXi for Windows.
Installation is time-consuming, as you'd expect with a 40 GB, 6-DVD package. You'll need an iLok copy-protection key and account, and once everything is installed, you must register the new software with iLok before Goliath is ready to rock.
I tested Goliath 1.0.056 with Ableton Live 7.02, MOTU Digital Performer 5.13, Steinberg Cubase 4.1.2, and Apple Logic Pro 7.1. Pay for Play EastWest's Play software instrument switches between two windows: Browser and Player. The uncomplicated Browser lists available drives on the left and Play sound libraries just below. Clicking on a library opens a hierarchical list of instrument categories in a panel on the right (see Fig. You can also load patches from the Player window's main menu but the Browser is much easier to navigate. A control panel located above the virtual keyboard in Goliath's Player window enables you to set the MIDI channel, transposition, and Velocity sensitivity, as well as minimum and maximum Velocities for each instrument.
Play is 16-part multitimbral, and setting up custom Velocity-switched Goliath multis is a breeze. However, you can't define instrument ranges, so you can't set up splits such as left-hand bass with right-hand piano. A drop-down menu lets you select the active MIDI port; this is terrific for me because I can instantly switch between my MIDI guitar and keyboard controller without having to access Play's Settings menu. Just below the MIDI Port menu is another drop-down menu for choosing mono or stereo audio outputs. Below the instrument settings, the Info panel displays Goliath's CPU load, the rate of disk streaming, the amount of memory being consumed, and the number of voices played at any given moment. The Articulations window provides a glimpse into the selected patch's structure.
A complete patch is called a Master Articulation, but an Articulation can also be a supplementary sample group. In general, these additional Articulations add realism to a patch's performance through the use of release or keyswitch samples. When additional Articulations show up in the window, you can adjust their volume, and you can use radio buttons to render the Articulations inactive and to unload samples in order to free up memory. Although Play accommodates keyswitches, Goliath contains no keyswitch instruments. In fact, other than a few pianos and a harpsichord, the collection offers very few patches that include subordinate Articulations. Play's color-coded virtual keyboard differentiates sample-map and keyswitch-trigger zones.
Standard black-and-white keys outline the playable notes, whereas blue keys show keyswitch notes. Zones in tan are unmapped.
However, this color code is not consistent; for example, I found a completely tan keyboard map for Upright Bass EXP 2, even though all the samples were loaded. The Articulations window doesn't provide access to the Velocity-switching samples.
Some of the acoustic and electric guitars are quite nice, but I'd like to be able to unload the Velocity-switched guitar-note bends and slides; they're harder to finesse than using Pitch Bend, and they slide in only one direction—up—and always at the same rate. Likewise, being able to adjust the relative balance of layered and switched elements would be a simple and useful tweak. 2: The Player window supplies easy-to-read graphics and big knobs for shaping sounds—a great relief to aging eyeballs that have problems deciphering miniscule parameter displays.
Let's Effectuate The Play window's center section contains controls for the filter, envelope generator, reverb, delay, and Automatic Double Tracking (ADT) parameters (see Fig. The ADT effect provides an extremely rich, analog-chorus-like sound, owing to a slightly randomized pitch-modulation depth, which creates an impression of tape warble. ADT helped to transform one of Goliath's GM electric-guitar patches into a rippling, warm guitar pad reminiscent of Andy Summers' sound. Controls are limited to basic necessities.
East West Quantum Leap Stormdrum
Even though some sounds are layered, Play provides only a single AHDSR envelope generator and doesn't allow access to envelope rate- and level-scaling, filter-envelope controls, or dynamic envelope-modulation adjustments. Similarly, the delay has time, level, and feedback but no tempo-sync parameters.
Goliath's terrific-sounding convolution reverb offers 35 impulse responses, most of them derived from the soundstages of EastWest's studios. You can't add your own impulse responses. The reverb adds considerably to CPU load but many sounds have enough natural ambience to work without reverb. Some sounds include additional effects.
East West Quantum Leap Ra
I miss having access to basic effects parameters in the processed versions for quick tweaks during mixes; fortunately in many cases you also get dry versions. As its moniker implies, Goliath's new Play engine is intended to encourage playing rather than tweaking.
East West Quantum Leap Ra
Although its predecessor relied on Kompakt Instrument, Play's interface is more aptly compared to Kontakt 2 Player, Native Instruments' more recently developed engine for third-party sample collections. Both players host a variety of sound libraries, each using slightly different graphical themes. Kontakt 2 Player libraries often furnish access to a wider variety of effects and performance features such as built-in step sequencers. By contrast, the Play engine's new interface design is more streamlined, is a breeze to navigate, and is easier on the eye.