| What's New? Site Map Search Help FAQ Contact Me |
Software: EastWest Symphonic Choirs virtual instrument Official Site: www.soundsonline.com Price range: $349 (academic) - $549 Recommended?: No I'm not going to give you the party line and tell you all the features this program boasts. Just click the official site link above and read all the propaganda you can ask for. This entry is just to detail my experiences with the software. So... it comes in a very pretty box, containing 10 DVDs worth of data. The program is huge, requires a lot of space on your drive and a lot of RAM to run. The installation instructions are very straightforward, and would have worked fine except... Out of 10 DVDs, five were unreadable (in any of the various computers I tried) and had to be replaced. Though their customer service department was helpful and quick, and sent me hand-labeled replacement disks, only some of those actually worked. It's frustrating to spend that much money on a bit of software, and be defeated by something so simple as poor quality duplication. By contrast, I spent less on Synthogy's Ivory virtual pianos, which also came on ten DVDs, and it installed perfectly. Since I have been able (off and on) to get enough of it to work to use a few of its various choirs, I've discovered a few uses for it, but not nearly enough to make it worth the $$$. The WordBuilder software is cool and interesting, but no matter how you tweak it, it's still a virtual instrument and on its own it sounds very computerized. In the long run, this is really quite an expensive toy that isn't going to add much to my recording toolbox. |