EastWest Orchestral Power Bundle

Unlock unparalleled sonic power for your compositions with the EastWest Orchestral Power Bundle, featuring the critically acclaimed Symphonic Orchestra Platinum and the evocative Hollywood Fantasy Strings. This exclusive bundle provides a comprehensive toolkit for composers seeking to create everything from grand cinematic scores to authentic fantasy and medieval soundscapes, offering the ultimate blend of traditional orchestral excellence and unique world instruments.

Hollywood Fantasy Strings: Bring Fantasy Worlds to Life

Hollywood Fantasy Strings is the foundational element of the Hollywood Fantasy Orchestra, designed specifically to create fantasy film, television, and game soundtracks. It puts five iconic instruments from the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras at your fingertips, combined with brand-new stylized recordings from modern-day orchestral musicians.

Key features and instruments include:

• Unique Ensembles: Traditional celli are replaced with a viola da gamba ensemble, and violins with a hardanger fiddle ensemble.
• Hardanger Fiddles: Norway's prized musical contribution, similar to a violin but with a more vibrant, brilliant quality, capable of sounding like two violinists at once. It's ideal for brilliant, lyrical melodies and adding a "Viking flair". It has been famously used in Howard Shore’s Rohan theme from Lord of the Rings and Bear McCreary’s arrangements in God of War.
• Lutes: Recorded in trios for a sparkling stereo image, this 10-stringed instrument functions much like a 12-string guitar with a greater midrange emphasis and gentler character. It excels at virtuoso passages and providing smooth chordal backgrounds. Notable uses include The Tudors, Whisper of the Heart, and Hades.
• Viola Da Gambas: Similar in shape and sound to a cello, this lush, full-spectrum instrument is an ancestor of the modern string ensemble, known for its sonorous, non-vibrato Baroque bowed string quality. It's perfect for a Baroque chamber feel and was brought back into prominence by the film Tous les Matins du Monde.
• Mountain Dulcimers: Offering a rich combination of warm body and a bright, twinkling high end, the dulcimer is a staple in folk music. It's excellent for fast virtuoso passages and doubles beautifully with the hardanger fiddle and lute. Its character is similar to the mandolin, and it has been used by iconic musicians like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.
• Hurdy Gurdies: Perhaps the most unique instrument in the collection, the hurdy gurdy produces a thick, layered drone with melodic accompaniment via a crank. Its jagged, "broken" quality can offset mellower instruments, adding a folksy character, and has been featured in The Witcher and Black Sails.
• Modern Strings for Power: Includes 6 Celli and 4 Basses for crucial low-end energy and 8 Violins and 6 Violas to provide strong backing, ensuring your fantasy orchestrations have the contemporary power and depth required for modern soundtracks.
• Seamless Integration: All instruments are mic'd and recorded in the historic EastWest Studio One, the same studio as the legendary Hollywood Orchestra series, ensuring perfect mixing compatibility and professional standards. It includes true legato and diverse articulations.

Symphonic Orchestra Platinum: The Gold Standard for Orchestral Sound

The EASTWEST/QUANTUM LEAP SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRA (Platinum version) is the most awarded orchestral collection ever, recognized for its warmth, detail, and unparalleled fidelity. Recorded by 11-time Grammy-nominated classical recording engineer Prof. Keith O. Johnson in a first-class concert hall where orchestras typically perform, it delivers that "big Hollywood Sound" sought by film, TV, and game directors and producers.

Key features and benefits of the Platinum version include:

• Comprehensive Articulations & Instruments: The Platinum version provides all articulations and instruments available in the Symphonic Orchestra collection.
• Multiple Mic Positions: Each instrument and section was chromatically sampled with three distinct mic positions: Close, Stage (conductor's position), and Hall. This allows users to mix these sounds together directly within the PLAY sampler to create any desired natural ambiance, eliminating the need for artificial reverb. You have individual control to load, unload, adjust, pan, and mute mic positions within the patch.
• High Fidelity & Realism: Known for its ability to breathe life into the virtual world, it accomplishes this through separately recorded "release trails" that capture the natural hall ambience after a note ceases, seamlessly blending dynamics for a truly immersive experience. The intelligent release trail engine always matches the note-on samples' volume, ensuring consistency.
• PLAY 5 Engine: The Symphonic Orchestra is completely reprogrammed for the PLAY 5 software, a 64-bit Advanced Sample Engine included with the product. This allows for loading many more instruments and voices, limited only by your system RAM, streamlining the composition process.
• Intuitive Performance Features: Includes an Intelligent Performance section with Portamento, Repetition, Legato, and Round Robin Reset. PLAY intelligently senses legato and repetitive playing, responding accordingly.
• 24-bit Sample Depth: The Platinum version provides 24-bit samples, ensuring superior sound quality.
• State-of-the-Art Effects Engine: Features a powerful effects engine, including a Convolution Reverb with multiple impulse responses from halls, famous EastWest Studios, and live chambers.
• Streamlined Workflow: An easy-to-use browser displays all instruments, with a "Favorites" section for quick access. Articulations can be turned on/off as desired, and the list serves as a reference for all expressions.

Unmatched Orchestral Power Combined

The EastWest Orchestral Power Bundle unites the timeless power and realism of the Symphonic Orchestra Platinum with the unique, authentic, and evocative character of Hollywood Fantasy Strings. This combination provides:

• Versatility: Seamlessly switch between a full, modern symphonic sound for epic general scoring and specialized traditional instruments for distinct fantasy and historical compositions.
• Cohesive Sound: Both collections are recorded by expert practitioners with meticulous attention to detail, providing top-quality orchestral sounds. Hollywood Fantasy Strings maintains mic placements and recording in the same studio as the Hollywood Orchestra series, ensuring a cohesive sound.
• Professional Standards: Whether you're scoring a grand cinematic scene with dragons and battles or requiring a massive, powerful orchestral ensemble, this bundle equips you to achieve professional-grade results "out of the box".

Elevate your productions and achieve sonic mastery with the EastWest Orchestral Power Bundle, your definitive solution for film, TV, and game scoring.