Although impossible to pronounce and liable to antagonise your spellchecker, EWQLSO (East West/Quantum Leap's Symphonic Orchestra) has become a byword in the orchestral sampling world since its release in 2003. The result of a meeting of minds between sampling supremos Doug Rogers (East West) and Nick Phoenix of Quantum Leap, the original 67GB four-volume set (reviewed in SOS in June 2004) gained widespread praise and is now the library of choice for many US composers and music directors. One oft-cited reason for its popularity is its big, built-in concert hall sound; the instruments were recorded simultaneously from three microphone positions in a 2500-seater orchestral venue, making EWQLSO the only full orchestral library on the market with six-channel surround sound capability. That's a great achievement in anyone's book.

Two years after the sessions for the original library, the Symphonic Orchestra production team (headed as before by the Grammy-winning recording engineer Professor Keith O Johnson) returned to the original orchestral hall with the same pool of players to record a new set of samples. At that time the library lacked marimba, celeste, piccolo trumpet, solo viola and solo double bass, and the implementation of performance styles was somewhat patchy. The new sessions addressed all that, and more. By the time Professor Johnson and the 100-strong tribe of musicians and technicians emerged bleary-eyed from the concert hall one month later, the SO project had expanded considerably. Editing and programming the new recordings took a year. Once trimmed down to size, the samples weighed in at 71GB, more than doubling the size of the original library.

Listen to the pure beauty of the Symphonic Orchestra and 125 million dollar Concert Hall that were recorded with the HIGHEST-QUALITY custom built recording equipment, by audio legend - Prof. Keith O. Johnson - recipient of two GRAMMYS, plus eight additional GRAMMY nominations for his 90 plus Classical Recordings.

The East West Symphonic Orchestra Gold Edition is a MAC/PC Plug-In (compatible with most music software), and has been designed to be extremely EASY TO USE - providing professional composers with the HIGHEST-QUALITY instruments available, to create their compositions. To achieve this level of quality, all of the instruments and sections were chromatically sampled, with multiple dynamics, with extremely dynamic and expressive articulations. All players were recorded in position. If you upgrade to the PLATINUM EDITION later, your compositions will be FULLY COMPATIBLE, providing a known upgrade path to “the best sounding orchestral sample library ever” - no other product offers this!

Imagine typing words into your computer, in any language, and hearing a world class Symphonic Choir sing those words in any key(s) you play "live" on your keyboard controller! Well imagine no more, that`s exactly what this revolutionary "award-winning" virtual instrument does. In addition, this is the first 24-bit Choir virtual instrument to include three simultaneous stereo mic setups (close, stage and hall), so users can mix any combination of mic positions to control ambience. The Choirs were recorded in the same concert hall, by the same team as the EastWest/Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra and blend perfectly with EWQLSO.