Hello Chaps,
I've been posting every now and again with questions about the Lavender Audio Armley sample set over the last 18 months or so. I was planning to buy the set around this time last year, but my house fell to bits due to a flood and the money I had saved up for Armley had to go on fixing that. Last week, I finally managed to finish saving up again and this time, the house didn't fall to bits, so I ordered it.
I'm sure there are lots of "reviews" of the set here already, but I wanted to add a few "first impressions" comments to the mix, in case they're of use to anyone who's considering buying the set (do!). I also wanted to say a public thank you to David Butcher for his work on the set - I've only played it for 30-40 minutes last night, but it's clearly a top-quality set of a very interesting instrument which I know I'm going to enjoy immensely.
So - I didn't adjust any sliders or change any settings yet and played the "out of the box" setup. First impressions are:
Overall - I'm very pleased with it. It's going to take me 6 months to get used to playing it and work it all out, but it's a really well-produced set of a lovely instrument. Also a lovely complement to Zwolle - I suspect they might be the only two I bother with now (though I quite like Piotr Grabowski's Strassburg and Giubiasco sets too).
In short - well worth waiting / saving up for.
Adam.
I've been posting every now and again with questions about the Lavender Audio Armley sample set over the last 18 months or so. I was planning to buy the set around this time last year, but my house fell to bits due to a flood and the money I had saved up for Armley had to go on fixing that. Last week, I finally managed to finish saving up again and this time, the house didn't fall to bits, so I ordered it.
I'm sure there are lots of "reviews" of the set here already, but I wanted to add a few "first impressions" comments to the mix, in case they're of use to anyone who's considering buying the set (do!). I also wanted to say a public thank you to David Butcher for his work on the set - I've only played it for 30-40 minutes last night, but it's clearly a top-quality set of a very interesting instrument which I know I'm going to enjoy immensely.
So - I didn't adjust any sliders or change any settings yet and played the "out of the box" setup. First impressions are:
- I love the range of tone colours - so many subtly different flutes and strings!
- The Choir has is very quiet for a "second" manual.
- I prefer the Swell celestes to the Echo celestes.
- I need to play with the Pedal division more. I went quickly through most of the manual stops but I didn't find a soft pedal combination with the 32' that I liked so far. I know there'll be one though - just have to find it!
- I managed to get a nice "clean" Bach registration out of it, though another attempt later today will probably produce a better result.
- Reger sounds really good on it.
- The Great mixture is really something - wow! Far too much for baroque music though.
- Most interesting stops so far are the Cello und Violine and Orchester Flote on the Choir, the Great Hohl Flöte and the Echo Echo Oboe, the last of which I really need to have a proper play with - a reed-toned flue stop! Marvellous!
- It's annoying that the octave couplers don't seem to be applied across divisional couplers (i.e. using Swell Octave + Swell / Great together). It seems one can't do the usual trick of creating a high mixture on a romantic instrument by coupling the swell principals / mixture to the Great an octave higher?
- The Pedal Bombarde isn't really a bombarde - it's a contra trombone. It's not nasal enough / too fat to be a bombarde. (That's not a criticism though - I'd rather have it than not and it's nicely in keeping with the other reeds.)
- I haven't worked out how to assign a swell pedal to the Echo division yet - does anyone know where the control to right click to assign this is?
Overall - I'm very pleased with it. It's going to take me 6 months to get used to playing it and work it all out, but it's a really well-produced set of a lovely instrument. Also a lovely complement to Zwolle - I suspect they might be the only two I bother with now (though I quite like Piotr Grabowski's Strassburg and Giubiasco sets too).
In short - well worth waiting / saving up for.
Adam.