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EASTWEST/QUANTUM LEAP RA
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EastWest/Quantum Leap RA provides composers with access to a variety of rare and unique instruments from Africa, Europe, India, the Americas and Australia, the Far East, and the Middle East and Turkish Empires. Musicians will find that RA has an amazing sound quality and they'll marvel at the articulation of each instrument which has a wide range that goes from controlled to expressive. All of the instruments and ensembles featured in the collection were sampled extensively as a means of preserving the true character and expression of each instrument. For the first time, users will have more control over the sounds offered in the collection along with the ability to load even more instruments than ever before.
With the combination of EastWest/Quantum Leap Ra, Gypsy and Silk collections you have the most detailed and expressive ethnic instruments ever produced.
"With ethnic instruments, the key to authenticity of sound is expression," says EastWest/Quantum Leap Producer Nick Phoenix. "Now with the incorporation of our advanced PLAY sample engine, with its built-in sensing technology that monitors a player's style and adjusts the software and sounds accordingly, users will experience a level of detail that was lacking in other products in the market, making their projects come to life with range and emotion."
In addition to PLAY's intuitive custom interface, EastWest/Quantum Leap RA - PLAY Edition includes many other features, such as:
64-bit (for 32-bit compatibility, please use PLAY 4)
Intelligent performance section including portamento, repetition, legato
Features round robin reset
Offers improved articulation window and controls
State-of-the-art convolution reverb with pre-delay
Improved micro-tuning
Improved sound quality with high-resolution audio engine
Hi-fidelity one pole filter for natural cross-fades
Stereo image editing is now possible using channel sourcing
The instruments featured in the PLAY Editions are newly-programmed for PLAY from the original recordings
Quite simply, RA is the best collection of world or ethnic sampled instruments I've ever used.
— SOUND ON SOUND
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In ancient Egypt, RA was regarded as the creator of everything, the god of the sun. RA is usually represented with the body of a man and the head of a hawk, holding an ankh & sceptre. The chief location of RA worship was Heliopolis (a Greek word meaning city of the sun). RA is an appropriate name for the largest, and most comprehensive rare and ethnic virtual instrument ever made.
RA was born a few years ago, as a sample library called “Rare Instruments.” All of the sounds from Rare Instruments are included in RA, but this only represents approximately one-tenth of the content. The other ninety percent of RA was recorded at a top studio in Hollywood. We spent time hunting down the best ethnic artists on the West Coast. Los Angeles is so ethnically diverse and blessed with excellent institutions like Cal Arts, it is actually the ideal place to record a rare and ethnic collection.
You will find RA has amazing sound quality. RA was captured with a phase accurate 8-mic setup that gives a complete 3 dimensional image of the instrument. It is this type of sound that takes to artificial or sampled reverb extremely well. The sound is clear and broad. Mics used were Neumann U67 (U47s as alternates), Neuman M50, AKG C12 and Shoepps.
Another cool aspect of this virtual instrument is the fact that we recorded ethnic ensembles. This was done with African drums, bagpipes, gamelan and a Middle Eastern string section. The sound of these ensembles cannot be realistically simulated by layering solo instruments.
RA was a very expensive project, but well worth the cost. A lot of thought went into selecting instruments that would appeal to composers of all types, from dance music, to film. You might want to put the middle eastern string section in your next pop tune, or the hardanger fiddle in a sweeping romantic score ala Lord Of The Rings.
You might also be surprised at how little percussion is included in this giant ethnic collection. The reason is, we already covered much of this in EastWest/Quantum Leap Stormdrum. Stormdrum is the ideal companion to RA. The percussion in RA compliments Stormdrum perfectly.
You can have a lot of fun with RA. The possibilities are simply endless, especially when you mix the sounds of different cultures together. Load up the middle eastern string section, apply an Indian or Egyptian tuning from the micro-tuning presets and play octaves. Make a really cool groove with the didgeridoo fx and the Vietnamese jaw harp. Take a classical filmscore piece and replace all of the instruments with their ethnic counterparts: strings with middle eastern string section, solo violin or cello with electric baritone violin, hardanger fiddle or erhu, french horn with alpenhorn, flute with dizi, oboe with duduk, percussion with taikos and African percussion, harp with kora, trombones with rag dung etc. etc.... Or perhaps try the hurdy gurdy, hardanger fiddle, washburn guitar, mandolin and the dizi and make an interesting folk ensemble or the gamelan ensemble with the ney flute, duduk and esraj. And don’t forget the reverb!
Sibelius Sound Set Now Online
For the benefit of all, EW/QL user Jonathan Loving has created a Sound Set for using EastWest/Quantum Leap RA within Sibelius 5 and Sibelius 6. Please read the documentation for more information and support details.
Below are the minimum and recommended hardware and software specifications for using Opus on Windows and MacOS systems.
MINIMUM SYSTEM
CPU: Quad-core (four cores), running at 2.7 GHz (or above)
RAM: 16 GB
OS: macOS 10.13 (or later); Windows 10 with ASIO sound drivers
Drive: SSD for HW Orchestra Opus Edition
RECOMMENDED SYSTEM
CPU: Octa-core (eight cores), running at 2.7 GHz (or above)
RAM: 32 GB or more
OS: macOS 10.13 (or later); Windows 10 with ASIO sound drivers
Drive: NVMe SSD
The chart below outlines the MacOS and Windows 64-bit operating systems and sequencers that are officially supported and fully tested with the latest version of Opus. Please note that while most Sequencers / DAWs are VST 2, VST 3, AU and AAX plug-in format compatible, only those listed in the chart below are officially supported.
Product
Version
MacOS (10.13+)
Windows 10
EW Play 6 Stand-Alone
6.0+
YES
YES
EW Opus Stand-Alone
1.0+
YES
YES
Ableton Live
10.0+
YES
YES
Apple Logic Pro
10.0+
YES
-
Apple Garageband
10.3+
YES
-
Avid Pro Tools
2018.1+
YES
YES
Bitwig Studio
3.0+
YES
YES
Cockos Reaper
6.0+
YES
YES
Image-Line FL Studio
20+
YES
YES
Motu Digital Performer
9.0+
YES
YES
Steinberg Cubase(1)
9.0+
YES
YES
Steinberg Nuendo(1)
8.0+
YES
YES
Presonus Studio One
4.0+
YES
YES
VSL Vienna Ensemble Pro
6.0+
YES
YES
Notation Software(2)
Version
Avid Sibelius
2018.1+
YES
YES
MakeMusic Finale
25.0+
YES
YES
Steinberg Dorico
3.0+
YES
YES
(1) VST3 usage is recommended
(2) Sibelius / Finale / Dorico notation programs work with Opus, but do not support the full feature set of some Opus/Play Libraries, such as those that use WordBuilder. Please contact support for details.
