Best Sampler- Kontakt, Garriton, Mach5, SampleTank?

[benmackay]

I'm looking to upgrade my "virtual orchestra" to something that sounds professional. My current setup - heavy with sound fonts - approaches the quality of sound I'm looking for, but I'm ready to improve.

I'm mainly looking for orchestra (pianos, strings, woodwinds, flutes) and synths (pads, leads, ambient). I've been using soundfonts with the DLSMusicDevice plugin but have been disappointed with the inconsistent sound quality. It's therefore become cumbersome to switch between banks that have good sounds for a couple of instruments, and not so good ones in others.

I'm not sure where the best quality is but am leaning towards either SampleTank or Mach5. I'm looking for realistic, organic quality rather than breadth of features. What have people experienced and what would you recommend to use with Metro?

Also, from the documentation on Mach5, it seems that Mach5 will import/load EXS samples. Does that mean it would load the GarageBand instruments so that I could play them through Metro?

Any and all recommendations/help is much appreciated!

[Jerm]

I have not tried Mach5 so I really have nothing to say about it, other than it would be nice if MOTU sent me a copy.

I can highly recommend Sampletank 2 without reservation. This is probably my favorite and most used plug-in. It comes with an extensive set of excellent samples (so many, in fact, that I haven't had the time to go through and listen to all of them) and it also does other incredible things like automatic loop matching, pitch time stretch, etc. The effects section is also superb.

[fastlanephil]

Does that mean it would load the GarageBand instruments so that I could play them through Metro?

I bet Apple's GB instruments can't be used by any program but GB. Otherwise you could just strip off the meat and toss the carcass.

I see ST2 recieved Electronic Musician Editors Choice Award 2005!