TEST OF GLOBAL SOUNDS ARTIST EDITION 3.3 FOR PA5X

[♔Chello]

TEST OF GLOBAL SOUNDS ARTIST EDITION 3.3 FOR PA5X

This sound set's styles and sounds are made with a heavy focus on effects and high compression and maximizers, especially suitable for modern EDM music and the like.

My point of view is "on the other end", with a focus on natural sound and careful use of effects, and audible negative compression does not fit into my picture of reality; only in special cases where this is used to shape instruments to recreate a specific instrument.

I have nevertheless chosen to buy this set, because it has received very good reviews from users who I know are serious and have a professional background.


CONTENT OF THE SET:

* SOUNDS: 686
Artist Bass: 36
Artist Grand: 59
Artist String: 58
Artist Choir: 44
Artist Acc: 10
Artist Organ: 20
Artist Guitar: 46
Artist E. Piano: 77
Artist Pad: 94
Artist Winds: 79
Artist Ethnicity: 21
Artist Leads: 142

* PADS: 450
Pads 1: 74
Pads 2: 50
Pads 3: 48
Pads 4: 48
Pads 5: 18
Pads 6: 81
V2.0: 52
V3.0: 25
V3.1: 46
V3.3 CSX: 8

* STYLES: 257
Artist Ballad: 3
Artist Rock: 19
Artist Pop: 26
Artist Latin: 30
Artist Dance: 43
Artist 6/8: 4
Artist Slow: 32
Artist Country: 12
Artist World: 4
Artist XMAS: 3
Artist CSX: 16
Artist Hit: 65


MY OPINION:

LAYOUT:
Everything is neat and clearly organized and easy to find.
There are no folders containing material from previous versions, as I have seen other versions have had..?

SOUNDS:
I am negatively surprised by the sounds, because they do not quite live up to my expectations.
I expected to find Real Hammond 1 that was demonstrated by Keyboard World, but this is not there.
Strings has some good sounds, Choir has several, Guitar has many very good acoustic guitars, but no Overdrive/Distortion that is good enough.
Leads is clearly my favorite, with many very good sounds.
The rest is not as expected.

PADS:
These pads are a gold mine, and alone worth the price of the whole package - the best I have ever found.
Colossal many pads for drums/perc, which work brilliantly as a replacement for internal drum/perc kits - they are actually much better, and constitute a fantastic expansion for the genres Dance and Movie.

STYLES:
Most styles are very well composed, but generally not too well mixed with different levels of ACCs, and several have very varying output levels, which should have been avoided.
One style does not work (Sadenes GMP GS in Artist Pop); nothing happens when you change chords in Variations.
Several styles appear to be identical, but have different names.

KEYBOARD SETS:
These do not meet my standards, as many are unusually poorly put together with sounds that do not fit together and with different levels between them, and often have too low or too high volume in relation to the style they are used with.

USE OF EFFECTS:
Generally a bit too much reverb has been used, and in some cases far too much.
Delay is also used more heavily than I like.
Drum Editor is not used.
Finalizer is mostly used, but not for all styles, and with varying Ratios.

MAXX AUDIO:
It comes with 3 presets from Global Sounds, which work well, while Boost 2.0 is my preferred one.

SOUND QUALITY:
The sound quality is impressively good, and even though many effects are used hard, negative compression is not experienced as a problem, as with the Pa5X internally.
Finalizer often uses a very high Ratio, and I think the sound is better with this turned off.


PROS:
* Exceptionally good pads
* Exceptionally well composed styles

CONS:
* Generally poor mixing, with very different levels for Keyboard Sets, and that several ACCs in several styles have too high a volume
* Sounds are not as good as I expected
* Mixing of Keyboard Sets is lousy
* Content from previous versions should have been included, as before


CONCLUSION:
There has obviously not been a good enough quality control regarding style duplicates and mixing of styles and Keyboard Sets.

Some sounds are very good, while what is really impressive are the pads, which alone justify the price.

The included styles are certainly among the best.

My negative comments are probably due to my obsession with HiFi and precise mixing, and should not scare anyone away from buying this package, which really offers great value.

As for mixing, this is easy to fix for those who are used to this type of editing.

What really makes this package a great buy is the content of exceptionally good pads and styles.


RECOMMENDED

[♔Chello]

LACK OF QUALITY CONTROL 1

I have found as many as 16 styles missing all Endings.


They are:

Acoustic 16Beat 2 (Ballad)
Trap Slow RnB (Ballad)
Pop New 2 GS (Latin)
Unplugged Stage (Latin)
EDM 1 GS (Dance)
Vocal EDM GS (Dance)
Acoustic 2 (Slow)
Missing 1 (Slow)
CSX Cover 1 (CSX)
CSX Cover 2 (CSX)
CSX Cover 3 (CSX)
CSX Cover 4 (CSX)
CSX Cover 5 (CSX)
CSX Cover 8 (CSX)
CSX R&B 1 (CSX)
CSX R&B 2 (CSX)

[♔Chello]

LACK OF QUALITY CONTROL 2

I have found as many as 22 styles with incomplete or completely missing Keyboard Sets.


They are:

Trap Slow RnB (Ballad)
Beat 3 (Rock)
70s Slows 3 GS (Pop)
The ReMix GS (Dance)
Rock GS (Country)
CSX Walltres (CSX)
Chiquitita (Hit)
Could you be loved (Hit)
Brickhouse (Hit)
Dont You (Hit)
Englishman in New York (Hit)
Everybody rul the world (Hit)
In the Air (Hit)
Lets Groove (Hit)
Money for nothing (Hit)
MoneyForNothingCW (Hit)
See See Rider (Hit)
Show must go on (Hit)
Streetlife (Hit)
The Boxer (Hit)
Words (Hit)
ZZZ Yamaha Template (Hit)

[♔Chello]

LACK OF QUALITY CONTROL 3

I have found as many as 6 style pairs (one case with 3 identical ones) that are duplicates.


They are:

Live Clean Guitar / Live Distortion
Bossa GS / Bossa GS
Samba Live GS / Samba Medley GS
Dance With Me / Dance With Me 1 GS / Dance With Me 2 GS
Missing 2 / Missing 2 GS
CSX R&B 1 / CSX R&B 2

[♔Chello]

LACK OF QUALITY CONTROL 4

I have found as many as 6 styles where a sound in the Keyboard Set has an insanely high level, which can blow your speakers if you play loudly and aren't careful.


They are:

EDM Sensation White GS (Dance)
EDM Pop GS (Dance)
Modern Beat (Country)
Hindu Mix Calcut GS (World)
Mahadma Pop Live GS (World)
Havent met you yet (Hit)

[✪simondragon]

I think that is entirely fair; my biggest gripe is the drum kits, though. Although they have some very good sounds, they are all mapped differently, and therefore you would have to rewrite the midi to use a different drum kit. If the main drum sounds at least were in standard GM position it would be much more useful to plug and play. I also believe the odd sound has a dodgy sample here and their Night sax it particual sounds to me as if it has a bad sample on one of the A notes. On the other hand, it is a huge amount of content for the money.

[♔Chello]

I think that is entirely fair; my biggest gripe is the drum kits, though. Although they have some very good sounds, they are all mapped differently, and therefore you would have to rewrite the midi to use a different drum kit. If the main drum sounds at least were in standard GM position it would be much more useful to plug and play. I also believe the odd sound has a dodgy sample here and their Night sax it particual sounds to me as if it has a bad sample on one of the A notes. On the other hand, it is a huge amount of content for the money.

✪simondragon


I understand your stance on the drum kits.
As for odd sounds, I've also noticed that there are some bad samples.

I've found a few more negatives, which will be posted soon.

[♔Chello]

LACK OF QUALITY CONTROL 5

I have found as many as 31 styles where no pads make sound, even though pads have been added.
Obviously a programming mistake.

I'm not listing them; just stating the case.

[♔Chello]

LACK OF QUALITY CONTROL 6

I have found 2 styles that contain a pad that has disharmonious content.
One style also has a duplicate, so this actually applies to 3 styles.


Listen for yourself:

Live Clean Guitar (Rock)

  Live Clean Guitar.mp3 (Size: 575.63 KB / Downloads: 7)

Native GS (Country)

  Native GS.mp3 (Size: 782.81 KB / Downloads: 7)

[⚖whitecolin1]

Thanks for the run down Chello, Given the feedback there seems to be a lot of issues that need to be sorted.
I may be wrong but isnt Qui in colabertion with Global sounds and ask him his opinion.