GPO4 rectifies this by incorporating trumpet, trombone and horn sections created by Project SAM, a European company renowned for the quality of their orchestral brass. Though benefiting from the inclusion of true first and second violin sections, the absence of real brass ensembles was a chink in the library's armour. A useful clutch of extras (Steinway grand piano, harpsichord, a pipe organ and the rare Glass Armonica) brought the original instrument count up to 60. The library's chief strength has always been its comprehensive instrumentation: as well as all the common orchestral instruments it contains non‑standard items such as bass flute, oboe d'amore, Eb and contrabass clarinets, piccolo trumpet and contrabass tuba. GPO 4.0 remains inexpensive as ever, with discounts available for users upgrading from previous versions. (You can read our original review in the October 2004 issue of SOS.) Since its release, Gary Garritan has continued to refine the library, and its fourth and latest incarnation sees some significant changes and improvements. It challenged the big‑is‑best ethic of major libraries by cramming the entire orchestra into a 2GB package, and its low, user‑friendly price played a part in forcing other companies to market budget versions of their orchestral collections. Hard disk sample‑streaming put paid to that particular problem, but until Garritan Personal Orchestra came along in 2004, orchestral samples remained a relatively expensive commodity, beyond the reach of all but a privileged few. When orchestral sample companies began selling their wares 20 years ago, the numbers were stacked against the user: though some high‑end collections cost as much as a used car, it was a struggle to fit more than two or three of their instruments into the limited RAM space of a hardware sampler.
The small but mighty orchestral package continues to square up to the big guys.
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