Review of Motu's Ethno Instrument

[admin]

Review of MOTU's Ethno Instrument

Can be found here:

http://www.tweakheadz.com/reviews/review_of_motus_ethno_world_instrument.htm




Excerpt:

You get 4 GB of instrument samples, all in preset form. You also get 4GB of loops and phrases that are tempo locked to your host software. (you can play them at their original length too for better quality). Typically the phrases and loops are triggered by playing one note in your midi sequencer. However, both can be "drag 'n dropped" onto MIDI or audio tracks in your sequencer. Power users will appreciate that some of the phrases can be drag n dropped as a MIDI track and edited on your sequencer's grids. Likewise, some of the audio loops can be sliced and then dragged n dropped as a midi sequence where they can be likewise edited. Note that I said some, not all. Each instrument has different capabilities. I was pleasantly surprised by this. Ethno has a lot of the kind of flexibility you get with Stylus RMX by Spectrasonics, the kind of glitch potential you get with Recycle loops and the phrase editing you get in GarageBand. Powerful.

http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--MTUETHNO/sid--showroom

[bob_the_sane]

Tweak i am Greek and i was wondering whether Etno included any samples of greek instruments such as bouzouki and if not where else could i get them from. I want to give some of my tracks a greek flavour and maybe even write a greek dance . I'm thinking of buying a proper bouzouki but they are rather expensive.

[Tweak]

>samples of greek instruments such as bouzouki and if not where else could i get them from.

The Bouzouki is well represented with instruments, loops and phrases. There are also some electric bouzouki phrases. There is a large middle east/mediterranean section

[Logicology]

Thank you for this. I've been eyeing this up for a little while now.

[bob_the_sane]

Thanks tweak.

Do you know if i can get a sampled greek instruments for a bit cheaper? I don't want to buy the whole ethno package if i am only going to use the greek instruments.

[earthloop]

Ahhh...thanks tweak! I have been searching for reviews on this and couldn't find any...until I googled just now and found your review via google. I find that rather funny! (that I am a member here but got here via google)

[TeamLDCO]

I was reading about this in two of my music mags and it looks really interesting... but i was curious as to how you, Tweak and others would compare it to East West Ra. Ra (well everything East West for the most part) is uber expensive. Is ethno instrument in the same league (or even maybe a 2nd stringer in the same league) or is RA really the next step up from ethnic authenticity?

[Tweak]

http://tweakheadz.com/review_of_motus_e ... rument.htm

[TeamLDCO]

hehe... totally missed that link for the review... i liked that review... and i think i may get that over RA... if anything, It'll be a while before I can afford RA... but it's much easier to swallow $279 pill than a $995 one

[autodidactic]

Hey Tweak! Is it possible to route regular audio into Ethno so you can just use the reverb? I use Logic mainly but also have Pro Tools MPowered and I don't have a decent verb for PTMP. If it doesn't have this functionality then I'll probably still get Ethno (I'm Greek too) but it would be a nice bonus.





Regards

[bob_the_sane]

Nice to see another Greek on the forums! (you're the only one I know of)

[Samadhi]

MOTU Ethno sounds very interesting and I was looking for something like it. I'm decided to get it but, before spending part of my monthly wages (my job is not well paid) on it, I'd like to know if it's a bad sign that the instrument is still in it's 1.0.1 version, and this update is only to comply with the new Intel-based Macs. PC version is still in the 1.0.0 version. Is the software so well done that it doesn´t need any update? Or maybe, as had happened before, the company have forgotten about it because they don't see it profitable? If anyone can help, it is very important to know 'cause, if the later posibility is the true one, I'll move to other products.

Thank you!

[Tweak]

Being on a PPC Mac I did not notice any difference after the update. I've had it quite a while now and I still like it a great deal. If there is a frustration I have with it, is that it is CPU intensive on some patches and I have to bounce it down to audio sooner than i would normally on my G5. But the awesome sounds on it make up for this issue.

[Samadhi]

And do you have any news on how it works on a Xp-based PC? It could be interesting to know if it runs smooth with Cubase or other Pc sequencers, because I have the idea that MOTU products are more Mac oriented even though they are PC compatible.

[Tweak]

I have it installed in Kore on my PC (XP) Seems to do fine. I am getting a little graphic weirdness sometimes, like little blocks of text are not correctly localized. I don't get that problem on my Mac. It seems to perform better on the PC though (perhaps because my AMD is a bit faster than my G5). Might not be MOTUs fault though. i have a lot of video stuff on this computer, like TVs and video capture

[Samadhi]

OK, then, I'll get it. Thanks for your advice. Ah, is there any way that I can get any new post, or just the ones for the forums I'm more interested, in my mail? See you. Good Luck!

[_controlfreak]

Yikes. Sorry for the poor contrast and small re-size. Stupid imageshack (actually it was entirely my fault for not checking to see which boxes were checked before I hit "upload" Always great to blame it on something else though!).

[Samadhi]

Thank you controlfreak, but I was meaning that I was interested in getting not only the posts of the threads where I write, but the ones where I don't write too. For example, new posts of some forums that I'm interested in. Something like an RSS. I read about what happened with the RSS. That's why i'm asking for some different ways.

[_controlfreak]

Thank you controlfreak, but I was meaning that I was interested in getting not only the posts of the threads where I write, but the ones where I don't write too.

Hence the second picture (there are two) on the bottom.

[Samadhi]

Thanks again! I used some zoom and could see how to do it. See you!

[MobyMod]

I finally got Sonar 6 to recognize and add Ethno Instrument as a soft synth, but I can't figure out how to get the GUI to appear. The manual says to select a preset first, but I can't select a preset until I can see the GUI. Anyone else having this problem? I'm on PC...

Thanks....

[MobyMod]

For those who may be interested - I found the solution on the Cakewalk forum: Disable X-Ray (under Options-Global) and the Ethno Instrument GUI shows up...

[shabaka]

I installed Ethno Inst, got FL Studio to recognize the software using the DXi plugin. The VST plugin, and all the other plugins, are for specific sequencers. Tried to load an instrument and FL Studio simply crashes.

Stand-alone app works a lil better. I have dual AMDs and 1 GB RAM (I wanna get another GB) and the stand-alone software is still kinda sluggish.

Supposedly getting MOTU tech support. Supposed to take 2 business days so I should hear from them tomorrow. As of now, no one has even looked at my support ticket. Its been one business day (and 2 weekend days).


The instruments that I did get to play thru the stand-alone app were great. The fancy interface seems to be problematic though. They should take a page out of the DrumCore book. I dont need bells and whistles if the main app wont function. I actually want my money back!


Using FL Studio may be the problem here. Any ideas?

[Tweak]

Motu has announced an upgrade to Ethno V1, which is broken in Logic/OSX 10.6. Its a bit pricey though. For those who are not happy with this, you can run the Ethno soundset in the UVI Workstation, which is a free download.