I purchased Garritan Personal Orchestra 5 to use with Presonus Notion 6 notation software. I use it to create high quality backing instruments for pop, rock, orchestral, chamber music and choral recordings. The sound samples that came with Notion were not good enough, especially the cello and organ sounds.
The Garritan library downloaded very easily and installed with no problem. Integration to Notion was fast and has so far worked well. (At present, the playback doesn't play trills, but hope that can be fixed.)
The Aria player looks "unusual" at first, but is not difficult to learn.
You can run this "stand alone" or from within the notation software.
The "convolution reverb" is very good with many different and usable presets.
I'm running on a new Dell desktop with Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB RAM. No processor capacity or hardware issues found so far.
In case anybody doesn't know, these are digital recordings of actual instruments. There were around 30 solo cello samples to choose from, plus many different cello sections, so I found exactly the sound I wanted.
The organ sounds are very good. (Cut-down version of the Garritan Classic Pipe Organ library.) I especially like the "Custon organ console" where you can set up your own registrations and balance the sounds perfectly.
Woodwind and brass sounds are excellent. Bassoons and Cor Anglais were some of my favourites. But Horns, Trombones and Tubas are also excellent and I will definitely be using them in upcoming recordings.
