Do you really need this?
I want to preface by saying I am a huge EastWest supporter. Nick Phoenix and Doug Rogers are two of the primary reasons I became a trailer and film composer. They are two of the best in the business. In addition, Steven Wilson is a innovator and excellent engineer with a great ear for sound and design.
That being said, I want to start off with the positives.
Positives: The Samples are exquisite. The playability is attentive and triggers with minimal velocity specifically with the guitars. "Great for Speed-sketching". The additional IR Spaces and insert processing effects are great, especially if you do not already have an effects suite or like your DAW effects. The miscellaneous sound design patches are very good, but very dated.
Negatives: I can't say it any other way except that, this library is over a decade old and all the things that made it useful in, 2014 do not translate to 2025. It lacks any semblance of suspenseful, eerie atmospheric feel and does not have any innovative way to create or sculpt the sound other than tweaking effects to achieve what you're looking for (This can be achieved with most VST's free or paid). There are curated patches for sound design, but once you hear them you realize they are nothing special and can be recreated fairly easy with basic pedals, ADSR, and time sculpting eg. Delay, echo, reverb. The library jacket information lists over 800 instruments which is very misleading. There are 11 Guitars, 3 Basses, 16 Keys, 11 Misc, 3 Vocals and 3 drum kits. Seriously that's it! Now, within that range of instruments they have created individual effected patches that are listed separately. However, I personally do not consider a guitar with a Buzzy Amp and one with out to be two different instruments. I think the wording seems dishonest and misleads the buyer about about the contents of this library. I purchased this product with deluxe bucks while on sale and with the additional spring 10% off and I'm extremely glad I did. If I had spent anywhere close to asking price of $149 I don't think I could have contained my ire with this purchase.
My final thoughts on, Ghostwriter are these. It was once a well crafted stand alone library in its release during, 2014 and could have been in most composers toolkits, but that was then. These instruments only have an edge in the way they are processed, but big saturated sound does not equal dark, suspenseful, atmospheric or innovative. I would not recommend purchasing this if you already have a standard band of 5 instruments including a vocal instrument with a basic (AHH - Articulation).
If you would like a library from EastWest that has an actual plethora of instruments and the same sample quality and effects capability pick up, Goliath. That is truly a Swiss army knife of EastWest's best stuff.
Hope this helps!
