Thanks for the compliments, everyone!
Jay: About the brass - well, mostly about the trumpets and horns, since the tuba and trombones don't really do much until the climax at the end of the movement. I use a couple different techniques depending on what type of sound I wanted to achieve, even though some of these techniques aren't exactly "purist" choices. For the fortissimo parts, I always use the ensemble patches unless the part is specifically written for a solo trumpet. But if it's a 4-part chord for four trumpets, I'll still use the ensemble patch for one or two of the four notes because I want to maintain the characteristic phasing/rattling sound of fortissimo brass. Also, for repeated staccato phrases where the forte repetitions dont cut it, I'll use the first few samples from the rep-dim performance repetitions to start the phrase, and end it with the last few samples from the rep-cre patches.
For the expressive trumpet parts at the end, I basically used a lot of different dynamic samples, all from the lower velocity layers of course. For the trumpets doing the harmony parts, I used the oV samples, and for the solo melodic trumpet on top I used the mV samples.
For the horn parts I used Epic Horns since there were several parts where 6 horns were required in unison, and I figure that if a composer writes a piece that uses 10 horns (which this one does, in the last movement), then having a horn section that sounds a little bloated is more in line with their interests than having one that sounds too small.
William: You're right about the dynamics of some of the clarinet parts. I think that the descending grace note phrase in the beginning would have been better if it had been more sharply accented, but once the english horn comes in I thought it sounded fine.
Rob: I'm still looking for a way to get the high strings to have a more natural resonance. I'm convinced that the repetition samples can help me a lot here, but unfortunately this piece is a bit too slow to be able to use the staccato performance repetitions for the strings for the parts that it really could have improved.
Louisc, Dave: To get the room sound, I used a combination of the medium hall in GigaPulse, and just a tiny bit of a cheap reverb on top of the final mix to make things blend a little more. Also, I layered an orchestral ambience track; which helped get rid of some of the dead silences (like after the opening timpani strikes.) I used a different GigaPulse arrangement for each instrument. This would normally be a pain, but because I had to do each instrument separately anyway due to the large number of patches I used, it didn't really make a difference at all in terms of workflow. I'll have to give you all the width and pan settings later, since I won't have access to my main computer for at least a week or so.