orchestral combos for live performance

[jprykiel]

Hi all.
You know these workstations that had cheesy but kind of impressive orchestral Combos, where you get massive strings and brass all over the keyboard and maybe some Timpanis on lower octaves.
Well, I wonder if anything like this exists as a sound library, and Designed for live performances.
Thanks for your help,
best regards,

[FLWrd]

I have two: Sonokinetic's Da Capo, which contains four sections, and you can layer them easily, and Indiginus' Solid State Symphony (http://indiginus.com/solidstatehome.html), which is somewhat like Da Capo, but with (near realistic) synth sounds and really great layering and mixing possibilities in the interface. If you don't need a realistic sound (and let's be honest: it's never going to sound realistic when you play multiple sections from a keyboard), I'd advise Solid State Symphony, for price, features and playability. Da Capo can be fun for sketching orchestral work, even for rendering short pieces that don't need much orchestration detail.

[jprykiel]

Hey. Thanks for this.
Solid-state Symphony is a little too cheesy for me. Da Capo seems to be the right choice, the demos on their website are quite impressive. But I am not a Kontakt expert. Do you know if it includes patches with layered instruments, or is it easy enough to do?
Cheers,

[FLWrd]

Making layers/multis with Da Capo involves a bit more work, but it's not difficult. You can load multiple patches in Kontakt and set them to the same MIDI channel (or on Omni). That will make them play at the same time. You can then choose articulations in each patch. There are also options to limit the play range per patch.

I don't know what performance environment you use, but in Cubase and Logic you can go a bit further, and build key switches to control which patch is playing and that kind of thing.

[jprykiel]

Hi, my goal is to use it in mainstage. It's really not a recording/production situation but only for live.
Thanks,