KVR Audio

bobbyquine · Post by **bobbyquine** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 12:05 am

Hi,

I'd like to buy the best orchestral vst i can afford.

People seem to like Best service Complete Orchestral collection and East West.

There is also a deal going here on a used license for Miroslav that ends up with $220 for Philharmonik 2.
UVI Orchestral Suite is in the price range too.

My laptop is not very powerful, 8gig RAM, but I don't need something that sounds amazingly realistic, as I'll mainly be sketching. What I need is something that is easy to work with, and provides enough articulations and expression to get ideas down.

Ideally no dongle either, as i want to work on the move....

Any thoughts?
Many thanks
B

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 12:54 am

Cheaper than most and works decently? Garritan.

http://www.garritan.com/products/instant-orchestra/
http://www.garritan.com/products/personal-orchestra-4/

But wait for sales, I think the download versions go for around $69.-$99.00 then.

JonSolo · Post by **JonSolo** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 1:16 am

Miroslav 1 is cheap, works on slow computers, and sounds halfway decent. You can load multiple instruments at a time into a single instance and keep the CPU real low.

Just to help a bit more...UVI can be taxing on a computer. Start loading a bunch of sounds and suddenly you got tons of hiccups on your system. Same thing with the Sampletank 3 engine which is what Miroslav 2 uses.

I think for under $40 you can't beat M1 for sketching and even some completed projects.

On the other hand you can plan for the future and get Kontakt. It comes with an older VSL library and sounds quite good.

Also as an alternative is Steinberg's Orchestral library which, though a bit lacking in a few areas, lends itself to great growth down the road. If you have Halion 5 you have tons of great options to make it come to life.

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 1:34 am

thejonsolo wrote: Also as an alternative is Steinberg's Orchestral library which, though a bit lacking in a few areas, lends itself to great growth down the road. If you have Halion 5 you have tons of great options to make it come to life.

Got give a plus one on this also. Just missed the last sale for getting it at $59.00, though I think they might have a 50% off sale coming. And it adds to HALion Sonic also.

bobbyquine · Post by **bobbyquine** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 1:39 am

thanks chaps, good to know.

would i need an elicensor usb stick for that though?

bigcat1969 · Post by **bigcat1969** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 3:45 am

The newer strings in the Complete Orchestral Collection aren't bad, but I give away more realistic sounding brass and woodwinds. They would be great for making cheesy 80s sitcom themes on public access TV...

If you do Kontakt, consider Kirk Hunter's old diamond Orchestra especially if you can find if for 125 bucks or so. Since you can do Kontakt on sale for $200 that's about $325 (presuming Kirk has a sale again).

I'd be more sold on Miroslav 2 if the orchestral and choral stuff in ST3 hadn't been terrible samples that they tried to improve with always on effects. And the blue screen of death that sometimes accompanies the VST3 version is also a turnoff. VST2 works fine.

Be warned that some people have issues with the Play Engine and / or even (gasp) Ilok. I'm not saying anything negative just do your own due diligence about East West.

BBFG# · Post by **BBFG#** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 4:16 am

bobbyquine wrote:thanks chaps, good to know.

would i need an elicensor usb stick for that though?

I think you would, yes.

bobbyquine · Post by **bobbyquine** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 10:56 am

OK yes reading about EWQL..... think i'll give it a miss.

Getting into Kontakt makes sense for the future, but for now i really wanted a simple solution.

Miroslav is 32bit only, so perhaps I'll go with Garritan.

Thanks for the advice people.

gaf_thit · Post by **gaf_thit** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 12:12 pm

You could take a look on Cakewalk's Dimension Pro. It includes some samples from Miroslav 1, but it's more like all over the place, than orchestral. Just a thought. It's cheap, but not sure where you'd get it now, after Rapture Pro...

Edit: I mean it contains samples from Garritan, Garritan pocket orchestra .

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 12:49 pm

Doesn't one of the Sampletank 3 versions come with Miro 1? I'd probably recommend that. The Garritan has a few instruments that I really like, the French Horn and Harpsichords are pretty good. In general, though, Miro 1 is better.

bigcat1969 · Post by **bigcat1969** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 12:58 pm

For a free sketch orchestra try Sonatina. For 500 megs it sounds surprisingly good. Very light on articulations of course. Works well with Sforzando.
http://sso.mattiaswestlund.net/

AKJ · Post by **AKJ** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 2:04 pm

I do have GPO and the Sonic Reality Kontakt Version of the Miroslav Vitous content. Sound-wise I would prefer the Miroslav by far (GPO sounds too synthetic imo). But I'd follow the Kirk Hunter suggestion made (if you own Kontakt). I have his Diamond Orchestra and, really, this is a different league (for 150 a steal). Some instruments I would rate top level (like the solo violin). If you do not yet own Kontakt: think of getting it (or Komplete). The orchestra stuff from the Kontakt factory library (mostly sample content from VSL) is imo much better than GPO. The Miroslav strings have a nice, special tone to them, so they are always a good investment. But then: maybe just get the strings from through Sonic Reality (if still available). They were very cheap (like 30 Dollars or so) ...

edit: forgot about Best Service: I also own an old version from Peter Siedlaczek (at that time it was called Advanced Orchestra). It is not bad, comparable to Miroslav (which at that time actually were the two big names).

bobbyquine · Post by **bobbyquine** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 2:16 pm

hmmmm ok im getting persuaded that maybe kontakt is the way to go, it offers flexibility and a path for development as i need more sounds (and have more money;)

is it light enough on resources or will i struggle with 8gig RAM? Im not doing full blown symphony orchestra stuff, just smaller ensemble stuff for now. I wanted to get a full orchestral vst just to have all bases covered but realising that this is maybe not the best way forward....

bigcat1969 · Post by **bigcat1969** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 5:13 pm

I used Kontakt with 4 gigs for a long time and it wasn't bad though I did keep an eye on memory and closed everything else down, so 8 gigs should be fine. It does disk streaming pretty well so that can help with big instruments. Unfortunately it seems to have gone off sale now.
The included orchestral instruments in the factory library aren't great but are generally serviceable, IMO they are as good as Miroslav 1 and better than the Best Service or Dimension Pro sounds. Also there are some nice freebies like Embertone Strings Lite that can enhance the experience a bit. Also sometimes the legacy instruments that are included sound better to me and you can load single articulations to save memory.

Jazzaria · Post by **Jazzaria** » Sat Dec 19, 2015 5:40 pm

8 gigs is really not so terrible. Yes, people love boasting about their 16/24/32+ gig monsters, and if you're doing pro work then you do benefit from that level of resources (all the more so if you're not just doing music but also editing video or working with games or other richer resources). But 8 gigs is perfectly workable for many situations, and shouldn't unduly restrict your library choices.

I'd say there probably *isn't* a library where you can't load at least 6-12 tracks and make a reasonable sounding product with 8 gigs of RAM. If you want 30+ tracks each with custom panning and FX chains for realism and etc. etc. then yeah that might be problematic - but overall, if your computer is <=5 years old then you're more likely to hit up against disk speed (unless you have a nice big SSD) rather than RAM or CPU.

There can still be reasons to avoid current mega-flagship libraries (cost, DRM, storage space, learning curve, or you really do want 30 tracks), and people are giving you generally good suggestions of light/affordable orchestral libraries. I just wanted to address the idea that 8 gigs is somehow not much - it's not boast-worthy, but it can often get the job done.

PS - you already said no to EWQL, but I do think that the Symphonic Orchestra Silver ($97.50) and Hollywood Orchestra Silver ($299) are both reasonable options. PLAY is worse than Kontakt but has improved a bit, and the DRM (iLok) is the same as UVI and no longer requires a USB fob.

Entry level Orchestral VST