Best full orchestra as first library?

[Aryaroman]

Check out my thread for a list of all full orchestra libraries (save for romplers): viewtopic.php?f=42&t=443073

I haven't categorized them by prize, but by alphabets. There's also a poll, that gives you a short idea of what is the most popular. (Albion, EWQL, VSL)

Albion I'd take any day, but yes, the best is costly.

I wouldn't bother with the Silver or Gold Editions of EWQL. They have only one mic position that's too wet to blend in to anything and it's old and best suited to big cinematic scoreing. And it's an old library. You'll probably hear it on TV daily.

Same goes for ProjectSam, you hear it on TV all the time. It's a great sounding library, but suited to epic cinematic scoring like EWQL. There's this great brass trill effect you've probably heard hundred times. That's ProjectSam.

VSL, I'm not familiar with. It's praised a lot, has many articulations and is dry, but I've kept from buying it, since I remember it requires some sort of dongle.

Then there is Sonokinetic's Da Capo, but it requires Kontakt and is taxing on RAM. Sonivox's Film Score Companion, I would pass on. It requires ridiculous amount of RAM for one instance and the sound is static. For Miroslav Philharmonik 2, see DSmolken's post. Garritan PO5 is... what it is. A budget-orchestra.

Then there's Berlin Tools' ARK, which is for Kontakt Player, but in the same price range as Albion. 8Dio has Majestica, but based on what I've heard of them, I wouldn't buy from them. Impact Soundworks has Rhapsody, which requires full Kontakt.

[Foxedge]

Great informations, thanks! About these kontakt-requiring libraries: Are they "better" for less money or something? I don't know why they need full kontakt and not the free version, but they always seem to be in a lower price-range. I may be totally wrong.

I have an option at the moment to get Komplete 10 for 300 bucks, could buy rhapsody: orchestral colors (is what you meant?) then or of course hunter diamond which was recommened on the last page, would end up at 450.. still a lot money but damn lot value. But I don't know if I even need the full komplete 10 stuff, I don't think so at the moment..

[Aryaroman]

Great informations, thanks! About these kontakt-requiring libraries: Are they "better" for less money or something? I don't know why they need full kontakt and not the free version, but they always seem to be in a lower price-range. I may be totally wrong.

I have an option at the moment to get Komplete 10 for 300 bucks, could buy rhapsody: orchestral colors (is what you meant?) then or of course hunter diamond which was recommened on the last page, would end up at 450.. still a lot money but damn lot value. But I don't know if I even need the full komplete 10 stuff, I don't think so at the moment..

It's just business. Native Instruments charge a fee to make a library Kontakt Player-library. If they gave up the full Kontakt sample player engine for free, they'd have to make it work like UVI: charge for every 3rd party library an additional fee. That's why 3rd party sample libraries for UVI Workstation cost so much. They gotta make money.

Some developers prefer to keep the cost down and don't obtain the Player license. Kontakt is an industry standard, so most professionals own it. Thus it makes sense to some big developers, like Spitfire, to release most of their libraries (other than the big Albion range) for full Kontakt, because most of their customer base owns it.

And yes, Impact Soundworks is good, but check reviews first.

[anomandaris1]

Kontakt 5 has 43 GB factory library with diverse content including orchestral instrument (selection of VSL?).
If you want complete high quality orchestra (VSL, Spitfire, EW Hollywood series ), you will have to spend something like 4 k euros.

[Aryaroman]

Kontakt 5 has 43 GB factory library with diverse content including orchestral instrument (selection of VSL?).
If you want complete high quality orchestra (VSL, Spitfire, EW Hollywood series ), you will have to spend something like 4 k euros.

From what I've heard, the factory content doesn't qualify for barely any degree of orchestral work.

My suggestion, don't hurry it. Save up and get something that'll fit your longer-term plans and needs. Stick with it and learn to use it.

[bigcat1969]

Could some explain Rhapsody: Orchestral Colors to me. If its the one I'm thinking of it seems like a push one button and get and orchestra playing your chord kinda thing. Which actually with my lack of ability seems like a pretty cool thing.

And yeah I got in a bit of an argument on this very site recently with someone who seemed to love the Factory library so I went back and listened to some of the patches. Some aren't bad and some like the upper end of the solo violin patch sound like someone whistling. In general the bass instruments sound better and the lower end of most instruments sound better. They tend to have 3 velocity layers and every other note sampled. The staccatos have 2 RR, nothing else has any. The samples are about a decade old and are a heavily stripped down and dated VSL library. Not bad for an intro library, but far from high end.

[Aryaroman]

Could some explain Rhapsody: Orchestral Colors to me. If its the one I'm thinking of it seems like a push one button and get and orchestra playing your chord kinda thing. Which actually with my lack of ability seems like a pretty cool thing.

I've been wondering about that myself. The description on the product page is a bit "Lindelof" to me.

[Aryaroman]

Great informations, thanks! About these kontakt-requiring libraries: Are they "better" for less money or something? I don't know why they need full kontakt and not the free version, but they always seem to be in a lower price-range. I may be totally wrong.

I have an option at the moment to get Komplete 10 for 300 bucks, could buy rhapsody: orchestral colors (is what you meant?) then or of course hunter diamond which was recommened on the last page, would end up at 450.. still a lot money but damn lot value. But I don't know if I even need the full komplete 10 stuff, I don't think so at the moment..

Pardon me, if this was already discussed, but how much RAM do you have? Orchestral libraries can get pretty RAM-, if not also CPU-intensive. Crackles, etc. A lot of velocity layers, round robins and mic options can be pretty demanding and put a lot of instances on that and you can run out of memory pretty soon. I'm not really in the extensive know-about about the differences on these aspects between libraries. Da Capo, Film Score Companion and East West's Play engine, I believe are some of the most demanding, with VSL, Miroslav(?) and Garritan on the other end.

Albion I think, is somewhere between, although they offer many mic options they're well optimized.

[Foxedge]

Great informations, thanks! About these kontakt-requiring libraries: Are they "better" for less money or something? I don't know why they need full kontakt and not the free version, but they always seem to be in a lower price-range. I may be totally wrong.

I have an option at the moment to get Komplete 10 for 300 bucks, could buy rhapsody: orchestral colors (is what you meant?) then or of course hunter diamond which was recommened on the last page, would end up at 450.. still a lot money but damn lot value. But I don't know if I even need the full komplete 10 stuff, I don't think so at the moment..

Pardon me, if this was already discussed, but how much RAM do you have? Orchestral libraries can get pretty RAM-, if not also CPU-intensive. Crackles, etc. A lot of velocity layers, round robins and mic options can be pretty demanding and put a lot of instances on that and you can run out of memory pretty soon. I'm not really in the extensive know-about about the differences on these aspects between libraries. Da Capo, Film Score Companion and East West's Play engine, I believe are some of the most demanding, with VSL, Miroslav(?) and Garritan on the other end.

Albion I think, is somewhere between, although they offer many mic options they're well optimized.

I've got 8GB of Ram and a pretty decent i-5 cpu.

[Foxedge]

One interesting question: Is it better to get all the orchestral Instruments one by one? I read that when you buy single instruments, for example strings only, they should be way more flexible and give one more flexibility on the long run, while full orchestra "boxes" come with limitations in for example the articulations and in the end one would be more limited on the long run, then by buying every instrument one by one but then with the full range of possibility.

But on the other hand, for example for hybrid scoring, strings only would not be enough I guess, wouldn't it? For 300-400 bucks whichs is my budget now I could barely get cine strings II or something in this value.
I have master session drums and vocalize by heavyocity, they can replace a choir and percussion.. but still far away from a full orchestra.

Any thoughts ?

[Chandlerhimself]

I don't think it's a matter of "one by one" or "all at a time", but more of a section vs individual instrument thing. Libraries that are sections will give you great instant results and you can create something that sounds good quickly. However you won't be able to properly orchestrate things with them because you can't separate the insturments. Individual insturments give you much more flexibility, but it's also more rope to hang you self with. If you don't know what you're doing it can be overwhelming and even if you do it will take much more time and effort.

If you're looking to do pop, rock or even trailer style music sections should work well for you. If you're trying to make soundtracks or classical music Id go with individual insturments.

[bigcat1969]

I think the full orchestra or instruments that are all recorded in the same hall or studio with the same mics might give a more consistent sound and be easier to mix together without having to separately add reverb to each instrument. I believe many orchestras are recorded to emulate their actual orchestral position in 3d space if you will.

[Elektronisch]

Im pretty sure you are not orchestrating anything so best is to get Kontakt 5 or Komplete 10 ultimate. Included VSL in kontakt will do fine. Its just alot of purists are complaining but on youtube you can hear great sounding compositions using Komplete.

One thing NI komplete doesnt have is huge division library where instruments are played by 50-100. Thats the only grip. But if you have ultimate you can crossgrade for 50% symphony series instruments.

[anomandaris1]

One interesting question: Is it better to get all the orchestral Instruments one by one? I read that when you buy single instruments, for example strings only, they should be way more flexible and give one more flexibility on the long run, while full orchestra "boxes" come with limitations in for example the articulations and in the end one would be more limited on the long run, then by buying every instrument one by one but then with the full range of possibility.

But on the other hand, for example for hybrid scoring, strings only would not be enough I guess, wouldn't it? For 300-400 bucks whichs is my budget now I could barely get cine strings II or something in this value.
I have master session drums and vocalize by heavyocity, they can replace a choir and percussion.. but still far away from a full orchestra.

Any thoughts ?

You don't need super expensive and detailed libraries, if you are going to compose trailer music, hybrid scores, pop or just adding orchestral touch to electronic compositions (so many pop hits were made with the old Miroslav or EWQLSO libraries).
You need full, detailed libraries only for traditional sounding symphonic works.
I doubt that even high end libraries have controllable modern articulations - Varese, Penderecky etc (there are libraries with just effects, but they are not flexible).

[lolilol1975]

In addition to Fleer's great ideas, you might try to get Kontakt on sale if no other way than getting Drum'ica and cross grading for $250. (Right now you can get Komplete for 400 if you want Kontakt plus pianos and some nice sound effects and stuff).
Then get Kirk Hunter Diamond Orchestra on sale for about $150. Note not everyone thinks as highly of this orchestra as I do and woodwinds are weak.

Let's be honest, $250 for a mere sampler, even with a mediocre programming language included, is a Komplete, absolute ripoff.
It's easily $150 more than what it should cost.

Incredible that NI can get away with being the dominant player in this domain, and leisurely enjoy and abuse its position of dominance.


Anyway, how does Albion One compare to KH ? It comes with Kontakt free which doesn't include the scripting language AFAIK, so does that mean that there are less articulations available ?