KVR Audio

SciFiArtMan · Post by **SciFiArtMan** » Sat Nov 05, 2016 9:38 pm

I saw the YT clip below, and some others, and was instantly impressed with what I saw and heard from Nexus2. For me, it would be a dream come true to be able to quickly select and play such (relatively) realistic orchestral sounds! As it is now, I have to assemble such sounds through multiple plugins, samples, and patches, and therefore I realize I sometimes let my laziness guide me by skipping such a convoluted process and simply fill the space with a nice string patch from Zebra, or similar. I know this is a terrible sin, but it's the sad truth.

So I REALLY want to obtain such easily available orchestral sounds such as demonstrated in this video. Nexus2 appears to do this well (or well enough for me), but not being all that familiar with modern softsynths, or ROMplers, and samplers, is there an better and/or cheaper (N2 + expansions it gets costly!) way to achieve similar, relatively hassle-free and instant orchestral sounds than these from Nexus2? In particular, I like the combo sounds, split keyboard set-ups, velocity and MW, and sequencer aspects of these demonstrated patches.

Thanks!

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Sat Nov 05, 2016 11:02 pm

Structure 2 is $149
http://www.airmusictech.com/product/str ... B5kQtUrKM8

Examigan · Post by **Examigan** » Sat Nov 05, 2016 11:05 pm

Get this first:
http://www.kvraudio.com/news/audiodelux ... or-1-35108

If you buy it for $1, then you can upgrade for about $75 which has Structure

https://www.audiodeluxe.com/products/ai ... te-upgrade

Orbit-50 · Post by **Orbit-50** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 3:28 am

Nothing beats Nexus2 for simplicity. There are other great libraries out there, but they are a little more cumbersome to use. Nexus 2 and it's libraries are well worth the price when compared with it's ease of use, quality and extremely low cpu hit.

neverwhere2410 · Post by **neverwhere2410** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 3:07 pm

Examigan wrote:Get this first:
http://www.kvraudio.com/news/audiodelux ... or-1-35108

If you buy it for $1, then you can upgrade for about $75 which has Structure

https://www.audiodeluxe.com/products/ai ... te-upgrade

Not to derail, but I'm glad I looked in this thread... $1 for xpand2 seems like a no brainer and I didn't know this deal was going. Not that I need another workstation vst, but what did "need" have to do with anything ever?

Brittlestem · Post by **Brittlestem** » Sun Nov 06, 2016 3:13 pm

If you do go for Nexus, wait for the Xmas sale as there's always a discount on the soundbanks.

SciFiArtMan · Post by **SciFiArtMan** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 3:09 am

Thanks for the heads-up on that killer Air Xpand! and upgrade deal, Examigan! Regardless of my orch needs, that Air upgrade package looks amazing, and for a song of a price!

So I've been listening and educating myself on Structure (as that appears to be your focus in this upgrade path), but I'm not really seeing Structure being that much of a alternative to the orch possibilities of Nexus (with the Hollywood XP)!? Maybe I just haven't seen Structure with the correct expansion pack(s) yet?

I'd love to hear Structure creating similar sounds to that Nexus video! Any ideas or videos on how to achieve this would be appreciated!

Thanks all!

Orbit-50 · Post by **Orbit-50** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 3:20 am

SciFiArtMan wrote:I'd love to hear Structure creating similar sounds to that Nexus video!

You will be dust in the ground for thousands of years before that happens.

SciFiArtMan · Post by **SciFiArtMan** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 4:16 am

Orbit-50 wrote:
SciFiArtMan wrote:I'd love to hear Structure creating similar sounds to that Nexus video!
You will be dust in the ground for thousands of years before that happens.

That's sad to hear! I was always hoping to become Dust in the Wind!

But Orbit-50, back to Nexus2, I'm torn between Hollywood 2 Core Library vs Hollywood 3 Epic Collection for my first expansion (beyond the many available freebies), as I can't afford N2 AND the whole bundle for either set. Do you have any preference to either of those XPs? (I assume the original Hollywood XP is right out!?) I've listened to and studied both, and both appear to have the basic orch combos I like, as well as a few extras, like percussion and FX. Any thoughts?

Orbit-50 · Post by **Orbit-50** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 5:10 am

If you can't afford Nexus 2 at this moment, try Garritan Personal Orchestra V which is highly affordable and pretty decent quality for it's pricepoint. Be prepared to get your hands dirty in trying to achieve those types of splits that you are hearing. It can be done though.
I would also like to also say that my comments on the superiority of the Nexus 2 libraries are based on the fact that there is little setup involved and they sound really great. I don't want to seem as if though I'm saying that the Nexus 2 Hollywood expansions are the be all, end all, orchestral libraries. There are a few other libraries out there that are affordable and can achieve great results also.

Elektronisch · Post by **Elektronisch** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 5:21 am

i have checked at friends all the hollywood libraries (owns Nexus 2 all bundle) as i was very impressed with the demos but to tell yo the truth they do not sound that great as audio demos suggest. No round robin, no flexibility and the best sounding orchestral sounds come in Sequences wich sadly are loops. For that price you get better orchestral stuff even in Komplete 11u. I was very dissapointed about Nexus Hollywood series.

Dont know about Structure from airtech but maybe its worth a shot.

koolkeys · Post by **koolkeys** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 5:22 am

For the price of Nexus and the orchestral expansions, you could get something like Spitfire Albion One or ProjectSam Symphobia (the original one, though there have been multiple others since then). Both are intended to give more of these quick results without having to know dozens of other settings and keyswitches, etc. And both will give you MUCH better and more realistic orchestral sounds than anything Nexus has available. And both come with Kontakt Player in case you don't already own Kontakt.

Or for that matter, Orchestral Essentials from ProjectSam is another option.

Brent

ValliSoftware · Post by **ValliSoftware** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 7:57 am

neverwhere2410 wrote:
Examigan wrote:Get this first:
http://www.kvraudio.com/news/audiodelux ... or-1-35108

If you buy it for $1, then you can upgrade for about $75 which has Structure

https://www.audiodeluxe.com/products/ai ... te-upgrade

Not to derail, but I'm glad I looked in this thread... $1 for xpand2 seems like a no brainer and I didn't know this deal was going. Not that I need another workstation vst, but what did "need" have to do with anything ever?

Sorry, not to derail either but for $1, cmon.
That's $1 well spent. Thanks Examigan

Oh yeah, I spent another $19 on AIR Transfuser 2 as well.
Okay, back to regular schedule programming...

noiseboyuk · Post by **noiseboyuk** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 8:18 am

I love the advice you sometimes get at KVR

As one person has said, however, there isn't really anything comparable to Nexus 2's Hollywood series, for both bad and good reasons. Those sequences are such instant fun and sound really good for what they are. But they are, of course, one trick ponies, similar perhaps to working with audio loops but a little more elegant. In terms of actually composing yourself, it's a non-starter, and the individual instruments don't remotely compare to a good orchestral sample library.

The closest to this concept in the realm of more credible libraries would be some of the stuff from Sononkinetic, such as their new release Maximo. You can very quickly get a whole orchestra going with a few key presses, and they have a lot of clever tricks to allow you more freedom than just replaying static loops.

One more toe dipped into the compositional waters would be the ProjectSAM Symphobia and Orchestral Essentials series. Each product comes with multis where you can stack several instruments together, often in very playable and useable ways. And the good news is that with ProjectSAM, you'll get individual instruments and ensembles of real quality.

Beyond that, you're looking at getting into the serious stuff which doesn't have that instant gratification of pressing a key and hearing a whole orchestra leap out the speakers. I wouldn't reccommend Garriton's GPO series which requires a phenomenal amount of work to make anything sound listenable, there are many, many better alternatives, but there are other threads for that, should you ever want to veer off down those long, dark and expensive waters.

Brittlestem · Post by **Brittlestem** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 9:12 am

Another decent all-in-one orchestral package (strings, choirs, woodwinds, brass) is Metropolis Ark1 http://www.orchestraltools.com/librarie ... _ark_1.php

Structure from AIR hasn't been updated properly for *years*, has like zero worthwhile libraries available and the orchestral sounds in it are worse than Nexus Hollywood IMHO.

koolkeys wrote:For the price of Nexus and the orchestral expansions, you could get something like Spitfire Albion One or ProjectSam Symphobia (the original one, though there have been multiple others since then). Both are intended to give more of these quick results without having to know dozens of other settings and keyswitches, etc. And both will give you MUCH better and more realistic orchestral sounds than anything Nexus has available. And both come with Kontakt Player in case you don't already own Kontakt.

Or for that matter, Orchestral Essentials from ProjectSam is another option.

Brent

Is Nexus2 the way to go for easy ORCHESTRAL sounds, or are there better alternatives?