Yeah got most of the freebies, but i think i am happy with EastWest for now. Was taking BBC Core inte consideration and might get that later on.mixyguy2 wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 2:46 am You never did mention budget, but if that is a concern (or perhaps even if not), check Amadeus. Full-featured orchestra, sounds good IMO, unlike many it has solo instruments for everything, and only $149.
Most of the others if you decide to buy, wait for a sale. Probably some coming up in Nov. Def try the freebies like ProjectSAM, VSCO, etc.
Orchestral libraries for a beginner
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 13 posts since 6 Oct, 2023
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 13 posts since 6 Oct, 2023
honestly it comes down to my templates for me and how the instruments operates and what you get for the money. EastWest was such a bargain for exemple when it comes to the Fantasy solo from merethe soltvedt , that was a game changer for me. As it is included in the AI Jaeger library.Echoes in the Attic wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 3:17 amDid you not like Musio? I have a lot of Cinesamples stuff, but in Kontakt. I think it's quite good. Curious what made you nto like Musio.acus365 wrote: Sun Oct 08, 2023 6:03 amYeah i actually went with EastWest for now. Uninstalled Musio almost immediatelyrACatkvr wrote: Sun Oct 08, 2023 3:31 am If money is no object go for VSL. Otherwise as has been suggested already try Musio and EastWest’s ComposerCloud+ and on that try them both see which one you like better to use/works better on your system/sounds better to you. You can buy the orchestras in both those subscriptions if you decide to stay with one of them and don’t want to subscribe.
OPUS (the player for EastWest) is mature and offers purging and articulation switching. Musio’s player is rapidly developing but key switching is currently spotty - I’m not sure about purging. VSL offers some free stuff which also allows you to see and feel how their player works.
Is VSL on Kontakt?
I wanted a complete solution to everything, but to complete it with my own stuff like the full library from Output or Arkhis , Thrill etc from NI
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- KVRist
- 295 posts since 15 Oct, 2023
VSL & Spitfire is pretty good start wise & price as well (some are free), you can even get a student/music-teacher-discount if you're eligible, highly recommend!
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- KVRer
- 3 posts since 21 Oct, 2023
Apart from some of the very great free instruments already mentioned, I got a few orchestral instruments included with the purchase of my DAW, Cubase. Some of them are really good, others not so much.
I ended up getting Embertone's Joshua Bell violin as my soloist violin. As per strong reviews from other composers, JB sounded so great for me at first, but now the VST has weird noise hiss with the press of every key that is just as loud as the key being played itself and it render the VST almost unbearably impossible to use since I can hardly get rid of the noise even with a good EQ. Since none of my other Kontakt instruments do this, I'll have to write to the developers about this. Sadly, I read comments online that the developer hasn't fixed issues in some of their other libraries in a while, so JB might just be left unfixed by them and therefore force me to drop it and move to a different soloist, which would be a real real shame since the the VST is top-tier otherwise.
I got some excellent sounding violins and celli from the LA Sessions library Orchestral Tools has. They often sell individual instruments from their larger more compete collections which is what I really like about them. Both instruments sound great for my use case until I can afford to invest in a more complete orchestra later on. I know that I wouldn't go with OT's Berlin library because the colouration and tone of it doesn't suit my preferences for my own work. That's the thing about orchestral libraries: apart from their technical playability (some companies do this better than others), they are all recorded differently and therefore also have different tones that suit the tastes of composers and project requirements differently.
Anyway, I really love the Clavinet from Arturia as well as their Augmented Brass vst. I like the Rickenbacker Bass Guitar from Scarbee because it can be very mellow for softer projects and grittier for others. My DAW came with some really awesome sampled instruments found in the HALion sampler.
I got Ujam's Striiiings and Druuuums (funny names), and they sound awesome, but are in practicality much more difficult to play than I'd like. They're executable phrase instruments and are therefore not possible to play as a traditional instrument note by note. You press a key and it's always a phrase with no "instrument mode" option. Therefore, because of the difficulty and overall lack of control when I need it between the preset phrases, I haven't touched those two in a while. It's a bit of a sad story actually, these two were my first VST purchases and I had no idea that phrase execution was just not the workflow that was workable for me with the lack of note execution between phrases, so it was wasted money in a way. A tough lesson to learn. Even with their free trial period, I didn't know what I was looking at as a newbie, and it wasn't enough time for me to understand much of what my needs were, that phrase execution wasn't the general way of things to go, so it turned out to mostly be wasted precious money.
I got some of Ujam things though, and they're much more workable for me: I got several of their Beatmaker kits. Sound great. Also come with phrases, but I can also play all the drum sounds separately which is what I prefer to do always and with my midi controller.
I also use Maschine and Groove Agent SE for drums. Both come with excellent drum samples for all kinds of music (including orchestration) and while GA SE comes free with Cubase, I don't use it as often as Maschine because they locked the ability to execute note repetitions behind a paywall of several hundred additional dollars. Not a cool move Steinberg. Not cool at all. I refuse to upgrade to Groove Agent (full non SE version) out of sheer principle. That's why I ended up getting a Maschine instead.
My list is pretty short as you can see. I'm still building my collection as best as I can, too. Doing my best as I dive into this new world of production and scoring. I try to learn, read and practice everyday, but it will be a long journey since I have no mentors available to me and I am mostly self learning with resources online.
I ended up getting Embertone's Joshua Bell violin as my soloist violin. As per strong reviews from other composers, JB sounded so great for me at first, but now the VST has weird noise hiss with the press of every key that is just as loud as the key being played itself and it render the VST almost unbearably impossible to use since I can hardly get rid of the noise even with a good EQ. Since none of my other Kontakt instruments do this, I'll have to write to the developers about this. Sadly, I read comments online that the developer hasn't fixed issues in some of their other libraries in a while, so JB might just be left unfixed by them and therefore force me to drop it and move to a different soloist, which would be a real real shame since the the VST is top-tier otherwise.
I got some excellent sounding violins and celli from the LA Sessions library Orchestral Tools has. They often sell individual instruments from their larger more compete collections which is what I really like about them. Both instruments sound great for my use case until I can afford to invest in a more complete orchestra later on. I know that I wouldn't go with OT's Berlin library because the colouration and tone of it doesn't suit my preferences for my own work. That's the thing about orchestral libraries: apart from their technical playability (some companies do this better than others), they are all recorded differently and therefore also have different tones that suit the tastes of composers and project requirements differently.
Anyway, I really love the Clavinet from Arturia as well as their Augmented Brass vst. I like the Rickenbacker Bass Guitar from Scarbee because it can be very mellow for softer projects and grittier for others. My DAW came with some really awesome sampled instruments found in the HALion sampler.
I got Ujam's Striiiings and Druuuums (funny names), and they sound awesome, but are in practicality much more difficult to play than I'd like. They're executable phrase instruments and are therefore not possible to play as a traditional instrument note by note. You press a key and it's always a phrase with no "instrument mode" option. Therefore, because of the difficulty and overall lack of control when I need it between the preset phrases, I haven't touched those two in a while. It's a bit of a sad story actually, these two were my first VST purchases and I had no idea that phrase execution was just not the workflow that was workable for me with the lack of note execution between phrases, so it was wasted money in a way. A tough lesson to learn. Even with their free trial period, I didn't know what I was looking at as a newbie, and it wasn't enough time for me to understand much of what my needs were, that phrase execution wasn't the general way of things to go, so it turned out to mostly be wasted precious money.
I got some of Ujam things though, and they're much more workable for me: I got several of their Beatmaker kits. Sound great. Also come with phrases, but I can also play all the drum sounds separately which is what I prefer to do always and with my midi controller.
I also use Maschine and Groove Agent SE for drums. Both come with excellent drum samples for all kinds of music (including orchestration) and while GA SE comes free with Cubase, I don't use it as often as Maschine because they locked the ability to execute note repetitions behind a paywall of several hundred additional dollars. Not a cool move Steinberg. Not cool at all. I refuse to upgrade to Groove Agent (full non SE version) out of sheer principle. That's why I ended up getting a Maschine instead.
My list is pretty short as you can see. I'm still building my collection as best as I can, too. Doing my best as I dive into this new world of production and scoring. I try to learn, read and practice everyday, but it will be a long journey since I have no mentors available to me and I am mostly self learning with resources online.
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- KVRAF
- 11950 posts since 31 Aug, 2013 from Someplace else
Last I saw, the full Miroslav 2 is on sale for €39. Can't beat that, really.
“The Generals sat, and the lines on the map, moved from side to side.”
― Pink Floyd
― Pink Floyd
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- KVRAF
- 1791 posts since 17 Sep, 2002
Do you use it yourself? Or are you just passing along info you saw? Because it's pretty bad as an orchestral library (a few decent sounds, terrible player/workflow, terrible company) even for that price, imo. I def wouldnt recommend it to someone new, at least not in 2023.Bombadil wrote: Sat Oct 21, 2023 3:41 pm Last I saw, the full Miroslav 2 is on sale for €39. Can't beat that, really.
hell, unless they recently fixed it, the installer hasn't even worked properly for years now. you have to do some weird workaround installing an old version first. otherwise the plugin will immediately crash your DAW.
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- KVRAF
- 11950 posts since 31 Aug, 2013 from Someplace else
Yep. I use it, along with other libraries. No ONE library is going to do everything. One caveat, though; it works for me in Sampletank 4, which is ARM Native. Miro 2 itself is not.
“The Generals sat, and the lines on the map, moved from side to side.”
― Pink Floyd
― Pink Floyd
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- KVRAF
- 11950 posts since 31 Aug, 2013 from Someplace else
Another one would be Sonuscore The Orchestra Complete. Sounds are not super, but it has bells and whistles to get you started. It may go on sale next month.
“The Generals sat, and the lines on the map, moved from side to side.”
― Pink Floyd
― Pink Floyd
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- KVRist
- 68 posts since 24 Mar, 2005
Hi,
New to posting here. I like LABS, Pianobook and BBC Discovery. All free.
New to posting here. I like LABS, Pianobook and BBC Discovery. All free.
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- KVRian
- 1365 posts since 2 Mar, 2018
Welcome!
LABS is not an orchestral library however, nor is Pianobook. BBC Discovery sounds very good IMO but is very limited in articulations/etc. Still worth it for free for sure, but only as a starting point or to complement other orchestral libraries IMO.
LABS is not an orchestral library however, nor is Pianobook. BBC Discovery sounds very good IMO but is very limited in articulations/etc. Still worth it for free for sure, but only as a starting point or to complement other orchestral libraries IMO.
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- KVRAF
- 9106 posts since 28 Apr, 2013
Garritan Instant Orchestra.
Hmm. Just checked their latest pricing and wouldn't recommend at that price ($179.99).
I bought mine from MF in their bargain bin for $28...
Hmm. Just checked their latest pricing and wouldn't recommend at that price ($179.99).
I bought mine from MF in their bargain bin for $28...
Last edited by BBFG# on Thu Dec 07, 2023 7:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- 5381 posts since 25 Jan, 2014 from The End of The World as We Knowit
Versilian Chamber Orchestra Pro
https://versilian-studios.com/vsco-pro/
over 90 individual major instruments, plus dozens of small percussion,4-8 round robins on short articulations and percussion, phaselocked modwheel crossfading on sustains, multiple microphone positions on most instruments, even Time Machine (“TM”) patches to allow adjustment of staccato length.
On sale $99
https://versilian-studios.com/vsco-pro/
over 90 individual major instruments, plus dozens of small percussion,4-8 round robins on short articulations and percussion, phaselocked modwheel crossfading on sustains, multiple microphone positions on most instruments, even Time Machine (“TM”) patches to allow adjustment of staccato length.
On sale $99
F E E D
Y O U R
F L O W
Y O U R
F L O W
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- KVRian
- 1365 posts since 2 Mar, 2018
I was debating whether or not to say something. Last I heard it was good "in its day" but that day was long past...but maybe newer versions are better? No idea.BBFG# wrote: Thu Dec 07, 2023 3:20 am Garritan Instant Orchestra.
Hmm. Just checked their latest pricing and wouldn't recommend at that price ($179.99).
I bought mine from MF in their bargain bin for $28...
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- KVRAF
- 9106 posts since 28 Apr, 2013
There's no newer version. I open it up and it's always better than I expect for its age though. And for something quick and simple without any real thought, it does nicely. My suggestion was based on "for a beginner" and remembering the price I got it for. No way would I pay what they're asking for it today.mixyguy2 wrote: Fri Dec 08, 2023 1:44 amI was debating whether or not to say something. Last I heard it was good "in its day" but that day was long past...but maybe newer versions are better? No idea.BBFG# wrote: Thu Dec 07, 2023 3:20 am Garritan Instant Orchestra.
Hmm. Just checked their latest pricing and wouldn't recommend at that price ($179.99).
I bought mine from MF in their bargain bin for $28...
I think of it in an anachronistic way of what I always hoped for when playing analog orchestrators of the '70s-'80s and have used it as such. In that way, it works great.