First orchestral library recommendations (must be NKS ready)

[erion]

Hi all,

This is my first post, and my first serious purchase, please be gentle Also, excuse me for the long post, I 'll try to avoid rambling and only briefly explain things where needed.

To quickly explain why NKS ready is a must, as can be seen in the subject, I am blind, so unfortunately I do not have access to the instrument UI, and since the industry standard is Kontakt these days, the library must support the NKS format, so possibly all parameters can be controlled via a Komplete keyboard.

My budget is around 1500 eur (around 1700 USD).

What I own: Logic Pro instruments,, Film Score Companion and Big Bang Universal Drums.

What kind of music I make: A little bit of everything (probably the worst answer at the moment), mainly trailer, and the louder kind of epic, or the lush and soaring romantic kind.

If you are interested, you can find a few at https://soundcloud.com/flameborn
Please excuse the glitches on the latest track, SONiVOX is horrible with offline rendering and with dynamics.

If we disregard NKS support, my top choices would be Jaeger (with everyone's dream, Hangar 4), Metropolis Ark 1, or Oceania for the choir. Unfortunately, these libraries do not have NKS support at the moment. The Ark series has preliminary NKS mappings, but it is extremely basic, so it is not suitable for me.

There are older contestants, I heard that the VSL series, though not Kontakt-based, work, though I do not particularly like their sound.

Another famous one seems to be the Albion series. As far as I could gather, only Albion One has NKS support. I find their strings a bit synth-sounding, in particular, there is a high buzz captured via one of their microphone mixes that makes it very unnatural to me.
Having said that, I love their Albion 2 and Albion 5, but I don't think it is the right time to purchase them (even though 2 is being discontinued), especially because NKS support is not there as far as I know.

Another fantastic library is Symphobia. I seriously can't get enough of their sound, and I am thinking about picking up all three, possibly Pandora as well this year. It is the only library I found that has full NKS support.
A lot of people seem to find their legato scripts a bit lacking though, and there are two areas where I wish they had more: percussion and choir.

I could purchase Kontakt, though their instruments are for a general audience, rather than focusing on orchestral music, which is understandable. I do love their Unacorda and Damage though.

CS unfortunately does not have NKS support, their Solo Strings could also be a great addition otherwise.

What I need: Preferably good dynamics, good legatos, basic and possibly a bit more advanced articulations, e.g. flautando for softer parts, runs, risers.
As far as the instruments go: strings, brass, percussion, choir (short and long), preferably some solo instruments and solo vocals, and optionally woodwinds.

I am in a position where time is not a constraint yet, so I do not mind non-ensemble instruments. Also, I am aware that what I am asking for is quite specific, so it's fine if you can recommend multiple NKS-ready libraries.

Thank you very much for any help in advance.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

No recommendations from me, as I don't use libraries of the kind of quality you are after. I am digging your music, though

[erion]

Thanks To be honest, I would not replace a live acoustic guitar, either. And do I hear Addictive Drums? Awesome.

I wish my requirements were a bit lower. Interestingly, I cannot seem to make something that is in the middle, it has to be either soft or super epic and loud. Oh the joy of not having to meet specific requirements.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Thanks To be honest, I would not replace a live acoustic guitar, either. And do I hear Addictive Drums? Awesome.

I wish my requirements were a bit lower. Interestingly, I cannot seem to make something that is in the middle, it has to be either soft or super epic and loud. Oh the joy of not having to meet specific requirements.

Haha, indeed.

Addictive Drums? No. Actually, drums is one area where I'm quite exacting about my demands. I did own AD for a while, but it didn't come coose to what I was after, and so I ended up selling it. Not sure what you were referring to, so can't say what I was using.
As for guitar: Been playing for most of my life, but have no hesitation using fakery for certain, non-critical tasks, or for when it is impossible to get a good live recording.

As to your request: Noisyboyuk is a member here, and a working composer. He is definitely a really good resource for recommendations as he has experience with many different products from many different companies.

[jancivil]

NI's Symphony Series in conjunction with Soundiron will be one of your more thorough libraries with full NKS support.
The Chris Hein solo strings and string ensemble tout NKS support.

[erion]

Not sure what you were referring to, so can't say what I was using.

I was referring to this track.

NI's Symphony Series in conjunction with Soundiron will be one of your more thorough libraries with full NKS support.
The Chris Hein solo strings and string ensemble tout NKS support.

Thank you very much for your recommendations.

Based on various videos, the NI Symphony Series string ensemble sounds nice, however, the whole collection is about a grand, at which point I think I am better of buying the entire Kontakt Ultimate Collector's Edition. Do you think the Symphony series is a better choice for the price, when compared to something like Symphobia? I'm wondering, because quite often a specialized library focusing on one thing is better than a generic one.
Having said that, I realize that I do not have many choices at the moment, so I am not trying to be picky

The Chris Hein Solo instruments are great, however, I am not so keen on the edited nature of their ensemble strings. It loses a lot of the nuances of a string ensemble's characteristics due to the ensemble being simulated, as far as Youtube videos can demonstrate.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Not sure what you were referring to, so can't say what I was using.

I was referring to this track.

Ah, Ok! That's from about 12 years ago, so definitely would have been Battery 2. Bass from Logic's EXS24, organ from Logic, also. Pad was probably Camel Audio's Cameleon 5000.

That piece was always waiting for a sax part. I eventually found the guy to play it, but life circumstances got in the way Good times!!

Thanks for the listen

[jancivil]

NI's Symphony Series in conjunction with Soundiron will be one of your more thorough libraries with full NKS support.
The Chris Hein solo strings and string ensemble tout NKS support.

Thank you very much for your recommendations.

Based on various videos, the NI Symphony Series string ensemble sounds nice, however, the whole collection is about a grand, at which point I think I am better of buying the entire Kontakt Ultimate Collector's Edition. Do you think the Symphony series is a better choice for the price, when compared to something like Symphobia? I'm wondering, because quite often a specialized library focusing on one thing is better than a generic one.

I haven't priced Symphobia but I'm not a fan of that kind of quickie library. The Symphony Series is much deeper.

[ckam03]

Cinematic Studio Series has NKS support.

[erion]

Ah, Ok! That's from about 12 years ago, so definitely would have been Battery 2. Bass from Logic's EXS24, organ from Logic, also. Pad was probably Camel Audio's Cameleon 5000.

That piece was always waiting for a sax part. I eventually found the guy to play it, but life circumstances got in the way Good times!!

Thanks for the listen

Any time, I hope you can finish it one day!

I haven't priced Symphobia but I'm not a fan of that kind of quickie library. The Symphony Series is much deeper.

You are right, it is deeper as in you can do more detailed composing, as you can compose for each instrument separately, while Symphobia has mainly ensemble recordings, with some added solo legato instruments.
If we look at articulations and content, however, I think Symphobia wins by far, plus you have some percussion and choir. On the other hand, with Komplete Ultimate CE, you have the entire Symphony series, which includes percussion, Damage, Unacorda and a lot of others.
An interesting fact is that both the Symphony series and Symphobia were recorded in Hungary, though in a different environment, one in a concert hall, the other in Studio 22. To my ears, the concert hall sounds a lot better.

Cinematic Studio Series has NKS support.

Thanks for this, it sounds amazing, maybe a bit pricy, but definitely worth buying. I'll put this on my to buy list for sure.
My only two wishes are proper sordinos and perhaps a bit fuller sound.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I think the combination of the NI symphonic collection and ProjectSam stuff is a good way to go. The symphobia stuff soudns great and is pretty inspirational with the multis that have all kinds of cool combination of stuff. I actually only have Orchestral Essentials 1, and it's pretty cool. Then for the individual parts, the NI collection is pretty good. I just have the essentials which comes with Komplete Ultimate, but of course the full one has a crazy amount of articulations and should be everything you could need for a long time. It is a better deal if you get it with komplete for sure, so it depends how much you want to spend and how many articulations you need. On the cheaper end, you could do Orchestral Essentials plus the NI Symphony Essentials, or using your whole budget you might want the full symphonic collection or komplete plus Symphobia or OE 1 and 2.

[jancivil]

I haven't priced Symphobia but I'm not a fan of that kind of quickie library. The Symphony Series is much deeper.

You are right, it is deeper as in you can do more detailed composing, as you can compose for each instrument separately, while Symphobia has mainly ensemble recordings, with some added solo legato instruments.
If we look at articulations and content, however, I think Symphobia wins by far, plus you have some percussion and choir.

In terms of the more usual articulations, Symphobia does not come out ahead or close to it (around 1:3); however there are 'FX' things included so the content is more varied. Its percussion is not impressive in my assessment.

[erion]

In terms of the more usual articulations, Symphobia does not come out ahead or close to it (around 1:3); however there are 'FX' things included so the content is more varied. Its percussion is not impressive in my assessment.

I agree, I don't think the percussion matches the bold and generally epic nature of the library. Perhaps only the hits make it a bit better, though of course they are not percussion by any means.
At this point, I think my best bet is probably the NI Symphony series, maybe with Symphobia 3, or OE 1 and 2. Later on, I should probably pick up CS Solo Strings, but we'll see.

Thank you everyone for your great help, unless you have more recommendations, in which case keep 'em coming

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Ah, Ok! That's from about 12 years ago, so definitely would have been Battery 2. Bass from Logic's EXS24, organ from Logic, also. Pad was probably Camel Audio's Cameleon 5000.

That piece was always waiting for a sax part. I eventually found the guy to play it, but life circumstances got in the way Good times!!

Thanks for the listen

Any time, I hope you can finish it one day!

I am slightly curious how it will sound if I replace the bass with Trilian, and the drums with BFD3. But I'm in the middle of a ton of other projects. One day, maybe