PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production East West Hollywood Virtual Strings

I'm looking for a modestly priced VST that I can use for sting parts (cello, viola, etc). EastWest Hollywood strings virtual instrument looks interesting. Does anyone know if this is compatible with real band. I'd be interested in other recommendations too. I'm currently using coyote for most of my instrument sounds, and want something that sounds more real.
Brian

EW is excellent but it's fairly costly IIRC. I picked up a free version many years back and it has some really sweet sounds in it for sure. I also think it uses dongles which.....depending on how you feel, may be OK or not.

Other options would be the following:

Native Instruments Session Strings and Kontakt. SS is obviously focused on strings but Kontakt has the complete orchestral sample set included and there are a ton of 3rd party samples for sale for every conceivable instrument.


Garritan Personal Orchestra is a middle of the bunch option..... medium price and good sounds. Look around as you can sometimes find this bundled on the Sonar site with DimPro at a really killer price. Currently, they are in the cakewalk store for $50 bundled

GARRITAN

And another option is Miroslav Philharmonic, also a medium priced orchestra....

I have, and use all the things I mentioned above depending on my musical needs at the time. They all sound good. Much much better than the TTS and Coyote GM sounds. I would advise you to look into the lower cost ones first....Miroslav and GPO.... also check out NI's Session strings since it also falls into the middle price range. Kontakt is slightly more costly than MSP & GPO.... but like I said, it is comprehensive and has many more sounds available.

There are quite a few good options available.... do your research and see what works and sounds the best for you.


And yes... to the question.... these can be used in BB & RB as VST's

Hi
I'm using Native Instruments Session Strings, and am very pleased with the results. Do explore the other options mentioned though, but Session Strings was my choice

Go back and play with your Games, little boy!

It's hard to answer the question without knowing what sort of sound you're after from the strings. Do you want dramatic orchestral strings like a contemporary film score, or an intimate string trio? Different libraries are targeted at different sounds.

If you want a pop strings sound, Session Strings is an affordable choice - it sounds good and fits nicely into the mix. You won't be able to get solo sounds from it, though.

Miroslav is an older library, but has some excellent sounds, both sections and solo instruments. It's more orchestral than pop, but fits nicely into a mix. Plus, you get additional instruments other than strings.

Garritan is also relatively inexpensive (although it used to be cheaper). If you know what you're doing, you can get some excellent sounds from the string sections. The solo instruments are usable, but disappointing. However, I really like the woodwinds in the library.

Kirk Hunter has a Pop/Rock Strings library which gives coverage from solo strings up to large sections. I don't think it sounds as nice as some of the other libraries - not a "real" and resonant, especially the cellos - but it's certainly worth considering. Again, it'll work well in a mix.

If you like the lush sound, you might look at the LA Scoring Strings (LASS) library, which focuses on the orchestral sound. Personally, I think it's probably a bit much for a song mix.

There's also a LASS First Chair library, featuring a reduced set of the full LASS library, with only the solo strings. Layer these on top of a nice string section and you've got the best of both worlds. They're not designed as such, but they work pretty well as solo instruments - the slurs are very cool.

I can't comment on libraries that use dongles, since I avoid using them. The last I saw, the EW Gold Orchestral was around $100US, which is a nice price.

Many of these libraries go on sale at various times of the year, so that could save you a chunk of change. I've bought them all over the years... a sort of modified GAS. All lovely sounds, but the ability to get great sounds from the library ultimately rests on your ability to write for strings.

Coyote Dx is free and Coyote Forte is 40 USD. Which one are you using? cause you get what you pay for.

just for info
Miroslav Philharmonik is on sale here
http://audiodeluxe.com/products/ik-multimedia-miroslav-philharmonik

its announced at $29.99 but when you actually order there is another $3 off so the total is $26.99. A nice price indeed for 7Gb of samples

that seems like a great price. I already have GPO4. and I just noticed the SampleTank I have with BIAB includes some of the Miroslav Philharmonik. Do you know if this is a significant upgrade to that?

its a massive upgrade to the sounds included in biab

For $30, it's well worth the money.

Thanks so much for posting this...I got it!

Thanks David! I appreciate your advice. Downloading it now...

So now that you've got them, what do you thing about them, JohnJohnJohn?

I'm just curious.

Hey David, honestly I have not installed them yet! I went through the whole download process and I am noticing my hard drive is starting to fill up a bit! So this weekend I hope to clear off some space and install them. One of the first things I wanted to do is to try and compare to GPO 4 for common instruments. And then explore to find new stuff. I'll post again as soon as I get to play with them!! Thanks again for the recommendation.