PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production QUESTIONS BOUT ORCHESTRA LIBS.

any help much appreciated on this topic.
for a long time ive been looking at orch libs/vsti's plug ins//sample libs.
its sorta a dogs breakfast for me cos i want to build epic huge soundscapes. but i have several questions/concerns for people alreay useing orch libs.
what would you recommend that...
1. gives me huge soundscapes if i want them , but can also give me simplicity if thats what a song calls for ?
ie something flexible.
2. is easy to use. one problem i have researching orch libs
is if i get one; the time to find a instrument i'm looking for appropo to a song i'm doing. ie time spent trolling through menus. sometimes its SO TIRING spending oodles of time going through menus, and i find slows my creativity.
cos when i get a song idea BAM ! lol i want to get it down
fast before i lose the flow/impetus.
3. i dont mind spending a little money. but i have other family obligations ; like a lot of pg users i'm sure
(like eating /servicing the car etc lol.) thus a budget friendly solution would be nice.
4. gives me UNIQUENESS. my concern on this being i dont want someone listening to one of my original songs to say
"oh he used the flute from xyz library". what i mean to say is (and i dont mean this in a rotten way) how to stay different from other users useing the same library ?

maybe its just not time for me re orch libs.
maybe i have to wait for them to develope more ?
but any ideas appreciated. ive been going through the sweetwater list of libs also.

https://www.sweetwater.com/c728--Virtual_Orchestra_Software

if people have any ideas ive missed; feel free to post back. also feel free to critique my ideas/propose a different tack.

thanks
oldmuso

I have a number of Kirk Hunter orchestra programs that might fit your bill and budget. The down side is that you will need the full version of Kontakt.
Note I do have a number of other good sounding orchestra strings and brass but they all use Kontakt. If you have Kontakt let me know and I will add them to this list.

My go to symphony is Kirk Hunter's Virtuoso Ensembles:

https://www.kirkhunterstudios.com/products/virtuoso-ensembles-kontakt-retail/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RgN09DGq-8

The Diamond symphony orchestra is dated but it still has some good sounding strings and horns:

https://www.kirkhunterstudios.com/products/diamond-symphony-orchestra/
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The East West products sound good and come with their own player. I have their Symphonic Choirs and it is very good.
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The UVI orchestra sounds good and it comes with its own player:

https://www.uvi.net/en/orchestral/orchestral-suite.html

I don't own this one but I do have a few UVI products and they sound good.
---------------------------------------------

Mario.
thanks for those ideas.
much appreciated. very nice of you. your the midi king.
are these massive libs ?
your tag lines eg electric car always make my wife and i giggle. (keep em coming.)


Simon.
if your reading this and continued over from you mentioning file sizes in the rme "unstable" thread.
thanks for the file sizes.
i have a question related to this topic.
let me explain a concept.
i have a dream one day that biab will evolve into "orchestra in a box". so that pg biab/rb users can do epic cinematic arrangements eg combining rock genre with a full blown orchestra.
this idea really cranks me up because imho there is nothing quite like a big orchestra at full bore.

for example recently i attempted to emulate for fun the
orchestra sounds used in a huge andy williams hit.
i got "someways there "/arrange down /some sounds BUT canned the idea cos i realised i needed an advanced orch lib probably. not biab's fault. i'm a bit of a perfectionist i'm afraid.lol.

thus assuming the foregoing concept and 24bit/96khz.
IN THIS CASE FOR A FULL BLOWN SET OF ORCHESTRA RT's.
eg typical huge full blown orchestra with ALL instruments covered includeing latin and world perc sounds plus all popular genres (pop/rok/jazz/classical/blues/country etc etc) what is your very rough estimation of file size ?.
(yes i know it depends on various factors) 50 to 70 Terabytes maybe ?
best
oldmuso

I have Roland’s best hardware MIDI synth so I’m behind in exploring software synths.

I use Notion by Presonus to compose, and their available library has all the instruments I need for both classical and jazz. London Symphony. I prefer these sounds to the Roland. No ‘player’ needed and easy if you know notation or import Music XML.

I also have the Spitfire Studio Orchestra sounds, with strings, brass and woodwinds. Some sounds like flute are considerably better than the Notion sounds. These are from the BBC Orchestra. Not huge and only requires Kontakt player, not full. About 40% off now.

It depends on what you mean by massive. They do cover all aspects of a symphonic orchestra like strings, brass, and percussive sections so in those terms they are massive.

If you mean by footprint then the are not that massive. You should look at the requirements for each product to determine exactly what is required.

Do you have the full version of Kontakt?

Also what DAW, if any, are you using? Some DAWs like Studio One Pro include some orchestra patches.

There are some free orchestra VSTis available:

https://hiphopmakers.com/free-orchestral-vst-plugins-best-orchestral-vst

Note that I do not have a lot of experience with these.

Garritan has a couple of orchestra VSTis available for purchase:

https://www.garritan.com/products/

I have their Personal orchestra and I use it on occasion.

To maximize the realistic sound of a MIDI orchestra mixing sounds from different products is a recommended. I have mixed Kirk Hunter's sounds with synth orchestra sounds, Garritan, GM, and other free orchestra sounds. Sounds from different companies have different timbres, thus when mixed can sound more realistic.

If I can think of others that I have heard and/or have, I'm not on my music computer right now, I will post them.

I hope this helps.

Mario.
re KHunter.
wow you have great taste mario. excellent sounds for the most part includeing the diamond collection.
been listening on you tube this morning.
only neg concern is download time.
i dont have kontakt. was thinking of buying one of their cheap usb sound devices just to get kontakt plus the starter freebies.
(i use bb , reaper , and rb)

maybe i'm missing something; but the areas of an orch lib i'm haveing trouble finding is wonderfull great choir sections that could back up my own vocs ; latin perc ; and horn sections.
it looks to me like lots of the orch libs have very good string sections. but some of the other sections of an orchestra not so much ? unless one spends oodles of bucks.

frankly the bb horn sections are ok for rough demoes/ideas but not for finals. same for vocs. i find the bb pianos ok.

theres nothing like a 200 k grand piano in full bloom.
a friend of my family had one in his fancy apartment.
he was a superb concert pianist. how he got it in there i'll never know. sounded absolutely wonderfull.
bosendorfer if i remember. stuff i'll never be able to afford.
i'm part of the overtaxed middle classes lol.
thanks for the added info mario.

best
old muso
ps mario to give you an idea of the sort of realistic live orchestral songs i love even though i'm a rocker first and foremost. rhapsody in blue on you tube or andy williams cant get used to losing you also on you tube.
also edmonton symphony orchestra doing conquistador with procol harum.

The Diamond orchestra has OK horns while the Virtuoso Ensemble horns are better. Adding reverb to horns can make them sound better. Most of your good orchestra sounds come dry. Also having a couple of duplicate tracks and slightly detuneing them adds realism.

Be care about buying for the freebies. Most come with a less featured program. The Kontakt add on is probably the free Kontakt player.

Amadeus is anther excellent sounding orchestra and it can be played using the free Kontakt Player. The horns and choir are very good. I have this piece of software and use it quite frequently.

https://sonicscores.com/amadeus/

Note that there are many patches available for the Kontakt Player:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-6-player/third-party-sample-libraries/

https://hiphopmakers.com/free-kontakt-library-instruments-patches

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-6-player/third-party-sample-libraries/?tx_nisamplelib_nisamplelib[categoryId]=16&tx_nisamplelib_nisamplelib[action]=index&tx_nisamplelib_nisamplelib[controller]=KontaktPlayer&cHash=5ea84ca517e3f1c7cdf4540958de4578

Also google/bing kontakt player sounds. When purchasing Kontakt Player sounds MAKE SURE that the doc indicate that it is for Kontakt Player. Many patches are for the full version only.

As I previously said very good choir is the Symphonic Choirs by East West.

Also note EQing can change the character of a given patch.

I live in New York State so I am a way overtaxed middle class.

Good luck.

PS - also note that I did not purchase all of my sounds in the last couple of years. I have been working with MIDI since the mid 1980s and I have accumulated a lot of sounds over those years and most were on sale when purchased.

Matt.
thanks for the info on notion.
i'm checking it out.
thanks for your kindness.

Mario.
thanks for the added links/info. sooo good of you !

some background.
for years ive been doing songs mainly useing bb RT's with little tricks //fx here and there on the RT's. plus useing midi plus the instrument plug ins found in computer music mag that are free.
but its mainly synth plug ins.
my reasoning was not only did i have other obligations , but also i was hoping the orchestra libs would mature; and with competition prices would improve. plus i was concerned that i saw many net threads on forums talking about the computer resource needs of various packages.
thus are these libs very demanding of cpu resources ?

mario what i would REALLY LIKE TO FIND IS A WONDERFULL FEMALE VOCS
PLUG IN VSTi. please let me explain.
if you listen a ways in on andy williams famous hit "cant get used to losing you" in the background is this fabulous female background singer. thats the sort of back up vocs i would love to find.
please give it a listen and tell me (its on you tube) if you know any lib that has that femme character background vocal.

i can do back up males fine; and what i do is a trick by merging my back up vocs with bb RT male vocs sometimes etc etc. but it only takes me so far. cos some of the bb vocs only work in certain tempo ranges etc.
in summary i would love to find individual femme back up singers of the calibre heard on some of the old orchestral/film songs as well as choirs i could build from.
fyi recently i did a "choir" all from scratch on a rock song useing lots of traks in reaps.
it was a ton of work spanning a couple of days.
sounded ok ; BUT i failed to mimic the female vocs of course lol.

this afternoon talking of east/west lib i was listening to their
femme back up singers lib. but i'm sorta this way and that about it.

once again mario. thanks for any help.

best
oldmuso

The BBC Symphony Orchestra (bbcso) Discover from Spitfire Audio is still one of the premier and best starting points for folks interested in orchestral arranging. It is sold for $49 USD or you can request a free copy from Spitefire. It does not require Kontakt. It is a gem of an offering.

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/bbcso/

I just purchased a professional Can't Get Used to Losing You MIDI file. The Vibes, bass, and drums are not from the Kontakt Player Amadeus but everything else is from it. The link is below just let me know when you DL it so I can take it down.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b48exp45n2gx17c/Can%27t%20%20Get%20Used%20to%20Losing%20You.wav?dl=0

All I did was to assign various Amadeus sounds to the MIDI. NO effects were added, thus the sounds are as delivered from Amadeus, nor did I change the MIDI file in any way.

If you would like to hear the some of my other sound sources just let me know. It will be a busy weekend but I'll do my best to get them back to you as soon as I can.

My gosh, Mario, those Amadeus voices sound fantastic!

Over the “COVID” break I spent a small fortune (all the coffee and grog money I couldn’t spend) on orchestral stuff. The thing is it does not matter what you get, invariably you have not got what you’d really like. Then, eventually you build up an understanding and find you no longer have the disc space required to store what you need let alone the money.

Each orchestral library has its own features and failings. Some are designed to do one thing and really don’t do as well with others. There is an amazing amount of free stuff out there but , the free stuff often has very limited articulations as do most of the cheaper libraries.

It does not seem to matter high end or low end understanding the “Key Switches” and or articulation lanes makes a huge difference. Knowing how to get the best out of the libraries you have for what you are trying to do.

Having said all that companies such as Spitfire, VSL, Project Sam and many others provide great freebies but you need to work with them to get the best out of them. After a while one learns a few tricks such as creating a track for the music and another for controlling the plugin (if using something such as Cakewalk) to avoid cluttering what you are doing. In Reaper creating Note Maps (Key Maps) is a great way to help but not only for “Key Switches” but also for CC Lanes. Using note maps helps to get a lot more out of the plugin. (Not only with Orchestras but many instrument plugins and other sims).

Where would I start, well I’d recommend the VSL Big Bang free Orchestra (but it does require a Steinberg Key (about USD $25). The Spitfire freebies are really good but one needs to learn about them to get anything productive. Similar with Project Sam freebies. Even Kontakt freebies.

For paid stuff there are many depending on what you are doing. Good lower priced ones include LASS (but Modern Strings is a better proposition) but strings only. I find VSL Special Editions 1 & 2 are great. Combine that with the Big Bang (and some additions) or the VSL Smart Orchestra and you are well on the way. Then add Ostinato Strings (to design Ostinatos) your a long way there.

There are many many really great orchestral libraries but you do need $$$. However even the lower end Kontakt Orchestral libraries can provide a good sound (if you learn to use them). With the full version of Kontakt one can edit the orchestra to get reasonable legato for example.

Well I’ve had a bit to say. This is something I wanted to share. These are my experiences and thoughts. I am only to willing to discuss them. Other people’s mileage may vary.

Thanks. Tony

Mario.
you are a prince for doing that example.
i had a listen. you asked me to tell you when i had had a listen. so you can now take it down if you wish mario.
as you can see that andy williams song is a great composition.
no wonder it was a big hit in its time.
and probably a good test of any orch lib.
your example together with my exploring orch libs on you tube has certainly got me more interested in pursuing affordeable orch libs. cos they have come someways.

i think the KEY to useing them from everything ive heard is judicious use. its a question of how close one can get with a patch to the live real player of the instrument with the real players personality and articulations.
its like the RT's(and this is no knock on the RT's);
but i find sometimes with RT's ; background use in a song or RT synth pads are fine. its when one needs some carefull sophistication that one really has to work at it.

mario ; sometime listen on you tube to the orchestra useage on old cilla black hits. great nuggets of sound imho.

i agree with Cathie. there are some nice sounds in amadeus.

every happiness mario.
best
oldmuso
ps teunis. you make good points.
i dont want to spend money i dont have.
gonna go buy a lottery ticket lol.

I agree. One gets a lot of good orchestra sounds for $149 USD.

We must be close in age; I am 75. I did remember Can't Get Use to Losing You and well as Cilla Black. Remember the "101 Strings Orchestra"? They did some amazing music.

Teunis makes a good point in that in order to get the absolute best sounds you need to spend more money. Unfortunately most of them are out of my price range.

I guess your next step is to make a decision on what to buy. Personally I think the Kontakt Player and Amadeus is a good place to start. Amadeus does have key switches for various articulations. The initial cost is $149 USD but for the cost you get some good sounding orchestra sounds IMHO.

If need be you can also purchase a book on orchestration, google/bing MIDI orchestration.

I hope this helps and good luck.

Groove 3 is a great place to start with understanding orchestral stuff. Even if you join for only a month Groove 3 is worth it. They have several good video tutorials on orchestration, how to do it and how to mix it and more. There are also books available on Groove 3 (not that I read them).

I recommend “Orchestral Library Toolbox” which is very extensive not specific to any instrument product or genre. It covers many aspects and provides hours of details. Vienna Smart Orchestra Explained is another good video as are MIDI Orchestration Explained and Orchestral Mixing Explained. It should be possible to gain a good understanding if one has a look at these videos.

I found Orchestration way more complex than many other aspects of computer music. Even more complex than pedal steel (which is also complex IMHO). Whilst it is complex and a big learning curve Orchestral Instrumentation is a lot of fun and can keep you occupied for hours on end. (That is basically the reason I’ve had less time on these forums).

Have fun Tony

+++ Solid State Symphony +++ is an interesting library for $59.

Realitone just released +++ Sunset Strings +++ for $199. It's interesting because the player can blend two articulations together. Also, the studio has been used to score movies so it has that cinematic sound.

Yes this is a good one. I have Solid State Symphony and it is my go to synth sounding strings.

It has brass and it has a very unusual set up. When using the complete symphony, you have the option of only using the string section, lower velocities will yield strings only when higher velocities add the horns.

{edit} - It does require the full version on Kontakt.

ALL.
thanks for being so kind and contributing to this thread.
fyi what i am doing right now is doing deep dives into orch/music library plug ins on you tube as well as the net.
as i find something unique/different i'll post the link here.
mainly i focus on areas where i feel the RT's are weaker.
eg femme vocs; winds like clarinets/flutes etc and other categories.

for example heres my first find the other day.
from ivy audio. its called clare i believe.
female solo lib.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fepmgrZNHoo

i'll post other finds as i come across them.

lol i now realise my stupidity in not being aware that library plug ins have come a loooong way.

best
oldmuso.

I made this segue into orchestral arranging a year or two back in an effort to expand my musical experience and to search for inspiration. Best thing I did in this regards is become a regular over at https://vi-control.net/community/. This site provides inputs into this area well beyond our little BIAB community. However, just like the BIAB forum, you will find the folks very helpful and friendly. Stop by and say hi if you see me over there.