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I have come to realize that my losing the passion for creating orchestral music might be a sign of me having outgrown the tools at my disposal. Over the past weeks I have had a handful of orchestral ideas that I've tried to capture, but every single time I get frustrated with the libraries I have--with them either sounding dated, not being able to capture the sound I hear in my head, or I'm simply sick of them--and consequently I give up.

However, later this month I will be receiving the final royalty payment for my Horus Heresy soundtrack, which amounts to around $360. This isn't money I was expecting in any way since I was under the impression the previous payment was going to be the last one, which is a pleasant surprise of course. So I'm going sieze the opportunity and invest it in a few new orchestral libraries to hopefully get my creative juices flowing again. I've been doing some research and some thinking the past week, and here's what I've come up with so far.

When it comes to woodwinds and percussion, I don't think I need any of that right now. The solo winds in VSCO 2 Pro are fantastic, and as for sections I can still use some of the older libs I have. Percussion--again, VSCO 2 has some great stuff for classical/oldschool arrangements, and I have more epic/trailer type percussion freebies than I will ever find a use for. Choral libraries? Would be fun to have, but I don't use choral parts to such a degree that I can motivate the expense at this point, not when there's stuff I need more. So I will be focusing on strings and brass here.

STRINGS

Hyperion Strings Elements. I love the sound of this thing (don't mind the silly gliss legatos prevalent in the Soundcloud demos, check out this video instead), and the fact that it has smaller sections and is recorded dry. This gives me more options and more versatility, since I can easily layer a small section with something else and add ambience/reverb to it to make it bigger, but I can't make a big sample smaller or less wet. Unless anyone has any compelling arguments why I shouldn't spring for this, Hyperion Strings Elements is what I'll be getting.

BRASS

Here's where things get a little more hairy. I have two similarly priced candidates right now, namely:

ProjectSAM Orchestral Brass Classic
Pros: I like the sound of it, it has smaller sections as well as two mic positions. Also, Kontakt Player compatible. Cons: Old samples reprogrammed and repackaged, with scripted rather than true legato. Edit: I knew someone here had mentioned this one. Nayrb, yay or nay?

EastWest Hollywood Brass Gold
Pros: More modern-sounding, very slick. Cons: Perhaps too slick for my taste, and has only one mic position. And it runs on the Play Engine, which I would prefer not having to deal with.

If anyone here has any experience with either of these, I would love to hear your opinions. Or maybe there's some other affordable alternative that I've managed to miss?


KONTAKT... OR SOMETHING ELSE?

"But," I hear you say, "that's only $200, what about the rest of the money?" Well, since Black Friday is coming up, I'm thinking I should save the final $160 and put it towards purchasing the full version of Kontakt if it goes on sale at a sensible price. Or is there some other library you think might be a good fit for the above instead?

I can't recommend anything, as I only have the oldest version possible of EW Symphony Orchestra Silver, along with Miroslav Philarmonik 1 and 2 and the SONiVOX orchestral libraries. But if you decide for something by EastWest, check out everyplugin.com. The price is better than elsewhere. I have bought nothing there yet, but from what I've gathered, (VI-control) it's legit, and I'm currently very tempted to buy the EWQL Hollywood Orchestra Gold there. 

EDIT: You can get Hollywood Brass Diamond for 134 dollars at EveryPlugin. That would solve the "only one mic position issue".

I personally very strongly recommend, as far as Brass goes, the Aaron Venture Infinite Brass, especially if you're already investing in Kontakt. They sound stellar, they're easy to use, they're programmed for flexibility and thus require zero keyswitches. aaronventure.com includes more details and demos of course -- and for many of the demos there is MIDI provided so that you can take a peek "under the hood," as it were, and offering demos of your MIDIs is something I don't believe any other developer does for their libraries.

Thanks for your comments, guys! Since I posted this a couple of days ago and got no response, some things might have happened since then. Main thing being that I got the money much earlier than expected, and I have already bought Hyperion Strings Elements. And it's great! Though that's a different story. Might have to write up a review for it.

(11-06-2020, 05:33 PM)PPH Wrote: [ -> ]I can't recommend anything, as I only have the oldest version possible of EW Symphony Orchestra Silver, along with Miroslav Philarmonik 1 and 2 and the SONiVOX orchestral libraries. But if you decide for something by EastWest, check out everyplugin.com. The price is better than elsewhere. I have bought nothing there yet, but from what I've gathered, (VI-control) it's legit, and I'm currently very tempted to buy the EWQL Hollywood Orchestra Gold there.

EDIT: You can get Hollywood Brass Diamond for 134 dollars at EveryPlugin. That would solve the "only one mic position issue".

Like you I have Miro 2 (or the CE version more correctly) and the Sonivox libraries, but sadly neither are suited for modern virtual orchestrations. I love the samples of both, but the way they're packaged they're useless. Velocity-switched dynamics for sustain articulations is a thing of the past, not to mention that RAM-only libraries will limit you more than stuff that has disk streaming. Even with 16 gigs of RAM, I could just barely fit the entirety of the Sonivox libs into a project, and that was before percussion, choirs and whatnot.

As for the everyplugin.com site, I think it looks very sketchy. But if you're willing to trust it with your money (I'm not), let me know how it went.

(11-06-2020, 11:20 PM)Terry93D Wrote: [ -> ]I personally very strongly recommend, as far as Brass goes, the Aaron Venture Infinite Brass, especially if you're already investing in Kontakt. They sound stellar, they're easy to use, they're programmed for flexibility and thus require zero keyswitches. aaronventure.com includes more details and demos of course -- and for many of the demos there is MIDI provided so that you can take a peek "under the hood," as it were, and offering demos of your MIDIs is something I don't believe any other developer does for their libraries.

Thanks for the heads-up, but at $449 that's waaaaay out of my price range. I'm looking for full-featured yet affordable libraries.

(11-07-2020, 01:52 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: [ -> ]Like you I have Miro 2 (or the CE version more correctly) and the Sonivox libraries, but sadly neither are suited for modern virtual orchestrations. I love the samples of both, but the way they're packaged they're useless. Velocity-switched dynamics for sustain articulations is a thing of the past, not to mention that RAM-only libraries will limit you more than stuff that has disk streaming. Even with 16 gigs of RAM, I could just barely fit the entirety of the Sonivox libs into a project, and that was before percussion, choirs and whatnot.

Exactly, though in the case of Miro 2, I can do disk streaming via Sampletank 4.

(11-07-2020, 11:10 AM)PPH Wrote: [ -> ]Exactly, though in the case of Miro 2, I can do disk streaming via Sampletank 4.

Yes, that's true, and I've moved the few Miro 2 projects I have over to ST4 as well (the RAM usage of ST3 is insane, each instance uses like 2GB with nothing loaded!). Sadly you don't get the nice "keyswitch box" that is in the ST3 version, and since the Miro 2 articulations appear to be laid out completely at random, that's a pretty big drawback.

Ha! I was looking for that thing the other day in SampleTank 4. Now I know it doesn't exist!

After som going back and forth I finally went for Hollywood Brass Gold. Very happy with it so far, sounds amazing and PLAY runs remarkably well!

(11-10-2020, 09:57 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: [ -> ]After som going back and forth I finally went for Hollywood Brass Gold. Very happy with it so far, sounds amazing and PLAY runs remarkably well!

Good choice! Hollywood Brass is the best of the Hollywood series by far imho! If you are in the position to crossgrade to Diamond at some point, I'd recommend it, and not because of the extra mics really. The default mic in the Gold edition ('Mid') is NOT the default mic in Diamond ('Main'), and the Main position imho sounds better than the Mid position. I bought Hollywood Woodwinds Gold and almost never use them because I really dislike the 'Mid' position, but the 'Main' position with strings and brass is great.

BTW, word of warning about Hollywood Strings: they cut all the shorts too short but didn't properly fade them, so they cut off before they've faded out. It's really jarring unless you bury it in reverb and are using them as part of a full ensemble (which I guess is the point, and is fine). In all honesty I like the spiccatos in EWQL SO much better despite it literally being 20 years old; they just cut so nice and aggressively the way they processed them.

I would recommend Orchestral Tools for Woodwinds for sure if you ever look for some. I don't have any of their products yet, but I spent a long time listening to solo playthroughs of various libraries a few months back and liked theirs a lot, and they seem to be making some budget stuff now too which is nice for the ecosystem. Was really not impressed by Spitfire on the other hand; I used to like their stuff a lot but it doesn't seem to be holding up anymore. I listened to the BBC orchestra playthroughs and I thought their old flagship orchestral line (was British Modular, no idea what it is now) was much better in almost all aspects.

(11-12-2020, 02:42 AM)Samulis Wrote: [ -> ]Good choice! Hollywood Brass is the best of the Hollywood series by far imho! If you are in the position to crossgrade to Diamond at some point, I'd recommend it, and not because of the extra mics really. The default mic in the Gold edition ('Mid') is NOT the default mic in Diamond ('Main'), and the Main position imho sounds better than the Mid position. I bought Hollywood Woodwinds Gold and almost never use them because I really dislike the 'Mid' position, but the 'Main' position with strings and brass is great.

Yeah, really liking it so far; it's big and bold enough for doing more epic stuff, but it can also handle subtle playing remarkably well. Actually, the single mic in Gold is Main, not Mid, and I don't hear a problem with it. I was afraid it was going to be too wet (as EW libraries tend to be) but it has just the right blend of directness and ambience for my needs. Maybe you just got the mic names backwards though

(11-12-2020, 02:42 AM)Samulis Wrote: [ -> ]BTW, word of warning about Hollywood Strings: they cut all the shorts too short but didn't properly fade them, so they cut off before they've faded out. It's really jarring unless you bury it in reverb and are using them as part of a full ensemble (which I guess is the point, and is fine). In all honesty I like the spiccatos in EWQL SO much better despite it literally being 20 years old; they just cut so nice and aggressively the way they processed them.

TBH I have no intention of getting any other EW stuff other than brass. I don't want to become locked into a single developer and a single "sound"; I've always had better results mixing different libraries. But thanks for the warning!

(11-12-2020, 02:42 AM)Samulis Wrote: [ -> ]I would recommend Orchestral Tools for Woodwinds for sure if you ever look for some. I don't have any of their products yet, but I spent a long time listening to solo playthroughs of various libraries a few months back and liked theirs a lot, and they seem to be making some budget stuff now too which is nice for the ecosystem.

I could use some good section woodwinds, actually. I have eyed the OT stuff but nothing appeared to be within my price range, though I'll keep an eye out if their stuff goes on sale later this year. But my main priority right now is getting Kontakt, as it would open up a whole world of possibilities.

(11-12-2020, 02:42 AM)Samulis Wrote: [ -> ]Was really not impressed by Spitfire on the other hand; I used to like their stuff a lot but it doesn't seem to be holding up anymore. I listened to the BBC orchestra playthroughs and I thought their old flagship orchestral line (was British Modular, no idea what it is now) was much better in almost all aspects.

Disclaimer: I have never used any of Spitfire's high-end libraries. I do however have three of their Originals libs (Epic Strings, Epic Brass & WW, Intimate Strings) as well as Discover and a bunch of the LABS instruments. And to be perfectly honest... none of these have managed to convince me that I should invest big bucks in Spitfire products. Quite the contrary, actually, but it might be that their sound just doesn't appeal to me. Roomy and murky isn't what I'm looking for in orchestral samples. Credit where credit is due though: The Originals ensemble winds are excellent for woodwind beds or just roughing out ideas.