Good budget orchestra libraries...

[zybor]

... which light-weight and don't crash when you load more than one instance. I know everybody nowadays go-to library is EWQL SO. However with the shitty combination of high resource usage and iLok, it's not an answer. I'm introducing beginner production for a friend's daughter who's very into music composition. The problem is her laptop is not so powerful (i5/4GB RAM). Kontakt Player compatible is better. Budget is up to $500.

I'm asking the nerds and experts of NGAP to help me out. If you wanted to list everything you know, that's also great. Thank you for your time.

[NevoMusic]

I like Spitfire Albion ONE, it's 450 bucks, so a bit pricey. It's a very good all in one orchestra plugin for Kontakt. EastWest also has a lot of good quality orchestra plugins.

[SoundChris]

At 1/2/17 04:41 PM, SnowTeddy wrote: ... which light-weight and don't crash when you load more than one instance. I know everybody nowadays go-to library is EWQL SO. However with the shitty combination of high resource usage and iLok, it's not an answer. I'm introducing beginner production for a friend's daughter who's very into music composition. The problem is her laptop is not so powerful (i5/4GB RAM). Kontakt Player compatible is better. Budget is up to $500.

Well 4 GB RAM is a problem these days. For electronic music production its often easier to work on weaker machines, but also that is changing. In general you can avoid the problem if you know very well what you are writing and also do know your orchestration before you start editing. Then you can instant-bounce the single instruments from midi to audio and unload the vst instrument you have used to record it. That way you can do as many instances as you desire. But its as i have said: You have to know exactly what you want or have some experience in writing orchestral stuff.

Ok - so much for the beginning. And now lets head to the orchestral libraries.

I. Complete Full Orchestra Solutions

1. EWQL - Symphonic Orchestra Gold
Its stil not a bad library even it is almost a dinosaur on the market. Nevertheless it is possible to write up to a certain degree with it. I also used it once i started composing on a mac mini with 4 GB which i upgraded to 8 GB soon (which i would recommend to you also).

Addition: If you ever got a stronger system keep in mind: The new flagship orchestra by EWQL is HOLLYWOOD ORCHESTRA which also is availiable as silver, gold or diamond version and that has got MASSIVE content. The Hollywood Strings Diamond are stil THE best sounding ensemble strings IMO, if you are heading for a vintage hollywood / late-romantic / john williams style or also Mancini sound.

Hollywood Strings and Brass Diamond:
Strings Demo 1
Strings Demo 2
Strings Demo 3
Brass Demo
Woodwinds Demos

2. CineSymphony Lite
Cinesamples CineSymphony (Pro) is quite a strong collection and one of the top products on the market. The lite version has got all the orchestra sections, but no fancy stuff like legato etc. Here is a Demo Video

3. Versilian Studios Chamber Orchestra 2 (by our NG- friends @Samulis and @Camoshark)
There is also a quite new full orchestra solution by fellow newground members offering a full orchestra for a quite affordable price - there are different price options. Here is an anouncement trailer. For further questions - especially about the system requirements etc i recommend to directly ask @samulis .

4. Kirk Hunter Diamond Orchestra
Also quite an old library but there are stil quite many people out there who stil seem to use it. Here is an overview / review video

5. Garritan Personal Orchestra
This seems to need very little system resources ... but the sound ... well ehrm ... :D Still a classic product.

6. ProjectSAM Symphobia
Also a very old orchestral library. But its really not a bad piece of software. You probably heared in many TV trailers etc. Its not really cheap but gives you most of the tools that you would need. But i stil think that 4 GB is very few - even the program is old. Here you find some demos. If your machine would be able to handle that it would be a good point to start IMO.

Maybe you can check out their smaller library called "ProjectSAM Orchestral Essentials" which offers the most important stuff of the orchestra.

II. The (IMO) best possible Orchestral Setup possible these days

1. Strings: --> Ensemble: EWQL Hollywood Strings Diamond + Cinematic Studio Strings
--> Solo: CineStrings Solo + Chris Hein Solo Violin + Embertone Intimate Strings

2. Brass: --> Ensemble: Orchestral Tools Berlin Brass oe Hollywood Brass Diamond / CineBrass (these are stil top, but a little bit weaker IMO than Berlin)
--> Solo: Samplemodeling Brass (Demo 1 Demo 2 Demo 3). The art is to layer the ensemble instruments for the fat sound with the samplemodeling brass to get more definition and a human feel. Here is an example where that guy used CineBrass with Samplemodeling Brass layered on top: Star Wars 7 Trailer Rescore

3. Woodwinds: --> Ensemble: Orchestral Tools Berlin Woodwinds
--> Solo: Orchestral Tools Berlin Woodwinds Solo Exp 1 & 2 and 8Dio Claire Woodwinds

4. Percussion: Spitfire Percussion Redux

5. Choir: --> Women: Eduardo Tarilonte Mystica (The demo is from myself) Strezov Sampling Freyja
--> Men: Strezov Sampling Wotan Male Choir (Also one of my own demos)
--> Children Choir: Strezov Sampling Arva and 8Dio Liberis

I'm asking the nerds and experts of NGAP to help me out.

Ok. That was my opinion as an orchestral nerd :). II hope this helps anyone who is interested to get some orientation whats existing these days.

[SoundChris]

At 1/2/17 04:41 PM, SnowTeddy wrote: ... which light-weight and don't crash when you load more than one instance. I know everybody nowadays go-to library is EWQL SO. However with the shitty combination of high resource usage and iLok, it's not an answer. I'm introducing beginner production for a friend's daughter who's very into music composition. The problem is her laptop is not so powerful (i5/4GB RAM). Kontakt Player compatible is better. Budget is up to $500.

I'm asking the nerds and experts of NGAP to help me out. If you wanted to list everything you know, that's also great. Thank you for your time.

BTW - just checked out your music. You already seem to have symphobia, albion one and cinesymphony lite. I dont think you would find something comparable that is even less resource-demanding. And if the sound would be far lower.

[zybor]

At 1/2/17 07:05 PM, SoundChris wrote: BTW - just checked out your music. You already seem to have symphobia, albion one and cinesymphony lite. I dont think you would find something comparable that is even less resource-demanding. And if the sound would be far lower.

Well her laptop is neither the production or gaming type so anything like Symphobia and Albion One would not be able to handle it. Albion One patches can be loaded individually, but you won't get to run much of them with 4GB RAM. I was thinking of Orchestra Essential, but I don't own it. What's your opinion on it?

[zybor]

Btw, just to clarify, the orchestra library isn't for me but for my best friend's daughter. I'm buying it as a present for her first start at music production.

At 1/2/17 06:53 PM, SoundChris wrote: Well 4 GB RAM is a problem these days. For electronic music production its often easier to work on weaker machines, but also that is changing. In general you can avoid the problem if you know very well what you are writing and also do know your orchestration before you start editing. Then you can instant-bounce the single instruments from midi to audio and unload the vst instrument you have used to record it. That way you can do as many instances as you desire. But its as i have said: You have to know exactly what you want or have some experience in writing orchestral stuff.

Ok - so much for the beginning. And now lets head to the orchestral libraries.

I. Complete Full Orchestra Solutions

1. EWQL - Symphonic Orchestra Gold
Its stil not a bad library even it is almost a dinosaur on the market. Nevertheless it is possible to write up to a certain degree with it. I also used it once i started composing on a mac mini with 4 GB which i upgraded to 8 GB soon (which i would recommend to you also).

I have Silver and it run badly even on an 8GB machine. I've been thinking of buying 2nd hand/resold boxes of EWQL SO Kompakt version for her on Ebay.

2. CineSymphony Lite
Cinesamples CineSymphony (Pro) is quite a strong collection and one of the top products on the market. The lite version has got all the orchestra sections, but no fancy stuff like legato etc. Here is a Demo Video

Kontakt Player compatible, I guess? Look like currently they having a deal for $279.

6. ProjectSAM Symphobia
Also a very old orchestral library. But its really not a bad piece of software. You probably heared in many TV trailers etc. Its not really cheap but gives you most of the tools that you would need. But i stil think that 4 GB is very few - even the program is old. Here you find some demos. If your machine would be able to handle that it would be a good point to start IMO.

Maybe you can check out their smaller library called "ProjectSAM Orchestral Essentials" which offers the most important stuff of the orchestra.

Is Orchestra Essentials a compact repack of Symphobia?

Ok. That was my opinion as an orchestral nerd :). II hope this helps anyone who is interested to get some orientation whats existing these days.

Thanks for the help. You win the most helpful post in 2017.

[SoundChris]

At 1/2/17 08:15 PM, SnowTeddy wrote:

1. EWQL - Symphonic Orchestra Gold

I have Silver and it run badly even on an 8GB machine. I've been thinking of buying 2nd hand/resold boxes of EWQL SO Kompakt version for her on Ebay.

I own the diamond version which is indeed ultra resource unfriendly. Usually the PLAY stuff works better on win machines while i am on apple. Since i upgraded to a totally maxed out mac pro 6.1 everything works perfectly (finally ...). But thats a quite comfortable situation. For the normal user this can become frustrating indeed.

2. CineSymphony Lite

Kontakt Player compatible, I guess? Look like currently they having a deal for $279.

Yes its a library for kontakt and it also runs with the free Kontakt Player 5 version

Is Orchestra Essentials a compact repack of Symphobia?

I think so. Its the essential stuff from the symphobias if i remember correctly.

Overall i would say:

1. Hm if i were you i think i would probably go for EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Gold or for CineSymphony lite / Orchestral Essentials 1 which all seem to work with the free Kontakt Player

plus

2. Upgrade the Noteboot to 8 GB Ram (should be affordable)

Thanks for the help. You win the most helpful post in 2017.

Glad i could help!

[SuperGoodSound]

I'll transfer my copy of Miroslav Philharmonik CE + Sampletank LE to you for $25.

For Miroslav it's 1.5gb, 250 instruments, pretty light CPU-wise. Would be next to impossible to beat in terms of money spent.

Also, this is a complete set of no brainers:
http://www.pluginboutique.com/product/1-Instruments/64-Virtual-Instrument/1845-Orchestral-Companion-Strings
http://www.pluginboutique.com/product/1-Instruments/64-Virtual-Instrument/1560-Xpand-2

Xpand has a surprisingly decent collection of orchestral instruments.

[SuperGoodSound]

A few others...Proteus VX has a bunch of decent stuff in it (free):
http://www.creative.com/emu/proteusvx/

And if she uses a free sampler like ShortCircuit you can teach her multi-sampled instrument building with free orchestral samples from here:
http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/explore/sound_samples

So, hell ... 27 bucks and she gets five or six plugins with a slew of really very usable orchestral stuff. You avoid spending a needless amount of money and everyone is happy.

[EagleGuard]

At 1/2/17 04:41 PM, SnowTeddy wrote: The problem is her laptop is not so powerful (i5/4GB RAM). Kontakt Player compatible is better.

With those limitations, using an older sample library is probably your best option. In addition to Miroslav Philharmonik (version 1, as suggested above), you may also want to take a look at Peter Siedlaczek's Complete Orchestral Collection. It's not very well-known around here, but the samples are light-weight and still very usable. You get quite a lot of stuff for the price, and it's also Kontakt Player compatible.

Additionally, Vienna Symphonic Library has a sale right now: 20-25% off of their Special Edition bundles, which contain very high quality and fairly light-weight samples. The first volume is probably enough for most needs, but you will need a dongle to use them.

[samulis]

I recommend my library VSCO 2. This is exactly the type of use it is designed for. It's a (comparatively) slender 15.5 GB thanks to Kontakt's lossless compression, but does require the full version of Kontakt 5 to function (we're working on getting it ported for Kontakt Player; that should be available as a free update to any owners and purchaseable for new customers early next month). Not to mention, it's very RAM-friendly and gentle on the CPU- you can literally stream it off a flash drive on an older laptop just fine.

http://vis.versilstudios.net/vsco-pro.html

In general, we designed the library to have the quality and controls one expects in a much more expensive library in a package that can fit on a flash drive, and at only $230 for over 90 unique instruments, it's honestly probably the biggest bang for your buck on the entire market. Not only does it contain all standard orchestral instruments, it also has numerous rare and unusual instruments and 28 pre-mixed 'plug-n-play' "ensembles" that are perfect for a budding composer to experiment with chord progressions, melodies, textures, etc. The samples are all pretty dry by default, perfect for learning real-world mixing habits (and also extremely flexible within a template), with an optional convolution reverb built in that sounds very nice as well as stereo imaging options. Most instruments even have multiple mic positions.

In short, it's a library with the price and size of (if not much larger than) those "legacy" libraries you could spend your money on, but with the mindset, features, and quality of a library made today- in fact, it's even still being developed and added onto, half a year after release- and will be for at least another year.

Several freeware versions and variations of the library have been created, including a fantastic freeware library by Paul Battersby, the "Virtual Playing Orchestra", which is probably the best freeware orchestral library out there. Paul combined and sifted through samples from all the best freeware samplesets available today.

http://vis.versilstudios.net/vsco-community.html
http://virtualplaying.com/virtual-playing-orchestra/

[SoundChris]

At 1/3/17 05:31 PM, samulis wrote: I recommend my library VSCO 2

it's very RAM-friendly and gentle on the CPU- you can literally stream it off a flash drive on an older laptop just fine.

I also recommended it above - but i wasnt sure about the Ram footprint since its a quite new library and these usually have their hardware demands these days. Thats why i tagged you good sir :) Btw: Happy new year Sam!

[samulis]

At 1/3/17 07:49 PM, SoundChris wrote:

At 1/3/17 05:31 PM, samulis wrote: I recommend my library VSCO 2

it's very RAM-friendly and gentle on the CPU- you can literally stream it off a flash drive on an older laptop just fine.

I also recommended it above - but i wasnt sure about the Ram footprint since its a quite new library and these usually have their hardware demands these days. Thats why i tagged you good sir :) Btw: Happy new year Sam!

I normally don't much get on Newgrounds anymore, but I managed to catch your tag by sheer chance! Thanks, and happy new year to you too! I'm still waiting for your order to come through on VSCO 2 Pro. One day I will brainwash you to try it out- maybe you would like the new recorders I sampled for it. ;)

[SoundChris]

At 1/3/17 11:18 PM, samulis wrote: I normally don't much get on Newgrounds anymore

Well its the same for me. Unfortunately most of the good old friends who were active from 2011 - 2014 have left the portal or are totally inactive :/

Thanks, and happy new year to you too!

Thanks man!

I'm still waiting for your order to come through on VSCO 2 Pro. One day I will brainwash you to try it out

Even i am convinced that its really well done it could need some time until i purchase vstis again. I invested that much within the last 3 years that i finally reached a point (about 8 string libraries, several brass and woodwinds, 11 different choir and almost anything in the ethnic, hybrid and synth area that is existing. There is only one thing that i really wanted so badly: A successor of Symphonic Choirs with a sound like the Strezov choirs but the ability to write words. If that isnt possible for the next years i needed a library with the full graduale romanum, means ALL possible words, that you would need for ecclesiastic choral music (Kyrie, Agnus Dei, Benedictus, Requiem, and so on). There is not one single library that offers it. I would burn to write monumental pieces like a large and dark requiem ... but as a detail-nerd i am really missing the words / syllabs. Any chance that versil is going into that direction? Like i said: This and a working wordbuilder choir are the only 2 things that i would need so much but which i just cant find anywhere

maybe you would like the new recorders I sampled for it. ;)

Probably. I am a fan of winds - especially historical ones :)

[samulis]

At 1/4/17 02:42 PM, SoundChris wrote: Even i am convinced that its really well done it could need some time until i purchase vstis again. I invested that much within the last 3 years that i finally reached a point (about 8 string libraries, several brass and woodwinds, 11 different choir and almost anything in the ethnic, hybrid and synth area that is existing. There is only one thing that i really wanted so badly: A successor of Symphonic Choirs with a sound like the Strezov choirs but the ability to write words. If that isnt possible for the next years i needed a library with the full graduale romanum, means ALL possible words, that you would need for ecclesiastic choral music (Kyrie, Agnus Dei, Benedictus, Requiem, and so on). There is not one single library that offers it. I would burn to write monumental pieces like a large and dark requiem ... but as a detail-nerd i am really missing the words / syllabs. Any chance that versil is going into that direction? Like i said: This and a working wordbuilder choir are the only 2 things that i would need so much but which i just cant find anywhere

Unfortunately not! I am in the works of a few very basic choir patches, but nothing beyond "ooh" "ahh" and a few consonants perhaps. Wordbuilders- and specifically sampling for them- are in incredibly lengthy and complex process with often less-than-pleasing results. The human ear is so well attuned to hearing the voice that the "uncanny valley" for vocal samples is simply massive, almost unsurmountable. In order to do it properly, you have to sample the transitions between syllables as well as the syllables themselves.

Honestly, choir libraries I do not understand. It is incredibly easy to multi-track yourself singing, and to find a female vocalist if you are male is so very easy too. I always record live vocals and it always sounds much better than any syllable-based vocal sample library (obviously basic "ahh" "oohh" patches are not very hard to make and are quite convincing at that task).

For example, here is a track with some live improvised vocals. We sang the text of "Lorem Ipsum" as a joke (well, parody) of how epic music always uses nonsense latin- so we used actual nonesense latin.

https://soundcloud.com/samulis/simon-sings-w-live-vox-sam-gossner-simon-dalzell-chris-byrum-harris-and-steve?in=samulis/sets/vsco-2-pro-demos

maybe you would like the new recorders I sampled for it. ;)

Probably. I am a fan of winds - especially historical ones :)

Here are the recorders in action. Chromatically sampled Baroque instruments with RR and two mic positions-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cgDMvm-2SE

[EZvidz]

Well... if you want something with a low memory use.
You should try: Ediroll HQ Orchestra. Its old but it sound pretty Good.

My personal go Orchestral libs:
KONTAKT's - Vienna Symphonic Library (Which is pretty light on PC recourses
And session strings