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One Orchestral Library recommendation

Joe K said:
Hi Guys,

If I'm looking for a comprehensive orchestral library that sounds perfect out-of-the-box for scoring and demo purposes, which one would you recommend? Maximum budget is 500$.
Thanks
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What kind of system/specs do you have - that might really help. There’s no perfect library, just a question of what trade offs you prefer. :)
 
VannKraken said:
They also reworked the woodwinds content and added new instrument patches and the Orchestrator, as well. It’s not perfect, but for an all in one package it’s very thorough.

OPUS also has a purge function for RAM management, too. I can’t remember which Wolfgang it is, but EW hired two well known industry vets away from other companies to build it.
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Wolfgang Kundrus, and he is brilliant.
 
Joe K said:
comprehensive orchestral library that sounds perfect out-of-the-box for scoring and demo purposes
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Nucleus is probably the best pick imho, but try to wait for a sale if you can. I do not own it but knowing Audio Imperia, it’s going to be consistent, flexible and sounds great. It’s also going to be easy to program, easy to find what you want and easy to make it sound great. It has a classic mix if you want more traditional sound, or a modern mix. If I was starting with nothing today and could only buy one package I’d buy this.

on.soundcloud.com

Audio Imperia - Nucleus: "Captain Ortegas Journal" (Nucleus Only) by Stan Erbrink

www.audioimperia.com Audio Imperia Nucleus is an orchestral software instrument made for Native Instruments' Kontakt Player, that’s both compact and versatile. An uncompromising library designed to b
on.soundcloud.com on.soundcloud.com

BBCSO doesn’t sound like “a score” to my ears so that’s out, for me. (It sounds like a polite concert.)

Opus / EWHO sounds quite good much of the time and has a lot of flexibility but it can be difficult sometimes to use. It’s not necessarily the best for beginners because you spend most of your time trying to figure out what patches to play when, and how to control them, instead of making music.

Musio sounds good as well and has a low cost of entry (especially the monthly option) but isn’t very flexible (in the current version). Maybe the limitations will be good for a beginner. It can be a little challenging finding the sounds you want, but not too bad, once you get used to it.

There’s other options, but... I would still pick Nucleus over them, and again I don’t own it but I am familiar with the developer’s other products and looked extensively at it and all the demos etc. It’s the best combination of value, sound and ease of use.

There’s also a Nucleus Lite version.
 
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Joe K said:
Hi Guys,

If I'm looking for a comprehensive orchestral library that sounds perfect out-of-the-box for scoring and demo purposes, which one would you recommend? Maximum budget is 500$.
Thanks
Click to expand...
You're going to need to share your system specs and some examples of the types of orchestral music you're hoping to make. Otherwise, all people can do is tell you what libraries they like the most, versus giving you an honest assessment for your situation and goals.
 
Btw, and I am not trying to push anyone to do it and I certainly won’t get get rich doing it, but I do sell my Logic Pro Hoopus template with articulation sets for a “pay what you can” price.
 
I'm certainly no expert here, just making music for my own amusement and plan to keep it that way. After playing with the free options for a while (BBC Discover; Orchestral Tools Layers; Project Sam 1/2; etc.) I decided I needed a decent all in one library. I evaluated all of the options and settled on Nucleus as my first all in one. I went for lite to start out and I love everything about it! The sound is what I was looking for, no iLok, runs in free Kontakt player, small footprint, the interface is intuitive, the performance patches are great for sketching, and the sample start/tight button are so easy to work with! It wasn't long before I was convinced, so I jumped on the recent sale to upgrade to the full version. It's definitely worth a closer look if you like the more aggressive sound.
 
wills said:
For questions like this, everybody always gives you the same answer : He suggests the library he owns ! I prefer to only give you my very summerized feedback on libraries I currently own :
- Vienna Synchron : I use a lot of because the sound is good but the player is also very good. It offers a wide list of features to control your sound. It is my favorite one.
- Orchestral Tools : I only use Brasses and WW (and First chairs). For me the sound is very nice too but the player is not optimized. We can't acceed to some parameters by Midi CC... And the same Midi CC is used for several parameters, depending the articulation you use (as Spitfire). For me, it is a bad option. But I use alot too for the qualmity of sounds.
- Chris Hein : very sophisticated libraries (I own strings and Horns). The learning curve to cover all possibilities is not easy but the result is very interesting with some exclusive features (as Hot key which gives you the possibility to merge two articulations one one note, one at the beginning and one after... very usefull to simulate some playong technics). I love a lot of the sound of solo strings (for me better than First chairs of Orchestral tools) . The limitation is the fact it uses Kontakt which is a good player but with a 20 years old GUI (now too small)
- 8 dio : I use WW clair and I mainly love the vibratos... very nice recording. But as Chris Hein, it uses Kontakt with the same limitations.
- East West : I only use old Orchestral libraries. The sounds are also very good (That sounds wide !) but the midi implementation is totally crazy..; It is possible that this difficulty is canceled with Opus..; But I don't like subscription principle... I consequently don't own OPUS..
- Spitfire : I only have old Strings libraries and Albion 1. Albion 1 is very good, easy to use but limited to ensemble. I use a lot of for first Mock up. Others Strings libraries sound good too but with the same problem as Orchestral tools... Midi implementation is far from Vienna Synchron one and Kontakt GUI is too old..
I hope it will be usefull for you...
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but, OP has a budget limit, so mentioning high priced libraries is out of scope (e.g. VSL Synchron or Berlin series).
And OP asked for an all in one orchestra (meaning one product: note Although HOOPUS is technically multiple libraries, it is sold as one package).
 
Joe K said:
Hi Guys,

If I'm looking for a comprehensive orchestral library that sounds perfect out-of-the-box for scoring and demo purposes, which one would you recommend? Maximum budget is 500$.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Nucleus by Audio Imperia! The full version is $449 (RRP).

I composed this whole piece almost entirely with Nucleus Lite ($99 and you can crossgrade later to the full version):



Only the percussion I supplemented a bit with Strezov Sampling's Tupans X3M and Heavyocity's Ensemble Drums, and the synth you hear is my custom synth. Apart from that, everything is Nucleus Lite :)
 
Voider said:
Nucleus by Audio Imperia! The full version is $449 (RRP).

I composed this whole piece almost entirely with Nucleus Lite ($99 and you can crossgrade later to the full version):



Only the percussion I supplemented a bit with Strezov Sampling's Tupans X3M and Heavyocity's Ensemble Drums, and the synth you hear is my custom synth. Apart from that, everything is Nucleus Lite :)
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Nucleus Full version goes on sale for 299 I think, so if you're not in a hurry, you can get it when it's on sale.
 
Nucleus full was $225 during the Black Friday sale. I'm not sure if it goes that low at other times but it's a steal at that price.

Amadeus might be worth looking at too actually. You get a true all in one package for very little money. I didn't love the overall sound though, particularly the horns. It's a more video game sound to my ears. If you like the sound, there's probably nothing else in the price range that covers that much ground. If I was scoring video games, that'd probably be my first choice.
 
ed buller said:
This is a FAIR criticism . The brass ( practically the horns) Don't have that snarl and splat in Hollywood but everything else is fine for scoring

best

ed
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Yes it’s largely the limited dynamic range in the brass (lack of cuivré), but also the limited dynamic layers in other sections too, and in general it doesn’t “win” for me in scoring comparisons … but that’s a personal taste thing. There’s also some inconsistencies in the strings shorts timing.
 
It really is a personal thing and depends what you want but I always reckon you need to ask yourself, 'what is my favourite cheese?' Is it a sweat inducing stilton or a subtle brie? For me, Emmental is the business with its delicate yet distinctive flavour that goes so well with a strong full bodied red. I have EW stuff, including Gold Symphony, from a few years back and although it's largely well recorded, I found it inconsistent to use and a bit too glitzy for my taste. The clue, after all, is in the name. I also have Spitfire stuff including BBCSO Core. It has its fair share of technical bumps to the extent that you can find yourself wondering if they actually finished the job, but like Emmental, the solid bits have a wonderful organic quality and that air in between just makes all the difference to me.
 
Yep
Soundbed said:
Yes it’s largely the limited dynamic range in the brass (lack of cuivré), but also the limited dynamic layers in other sections too, and in general it doesn’t “win” for me in scoring comparisons … but that’s a personal taste thing. There’s also some inconsistencies in the strings shorts timing.
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Another related issue I've encountered is that crossovers between dynamic layers are not particularly smooth or consistent. You might have, for example, a patch that has little change in timbre or volume within the CC1 range of 30-100, then you get a sudden jump when you cross over 100. Same with velocity.

These aren't deal breakers, and anyone using sample libraries for a long time has definitely gotten used to this aspect of "learning" a library, but for the average person starting out with virtual instruments (whose ears may not yet be attuned the nuances of instrument dynamics) it's one of the reasons I would recommend starting elsewhere.
 
My approach would be to decide based on the *sound*.

There's lots of good options, in terms of "value".

But each choice comes with it's own set of expressive and sonic sweet spots that will inflect the kind of music you can write - and more subtly the kind of music you will find yourself *wanting* to write, as deviating beyond the sweet spots of any giving library will leave you feeling despondent and make you want to slam your head in a door.

Nucleus is a great choice - especially for a very modern, crunchy, aggressive, cinematic style, for which it has a wealth of sweet spots.

HOOPUS is a great choice - expecaily for its very, very Hollywood sweet spots. (Exactly like it says on the tin).

BBSCO is a great choice - especially for it's sweet spots which are more subtle, I think. More classical certainly, but not without it's own very beautiful sweet spots for a kind of film music that attends to a certain quality of sound ... it's very hard to put into words, actually. But it's undoubtedly what my own personal preference for a single starter library would be (as I'm not looking for particularly aggressive or Hollywood sounds. Thought if the budget was a little higher I like the SSO/AIR and OT/Teldex sound/expressive space even more).

There's lot of technical considerations here too - number of dynamic layers, number of articulations, number of instruments, number of round robins etc that could be debated endlessly, Gigabytes per dollar etc. These are all important (except that last one).

But for a first library - seriously, if I had it to do over again, I would listen extremely carefully to the *sound* of each library, and really strain to get at least some sense of the accompanying expressive space (that is, the sweet spots) of a each library. And make a decision *only* based on this.

(Though to be sure, absent any hand on experience of sample libraries, this is far easier said than done).

If you end up with the wrong sweet spots for the kind of music you actually want to write (or, more subtly, look to discover that you want to write), all of these calculations of "value" are completely meaningless.
 
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Musio 1 is insane value and the current sale ends in 3 days.
Also, HOOPUS with Spaces is an incredible deal as already mentioned.

The Orchestra Complete 3 hasn't been mentioned, but it's under $500 and has unique composition assistance.
 
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