Need help choosing orchestra

[bigcatJC]

This is gong to run long, so forgive me ahead of time. I’ve gotten by with free VSTi’s and samples so far, but given that we’ve got Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday sales coming up, I’m thinking about dipping my toes in the commercial end of things. Keep in mind this is just a hobby for me. I’m writing classical/film score type music for my own pleasure.


What I’m looking at is an all-in-one orchestra package in the mid-level price range. It seems to me that often in this price range ($300-$450), you get either quality sounds or lots of options (Multiple articulations, solo instruments, etc.). Here are the ones I’m looking at, in order or how I rank their sounds only:


Cinesamples CineSymphony Lite
Spitfire Albion One
EastWest Hollywood Orchestra Gold
ProjectSAM Orchestral Essentials 1
VSL Special Edition Vol. 1 Essential Orchestra
NI Symphony Essentials Collection
Sonuscore The Orchestra
UVI Orchestral Suite


If you have any experience or opinions on which one you think sounds best or has the most/best options and/or features, please tell me.


My second option is to buy an individual orchestra section, one at a time. Some of these all-in-one will have a bad section, ie, brass and winds sound great but strings sound fake. Some don’t have a choir, or the choir only has 2 or 3 syllables (Oo, Ah, Ee). So what if, instead of an all-in-one, I buy a section with no flaws or weaknesses, then save up to buy the rest one at a time. The biggest drawback I can see to this is cost. An individual orchestra section can cost as much as a single all-in-one package listed above, but I won’t be compromising. I do worry about how an awesome whatever section will make my free stuff sound that much worse by comparison. And what about mixing sections from different programmers? Would I be better off to buy from a single programmer, or just use whatever sounds best to me?


If you have an opinion on using individual sections or sections to recommend (Brass, woodwinds, strings, percussion, choir), please let me know.


My last option is to do neither, but instead buy the full version of Kontakt. I recently downloaded the free Kontakt Player, but obviously lots of instruments run only on the paid version. This would open up a lot of choices in the future, but for now, I wouldn’t be able to by a new orchestra immediately. More doors would be open for future purchases. Is this sensible or stupid?


If you think one of these choices is better than the others, tell me. Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[Jaap]

I work mostly with orchestral samples and here my take on it

East West Hollywood Gold - Great package and very usable. I am using the Hollywood series since its release (Diamond version though) and it is good and solid. It is quite demanding though on your computer specs and requires a good amount of RAM and steady CPU to benefit the most of it, though the gold package is quite tailored to also the needs of lesser big machines. They use a different sampler though then Kontakt (PLAY, its included and don't have to pay for it) and some love it and some hate it. I never had any problems with it. I don't know if you are aware, but you can also get this via the composer cloud subscription and could be good to test this and see if you like it (you can end the subscription per month). East West has a big sale now, but they have these big sales very regular, so don't be afraid to loose a good deal, a new one will come.

Spitfire Albion One - Good library, but ensemble based, meaning you have no control over the individual instruments as much as with East West, though the sound is great and very usable. Same goes for the Project Sam Orchestral Essentials. Both can be used with the free Kontakt Player.

VSL Special Editions - still a great product (also with their own free sampler), but this requires quite some work to make it sound good and can be overwhelming at first. Sounds are very dry out of the box, but when you know how to process them via a good reverb and setup, they are still lovely. I still use the woodwinds a lot.

What I would recommend is the Sonusscore The Orchestra. It is a great product, you have all the instruments, its lightweight, tons of options for quick results, but you can also have complete control over everything and is a great library for what you aim to do. Also this can be used with the free Kontakt Player.

All in all I would recommend The Orchestra and if I where you combine it with a Composer Cloud subscription from East West (you also get access to a lot of other great libraries - choirs, ethnic, big percussion etc)