Orchestral VST's compatible w/ PT11

[musiclee]

so i have a $2,000 budget

i want orchestral type stuff, vioilins, cellos, flutes, clarinet, piano, brass, maybe some voices,,,etc.
not really needing synthy, new agey stuff

it's basically to be used for museums, art related productions, music bed under narration, so therefore i need REAL instruments, bread and butter sounds

i need it to be PT11 compatible, AAX friendly

what can you guys recommend? what's the best stuff out there?
doesn't have to be from same company.... please help

[cwsand]

The East West packages are nice. Not sure if they're PT11 AAX yet, but you can use them in Kontakt player which now has an AAX version.

[John_Toolbox]

Eastwest QLSO Gold is a good place to start. It has all of the basic essentials for orchestral work in an affordable package, and is AAX-64 ready. I would buy that first, push it to it's limits to see if there's anything you don't like about it, and then go from there. That is the one library I think everyone doing orchestral work should own. But I don't think you can make an informed decision on what else you may need without first learning that one.

[zion]

Originally Posted by musiclee

so i have a $2,000 budget

i want orchestral type stuff, vioilins, cellos, flutes, clarinet, piano, brass, maybe some voices,,,etc.
not really needing synthy, new agey stuff

it's basically to be used for museums, art related productions, music bed under narration, so therefore i need REAL instruments, bread and butter sounds

i need it to be PT11 compatible, AAX friendly

what can you guys recommend? what's the best stuff out there?
doesn't have to be from same company.... please help

+1 And it is AAX 64bit. I have there Platinum Complete awesome.

http://www.soundsonline.com/Symphonic-Orchestra

[musicman691]

Another vote for EWQLSO Gold. Have that in both the original Kontakt engine version and the new Play version and the Play engine one is really sweet. One thing to remember is that there's only one mic position in Gold and that is from what would be the conductor's position. If you need close samples and hall samples the Platinum version is the one. With that you actually get 3 mic positions you can mix to your heart's content. If you need solo instruments I'd stay away from the Hollywood series from EW.

For vocals EW has separate libraries for that. One is Symphonic Choirs and the other is Voices of Passion.

If you are truly interested and can pop for the libraries now I'd do it as EW is having a half-off sale until the end of the year for some of their stuff and what I outlined here is part of said sale.

[musiclee]

Thank you all. I was thinking maybe getting their Hd composers edition. And getting the brass. Wood winds, hollywood, orchestra, choirs, voices passion etc. maybe I should just start with orchestra one and see.

You guys use try the Vienna stuff? Or native instruments session strings? Or project Sam?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by musiclee

Thank you all. I was thinking maybe getting their Hd composers edition. And getting the brass. Wood winds, hollywood, orchestra, choirs, voices passion etc. maybe I should just start with orchestra one and see.

You guys use try the Vienna stuff? Or native instruments session strings? Or project Sam?

One of the things to keep in mind is the Hollywood series and Symphonic series are two different sounding beasts and don't really meld with each other. For just starting out I'd go for either Symphonic Orchestra Gold or Platinum. EW uses their own Play engine; originally they used the Kompakt/Kontakt engine.

Vienna libraries tend to be very dry sounding and that's not a knock on the product but just the way they were sampled. Very detailed with almost no room acoustics. There's upsides and downsides to that. Upside is you get to add your own room treatment in the way of reverb, etc. Downside in the detailing is such that on strings patches (violin for example) you can hear the actual bow on the strings and all the artifacts that entails. To my mind Vienna strings as shipped don't lend to up-front solo sounds without some treatment.

Session Strings is one preset string ensemble - you don't get to change out instruments. There's some variations available in Session Strings Pro but in general you don't get much to change.

[John_Toolbox]

Originally Posted by musiclee

Thank you all. I was thinking maybe getting their Hd composers edition. And getting the brass. Wood winds, hollywood, orchestra, choirs, voices passion etc. maybe I should just start with orchestra one and see.

You guys use try the Vienna stuff? Or native instruments session strings? Or project Sam?

Vienna has some good instruments, particularly their solo instruments, but they are, IMHO, overpriced, and there are other solo instruments in the same price range that I like a lot more. For really good solo instruments, I would look at Sample Modeling:
http://www.samplemodeling.com/
I have their trumpet and really like it.

I have not used session strings, so I can't comment on it. It comes in the NI Komplete bundle, which is the most cost effective way to buy it.

[JMDNYC]

I'll give a shout-out here to my friends at Cinesamples. They don't really offer this as a bundle, but you could put together a nice package in your budget:

Cinesamples
Kontakt 5 (assuming you don't have it already) - $399 (This also includes a basic selection of VSL products and some basic choir)
CineStrings Core - $499
CineWinds Core - $349
CineBrass Core - $399
CinePerc Core - $299

TOTAL COST: $1945

I think this would give you a much better base to build upon than the East West Gold, which doesn't have legato and has limited mic positions. To really match in quality you would have to go with their Hollywood series, which is excellent and has legato, at the Diamond level which has multiple mics positions. East West has a lot of sales and specials, so I just went on their site and put together a package for you using the current "Complete Composer Collection 2 Pro" deal:

SoundOnline
Hollywood Strings Diamond
Hollywood Brass Diamond
Hollywood Orch. Woodwinds Diamond
Symphonic Orchestra Platinum
Stormdrum 2 Bundle
Solo Violin
Spaces
Goliath (+$40.00)
Total cost: $1,798.60

This is slightly deficient in terms of orchestral percussion (you'd have to use what's in the Symphonic Orch bundle), and Goliath is standing in for the Kontakt factory library, but it's not a bad package. For some reason you can't add Choirs and Orch together under this deal. It comes with their own player called Play, which I find not as efficient as Kontakt in Pro Tools on a Mac; I think it works better on a PC. So, again, my advice is the Kontakt/Cinesamples route, but this is really good, a little more diverse and cheaper.

My other favorite libraries - Spitfire, Cinematic Strings, and Project SAM. You could go a Spitfire library like this (prices converted from British Pounds):

Spitfire Audio
Kontakt 5 - $399
Albion I - $570.89
Percussion - $570.89
Solo Strings - $292.81
Harp - $211.02

Total: $2,044.61

or a less flexible but good sounding:

Project SAM
Kontakt 5 - $399
Orchestral Essentials - $449
Total: $848

I could go on a while, so I think I'll stop here.

[John_Toolbox]

Regarding Kontakt, most 3rd party kontakt libraries do NOT require you to buy the full version of Kontakt, you can run them from the Kontakt player. The only difference between Kontakt and Kontakt player is you can not edit an instrument's mapping, scripting and internal parameters with Kontakt Player, and Kontakt Player will only work with instruments that were released specifically for Kontakt Player(You can't open a home-built kontakt instrument with Kontakt Player). Most commercial Kontakt libraries that work with Kontakt Player have their internal parameters locked anyways, so unless you buy a library that explicitly requires the full version of Kontakt, or you intend to map/assemble/script your own custom instruments, you probably don't need the full version of Kontakt.

If you do buy a library that requires the full version of Kontakt, it is always cheaper to buy the Komplete bundle outright to get Kontakt, or buy a kontakt player library first, and use that to do a crossgrade.

Example:
Buy any Kontakt library that will run from Kontakt Player, and register it. You can then use that to crossgrade to the full version of Kontakt at a discounted price.

Or, Buy a Kontakt player library that is not included in Komplete, then use that to crossgrade to the Komplete or Komplete Ultimate bundle.