The 30 Best Sample Libraries For Orchestral Scoring
Compiling
a general survey of orchestral sample libraries available becomes more
and more difficult every year. The sheer number of companies producing
top-quality software for orchestral sampling has increased substantially
of late, and there are more options now for the digital composer than
ever before in this ever-expanding ecosystem. We in the audio tech world
revel in choice and variety, not least so when it comes to virtual
instruments. The quantity and quality of libraries available is frankly
staggering.
This list is by no means complete, but we at S1E feel that these 30 plugins represent the latest and greatest Orchestral VIs currently available. The list is in no particular order.
This list is by no means complete, but we at S1E feel that these 30 plugins represent the latest and greatest Orchestral VIs currently available. The list is in no particular order.
The 30 Best Sample Libraries For Orchestral Scoring
e-instruments: Session Strings Pro
e-instruments Session Strings Pro is described as "Session Strings Pro is the new gold standard for contemporary studio strings.
Take control of an 11-piece ensemble, recorded with the utmost precision in four different settings for maximum flexibility and realism." Session Strings Pro offers the user a great sound combined with an intutive animator player, this offers not only the sound but the performance of a string section - it's not as complete as some of the others listed here, but well worth looking at if you want to put some great strings on pop tracks.
Take control of an 11-piece ensemble, recorded with the utmost precision in four different settings for maximum flexibility and realism." Session Strings Pro offers the user a great sound combined with an intutive animator player, this offers not only the sound but the performance of a string section - it's not as complete as some of the others listed here, but well worth looking at if you want to put some great strings on pop tracks.
EastWest: Symphonic Orchestra
EWQL Symphonic Orchestra
"Recorded by 11-time Grammy nominated classical recording engineer Prof. Keith O. Johnson, the EastWest: Symphonic Orchestra
is the most awarded orchestral collection ever, including winning Sound
On Sound's Reader's Choice Award an unprecedented 3-times, and the
first orchestral collection to be recorded in a "state of the art"
concert hall where orchestras mainly perform."
Project SAM: Symphobia Series
Symphobia 2
"Symphobia
is not your traditional orchestral sample library. Instead of focusing
on individual instrument multi-samples, Symphobia offers ensemble
multi-samples in various orchestrations and orchestral groups. These
playable ensembles cover different sections and groups from the
orchestra as well as the entire orchestra playing together."
IK Multimedia: Miroslav Philharmonik
Miroslav Philharmonik
"Miroslav Philharmonik
is a powerful, integrated Orchestral Workstation incorporating the
legendary Miroslav Vitous Symphonic Orchestra and Choir Sample
collections into a dedicated plug-in instrument specifically tailored
for classical sounds and arrangements."
Garritan Personal Orchestra
Garritan Personal Orchestra
“Garritan Personal Orchestra
gives you a complete orchestra – strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion,
and keyboards – with over 200 instrument choices, along with the
techniques and control to hear your music with breathtaking realism.
This award-winning collection has set the standard for orchestra sample
libraries.”
Spitfire Audio: Albion
Spitfire Albion III
"Spitfire Audio: Albion
is everything you need to make epic modern music in ONE box. At its
heart is a 109 piece orchestra accompanied by a thunderous cinematic
percussion section, dynamically layered loops designed by award winning
music makers, an enormous steam synthesiser and many more surprises. "
Big Fish Audio: Complete Orchestral Collection
Big fish Audio Complete Orchestral collection
"Complete Orchestral Collection
is a brand new compilation of all Peter Siedlaczek libraries ever
released by Best Service. This new product combines Peter Siedlaczek´s
String Essentials 2nd Edition as well as the well-known Complete
Classical Collection 2nd Edition in one Kontakt Player 5 instrument with
26 GB of uncompressed sample content and more than 2800 Kontakt
instruments."
Vienna Symphonic Library
VSL
"With the Vienna Symphonic Library,
the huge quantity and variety of articulations with nuanced details,
enhanced by the seamless integration with the Vienna Instruments sample
player helps you create the most realistic renderings of your
composition."
8dio: Adagio Strings
8dio Adagio Strings
"Produced
by Academy Award, TEC and G.A.N.G Award Winning Composer, Troels
Folmann and Emmy Nominated Composer and Orchestrator, Colin O’Malley,
the 8Dio Adagio String Series is a new-generation orchestral sample library and the most expressive collection of deep-sampled strings ever created."
East West: Hollywood Strings
Hollywood Strings
"HOLLYWOOD STRINGS
has many groundbreaking features not found in any other collection.
Finger position is, for the first time, controllable by the user, so you
can play as far up the strings as you want, and get a fuller more
romantic Hollywood sound. Vibrato intensity and extensive dynamics are
controllable by the user. Extensive multi-dynamic true legato has been
sampled for all sections in three different categories: slurred,
portamento, and bow change. This results in unsurpassed legato
performance that has never been available."
Orchestral Tools: Berlin Strings
Berlin Strings
"Berlin Strings is the first True Adaptive Legato(including 4 legato types: Slurred, Agile (scripted), Fast Runs and Portamento), Smaller Sections for more definition and detail, 129 GB of samples in NCW format (268 GB uncompressed"
Cinesamples: Cinestrings
CineStrings
"CineStrings
is revolutionary in its power and simplicity for recreating the sound
of the orchestral string section. The library was designed by composers,
for composers, with direct feedback from the film music community
during its development. The result is a string library that is easy to
use, composer-friendly, with unparalleled recording quality."
Audiobro: LA Scoring Strings
L.A Scoring Strings
"LA Scoring Strings 2.5
(LASS) brings you a whole new set of tools and revised sonic profiles
providing a new level of expressiveness, realism, real-time playability
and program-ability to sampled strings."
Cinematic Strings
Cinematic Strings
"Cinematic Strings 2
is a completely redesigned and updated version of the original
orchestral strings sample library. Whilst retaining the warm luscious
tones produced in the world class Verbrugghen Hall of the Sydney
Conservatorium, the new version features a sleek new interface and even
smoother legato."
East West: Hollywood Brass
Hollywood Brass
"Hollywood Brass
is the most powerful, realistic and extensive brass library ever
created. There is a focus and ease of use in this Virtual Instrument
that is unprecedented. Hollywood Brass runs flawlessly in the completely
revamped PLAY 3 engine and has 10 times the content and detail than its
closest competitor, without any additional complexity or clutter."
Impact Soundworks: Bravura Scoring Brass
Bravura Scoring Brass
"Bravura Scoring Brass
is a complete collection of orchestral brass ensembles, soloists, and
aleatoric FX recorded with stunning depth in a large scoring studio.
Featuring three mic positions, extensive articulations, and incredibly
powerful scripting, BSB is an ideal tool for film, TV & game
scoring."
e-instruments Session Horns Pro
Session Horns Pro gives you 30 GB of authentic contemporary horns: three saxophones, two trombones, three trumpets, tuba and flugelhorn.
It features 38 pre-arranged section presets across all popular styles to get you started, and is suited to every type of contemporary music.
It features 38 pre-arranged section presets across all popular styles to get you started, and is suited to every type of contemporary music.
Cinesamples: Cinebrass
Cinesamples: Cinebrass
"CineBrass
is the expansion to the popular CineBrass Core library. CineBrass is
comprised of entirely new orchestral brass sample content, using the
first-call Los Angeles musicians at the SONY Scoring Stage, mixed by
Dennis Sands. Our CineBrass core library, released in June 2011, covers
the essentials of the orchestral brass section, and functions as a solid
foundation in our composing templates."
Project SAM: Orchestral Brass Classic
Project SAM: Orchestral Brass Classic
"Orchestral Brass Classic
is the re-issue of the most respected symphonic brass series on the
sample market: SAM Horns, SAM Trombones, SAM Trumpets and SAM Solo
Sessions. known for its ambient, cinematic sound, orchestral brass
classic is the only brass library that no film, tv or game composer can
afford to be without."
Woodwinds
Orchestral Tools: Berlin Woodwinds
Berlin Woodwinds
"Berlin Woodwinds
has True Legato (interval sampling) for all instruments and sections!
To achieve the highest level of realism and detail, we have recorded
every interval up to an octave. That means you will hear the natural
transitions from one note to another. Every true legato patch is sampled
with three dynamic crossfade layers!"
8dio: Claire Woodwinds Bundle
8dio: Claire Woodwinds Bundle
"The Claire Woodwind Bundle 10 contains
Alto-Flute, Bassoon Virtuoso, Clarinet Virtuoso, English Horn Virtuoso,
Flute Virtuoso, Oboe Virtuoso and Piccolo Flute. All the libraries
contains advanced legato and articulations to cover all your
compositional needs"
Cinesamples: Hollywoodwinds
Cinesamples Hollywoodwinds
"Hollywoodwinds
is Cinesamples’ award-winning orchestral woodwind library developed
exclusively for Kontakt. Featuring wonderfully organic recordings, and
groundbreaking programming, HWW is quickly becoming the leading woodwind
solution for composers around the world."
Cinesamples: Cinewinds
Cinewinds
"CineWinds PRO
is the long-awaited expansion to the next-generation orchestral
CineWinds CORE library. CineWinds PRO expansion fills out the remainder
of the orchestral woodwind section, and also offers an eclectic choice
of ethnic, Renaissance, and period wind instruments most often used in
film scoring."
Percussion
Impact Soundworks: Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion
Impact Soundworks Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion
"Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion
is an exquisite symphonic collection for KONTAKT features a
comprehensive collection of 50 traditional & extended percussive
instruments recorded through three mic positions."
Project SAM: Truestrike
Project SAM: Truestrike
"ProjectSAM's acclaimed True Strike series
holds the percussion libraries of choice for film, tv and game
composers requiring cinematic, powerful percussion samples. True Strike,
the first volume in the series, focuses on orchestral percussion.
Offering 51 orchestral percussion instruments in multiple concert hall
mic positions, True Strike is the only orchestral percussion library you
will ever need."
Spitfire Percussion
Spitfire Percussion
"Spitfire Percussion
is a comprehensive orchestral percussion library featuring the renowned
Joby Burgess in Lyndhurst Hall at Air Studios. Alongside a huge array
of large and small percussion, timpani, bass drums and cymbals lie a
collection of mallet instruments described by Sound On Sound magazine as
"to die for"."
Cinesamples: Cineperc
Cineperc
"CinePerc PRO
is an extremely useful part of our large CinePerc library; the next
installment of our popular orchestral series that includes CineBrass and
CineWinds. Like those libraries, CinePerc was recorded at the SONY
Scoring Stage in Los Angeles, and mixed by master engineer Dennis Sands.
This package includes many more percussion instruments for your
template"
East West: Stormdrum
Stormdrum
"Stormdrum 3
is the first virtual instrument to include EastWest's new PLAY 4
software. In PLAY 4, EastWest replaced some third party components;
added Avid's new AAX format that will allow Pro Tools 11 users to use
EastWest's virtual instruments 64-bit, greatly improving performance;
added new time-stretch software optimized for loops (with sync to
sequencer); added a new mixer page (with sub-channels for mic
positions), added background loading, and other new features."
Spitfire Audio: Hans Zimmer Percussion Series
Spitfire Audio: Hans Zimmer Percussion Series
"Hans Zimmer Percussion Series
is the definitive collection of Hybrid Cinematic Widescreen percussion
ensembles, produced by the man who created the idiom; Hans Zimmer.
Recorded by Geoff Foster at Air Studios and mixed by 4 Grammy winning
composer/ producers"
Piano
Imperfect Samples' EBONY Concert Grand
Imperfect Samples' EBONY Concert Grand
Imperfect Samples' EBONY Concert Grand
is the World's Largest* sampled grand piano. Commanding a powerful and
magnificent sound, the piano behind this sample library is an imposing
hand-made FAZIOLI ten foot Grand Piano, created by the makers of world's
most expensive grand pianos, and is considered by many to be the Elite
of all grands.
Addictive Keys
Addictive Keys
isn't just a collection of sampled keyboards. That's easy. Anyone can
do that. What Addictive Keys does is to capture the soul and essence of
great instruments from multiple angles. That's hard, but Addictive Keys
instruments pull
it off and make it look effortless.
it off and make it look effortless.
