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Metal musician looking for orchestral libs recommendations

Why hello there, fellow metal musician!

Contrary to most posts here, I’ve made good experience with VSL but their older libraries (VI and now Synchronized) are really dry, so it takes some reverb plugins and mixing skills.

If I may share a track, done a few years ago:



Currently, I’m writing our next album and am exclusively using VSLs Big Bang Orchestra series. The tight and not too wet Synchron Stage it was recorded in sounds great and is very controllable, which I love for mixing with a metal band.

BBO Zodiac is my go-to, as well as Jupiter, Kopernikus and the woodwind libraries. Also check out the complete sections like Andromeda. Take the Full Mix mic Channel, put some parallel compression and additional reverb on top to glue with the rest and be happy. ☺️

EDIT:
This guy shows how it may sound:


your stuff is heavily wintersun influenced. you cant deny ;)
 
your stuff is heavily wintersun influenced. you cant deny ;)
Winter-who? :whistling:
Yes, kind of. Although I've written most of that stuff ages ago, before Time I even was released.

EDIT: And they don't have any real flutes!
 
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I think any orchestral libraries can be used for metal track but the tone of sound is more a personal choice. I'm not real musician just a hobbyist but I think Arks and Symphobias are good and can be used together and are easy to use. I like Arks tone and character but I also like the sounds in Symphobia. In the example bellow I used them both layered. You can see in description exact instruments used and articulation. Track is below average but you can hear how the libraries sounds combined together with some metal guitar content to get idea if you like the tone. Intro is longer and more "orchestral" focused so you can skip it to around 0:48.
 
Winter-who? :whistling:
Yes, kind of. Although I've written most of that stuff ages ago, before Time I even was released.

EDIT: And they don't have any real flutes!
I got to say that your track sound really great, I love the orchestration and everything, definitely better than some Wintersun tracks :D. But I got to say that I stumble upon this weird thing. And it's that in artisanal symphonic metal compositions it feels like something is missing, I see this happening to me and I saw this happening in tracks of others, including the one you posted. Maybe it's the filler (meaning chords played on tons of instruments) behind the track, I once did that by accident and it had that full sound that I'm used with. And when using fillers the library used isn't very relevant, it got to have good strings, good choir, and brass that has soft release, not crunchy as it will clash with the guitars and that's it. ARK1 seems to do it quite nicely but any other library that was mentioned has the potential to do that thing (even free libraries). Staccato, marcato, portamento AND LEGATO are an issue for most libraries though, and should be taken in consideration (and expensive libraries have the best performance for these articulations, unfortunately for our wallets).
Edit:
Wait I overlooked something, I was talking about the second track that was shown in the DAW, I read it better and I think I misunderstood what you said, I though both videos were from you and it's about the second video that I said something was missing, the first video is great 10/10.
 
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This library unfortunately lacks woodwinds (as do all ARK libraries)
Just to clarify because that can be interpreted as them not having any woodwinds at all: MA1 does have bassons and contra bassons, and MA3 and MA5 have ensembles patches for low woodwinds and high woodwinds. I don't own MA2 and 4.


And the icing on the cake is the band section. It's got probably the best guitar in the VST library section, it's far better than Shreddage in my opinion, it got that full sound that an electric guitar should have, not that robotic synthesized sound. Also the bass is good and very realistic, and the drum kit is cool but it's kind of weak so you want to aim for something else with that.
Can't argue about taste in tones, but in terms of sampling depth none of the band instruments in MA1 are fit to compete with a real drumkit library or a shreddage guitar or a proper bass library. If you say it's "far better than Shreddage", then that may lead to some people being disappointed with their purchase once they find out about the many limitations that the guitars in MA1 have compared to a Shreddage guitar.
The whole band section is a gimmick imho. Enjoy it for what it is, and it certainly expands the palette of genres you can serve in a one-library-challange, but I would never use anything from it to produce a proper metal track.
 
Just to clarify because that can be interpreted as them not having any woodwinds at all: MA1 does have bassons and contra bassons, and MA3 and MA5 have ensembles patches for low woodwinds and high woodwinds. I don't own MA2 and 4.



Can't argue about taste in tones, but in terms of sampling depth none of the band instruments in MA1 are fit to compete with a real drumkit library or a shreddage guitar or a proper bass library. If you say it's "far better than Shreddage", then that may lead to some people being disappointed with their purchase once they find out about the many limitations that the guitars in MA1 have compared to a Shreddage guitar.
The whole band section is a gimmick imho. Enjoy it for what it is, and it certainly expands the palette of genres you can serve in a one-library-challange, but I would never use anything from it to produce a proper metal track.
Yes I said "in my opinion" and I do not argue with the fact that Shreddage is more versatile, if you want a more realistic articular performance then it's for you, but I do not like the way it performs on power cords and sustains on the metal presets, and again it's my own taste and I am sorry if I was misunderstood. My tastes in metal are a bit unconventional I got to admit so I may not be the best to give my opinion in this matter but still, as you said, in a all-one package it's more than satisfactory. And in terms of drums I said it is very weak, I use Abbey Road drums but any drum library offers more options.
By the way ARK3 has only staccato like articulations for woodwinds (and for all other patches, that's why it's called the Beating Orchestra), as for ARK5 I admit I didn't check it out.
 
I wonder why nobody mentions TOC3.
IMHO It blends brilliant with metal because of the dirtiness of the samples. It also has really loud dynamics and alot of articulations. And as a bonus you got the ensemble engine which helps alot with ostinatos, which you really want if your orchestra is only supplement for the metal band.

It may be no good for orchestral mockups, but I asume this is nothing the OP wanted to do anyway..
 
I got to say that your track sound really great, I love the orchestration and everything, definitely better than some Wintersun tracks :D.
Thanks man! Well, Wintersun is rather a mix of synths and orchestra with too much exciter on the top end and an extreme low cut. In my opinion, that’s not how you should mix a metal band and orchestra.

Nope, I’m not the guy in the second video but I think it’s an interesting one, as there’s not a lot of stuff about metal + orchestra by most sample library companies.

Actually, having some filler instruments for chords can help in a dense mix. I feel like the basic chords can get lost with lots of orchestration and guitar stuff going on but it heavily depends on the track and song part. It can just be a simple piano, choir or strings patch, subtly in the background, but as an additional element, not for replacing the whole orchestra - it would then sound like all the pagan/folk/Viking metal tracks from about 15-20 years ago. Life was so easy back then. :blush:

To the OP: My recommendation is to try something with a high amount of early reflections but a tight reverb tail. This helps with mixing both orchestra and band, IF the orchestra should be placed behind the band. So OT libraries recorded at Teldex or the tighter VSL BBO would be my go tos. I’ve first tried doing the next album with SSO and while sounding great on its own, it was just not sitting right within the mix of other instruments.
 
Nope, I’m not the guy in the second video but I think it’s an interesting one, as there’s not a lot of stuff about metal + orchestra by most sample library companies.

Actually, having some filler instruments for chords can help in a dense mix. I feel like the basic chords can get lost with lots of orchestration and guitar stuff going on but it heavily depends on the track and song part. It can just be a simple piano, choir or strings patch, subtly in the background, but as an additional element, not for replacing the whole orchestra - it would then sound like all the pagan/folk/Viking metal tracks from about 15-20 years ago. Life was so easy back then. :blush:
Mentioning the old days you brought something up that no one mentioned in this thread. Before we had lush orchestra in metal we had harpsicord and pipe organ, and I didn't see such instruments being mentioned in this discussion. Unfortunately most libraries that feature epic orchestra functions do not include these instruments. I would have expected Metropolis ARK2 to have such features as it is a darker themed library but unfortunately it doesn't (it does have an organ and a harmonium but I am talking about a huge church organ that makes you think of "The phantom of the opera"). Unfortunately I do not see these two instruments being used as much in the past few years as they used to be, in any genre of music not only metal, and they're some of the most iconic instruments in history. I still see such instruments being used, for example Powerwolf still uses pipe organ to make their track sound epic, but still, I would like to see more of these instruments used in songs.
 
I'm in the process this year of getting an Avant-Garde Black Metal album out with a full semi-melodic/fairly aleatroic-esq orchestra in the later half of this year. The mix for alot of that is going to be very aggressive (utilising a base setup of libraries from 8DIO, MusicalSampling, VSL, AudioOllie, Auddict, OrchestralTools, some of my own recordings etc. further augmented/obliterated with all sorts of additional harmonics forced into signals) since there's also going to be alot of content rythmically woven in from Palette FX, Angel Strings Vol 1 SFX, CAGE & CASE Bundles, Shadows etc, alongside the main layered-up orchestra from different vendors (which is very similar to what I've been doing in the last year with my orch work for fun/portfolio). So while I can try and give some advice since it's an area I'm also jumping fully into, what I might say may or may not be that useful for you.

I'd say at face-value that you'll be fine with Nucleus on Modern Mix as your foundation since you've already got it, then only start looking into layering additional libraries from different vendors if you can EQ and reverb-profile them to match up well against what you've already got. In terms of handling solo instruments from different vendors to sit in well with your orch setup, a trick to consider would be to utilise a tool like DearVR PRO to take solo instruments you've loaded in (making sure to get them as dry as possible first), then binaurally reposition them to the exact distances you want, then apply your reverb of choice to the results afterwards to complete the blending process. That would allow you to not only take 'studio' style solo's recorded in mono/unpositioned (or even your own mono recordings) and force them to fit into sensible positions, but you can also nudge them accordingly to get them to sound clearer when you're combining both the metal-band parts and orch together.

Space in your soundstage is going to become a luxury once you've combined all your guitars/bass/drums/vocal parts of the metal band with the orchestra, so you'll also have to both from a mixing and compositional perspective potentially get ruthless with what you're going to have to cut out of sections of the tracks if you're dealing with an inaudible wall, or start looking into some extremly surgical mid/side and dynamic EQ work if you're insistent on going for a full wall-of-death result (which I'm naturally a fan of haha). Pro-Q and/or Kirchhoff will get those duties done with little issue of course.

Another thing would be to also consider what amp/cab combo's you're going to be utilising for your guitars/bass, then see how the overall tones of what you're getting sounds when paired with the orchestra (having a few other contacts is handy for this, since you can export different test-results and see what resonates with others the best). With so many options out there offering different results, having a few ready-to-go processing chains ready for you to A/B compare against can open up different perspective's on how the combination of all your results together can influence the overall atmosphere being presented. It can help to avoid having 'unfitting' processing results distract the listener too much, or if they're taking away from your vision of how the tracks should have their atmospheres presented as.

One other semi-related note: it's all good and well slapping an elaborate orchestra into these kind of projects, but just remember that a good orch setup won't make up for boring riffs dragging the rest of the work down. Make sure you've got some fundamentally solid & interesting metal going on first and you've got a 'good enough' mix of guitars/bass/drums done first before sketching down any orchestral work. If you can listen to your results without the orch being present and still think "yeah, this is pretty decent", then the confidence to start sketching the orch out should naturally come to you, since the inclusion of an orchestra in most kind of cases like this should augment a piece to bigger heights, and not act as a crutch.

If you are looking for any more/specific recommendations for getting more aggressive results in general in preperation and/or you're also looking for recommendations for aleatoric options to spice your results up, let me know and I'll throw across a list for you to have a look at :emoji_thumbsup:Otherwise you've already got almost everything you need already and it's just going to be down to your composing and mixing skills to get good end-results at this point.
 
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Thanks everyone!

It looks like Areia is the way to go for me as I like Nucleus. Am I getting right that Nucleus, Jaeger and Areia share same samples, and I can get rid of Nucleus from my disk drive once I get Areia?

I was pleasantly surprised by Metropolis Arks. I've heard about it before but I always thought it just string ensembles while in fact even just Ark 1 is all-in-one package like Audio Imperia stuff. And Ark 1 sounds gorgeous indeed! I might get it after Areia as well.

TSS has only strings but so much different tone. Looks and sounds really versatile and lovely! This will be my next purchase after Ark(s) most likely!

Also, I rechecked Symphobia libs, 3 and 4. From the vids I've got strong impression that at least half of this kits is self-playing patches which I'm not interested in. So pass for me.
Audio Imperia really does cut through. I’d also recommend Talos from them which has bombastic brass. Once used the 12 horns on several media scoring related projects and it projects quite amazingly.
 
if you prefer more processed sound, check also heavyocity, for metal music they might be a good match and i guess they would have some spring sale soon..

and besides main orchestral libraries, check also this one:
 
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