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Opinions on EastWest's Symphonic Orchestra?

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Spectre-4

New Member
Hello,

I'm a bit new to the forum but I wanted to get advice/an opinion on the use of EastWest's Symphonic Orchestra for those that are familiar with it or have used the software before. Basically, I'm just in the beginning stages of learning orchestral composing (with a particular emphasis on film-style orchestral music) and I'm looking for an effective All-in-one orchestral library to get me started.

Now I've actually done my research and have been recommended a bunch of libraries, including BBCSO Core, Metropolis Ark 1, Nucleus, Albion ONE, etc. The thing is, there's this one library by EastWest (whom I'm not so familiar with) called the 'Symphonic Orchestra' that also caught my eye. I've tried doing some digging but I couldn't find much other than the library is pretty old (launched in 2003 I think). Other than that though, I've listened to some demos of it in action I think it sounds pretty good (as far as a beginner can determine the 'goodness' of something), especially for such an apparently old library. It features individual instruments and a ton of articulation as featured on EastWest's site and seems like the style of library I'm looking for.

So at this point, I wanted to get the perspective of anyone familiar with this library and whether they'd recommend it compared to other options available. I can't really seem to decide whether it's worth considering.

Thanks again!


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REVIEW:

Ok, so it's been a bit over a month since I've made use of ComposerCloud to try out EastWest's SO, so here are my initial thoughts thus far.

1. Right off the bat, if you're familiar with Kontakt or even the Kontakt player and how they work, the OPUS engine is quite easy to get around. Everything is categorised quite neatly and I had not much of a problem finding whatever I needed to when using various samples right across the board.

2. SO's plug-in itself is a beast. The number of articulations alone is worth the price tag and there are even some I almost never see in modern day libraries like "Sordino Legato Diminuendo" for strings or "Flutter Tongue" with woodwinds. It's honestly the most varied pallet of Orchestral sounds I think I've seen from a library and the fact that this library is well over 20 years old and pulling this off is already impressive.

3. The plug-ins doesn't stop at articulations. Like I mentioned, the OPUS engine is very intuitive, even if you haven't used Kontakt before, but it's also pretty flexible in terms of adjusting your sounds. The 'close', 'stage' and 'surround' mic positions work similarly to your classic outriggers, ambients, close mice, etc. I did have a gripe about the performances. The fact that there's no 'true-legato' wasn't a deal breaker for me but you could hear the difference between a library that would have otherwise. I will say that if your arrangements are well-orchestrated and convincing as a whole, you can actually get away with it and people generally won't be able to tell the difference if it's really good! There were a bunch of other bells and whistles like messing with reverb, midi output, etc but those were the two I made use of most in my productions, so I'd say they did pretty well!

4. Despite the recommended 16gb Ram on EastWest's front page, it's surprisingly light on the system. Granted I didn't really push it to its limit to see how far it can go (20-40 tracks at most) but it worked out pretty well on my system.

Overall, I'd say that the libraries age is certainly not much of an issue when it comes to its viability in modern day productions. Don't get me wrong, there will be times were some work arounds will be necessary and some sounds may not reach the level on other modern day plug-ins. With that said, you can get some serious milage out of it! Personally, I don't think I'll be using it further, but not because of the library itself but because of other products that I think fit my specific needs as a composer like Musio (that's more about instrument breadth rather than depth).

But overall, it's a library that does what it set out to do, and quite frankly does it well, even in 2024. There are other products out there that are definitely worth considering as well (EW's Hollywood Orchestra, BBCSO, Metropolis Ark 1, etc) but I wouldn't cross this one off the list early in my opinion. Would recommend if you're looking into it!
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The fact that people are still buying it 20 years shows that it has some value..It certainly has a lot of instruments and articulations covered. Requires time to get to know it..Often on sale.

 
If you get Composer Cloud for a few months you can use both EWQLSO and Hollywood Orchestra. They're recorded well, are balanced out of the box, and you can get pretty expressive with them.

Then once a sale comes up you could decide to buy either of those orchestras, or explore other options.

shoutout to @Jdiggity1 for these mockups



 
Still has some special articulations that are almost impossible to find today and that have become so much a part of "my sound" that I can't live without it.

If you are looking for a bread a butter library, then BBCSO has you covered, but for the 1000 special articulations and also the orchestral metal percussion, EWQLSO is still the king. The plethora of gong and tam tam articulations are worth the price for me.

I've gotten so much mileage out of the sup pont trem patches and the Penderecki string FX. Throw those string FX into a grain synth and go to town. Unlimited variation.

The "Orchestral" patches these days can be duplicated or better by many libraries but Nick went beyond on the library and captured some truly unique stuff that you won't find in other libraries. I'm actually glad that people have moved on. I'm a connoisseur of forgotten articulations.
 
José Herring said:
The plethora of gong and tam tam articulations are worth the price for me.
I've gotten so much mileage out of the sup pont trem patches and the Penderecki string FX. Throw those string FX into a grain synth and go to town. Unlimited variation.
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And the 11V Violins Slow Trills...

icegif-309.gif


BTW, here's an example of what you can get with it.

 
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It doesn't behave like most libraries do today - dynamics are controlled by velocity mostly and legatos aren't really a thing in EWSO.

I'd say for a beginner's library it's tough to use but an incredible value and a wide swath of the samples sound gorgeous still today. The percussion alone feels worth the price of admission and I enjoy reaching for it. A lot of my songs will have at least one instrument from EWSO in them.

The two trumpets patch sounds killer and the woodwind runs are great! It's also super light on CPU and RAM so it works great on older rigs.
 
This was my first orchestral library, got it not long after it came out, got a lot of use out of it - the sound is fantastic, main drawbacks are no legato and quite inconsistent in various ways. It's definitely one of the most enjoyable sample libraries I've ever used, however I don't use it that much today with all the newer options available (and once you've tried good legato strings, it's hard to go back!). Still dip into it now and then though - in particular, the cymbals are still the best I've found for orchestra/soundtrack.

As said above, demo it if you can (not sure if you can demo the others you mention?) - if you prefer the sound of this to the others (and you can live without true legato) then don't worry about it being an old library, it's definitely a good way to get started.

btw, re Nucleus, Audio Imperia stuff is very easy to work with and consistent, so I'd say this is another very good option for starting out. Personally I really like their sound, but it's a little more "modern", less classical, depends what you want.

In fact all the libraries you mention have quite a different sound - if you have a preference for one sound or another, that you feel would suit your writing, then that's probably the one to go for.
 
I still supplement my current template with sounds from EWSO.

Harp, Timpani, and a good amount of percussion is still frequently used. Other things are still used as well in bits and pieces. Certain brass patches and string patches work great for layering.

And I still use the solo cello and solo violin patches. Solo double bass sounds very nice as well.
 
The new Spitfire SSO redux*) library for €449 intro price may cost more, but is definitely something anyone looking for their first orchestral sample collection should seriously consider. It packs a lot of content.

As good as EWSO may be of course, I don’t know if it’s the best pick for a first foray into orchestral sampling, in 2024.

*) actually, it contains all SSO instruments, plus percussion, a harp and a piano and a great set of mic positions, for the price of what Albion ONE used to cost until recently. So ‘redux’ may be a wrong choice of words here.

Or, if you want to spend less and still have a great all-in-one, EastWest also have Hollywood Orchestra - which sounds great and offers 940 Gb of broadly sampled orchestral instruments - including legatos. Also known as HOPUS on this forum (Hollywood Orchestra Opus edition, named after the current sample player Opus it is housed in), this regularly goes on sale around the $350 price point. It is more modern than EWSO and may be more suitable as a “first orchestra”.

As mentioned earlier you could consider subscribing to EastWest’s Composer Cloud for say a month or two and try out EWSO and EWHO/HOPUS “risk free”.
 
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Some good posts above, there are patches I still use in SO and some gems I'd forgotten. But in truth there's less need for it now in the HOOPUS era than there was with the original HO - quite a lot of the extra material in HOOPUS was to make up for shortcomings in the first version that could be filled by SO.
 
It's definitely a useable library - it's the first one I ever got. It requires some extra work though, and many newer libraries will get you to a realistic sound quicker.

But it's absolutely possible to get great sounds out of it. For testing the grounds I'd say it's a decent start. I've done some of my largest projects with it as my main library, even if it's not what I mainly use today.

However, as you are new to composing, I'd say that you'll probably start to realise what it's missing once you get into it a bit more (for example, true legato). That was the case for me. Then I started picking up newer libraries now and then to complement it with what I felt I needed. That way, you will have a bit better knowledge of what you value and want when you start to purchase newer libraries.
 
Spectre-4 said:
I wanted to get advice/an opinion on the use of EastWest's Symphonic Orchestra
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I would not recommend it today but instead would try to get the much-better-sounding Hollywood Orchestra. I also loved EWQLSO and, as others have said, I still use some of it.

Not much, though. I mostly use a mix of Spitfire libraries and the newer East West libraries, along with Strezov, Spectrasonics and u-he synths -- loads of stuff.

EWQLSO is almost 20 years old. That said,

1. It still sounds good enough to give you an excellent picture of what a live orchestral recording of your music would sound like;

2. Some sections (solo woodwinds and the percussion generally) still sound excellent;

3. It's far less demanding on computer resources than newer libraries; and

4. It has a big range of instruments, covering most of the orchestra.

I would follow the advice of @José Herring and others, signing up for a 30 day trial to "hear before you buy."


[note: I have received free products from East West and others I've mentioned in this post]
 
I used EWQLSO for around ten years. Got it 'cause there wasn't much else available at the time that was affordable. These days, if I were deciding on my first library, I wouldn't even consider it. The strings and brass sound overhyped and fake. Strings sound artificial and have a certain wooly-ness to them. Brass have too much buzz. Percussion sounds good! Woodwinds may be useable; I don't remember having any specific complaint about them. All my opinion, of course. The bad sounding strings and brass was something I struggled with for years. Eventually I moved completely over to Orchestral Tools, the sound quality of which is worlds away from EWQLSO. It's also far, far away in price. I think I've seen EWQLSO under $200 when it's on sale, but I wouldn't let the low price seduce you. It's probably best to do a short trial of Composer Cloud to see what suits. IMO, HOOPUS would be a much better bet.
 
Thank you to everyone so far who's taken the time to reply!

The general consensus so far seems to be that:

1. The library being old isn't (mostly) an issue given some of the patches still sound excellent (and I'd agree!)

2. It's old for a reason, namely the lack of true legato patches, which means compositions could sound stilted and disjoined potentially.

3. It makes up for '2' by having a ton of articulations, some of which you apparently can't find in modern plug-ins (which is very compelling).

4. There are alternatives of the same vain as EWSO that I haven't considered like EW's Hollywood Orchestra and Spitefire's Symphony Orchestra, which at the time of writing came out yesterday (what convenient timing)

5. It's a lot of value but a higher learning curve for a beginner, especially since I'd have ti find ways to work around '1' and '2'.

I'll try and take some advice stated and try out composer cloud/the free trial to see how I go on with it, providing an update later on.
 
I still sometimes use it even though I do have much newer libraries, but often if I cant find the right sound for an instrument in my other libraries, I usually go for ewqlso and it's usually good
 
Spectre-4 said:
4. There are alternatives of the same vain as EWSO that I haven't considered like EW's Hollywood Orchestra and Spitefire's Symphony Orchestra, which at the time of writing came out yesterday (what convenient timing)
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And don't ignore Spitfire's BBC orchestra, a version of which was actually free -- no charge -- at least recently.

Finally, the usefulness of your #2 (legato) is wildly overrated. It just doesn't make that much of a difference in many compositions, so don't get too tangled up in that.
 
JohnG said:
Finally, the usefulness of your #2 (legato) is wildly overrated. It just doesn't make that much of a difference in many compositions, so don't get too tangled up in that.
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I took a leave of absence for many years here, but I do remember you always said this John! Good for you, but I think it's fair to say it's a minority view. I've always thought true legato was hugely important.

I wouldn't consider SO has a first comprehensive library, partly for this reason. (Also agree with some of the other comments above - the horns are really abrasive, the strings a little synthetic). HOOPUS, overall, is massively better imo. Musio 1 is another contender - though that platform is still evolving, I think it makes a pretty astonishing set of diverse instruments, many of which are excellent. Multi-mic should be coming soon to Musio and will be added to Musio 1 when it does. [EDIT - gadzooks, $199 for Musio 1 this weekend]

SO absolutely still has its charms, but I see it now as a repository of hidden gems, not a solid bread and butter workhorse.
 
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