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What (In Your Opinion) is the Most Versatile Orchestral Library/Collection

Draco Solis

Draco Solis

Caffeine Addicted Derp
Asking this more out of curiosity than anything else.

I've seen people talk about workhorse libraries before, but that can mean anything from "fits into anything I want to do" to "does everything I specifically need to do." But I want to hear what you feel you can look at and say that, regardless of what you want to do, this library can do it reasonably well (with some caveats, of course. No library is perfect or all-encompassing).

But more than that, I'd also like to hear why you think it's versatile. Is it because its dryness allows you to give it whatever ambience you want, letting you go from small and intimate to large and grand without issue? Does its dynamic range allow it to be soft and emotional in one song, then go loud in another? Does its breadth of articulations mean that you'll surely find something you'll like in it? Or does it do the basics well enough that you can write pretty much whatever you want with it? Or is it something else?

I'm curious to see what people say on this! And if someone else out there is looking for exactly this topic, hopefully it can give some insight and help for them!
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I will give this to VSL Symphonic Cube.

They have more articulations than any library in the market except maybe modeled stuff like Infinite but a played trill or tremolo isn’t quite the same as a recorded one. Your typical library would have a few selections of shorts, longs, marcato, legato, etc. This one gives you a lot of options so you can fine tune the samples and make them bend to your will instead of needing to work around a library’s limitations.

The library is also bone dry so you have more control over how much reverb or tail you want. Tho this is a double edged sword and is precisely a downside when working with this library. A brass library recorded in an actual room like Teldex is going to sound very different from dry brass that you top with reverb. You can’t really fake depth by just adding reverb.
 
#1 Synchron Orchestra - the mic positions really change everything.
#2 Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra - affordability (at least now - not when I bought it).
 
Orchestral Tools Teldex libraries.

If the Berlin Mains bundle doesn't get you into the territory you're searching for on its own, its expansions, the Arks or other libraries (JXL, Ben Wallfisch, Modus, Miroire, etc.) will get you over the hump.

And if there's some instrument somehow not covered here, you can always grab a dry or modeled/sample-modeled library, run it through Berlin Studio and sit it right in with the OT stuff effortlessly.

This is of course assuming you and your computer get along with SINE.
 
Trash Panda said:
This is of course assuming you and your computer get along with SINE.
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If only this was true for all of us :sad:

After trying a lot of them, my vote goes to VSL. I think OT sounds great but I cannot deal with sine and I don't want to miss automatic sound variation population any more and I don't want to miss the synchron player.

So I stick with VSL mainly for the better workflow. If I didn't care about that as much I would have propably ended up in the OT camp.
 
I use the VSL Synchron libraries now as the majority of my template. The player is great, they are extremely consistent in terms of programming and well balanced between articulations on the same instrument and the crossfades are nice and smooth. Also they have excellent agile/virtuoso legato for playing fast lines/runs with whatever notes you want.

To me they have a much better sound than the old dry libraries. I've never heard the older dry VI/Synchron-ized libraries as convincing as the newer libraries, with few exceptions.
 
From the one year I've been composing and having wondered this myself and deep dived many a thread here, reddit and other places here' what I've concluded:

Cost effective and short to medium term: HOOPUS subscription

Not so cost effective but pretty reasonable during sales: BBCSO (more recently due to it's update SSO)

The child which pretty much everyone loves: CSS,CSB and CSW collection

If money is no object and you want what are generally regarded as the creme de la creme even in just general use: Berlin collection seems to have as much love as CS Collection.

If you are really a big baller: VSL...sort of. As with this one, the versatility is only limited by your wallet😂

Overall, it seems like most people still have CS Collection or Berlin in their templates as their go to or at the very least the foundation of their template. So by that virtue I'd argue it's king of versatile.

But in reality, I believe the real question should be which library is the EASIEST to get it to do what I want it to do. And I genuinely think that it's still CSS just because of how many people STILL use it.
 
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For me, definitely the Berlin series from Orchestral Tools. It's flexible because the mic options can get pretty dry, especially in the winds and brass which have extra section mics for making the sound smaller. I can set up my own mapping and articulations. The wealth of articulations and compatible add-on libraries is huge, plus I can always just get a single instrument for cheap.

The most popular ones here would probably be the Cinematic Studio Series, Vienna Symphonic Library, and Spitfire's SSO or some similar bundle (I know many prefer their Chamber Strings over the Symphonic ones that come with SSO). These are all great options for various reasons but I'll let someone who uses and loves them jump in
 
Draco Solis said:
Asking this more out of curiosity than anything else.

I've seen people talk about workhorse libraries before, but that can mean anything from "fits into anything I want to do" to "does everything I specifically need to do." But I want to hear what you feel you can look at and say that, regardless of what you want to do, this library can do it reasonably well (with some caveats, of course. No library is perfect or all-encompassing).

But more than that, I'd also like to hear why you think it's versatile. Is it because its dryness allows you to give it whatever ambience you want, letting you go from small and intimate to large and grand without issue? Does its dynamic range allow it to be soft and emotional in one song, then go loud in another? Does its breadth of articulations mean that you'll surely find something you'll like in it? Or does it do the basics well enough that you can write pretty much whatever you want with it? Or is it something else?

I'm curious to see what people say on this! And if someone else out there is looking for exactly this topic, hopefully it can give some insight and help for them!
Click to expand...
I don't own it but I test for OT and I think the Berlin Series is the best and most comprehensive. If you include all the Berlin Strings stuff, the Symphonic Strings, Brass,Woods and Perc it has everything you ever need. And it sounds amazing in Teldex. It's very very very expensive and it'll be very very large in terms of drive space but since you asked, Berlin is my answer. If you have 2000€ and want to start a collection from scratch, OT Berlin series is the best. It can do a bit of epic unlike Spitfire and it has soo many articulations. Probably the only weakness is there's no choir.
 
SamTheAudiocrat said:
I don't own it but I test for OT and I think the Berlin Series is the best and most comprehensive. If you include all the Berlin Strings stuff, the Symphonic Strings, Brass,Woods and Perc it has everything you ever need. And it sounds amazing in Teldex. It's very very very expensive and it'll be very very large in terms of drive space but since you asked, Berlin is my answer. If you have 2000€ and want to start a collection from scratch, OT Berlin series is the best. It can do a bit of epic unlike Spitfire and it has soo many articulations. Probably the only weakness is there's no choir.
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There's no full standalone choir library, but there are still a few choir options in the meantime. Ark 1, 2, 4, and 5, Miroire, and the Time libraries can go a long way. I have no idea what to even expect from a full choir library from them but we need it
 
Casiquire said:
There's no full standalone choir library, but there are still a few choir options in the meantime. Ark 1, 2, 4, and 5, Miroire, and the Time libraries can go a long way. I have no idea what to even expect from a full choir library from them but we need it
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Yeah absolutely. Even Tallinn has some really nice choir. Can't wait for a choir library from them.
 
SamTheAudiocrat said:
Yeah absolutely. Even Tallinn has some really nice choir. Can't wait for a choir library from them.
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That one is gorgeous but it's not in Teldex so it isn't the same natural fit with the Mains, but I tend to think choirs are pretty forgiving and sound good even if they're clearly in a different room from the orchestra
 
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