Which orchestration software is the best deal?

[shelter]

I'd appreciate opinions from those of you with a working experience of
one or more of the various symphonic orchestra packages available today.

Requirements: The most realistic possible sounds and articulations.
In particular, Timpani, High order strings, Woodwinds
brass i.e. Saxophone.
The most comprehensive possible coverage within budget.
Budget: About $1k.

I should point out that it is not my intention to create classical works.

Thanks.

[D]

Well, you have 3 major players: East-West, Vienna Symphonic Library or Kirk Hunter.

VSL is probably beyond your budget, and is best suited towards classical production.

The Kirk Hunter stuff is good. I'm pretty sure you will need Kontakt (or Halion or some other sample player) as their libraries do not come with one.

EWQLSO Platinum seems like it would be your best bet, IMO. It has a huge library with an impressive list of articulations.

[HDJK]

From a scrictly sound quality/price point of view I have to agree (as an owner) to the QLSO recommendation. I would definitely go Platinum, as this gets you the close mics. If you don't want to strictly do classical they can come in handy as they are far more flexible in placing in the mix than the full mics of the gold version (I had Gold Kompakt before I upgraded to Platinum PLAY).

There are however some issues with the PLAY engine. You can check their forum to get an overview:

SO PLAY (http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19)

[kdm]

Requirements: The most realistic possible sounds and articulations.
In particular, Timpani, High order strings, Woodwinds
brass i.e. Saxophone.
The most comprehensive possible coverage within budget.
Budget: About $1k.


Shelter, in addition to the above advice, note that you will have to add Sax separately. There I would suggest Chris Hein Horns (http://chrishein.net/) - he has options for buying separate horns/sections (East West/SoundsOnline carries his libs as well as EWQL SO Gold/Platinum of course).

For orchestral, the previous advice is mine as well - EW Symphonic Orchestra. Play does have issues, but hopefully a fix is on the way. If you only need certain sections as you mentioned above, there are separate libraries that might give you what you need - such as ProjectSam TrueStrike (timpanis/percussion); Westgate Studios (http://www.westgatestudios.com/products.htm) for winds perhaps.

[shelter]

Gents

Thanks for your valued inputs. It looks as though EWQLSO-Platinum is the
best choice in budget. I am a little confused by the added value of buying
the Platinum-Play version though? We already have Halion3 as a player.

I score in Sibelius for which integration with EWQLSO appears to be
available, so that's a plus.

Vienna would be great but I don't want to have to take out a second
mortgage at this time.

I've just received the C5 update which includes the Halion SO. Have any
of you tried that? Is it worth investing in?

[HDJK]

PLAY is proprietary, so you won't be able to use the samples outside of the PLAY engine.

I've never actually tried Halion SO.

[paulwr]

Play Platinum SO from E/W.......... been sitting on my shelf for months. I have good reason to believe I won't get the stability I have using my older version running Kontakt2 on multiple slaves. I was ready to go 64bit on one of my slaves to try it out but got the word that most of the big Hollywood composers are sticking with the Kontakt version, which unfortunately is no longer for sale.

If you go with the Play version, it isn't that some aren't using it successfully. It is that you can't push too hard on it from the standpoint of large amounts of loaded instruments and large voice-counts for playback. Among suggestions I've had for running Play SO with larger templates: run multiple instances and host them with Bidule. And carefully arrange the instruments so that each instance is playing back approx the same voices....... spread it out evenly.

All that said, EW remains my core 'go to' library, though I tend to mix in some of the others mentioned above. I think EW is just a great value, but keep in mind you'll need a VERY powerful computer to accommodate it well, and preferably some computer slaves, too. Really depends on what you do and are expecting.

You'll get plenty of technical help here and also the EW forum is great.

Good luck,
-Paul

[shelter]

All

Thanks for the great help. I've now added EWQLSO to my list of things to
buy. I look forward to calling on you for assistance as soon as I hit my
first Alamo with it.

Regards

Richard.

[cakemaker626]

Hello Shelter,

I think for your budget you might want to check out Symphobia. It has some very useable orchestral sounds as well as many unusual woodwind,brass and string effects. You hear many of these type of playing techniques on shows like Lost and Fringe. There's not much percussion included so you 'll have to look elsewhere for that. I use the Vienna instruments collection as well and mix it with Symphobia. Hope that helps

[colony nofi]

Some things to consider...

EWQL - platinum is cool...but as has been mentioned here, PLAY is problematic. I will wait to see if PLAY 2 fixes issues (or indeed the upcoming PLAY 1 update...I don't need the PLAY 2 features.)

Vienna make the Special Edition...and it is VERY GOOD for its price. You can get SE and SE plus for around the $1k mark.

But I'm a BIG believer in multiple options...so, perhaps you could go a route like

Vienna Special Edition
PLUS Mirislov (can be had for $199, which, I think is a COMPLETE steal. It goes for $1050 here in australia, and I'd say its worth about that. Really. Once you get used to it of course.)
Then maybe garritan s/o V4 which is out soon, again for $199.
Between them all you'll get what you need, and probably a little more. I've found combining sounds can be REALLY cool, and if you're into tweaking, will prob get what you are after.
But out of the box, EWQL can get sounds VERY quickly... (I do like Vienna SE better though.....it could be just me.)

5 aussie cents (not worth much these days)
Brendan.

[HDJK]

^^ PLAY 2 has been renamed to PLAY Pro to reduce confusion of what this is (an editor for your samples like Kontakt in comparison to Kontakt PLayer).

[colony nofi]

Sounds a smart move....

[shelter]

Guys

Thanks for the abundant feedbacks. Your advice most welcome.

BR

Richard.