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Complementing SSO with a more "epic" library

More epic?

Consider VSL's Big Bang Orchestra. It excels at that. You can buy it in "chunks" so to speak. Look for sales, parts of it go on sale very often. It works wonderfully. Very versatile too, fantastic sound, absolutely consistent in dynamics and articulations across the board. It is "granular" in that you can choose how detailed to get. Andromeda is a wonderful sketching library, and a fantastic start.
 
Crossroads said:
Look for sales, parts of it go on sale very often.
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Like right now. I happened to notice BBO bits and bobs being discounted over at Best Service. Zodiac would be a good one as well as Ganymede. Good call!





And the original BBO is free:

FREE BASICS - Vienna Symphonic Library

Get ready to go big and bold with our brand-new BIG BANG ORCHESTRA – for free! Create large orchestrations in no time. Beef up your existing tracks and inject some inspiration into your composing process.
www.vsl.co.at www.vsl.co.at
 
Crossroads said:
More epic?

Consider VSL's Big Bang Orchestra. It excels at that. You can buy it in "chunks" so to speak. Look for sales, parts of it go on sale very often. It works wonderfully. Very versatile too, fantastic sound, absolutely consistent in dynamics and articulations across the board. It is "granular" in that you can choose how detailed to get. Andromeda is a wonderful sketching library, and a fantastic start.
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I agree that VSL BBO is very granular, you have everything from orchestral ensembles to section ensembles and single voices, plus lots of aleatoric and FX stuff. I got the full library during the latest sale in October, where I could use my academic discount on top of their discount, which other developers don't do, so I was really impressed. I can only recommend it as it's one of the most complete orchestral libraries out there, it can do anything from traditional orchestra to real epic (personally I use it for symphonic metal too).

However, I think if OP already has a symphonic orchestra, VSL is a big investment and probably redundant in some ways. I agree that Spitfire is weak on brass, so perhaps a subscription to Musio could fill the gaps. You have fantastic brass (basically Cinebrass Pro) and percussions (Cinepercs), great soloists like Tina Guo and Gina Luciani, and also some really good nordic choirs. It's worth checking that out I think.

[I am a Musio beta tester but I bought a lifetime Musio license before becoming a tester, so I believe that doesn't affect my views].
 
doctoremmet said:
Like right now. I happened to notice BBO bits and bobs being discounted over at Best Service. Zodiac would be a good one as well as Ganymede. Good call!





And the original BBO is free:

FREE BASICS - Vienna Symphonic Library

Get ready to go big and bold with our brand-new BIG BANG ORCHESTRA – for free! Create large orchestrations in no time. Beef up your existing tracks and inject some inspiration into your composing process.
www.vsl.co.at www.vsl.co.at
Click to expand...

Good call indeed. I downloaded their free stuff a few weeks ago but if I remember correctly it runs in Sine too and it made my Ableton 12 crash everytime I tried to open it. I had to remove it all. Will check Zodiac and Ganymede though!
 
jcrosby said:
Symphobia's brass is pretty timid by today's standards. They're also fairly light on RRs by current standards. They're basically useful as orchestral FX, and while you can sketch with them, the brass is going to be kind of whimpy if you're looking for a big, 'epic' sound, and short strings may sound a little robotic...

The Ark's are nice, just keep in mind that Ark 1 only focuses on loud dynamics, and Ark 2 focuses on soft dynamics. This can be tricky if you want one library that has the entire dynamic range.

Jaeger's probably your best bet if you're ok not having winds and percussion... Nucleus is a great alternative if you'd like something that covers the entire orchestra. (They sound essentially identical. The tradeoff is that Jaeger just has more articulations, but fewer instruments).

Here's a comparison of some block chords played through different library's brass patches... Symphobia 1 & 2 are quite tame by comparison....

(Keep in mind these are just block chords through ensembles or stacked patches... I.E. They're not voiced properly, (but that isn't the point)... The intensity of the top dynamic is, which is pretty important if your goal is to use whatever you buy to do some degree of 'epic' music....



Cinebrass Pro

View attachment Cinebrass Pro.mp3

Jaeger

View attachment Jaeger.mp3

Tom Holkenborg Brass ("JXL Brass")

View attachment JXL Brass.mp3

Nucleus

View attachment Nucleus.mp3

Metropolis Ark 1

View attachment Metropolis Ark 1.mp3

Symphobia 1

View attachment Symphobia 1.mp3

Symphobia 2

View attachment Symphobia 2.mp3
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Thank you so much for the comparison! It helped a lot. JXL does sound good. But so does Ark 1. Really like that tone. In all honesty, I'm still interested in Symphobia for other reasons than brass and in Jaeger to have a "bigger" sounding library. I don't mind not having percussions because I will add Damage 2 down the line. SSO can cover winds too. So many options to choose from.
 
Justin L. Franks said:
This is going a bit outside of what you originally asked for, but I still think it is something to consider.

One or both of the Oceanias ($79-169), or the budget alternative of Originals Epic Choir ($50, recorded in Air Lyndhurst like SSO)
Vista ($149)
Damage 2 the next time it goes on sale for $250 or less

That will get you a choir and a more "epic" percussion than what's in SSO. And Vista is a much smaller string section, which is very useful to have.

Then you can supplant some of the SSO brass with individual instruments from TH/JXL if you're feeling limited in that regard. The previous suggestion of the solo trombone, 6 horns, and 3 bass trombones patches is a good one.

I think this will cover all the bases quite well.
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I'm thinking about getting the Oceania bundle but I could decide to wait and get Audio Imperia Chorus on sale because it covers soft too if needed, while Oceania ONLY does epic. As I also do other genres, I wouldn't mind having a one-does-it-all choir. Any opinions on Chorus?
 
I'm fellow hobbyist just like you mate. You have amazing suggestions here. Don't buy Ark 1 for full price - it goes on 30-50% sale from time to time on OT website or Native Instruments. Originals Choir for 29€ and Oceania 1 or 2 (both are amazing and 79€). They are really amazing.

Just note: don't get into rabbit hole thinking you need all flagship libraries to sound amazing. ( some old two steps from hell tracks were written with just Nucleus Lite - sustain and staccato patches ).

For example. Sometimes you want little different sound or more grit etc. And sometimes adding little bit of saturation, distortion or little bit of more EQing can do the trick instead buying another library. Really try play with your main library as much, layer as much. Squeeze everything out of it before breaking wallet ( like we all do always 😂 )
 
I'd suggest the budget option if "epic" is the goal:

Get Originals Choir and Originals Cinematic Percussion. Both recorded in the same room as SSO and will fill gaps that the main library doesn't have. Job done.

You'll be able to get brass "fizz" from SSO with a bit of orchestration, and if I recall correctly some of the performance patches have the Cuivre articulations rolled into the upper dynamic range.
 
Metropolis ARK 1 has a really nice choir and epic brass. Rest of the sections don't get a lot of use from me. Never really got used to this high and low thing on strings and I can get a lot more "epic" sound out of LASS and Adventure Strings layered. I think you have everything covered with strings and woodwinds already for this kind of stuff. What you need is a dedicated brass library with a solid top end, a choir and some percussion. But you can do it all with SSO.
 
diemcarpe said:
I'm fellow hobbyist just like you mate. You have amazing suggestions here. Don't buy Ark 1 for full price - it goes on 30-50% sale from time to time on OT website or Native Instruments. Originals Choir for 29€ and Oceania 1 or 2 (both are amazing and 79€). They are really amazing.

Just note: don't get into rabbit hole thinking you need all flagship libraries to sound amazing. ( some old two steps from hell tracks were written with just Nucleus Lite - sustain and staccato patches ).

For example. Sometimes you want little different sound or more grit etc. And sometimes adding little bit of saturation, distortion or little bit of more EQing can do the trick instead buying another library. Really try play with your main library as much, layer as much. Squeeze everything out of it before breaking wallet ( like we all do always 😂 )
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I totally agree with you! With so many different options it's really easy to fall in that trap of thinking you need something else, unless you're looking for something with a completely different vibe. EQ and saturation can really help my cause here. I will give it a try.

I will definitely buy a Choir though. Maybe take advantage of that Oceania sale. Any preference between 1 and 2? I see 2 has a lot more singers but apart from that 1 could be enough. Spitfire Originals is great but the price never changes so it's less "urgent". And it covers the soft side of the choir that I'm missing in Oceania. Chorus seems to cover all the dynamic range and expressions but it's very pricey.

And don't worry since I like to watch my wallet too, I rarely purchase anything when not on sale. Ark 1 does look interesting but I will work with SSO for now and maybe will catch one or two libraries on BF.

Thanks again for the help!
 
I do almost exclusively epic orchestrations and there really is no good one stop tool for this. If you count out buying a la carte there is only really Nucleus Lite to be honest….for sketches
 
speedflyer said:
I do almost exclusively epic orchestrations and there really is no good one stop tool for this. If you count out buying a la carte there is only really Nucleus Lite to be honest….for sketches
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Nothing against the "a la carte" strategy. But for this I need to invest more time in the learning process of the orchestration before buying it all. SSO should covers my needs for now. I have some decent percussions too in the new SSO. I'm only missing a choir and a bit more solid brass section. But again, I could be set for now with only that. Tom Holkenborg's Brass will probably be on my list of I see that I need it, or like various members mentioned, I can just buy a few instruments and I'll be good to go.
 
llevante said:
I totally agree with you! With so many different options it's really easy to fall in that trap of thinking you need something else, unless you're looking for something with a completely different vibe. EQ and saturation can really help my cause here. I will give it a try.

I will definitely buy a Choir though. Maybe take advantage of that Oceania sale. Any preference between 1 and 2? I see 2 has a lot more singers but apart from that 1 could be enough. Spitfire Originals is great but the price never changes so it's less "urgent". And it covers the soft side of the choir that I'm missing in Oceania. Chorus seems to cover all the dynamic range and expressions but it's very pricey.

And don't worry since I like to watch my wallet too, I rarely purchase anything when not on sale. Ark 1 does look interesting but I will work with SSO for now and maybe will catch one or two libraries on BF.

Thanks again for the help!
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You are welcome. I feel like less singers is more versatile. It's just my personal opinion. You can make less singers sound even bigger. This is great demo of what Oceania can also do ( demo by @NoamL - each time I'm amazed ): https://vi-control.net/community/threads/skyrim-esque-choir-libraries.72419/post-4242802
 
Alex Fraser said:
From PT himself on how to make Spitfire brass a bit more shizzle:

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That's interesting. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's not just a matter of EQ. It's really an extra dynamic layer (ff or fff) that SA brass libraries don't normally do as compared to other libs (Cinebrass, BBO, Hollywood Orchestra and the other mentioned above).
Even Albion Colossus, which is martketed as an epic, boombastic and trailer library, doesn't get there. I believe it's their stylistic interpretation, so it's a matter of taste really.
VSL BBO for example has patches where you can clearly hear the musicians pushing their lungs as far as they can to get that raspy sound.
Once I heard CH describing SA brass as a "chocolatey middle", which is what their brass do very well IMHO.
 
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llevante said:
Good call indeed. I downloaded their free stuff a few weeks ago but if I remember correctly it runs in Sine too and it made my Ableton 12 crash everytime I tried to open it. I had to remove it all. Will check Zodiac and Ganymede though!
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Sine is OT... VSL have their own player which is by far the best on the market... as far as I know
 
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