# Which, if any, of these Kontakt libraries should I buy, given my requirements?



## OneOverZero (Jul 6, 2020)

I'm a soundtrack-esque hobbyist composer in Alaska. My biggest musical influences are probably Alexandre Desplat, Jerry Goldsmith, Howard Shore, Nicholas Hooper, Jay Chattaway, Martin O'Donnell, and James Horner.

I've been relying on Logic's factory library for well over half a decade, and I'm _sick_ of it. It's great for something bundled with a DAW, but the stuff it doesn't do is preventing me from finishing projects. So I'm shopping around for my first Kontakt libraries to replace it. I've never used Kontakt before, or any third-party plugin for that matter. There's so much stuff out there that the only way I'm going to make a decision is being really anal and picky, so I've put together sort of a feature wishlist in rough priority.

1. I'm looking for strings, brass, wind, percussion, choir and piano. Ideally, several would be from the same company. I don't want to make my Kontakt learning curve too much steeper than it needs to be.
2. No purpose-driven or combined-section libraries. Stuff like Albion or Symphobia is out of the question.
3. Damp, rather than really wet or dry. If VSL is 0 and some cathedral is 10, I'd prefer an orchestra at around 3 or 4. Because despite constantly fighting the Apple samples' dryness, I don't want to throw away the option of a closer, more intimate sound.
4. Real or simulated legato and portamento. Apple's library doesn't have identifiable legato at all, and doesn't even claim to have portamento.
5. Control over bowing direction. Apple has separate sounds for up- and down-bow strokes, but they're locked into a rigid pattern, which is somehow worse than if they didn't exist.
6. Some kind of attack control would be nice; Apple's staccatos are too slow and everything else is too sudden. Just having marcato and the opposite would be an improvement.
7. I don't know whether Logic or Kontakt even supports this, but some way to shift the velocity within the duration of a single note. Is this what a "velocity envelope" is? (I fully expect it to be work-intensive, but it'd be nice to have the option.)
8. Harmonics, sul tasto, and brass mutes would be nice, but aren't really important.
9. I'm working on a laptop, so something i7-processor-friendly would be nice-ish; a desktop Mac is not an option for me for various reasons.
10. Interface clutter and excess 3d styling is bad — I can't create Sculpture synths at all because my visual cortex shuts down trying to separate decoration from content.

I've narrowed down to a few options for basic orchestra. These don't count piano, choir, or world instruments. It's not an exhaustive list, but I have rejected a lot of options to get it.

• Spitfire Studio Professional — example tracks sound about the right dampness but reverb plugins exist so...
• NI Symphony Series Collection — can't really tell any difference from SStudioP. They brag about their section sizes, but beyond a certain point that doesn't _matter_.
• Miroslav Philharmonik 2 — example tracks sound wetter than I'd like, but again, reverb plugins are a thing. Also hard to research.
• Peter Siedlaczek Complete Orchestral Collection – doesn't sound Spitfire or NI level, but includes piano and choir with phonemes. There seems to be very little information on it once you strip away the marketing fluff, so it's even harder to research than anything else.

Can people share their real-world experience with any of these? Which of these should I discard, and why? What does each do that the others don't? Is there a clear winner for my requirements, or are there big tradeoffs?


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## Rory (Jul 6, 2020)

Why are you wedded to Kontakt? Spitfire and Orchestral Tools are on their way out the door. Indeed, going forward the door is already behind them.


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## OneOverZero (Jul 6, 2020)

I can afford to buy something on the order of SStudioP or NI Symphony series if and only if I have a reasonable chance of making it last several years. I'm not specifically attached to Kontakt, BUT... It's historically been a standard, and it's the only sample player I trust to be updated through Apple's transition to ARM processors without forcing me to replace my libraries.


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## Rory (Jul 6, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> I can afford to buy something on the order of SStudioP or NI Symphony series if and only if I have a reasonable chance of making it last several years. I'm not specifically attached to Kontakt, BUT... It's historically been a standard, and it's the only sample player I trust to be updated through Apple's transition to ARM processors without forcing me to replace my libraries.



As a matter of curiosity, is that why you have Spitfire Studio Professional on your list instead of BBC SO Pro?


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## OneOverZero (Jul 6, 2020)

Yes. If I can't trust the sampler software to stick around, I can't justify paying for something that high-end. If Kontakt has any competitors that will let me keep the same library through architecture, OS, and sampler upgrades, I'm equally open to those.


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## Rory (Jul 6, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> Yes. If I can't trust the sampler software to stick around, I can't justify paying for something that high-end. If Kontakt has any competitors that will let me keep the same library through architecture, OS, and sampler upgrades, I'm equally open to those.




One thing you might try is to install the Spitfire and OT SINE players plus free Spitfire LABS libraries and OT's free Layers library and see what you think of the players. Just on a substantive basis, LABS and Layers are worth having. You can also install the free Kontakt player and compare.

Both Spitfire and OT are going through teething with their players but I think that they'll get there. Neither company is about to disappear, and the worst that happens, as unlikely as it is, is that they revert to Kontakt. As a Mac user myself, I don't see that ARM is a factor in this.


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## Gingerbread (Jul 6, 2020)

My humble recommendations:


Strings - CSS or Afflatus

Woods - Berlin Woodwinds

Brass - CSB + some individual patches from Junkie XL, particularly trombones and other low brass

Perc - CinePerc

Piano - CinePiano, Grandeur


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## OneOverZero (Jul 6, 2020)

Rory said:


> Both Spitfire and OT are going through teething with their players but I think that they'll get there. Neither company is about to disappear, and the worst that happens, as unlikely as it is, is that they revert to Kontakt. As a Mac user myself, I don't see that ARM is a factor in this.



I'm not exactly sure what you're saying... Are you saying the BBC orchestra library (or similar) would survive the potential EOL of its native sampler? I know _nothing_ about sample libraries beyond the general DAW>Sampler>Library structure. I haven't used a non-Apple plugin in a DAW since 2012; I felt lost then, and feel almost as lost now.

On some level, I'm artificially restricting my decision space with Kontakt because I have too many choices. My brain CANNOT make a 'random' choice between equals; I can't make a decision until I can single one option out of all possible options. So I need a small decision space to have any hope of making a choice.


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## OneOverZero (Jul 6, 2020)

Gingerbread said:


> My humble recommendations:
> 
> 
> Strings - CSS or Afflatus
> ...



Why? How is each of these options different from its competitors, what are their strengths, and what are their shortcomings? I can buy _one_ string section, _one_ brass section, etc, so I want to pick the ones that are right for what I plan to do with them.


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## Rory (Jul 6, 2020)

The Spitfire and Orchestral Tools apps are players, not samplers. They just play samples. The paid version of Kontakt is both a sampler and a player, and its dominance is being challenged. Spitfire and Orchestral Tools have left, and it appears that OT is going to convert all of its libraries to SINE libraries.


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## OneOverZero (Jul 6, 2020)

Yes. I caught that part. What I don't get is: you seem to be implying that if one were canceled, libraries designed for it would be ported to Kontakt. I was under the impression that libraries are one-and-done affairs? Do either of them, or any other sample player, focus on backward compat as heavily as Kontakt?


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## NoamL (Jul 6, 2020)

Hi @OneOverZero 

You've laid out a lot of your requirements but may I ask two further questions before making recommendations -

1. What is your laptop's RAM? 16 GB, 32 GB etc? Is it possible for you to install more?

2. When you think of strings, are you more interested in big symphonic size string sections (55-60 musicians) or something smaller? Your mention of Goldsmith, Desplat, Horner etc seemed to steer towards a "big cinematic" sound but just wanted to be sure.


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## NoamL (Jul 6, 2020)

And to your point #7 - yes, "shifting the velocity within a note" has existed for a while. Nearly all orchestral libraries since about 2008 allow you to control the dynamic of a note from start to finish, using the modwheel on your piano (or equivalently, CC1 in your DAW). So you can draw in your own crescendos on a single note, or use dynamics to create phrasing across a series of notes. All of the libraries you are looking at buying, and all the libraries people are recommending to you here, have that capability


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## Rory (Jul 6, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> Yes. I caught that part. What I don't get is: you seem to be implying that if one were canceled, libraries designed for it would be ported to Kontakt. I was under the impression that libraries are one-and-done affairs? Do either of them, or any other sample player, focus on backward compat as heavily as Kontakt?



It's my understanding that Orchestral Tools is converting some of its Kontakt libraries to OT SINE libraries. I'm not aware of anything that would prevent it from doing that, although there's obviously labour involved.


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## Stringtree (Jul 6, 2020)

Rory said:


> Why are you wedded to Kontakt? Spitfire and Orchestral Tools are on their way out the door. Indeed, going forward the door is already behind them.




Kontakt is not Gigastudio; I don't think it's at that point. Kontakt has deep roots and penetration today. Lots of developers. As an added benefit, lots of reasonably priced libraries for the full version!

The house-brand sample playback environments like Play and the Spitfire engine might well suit those who are unlikely to invest in an expensive piece of software like Kontakt. The giveaway of a proprietary sample player prompts more involvement in the ecosystem. Win for a developer who can get inside your system and keep house.

I have the full Kontakt, and I like the playing field. If this were to suddenly collapse, I would still make music with the samples. I do seriously appreciate indie developers making great stuff without the overburden of a Kontakt Player license. I, myself, took care of the pay, so there are $5 libraries, or free ones.

The economic framework is good for the customer, once the NI Kontakt license is purchased. It keeps paying dividends. On a continuing basis, I can buy individual or bundle libraries that deliver a great deal of power that ends up in the hands of the developer and the individual users. 

Sure, the software is given a great deal of weight in this equation. It feels like the 1990s when word processors cost serious money. The toll road might now seem stupid, but it's economics.

Then again, Kontakt is tended like a cool shrub, and I'm not sure everyone is out the door for the various tiers of customers. There's still some life in this. This is not TASCAM. The lights are still on.

I can still absolutely use my Gigastudio libraries, so this isn't the end of the world. There, the lights are off, but samples are samples, no? Along came a G-Player. And scripts.

The world is not ending. At least regarding sample libraries. Buy what you like the sound of.


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## NoamL (Jul 6, 2020)

Kontakt will still be around and usable in 5 years. So will Logic. So will PLAY. Those aren't concerns I think.

One thing you need to watch out for when buying Kontakt libraries is that some of them may be used in the "free Kontakt *Player*" and others require the "full version of Kontakt". Make sure you read a product's webpage or manual carefully before buying - email the developer if you can't find the information. The full paid version of Kontakt costs $400 by itself and is usually available half-off at Black Friday.


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## Rory (Jul 6, 2020)

Stringtree said:


> Buy what you like the sound of.



Precisely.


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## Gingerbread (Jul 6, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> Why? How is each of these options different from its competitors, what are their strengths, and what are their shortcomings? I can buy _one_ string section, _one_ brass section, etc, so I want to pick the ones that are right for what I plan to do with them.


My influences in music aren't too different from yours. If I had to do it all over again, eliminating the mistakes and wrong paths, those are the libraries my long journey proved to me to be the most helpful. Buying a lower quality library inevitably leads to disappointment, and buying twice.

Each is recorded in a beautiful room, neither too dry or too wet. Although my recommendations involve various different developers, all the rooms are reasonably similar enough that they blend well together for a cohesive sound. They are all bread-and-butter libraries for each section, meaning they have the most important and common articulations, not less common niche ones. They are all considered by most here to be among the best-in-class of each section of the orchestra (not exclusively, of course, but among the best).

CSS is generally considered to have among the smoothest and most expressive legato of any string library, capable of handling most any lyrical phrase you throw at it. The shorts are outstanding as well. Superb bread-and-butter library.

Berlin Woodwinds is perhaps the most comprehensive single woodwind library available, with multiple individual solo instruments, very capable of handling Goldsmith-esque passages. Very complete, with _many_ articulations, a runs builder, etc. Beautiful sonically.

CinePerc is just a very solid perc library recorded in an exceptionally fantastic room, great timpanis among everything else, has every traditional orchestral percussion instrument, well recorded.

For brass, CSB shares essentially the same qualities as its CSS cousin. Same exceptional quality, excellent dynamic range, terrific shorts. Its weakness, perhaps, is that the room is slightly less ideal for brass, but nothing serious. The quality of the tone remains superb, with top-notch programming.

CinePiano is particularly great for in situ piano, playing among the orchestra. Same beautiful room as CinePerc. Great tone. (Or Grandeur, which is close-mic'ed, and rather vanilla, but very well sampled.)


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## OneOverZero (Jul 6, 2020)

RAM: 16GB — I don't think they make a Macbook Pro with more than that.

Big string sections are good — opera-sized at minimum — but it's less about power than about timbre. I definitely go for cinematic, but I guess I tend to go for focus and immediacy as much as size. Horner barely made that list; Hans Zimmer got left out on purpose.

All the libraries I listed in OP are Kontakt Player compatible. NI currently has a sideways upgrade price for Kontakt, so a Kontakt Player library could be a sneaky way in. I'm not going to shackle myself to that though.

Another advantage of Kontakt from where I'm standing is that I probably _will_ need independent libraries. Outside of traditional orchestra, I'll need taiko drums, panflute, and a couple other 'world instruments', and Kontakt is a bit of a standard as far as I can tell.


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## yiph2 (Jul 6, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> RAM: 16GB — I don't think they make a Macbook Pro with more than that.
> 
> Big string sections are good — opera-sized at minimum — but it's less about power than about timbre. I definitely go for cinematic, but I guess I tend to go for focus and immediacy as much as size. Horner barely made that list; Hans Zimmer got left out on purpose.
> 
> ...


There are now 64GB RAM MBP now

I would recommend CSS, CSB, BWW, if you are not looking for that AIR sound from Spitfire. Unless you are really patient and can wait for CSW. (idk anything about percussion libraries)


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## OneOverZero (Jul 6, 2020)

CSS+CSB+BWW is above my price range. Even SStudioP or NISS is pushing it a bit at 4 sections for $1k.


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## yiph2 (Jul 6, 2020)

But your requirements are a lot given your budget... Maybe BBCSO Core, and get CSB as the brass is not great in BBCSO


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## dzilizzi (Jul 6, 2020)

yiph2 said:


> There are now 64GB RAM MBP now
> 
> I would recommend CSS, CSB, BWW, if you are not looking for that AIR sound from Spitfire. Unless you are really patient and can wait for CSW. (idk anything about percussion libraries)


No on the BWW with that RAM. You would actually be better off going with VSL's SE libraries. And really just the first and maybe 1 plus. I had 16GB RAM on my laptop and was constantly having to freeze tracks and bounce to track with most of the better libraries. VSL SE libraries are fairly good on RAM. And if you eventually get a better computer, they will work with other libraries, but they are a little dry, so will need some reverb. 

The other good choice is EW's Hollywood Orchestra Gold version, though they may be coming out with something new in a few months. Get it on sale and use the discount codes if you decide to get it.


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## OneOverZero (Jul 6, 2020)

yiph2 said:


> But your requirements are a lot given your budget... Maybe BBCSO Core, and get CSB as the brass is not great in BBCSO



The requirements are designed to be impossible or just barely possible to meet, in order to cull options. They don't represent a target area to be hit, as much as a target singularity to be approached.

Which points do SStudioP and NISS fail? What specifically is "not great" about BBCSO brass? Keep in mind that almost anything is going to be an improvement on Apple's factory library.


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## yiph2 (Jul 6, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> The requirements are designed to be impossible or just barely possible to meet, in order to cull options. They don't represent a target area to be hit, as much as a target singularity to be approached.
> 
> Which points do SStudioP and NISS fail? What specifically is "not great" about BBCSO brass? Keep in mind that almost anything is going to be an improvement on Apple's factory library.


BBCSO brass cannot do loud stuff, so there is only about me level. But whatever you do, don't buy NI Symphony stuff, they are really not worth it at all... the legato is horrible


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## OneOverZero (Jul 6, 2020)

Is Miroslav anything like as horribly wet as the example tracks make it sound? Because that would disqualify it as well.

What kind of wait are we talking about for CSW? Apple's winds are so horrible I've trained myself to write with almost no winds, so full CS* might be an option. If that ends up being too long, what options are there below BWW?


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## dzilizzi (Jul 6, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> The requirements are designed to be impossible or just barely possible to meet, in order to cull options. They don't represent a target area to be hit, as much as a target singularity to be approached.
> 
> Which points do SStudioP and NISS fail? What specifically is "not great" about BBCSO brass? Keep in mind that almost anything is going to be an improvement on Apple's factory library.


NISS is not really worth it based on all the comments I've heard. SStO Pro can be good depending on how much work you want to put into it. But it doesn't have percussion. That may or may not matter to you.


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## yiph2 (Jul 6, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> Is Miroslav anything like as horribly wet as the example tracks make it sound? Because that would disqualify it as well.
> 
> What kind of wait are we talking about for CSW? Apple's winds are so horrible I've trained myself to write with almost no winds, so full CS* might be an option. If that ends up being too long, what options are there below BWW?


Miroslav is very old, so don't buy that. Below BWW are SWW, but it is very wet, so might not suit you. If you get SStW, apparently the Core version is unusable because of the mics, so get the Pro version if you get that


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## dzilizzi (Jul 6, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> Is Miroslav anything like as horribly wet as the example tracks make it sound? Because that would disqualify it as well.
> 
> What kind of wait are we talking about for CSW? Apple's winds are so horrible I've trained myself to write with almost no winds, so full CS* might be an option. If that ends up being too long, what options are there below BWW?


Miroslav can sound good, but you have to use the Sampltank player. For me, it's a pain and I never use it. And I paid only $100 or so for it. It is not worth full price. 

I'm only a hobbyist. But I found if you go cheap, you'll keep buying until you get the sound you want. I would start listening to the walkthroughs and reviews of things you are interested in to get an idea of the sound.


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## Robert_G (Jul 6, 2020)

My template is starting to struggle at 32gb ram....and thats with disabling and purging. I shudder at the thought using 16gb ram.
Id still go the css csb csw route though


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## OneOverZero (Jul 9, 2020)

Robert_G said:


> My template is starting to struggle at 32gb ram....and thats with disabling and purging. I shudder at the thought using 16gb ram.
> Id still go the css csb csw route though



How big is this template? I may be able to afford Cinematic Studio stuff, but I'm not sure I can afford 32 or 64GB RAM without dropping Mac and switching to DP. I'd rather not do that — it'd be overhauling too much too fast, and would mean losing Apple's percussion libs, Sculpture, and Alchemy.


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## Robert_G (Jul 9, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> How big is this template? I may be able to afford Cinematic Studio stuff, but I'm not sure I can afford 32 or 64GB RAM without dropping Mac and switching to DP.



It depends what I load into it. Completely purged and disabled, the Cubase template file is around 250MB but it uses about 4GB RAM before I've enabled a single instance of Kontakt. That does also include all my 'Sends' loaded up.
There are many guys here with templates much larger than that.
You could do the Cinematic Studio libs, but you'd struggle with a mic mix. You'd be using the main mic only on a full template.



OneOverZero said:


> it'd be overhauling too much too fast, and would mean losing Apple's percussion libs, Sculpture, and Alchemy.



Honestly, once you start buying premium or even mid level libaries.....you'll never look at those again.


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## OneOverZero (Jul 10, 2020)

Someone mentioned on the Discord that Cinematic Studio stuff is recorded in a bad room. I'm a bit skeptical — the examples on the official site sound great, and if it were that bad, there wouldn't be so many people liking it so much.

But just to be sure, does anyone have a link to an example of CS* sound without any reverb or other modifiers? I have no way of knowing whether the official example tracks represent the vanilla sound — I'd assume they do, but I'm not inclined to make assumptions that cost that much.


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## ClaudioT (Jul 18, 2020)

Sorry to jump in with a maybe silly question: why is nobody mentioning EWQL CC?
It has a reasonable price (with periodical discounts), you pay little per month, it includes astounding orchestral and choir libraries, it's quite a big company that surely will move the Play sampler to ARM and surely will be around in the next five years.

What's preventing including it in the shortlist?

Claudio


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## dzilizzi (Jul 18, 2020)

ClaudioT said:


> Sorry to jump in with a maybe silly question: why is nobody mentioning EWQL CC?
> It has a reasonable price (with periodical discounts), you pay little per month, it includes astounding orchestral and choir libraries, it's quite a big company that surely will move the Play sampler to ARM and surely will be around in the next five years.
> 
> What's preventing including it in the shortlist?
> ...


Not Kontakt for one. And really, you should only use it for a month, try out everything, and then buy what you like when they have a 60% off sale. I think I got EWHO Diamond for less than a year of CC.


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## MartinH. (Jul 18, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> CSS+CSB+BWW is above my price range. Even SStudioP or NISS is pushing it a bit at 4 sections for $1k.



I haven't read the full thread, but except @dzilizzi no one mentioned sales yet. If you aren't in a hurry, you shouldn't buy anything that isn't on sale! You can get a lot of things for about 40% off that way. NI SSC for 1k would be a _terrible _deal. I paid about 300,- with a 50% off sale on a crossgrade deal, and even at that price I'm torn whether I would consider it a "good" investment. If you want someone to narrow down your choices further, I say skip NI SSC.

CSS only goes on sale on Black Friday I think, but not a super steep sale. Once you have that, you can get a loyalty discount on CSB which is about 30 or 40% off iirc, I'm not sure, but you can see the price when you put CSS in the shopping cart, it should show you an option to add CSB at a reduced price. But I'd buy one of them first and see if you like the workflow etc.. You can still get the discount later. I don't have either library, but those two are what I'd buy in your place and I might buy too if I was actually doing more with my libraries.

For percussion maybe check this out: https://impactsoundworks.com/product/rhapsody-orchestral-percussion/
I don't have it but a lot of people seem to like it and it's on sale very often. Iirc there's a bundle on one of the popular bundle sites that seems to come back every now and again. Keep an eye out for something like this:


For woodwinds I don't know. You could wait for CSW and hope it doesn't take years till it's released...
Or maybe these?








Infinite Woodwinds — Aaron Venture


Welcome to the Next Generation of Woodwinds - playable virtual instruments for NI Kontakt. Perform all articulations with infinite variety. Build your own sections from 27 solo woodwind instruments and position them as you please in 4 different real spaces, then dial in your preferred mix of 3 diffe




www.aaronventure.com







I don't have these, so I can't answer further questions about them unfortunately. I have NI SSC and Metropolis Ark 1, which both don't offer what you are looking for.


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## CT (Jul 18, 2020)

Robert_G said:


> Honestly, once you start buying premium or even mid level libaries.....you'll never look at those again.



Sculpture and Alchemy are excellent and easily "premium" level.

I'd also take the suggestion that BBCSO brass "can't do loud stuff" with a block of salt.


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## dzilizzi (Jul 18, 2020)

Mike T said:


> Sculpture and Alchemy are excellent and easily "premium" level.
> 
> I'd also take the suggestion that BBCSO brass "can't do loud stuff" with a block of salt.


I didn't see what OS the OP has, but Alchemy is Apple only. Also I think this was a "I just bought Kontakt, what reasonably priced libraries should I buy?" threads.


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## OneOverZero (Jul 20, 2020)

dzilizzi said:


> I didn't see what OS the OP has, but Alchemy is Apple only. Also I think this was a "I just bought Kontakt, what reasonably priced libraries should I buy?" threads.



Nope. It's a "Apple's EXS24 factory library is still disappointing after 8 years; I want the good stuff" thread. I haven't even bought Kontakt yet. It'd be a little dumb seeing as my production machine is currently in the middle of a battery replacement job and I wouldn't be able to run Kontakt if I did buy it.

Alchemy got brought up because I _already_ use it, albeit rarely. I made a snark to the effect that I might not be able to afford 64GB RAM without abandoning Mac, and referenced Alchemy and Sculpture as reasons I don't want to do that. Since then, I've dug around in my budget some more and it's no longer relevant.


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## OneOverZero (Jul 20, 2020)

So far, it sounds like I need to listen to the CSSeries and BBCSO stuff and figure which one I like. Assuming I can figure out _how_.

The current plan is to think about libraries first, and upgrade hardware _if_ it can't handle whatever I get. The only snag I can see is Apple's impending transition to ARM. If I get an Intel Mac, it's going to be obsolete sooner than I'd like. If I get an ARM Mac... I think there's going to be a compat layer for running x86-64 software, but I doubt that's going to have native performance.

A lot of people in this thread have been talking about controlling mics and other recording stuff. That's all over my head, so the only really important bit there is that the default is okay.


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## dzilizzi (Jul 20, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> Nope. It's a "Apple's EXS24 factory library is still disappointing after 8 years; I want the good stuff" thread. I haven't even bought Kontakt yet. It'd be a little dumb seeing as my production machine is currently in the middle of a battery replacement job and I wouldn't be able to run Kontakt if I did buy it.
> 
> Alchemy got brought up because I _already_ use it, albeit rarely. I made a snark to the effect that I might not be able to afford 64GB RAM without abandoning Mac, and referenced Alchemy and Sculpture as reasons I don't want to do that. Since then, I've dug around in my budget some more and it's no longer relevant.


Ah, I was going by the title. Usually the first thing you do when buying Kontakt is to get a bunch of free or inexpensive libraries. 

Having bought Computer Music magazine for years, I do have Alchemy CM for PC, but I never use it.


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## dzilizzi (Jul 20, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> So far, it sounds like I need to listen to the CSSeries and BBCSO stuff and figure which one I like. Assuming I can figure out _how_.
> 
> The current plan is to think about libraries first, and upgrade hardware _if_ it can't handle whatever I get. The only snag I can see is Apple's impending transition to ARM. If I get an Intel Mac, it's going to be obsolete sooner than I'd like. If I get an ARM Mac... I think there's going to be a compat layer for running x86-64 software, but I doubt that's going to have native performance.
> 
> A lot of people in this thread have been talking about controlling mics and other recording stuff. That's all over my head, so the only really important bit there is that the default is okay.


As a Mac user, you are lucky to have core audio. You can get away with not having an external audio device for a while. Eventually, you will want one to plug monitor/speakers into, as well as mics and maybe external instruments. The PC audio drivers suck, and generally, you need an external device to process the sound in your DAW.


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## OneOverZero (Jul 20, 2020)

hbjdk said:


> I haven’t read the entire thread, but what caught my eye is your fear of putting your trust and money in any other sampler / sample player than Kontakt.
> 
> While I understand you 100% you should know that you’re cutting yourself off from getting many of the great libraries out there (OT, SF, EW and more).



I'm not superglued to Kontakt — BBCSO _is_ on the table _if_ SF's sampler is sufficiently future-proof — but it is a factor. Whatever I buy, I want to be able to run it on whatever is the newest MacOS at least 5 years from now.

Regarding the other non-Kontakt greats you mentioned:

While my budget is bigger than I thought it was a couple weeks ago, OT stuff would still overflow it. So that's not really on the table anyway.

On the EW side, I don't really like subscription models and I _hate_ interfaces that try to mimic metal textures or specular reflection. They completely destroy my ability to separate figure from ground; I have to determine the salience of each pixel cluster consciously. Grainy wood is the same. From where I'm standing, flattened design isn't a matter of fashion; it's a matter of accessibility. Sensory processing is a b****.
I'd be theoretically open to EW stuff (even with subscription) but it'd take a lot to deal with that chrome monstrosity.


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## dzilizzi (Jul 20, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> I'm not superglued to Kontakt — BBCSO _is_ on the table _if_ SF's sampler is sufficiently future-proof — but it is a factor. Whatever I buy, I want to be able to run it on whatever is the newest MacOS at least 5 years from now.
> 
> Regarding the other non-Kontakt greats you mentioned:
> 
> ...


EW has great sales pretty much all the time. What is great about the subscription is you can get it for a month, try everything out, and, if you like it, buy what you like. You don't have to sign up for a year. 

If you do buy EW, get it from a reseller who gives discounts on top of the sales price.


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## MartinH. (Jul 20, 2020)

OneOverZero said:


> A lot of people in this thread have been talking about controlling mics and other recording stuff. That's all over my head, so the only really important bit there is that the default is okay.



Mic positions for orchestral libraries are pretty straight forward. You usually have between 3 and 5 sliders, one for a "mixed mics" mix where you get a memory efficient "pre-mixed" version of the available microphone positions (this is what you were asking for and what also needs the least RAM), and others for positions like "close", "tree", or "ambient/far". Close sounds like the recorded instruments are close to you because the mics are close to them. Tree is referring to a so called "decca tree" setup of microphones, which is the closest to what you're used to hearing on soundtracks, and ambient or far mic positions are further away and capture more of the reverberation of the room and sound rather blurred on their own. If you don't want to use the pre-mixed version of a library, you simply load the other mic positions and tweak the sliders till you like the sound. It's that simple. I often just use the tree mic and then use the free plugin "panagement" to play with distance and width of the sound.


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## Al Maurice (Jul 21, 2020)

Please be aware lots of developers now add in lots of mic positions, however with that comes serious RAM implications, let alone the additional space need on your HD. Then with that potential load times. Also BBC SO Pro has additional articulations and instruments too, with additional impact. So that might something to think about on choosing libraries.

I always find if you're not in a desperate hurry, as has been stated already wait for any offers or sales. Sometimes you can even purchase a bundle at discounts too. But not ever library is equal so you're likely to find a short coming here or there, which means you'll end up reaching for your wallet sooner rather than later.


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## OneOverZero (Jul 24, 2020)

I've been on the VI Discord a lot, I've watched reviews, and I'm so glad you all talked me out of duct-taping myself to Kontakt.

My gut is screaming at me to wait for the Spitfire summer sale and buy BBCSO Pro. It's mostly a one-stop shop, I like the SF player interface, and even thoguh people go gaga over AIR, I'm pretty in love with the Maida Vale sound. BBCSO Core is good, but I want section leaders and Cor Anglais is as important to me as the rest of the woodwind section combined, so, Pro. I may need a beefier Mac to run it comfortably, but I can cope. And if BBCSO is included in the SF summer sale, all the better. I might buy CSS+CSSS at some point for colder, more mechanical strings, but one thing at a time.

Thanks everyone for your help and patience! There are some big wrinkly brains here!


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