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Getting full orchestra from one developer vs. multiple developers

KEM said:
I have horribly bad OCD so in my head everything has to be the same and when it’s not I go absolutely mental, but that’s only when I’m away from the computer. In practice, when I’m actually making music, I don’t pay any attention to it and I mix libraries together, it’s always sounded fine to me and I think it’s a good way to get a different feel for your orchestral arrangements. A string library from one company might sound very full and huge, but their brass might be a little too mild, so you’d turn to another companies brass library to get something with a similar feel to the other companies strings.

As for the Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra, it’s really really good, I don’t have it yet, but I’ve watched videos extensively and know how it sounds, which is great, I’d recommend it if you’ve got OCD like me and want to use the same companies products.
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My impression is that if your OCD makes you look for consistency, Spitfire may be a misguided move. Nobody beats VSL consistency.
 
Casiquire said:
Not by Spitfire. And $50 single instruments? Entire sections with the most necessary articulations for $100? I disagree.
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Isn’t their player very expensive? I’m not well versed in the VSL stuff, but I do know that the quality is very high. But I’ve only heard that they’re stuff is very expensive.
 
musicalweather said:
Hi all,

I’m wondering what your thoughts are about working with orchestral sections from different sample library developers vs. having all sections from the same developer. I’m currently struggling a bit to get several different orchestral libraries to sound as if they’re in the same space. I currently have Cinematic Strings 2 and Hollywood Brass Gold. For woods, I have Sonokinetic Woodwind Ensembles, those in the XSamples chamber library and a few in EWQLSO. For percussion, I’m still using EWQLSO and have more specialty libraries such as Action Strikes and Damage. Hollywood Brass Gold with its one mic position I find particularly hard to get in the same space as other libraries.

Sometimes I think it would be a lot less frustrating to have everything from one developer — all instruments in one space! Then I could finally stop endlessly futzing around with reverbs and placement. I’m thinking of the Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra. Berlin is appealing but the price is daunting (minimally 2790 Euro for four sections). Vienna Symphonic Cube is about 900 Euro less than that.

Your thoughts?
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I tend to buy different libraries from different developers and mix them, so that I'm not stuck in a particular ecosystem. That said, some of the libraries are hard to mix with others. Some combinations work, others don't. I also personally tend to wait for sales and build my library piece by piece. Otherwise it's too easy to go broke.
 
KEM said:
Isn’t their player very expensive? I’m not well versed in the VSL stuff, but I do know that the quality is very high. But I’ve only heard that they’re stuff is very expensive.
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No the player is free unless you go with their Pro players. Their software is incredible. You can make your VSL libraries as expensive as you want. I stick with the SE editions. The drawback to VSL is if your dongle is lost you pay 50% of your licenses.
 
kitekrazy said:
No the player is free unless you go with their Pro players. Their software is incredible. You can make your VSL libraries as expensive as you want. I stick with the SE editions. The drawback to VSL is if your dongle is lost you pay 50% of your licenses.
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Yeah that sucks, I’d rather not buy another usb hub, or a bigger one than I already have.
 
ctsai89 said:
And nobody beats Vsl synthy lol jk
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Lol! Depending on the product, sometimes. I'd say less synthy and more lacking in expression compared to the competition. I go with their strings if I want them to sound precise, clinical, or brutal, and with a bit of work I can squeeze a lot of expression out of them but to be fair it's nowhere near as easy as some other libraries (in my case, LASS). Most of their other libraries are unbeatable, especially the woods, and they've sampled a lot of instruments nobody else has.
 
I think that it's usually a solid idea to get your core instruments recorded in the same space, whether that be Air Studios (Spitfire), Sony Pictures Scoring Stage (Cinesamples) or EastWest Studios (Hollywood Orchestra). It is possible and usually pretty easy to use multiple mic positions in various libraries to approximate the same recording space but not as easy as just combining libraries that were recorded in the same space to begin with.

For anyone that's starting from scratch, the entire Hollywood Orchestra collection from EastWest is currently discounted by 60% (the best discount I can recall) so that could be a good sandbox to begin with.
 
reutunes said:
I think that it's usually a solid idea to get your core instruments recorded in the same space, whether that be Air Studios (Spitfire), Sony Pictures Scoring Stage (Cinesamples) or EastWest Studios (Hollywood Orchestra). It is possible and usually pretty easy to use multiple mic positions in various libraries to approximate the same recording space but not as easy as just combining libraries that were recorded in the same space to begin with.
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Exactly. Well it's also easy to get diff libraries and mix them to about 90% perfection. But the last 10% is perhaps an eternal trial and error kind of process lol. Rather not go through it.

Some libraries though, and I heard about Hollywood woodwinds have some of the volumes mixed wrong. Spitfire also had the problem but I believe they updated it to fix it.
 
One way to mix multiple libraries is to add a light dusting of the same reverb to all the libraries in varying degrees until they sound pretty close. There's a tutorial up on Spitfire's website that details how they do the same thing. I use VSL, Spitfire, Omnisphere, Keyspace, etc etc etc all together in my compositions and have had good success thus far.
 
reutunes said:
For anyone that's starting from scratch, the entire Hollywood Orchestra collection from EastWest is currently discounted by 60% (the best discount I can recall) so that could be a good sandbox to begin with.
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Dude, your post is appreciated and all, but please disclose it's a referral link. Wasn't there a discussion some time ago about this? Will have to look it up.

ctsai89 said:
Some libraries though, and I heard about Hollywood woodwinds have some of the volumes mixed wrong. Spitfire also had the problem but I believe they updated it to fix it.
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Any direct (official) source on that? I remember some posts some time ago (some of yours too) about SF solo brass reaching louder levels than sections and stuff like that. Though not sure if it ever was determined if it was actual dynamic layers or gain/volume? As far as I know, the only libraries that are volume matched are the OT/Berlin ones.

https://www.orchestraltools.com/downloads/user_guides/CAPSULE User Guide BBR Main.pdf

With the innovative Auto Gain the overall volume stays at the same level while you morph between the different microphone positions. A feature that helps you to keep the natural orchestral dynamics in balance.
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To allow all these articulations to stack, switch and morph, we completely overhauled the Berlin Series. A dedicated team re-arranged the natural orchestral dynamic balance between all Berlin instruments and articulations, matched the mic position volumes to each other and developed a new approach to set up the release samples in a more natural and organic way. Now each articulation sits wonderfully and convincingly in the best-balanced room you ever heard.
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Our goal is to provide a set of tools that easily adapts to any workflow and creates a coherent sonic representation of the orchestra. The main way we achieved this is by recording every instrument in its orchestral position. All collections come pre-panned and pre-mixed with their respective volumes balanced. If there are multiple types of the same instrument, they are recorded in slightly different positions, yet still in their general section area.
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All collections feature a number of microphone positions commonly used in orchestral recording. The position of these microphones is identical in every collection, which means that for example the Tree is much nearer to the string section that it is to the percussion section (because the percussion section is situated at the back of the orchestra). This enabled lively acoustics that come pre-mixed for the respective stage position.
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We have chosen to not normalise the audio samples used in our collections. This means that all samples are at their natural volume, making some instrument ranges much quieter than you may find in other libraries. This is intentional to give you the full dynamic spectrum. If you want to raise the overall volume of the patches, you can either raise the volume of individual patches or raise Kontakt’s master volume slider.
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(I suspect this is SF's approach at the base level)

Dynamics is what makes an orchestra sound good. And incidentally, it is also what makes many mockups sound bad. A piano can be really quiet and a forte can be really loud, not something in-between. Because there is a fixed amount of velocity layers in any sample library, it can happen that a real musician could play that piano part much quieter than your samples do.
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On the other hand, having the quietest samples at too low a volume can make a library hard to use. We thought about this and have a solution: The volume range slider in the Settings View allows you to set the overall volume range of your instruments between the lowest and the highest velocity. If the Volume Range setting is at 0, the samples will have their recorded dynamic range. Move it to the far right and the lowest velocities will be very quiet while the highest velocities will be pretty loud, giving you the full possible dynamic range. By default, this slider is set to give you some nice dynamic range compared to the raw samples while at the same time not leaving you with almost inaudible low velocities.
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When the display says mf, what you are hearing is the actual sound of the violas playing mf, not just a random sample lowered or raised in volume!
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(I guess dynamic range interpretation can vary, even if slightly, across different sections/musicians and sessions of actual recordings)

As far as the actual question is concerned, some stuff will mix, some will not. I think you generally can't tell if you expend some effort to try to sit the instrument (mainly EQ/reverb/volume and maybe careful panning or stereo channel/width reduction), unless you actually want something to stick out. It's all about (spatial and creative) perspective. Also, layering can generally increase realism/detail/liveliness/expression/musicality (whatever you wanna call it) and add some nuance/randomness even if it's not perfectly matched, so there's that, too.

Also, pretty sure EastWest stuff is already processed, so you'll prob still have to EQ/volume balance and add reverb. I don't think it's volume matched anyhow.

( https://vi-control.net/community/th...f-the-room-without-reverb.57506/#post-4019789 )

Here, directly from the manual:
Panning
As was done with EastWest’s ground-breaking Symphonic Orchestra, Hollywood Brass is different from most other collections of orchestral samples in that the panning of the various instruments to the traditional locations on the sound stage is built in to the stereo samples. The French Horns, for example, are already louder in the left channel. Therefore, one can leave the panning level at “center” for all instruments and they will be correctly placed on the stage in the final mix. Of course, if you want to adjust the panning to achieve your own sound and/or a non-traditional placement of instruments, that can be accomplished either in the PLAY interface or in the host sequencer.
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https://www.soundsonline-forums.com/docs/EW-QL_Hollywood-Strings-Gold_Manual.pdf

The next stage is crucial and highly subjective. EWQLSO responds to two different volume controllers: CC7 (volume) and CC11 (expression). It is highly recommended you record a CC7 message at the beginning of every track. Spend some time to set the initial volume of every track at a level in natural balance with the rest of the orchestra. This is tricky and will never be perfect, but the more time you spend the less hair you’ll lose later. If you will be using Hollywood Strings exclusively, the balance of section is easier than if you’re bringing in other, non-string instruments. If, for example, you’re using the winds and percussion of EWQLSO, then start by playing the timpani, horns, and big string ensemble really loud and at the same time; that will give you a reference of what the loudest passages will be like. Together, they should be at least 3 db below 0. Then adjust the other instruments to blend with these loudest instruments.
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WhiteNoiz said:
Also, pretty sure EastWest stuff is already processed, so you'll prob still have to EQ/volume balance and add reverb. I don't think it's volume matched anyhow.

( https://vi-control.net/community/th...f-the-room-without-reverb.57506/#post-4019789 )

Here, directly from the manual:


https://www.soundsonline-forums.com/docs/EW-QL_Hollywood-Strings-Gold_Manual.pdf
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That's so bloody annoying. Why would you not volume match when building sections of a full orchestra? Why would the default not already be engineered to be able to drop into a template and use without having to mix as if they're libraries from different manufacturers?
 
Rohann said:
That's so bloody annoying. Why would you not volume match when building sections of a full orchestra? Why would the default not already be engineered to be able to drop into a template and use without having to mix as if they're libraries from different manufacturers?
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I've always wondered this too.
 
JohnG said:
it kind of depends on what you're trying to do. I mix all libraries from tons of manufacturers and it sounds fine.

If you are trying to emulate something very specific, it can't hurt to have the same room but honestly I think people make way too much of that stuff.
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I couldn't agree with this more. I think it comes down to having some basic mixing skills as well. I little Eq. third party reverb, and maybe a bit of glue on the 2-buss can do wonders. By glue I mainly mean saturation from a few character plug-ins like Compressors, Tape emulators, or the like.
 
Rohann said:
That's so bloody annoying. Why would you not volume match when building sections of a full orchestra? Why would the default not already be engineered to be able to drop into a template and use without having to mix as if they're libraries from different manufacturers?
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It takes time. That’s why they don’t do it. So annoying.
 
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