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I have not upgraded sample libraries in too long, recs?

I agree, but in my book that’s as it should be. Sampling opens up so many creative possibilities, so why not explore that instead of trying to shoehorn it into the one thing it’s not actually very good at?

I realize that’s a minority opinion on this forum....
We've had this conversation before. It's all well and good to explore the "other" possibilities out there, but some people are aiming to write a certain type of music and need the right tools for it, to do it as well as possible, because few people have the resources to gather a real orchestra. It's kind of useless to suggest to them that they should just try something else.
 
The libraries you have are still excellent, and widely used. But if you're looking to expand your timbral palette, that's completely understandable. There's all kinds of cool libraries out there, such as Genesis, OACE, Abbey Road, BHCT, Talinn, and many others.
Nice recommendations!
Genesis❤️
OACE❤️
AROOF❤️
BHCT❤️
Tallinn❤️
 
Given the amount of renewed love for VSL around here of late, would it be a good time to try out their Synchron Player and BBO offerings? And with ProjectSAM's upcoming updates it might also be a good time to give their products another look.
I recently got SSP and quite a few BBO entries, loving them! ALthough you may want to wait until ilok comes through. I sourced a local Steinberg dongle for cheap.
 
You could take a look at VSL Elite Strings - nice player, chamber size strings, wealth of articulations!)
 
Well, if you want to supplement your “normal orchestra” resources, you could do a few fill-ins and overlays with these (all Spitfire):

1. Hans Zimmer Strings — amazing shorts, though limited to violins and cellos; huge, creamy low end as well; subtle cellos sul tasto. The latter is worth the price of the library.

2. Abbey Road One — drums and brass alone make this a winner for me (I have just the original release).

3. Iceni (used to be Albion III) — excellent low-end enunciations and punctuation.

4. Eric Whitacre Choir — A bit unusual and lovely. Many unexpected, musical gems.

5. (Not Spitfire!) Any of the vocal / choir libraries by Strezov Sampling. I have most of them and they are wonderful.

If you want ethic / non-Western, non-traditional orchestra, let us know. Many wonderful choices there.

[note: I have received free products from Strezov Sampling and Spitfire Audio]

Dang it. I always looked over HZ Strings as “Oh why oh why would I EVER need another string library”? Then I see this post from John..... 😁
 
I agree, but in my book that’s as it should be. Sampling opens up so many creative possibilities, so why not explore that instead of trying to shoehorn it into the one thing it’s not actually very good at?

I realize that’s a minority opinion on this forum....
I completely agree with this, always have. The medium is the message and all of that... Sample libraries are 21st century digital tools for creating 21st century music, reflecting the time and place in which we live. To use any medium of expression solely for the purpose of making it behave exactly like an entirely different medium of expression has always struck me as bizarre...

...I get that some people want to do replicator-ish mockups for one practical reason or another, but this is a logistical problem, not an artistic one.
 
I completely agree with this, always have. The medium is the message and all of that... Sample libraries are 21st century digital tools for creating 21st century music, reflecting the time and place in which we live. To use any medium of expression solely for the purpose of making it behave exactly like an entirely different medium of expression has always struck me as bizarre...

...I get that some people want to do replicator-ish mockups for one practical reason or another, but this is a logistical problem, not an artistic one.
I'm really not sure what is bizarre about it.

The technology makes it possible for people writing a certain type of music (incidentally, is "21st century music" one monolithic thing?) to render it into audible form, which previously would have required significantly greater resources.

It's only a facsimile, and not one that any reasonable person would expect to approach anything like exactness, but it is still something which can be approached as an art in its own right and held to high standards, particularly if it is one's only option for a "performance."

What's bizarre to me is when people get prohibitive about it and try to life-coach the more symphonic-minded composers away from it, as if at the flip of a switch they're going to reshuffle their entire artistic vision.
 
I suspect that within 5 years the field of sample libraries will reach its own created threshold, meaning that you can‘t further improve/market/sell on the basic sound of musical instruments. Most of us have purchased all we need/want or can ever consume! No more money in further development. The industry will simply run out of consumers. Everything that can be sampled will be sampled, every option of sound will have been offered on Black Friday, and the industry will be down to three companies (we can tell already who that will be). The soil will be saturated. Customers will have all they need/want(?), and they will (may) grow weary of all the hype of the next new/great/amazing “library”. Ugh! Perhaps we will eventually go back to appreciating real musicians making music in real time. It will most likely be a hybrid…which it already is. Not that that’s bad, it’s great actually…think of the many people who can access music who once thought its only for trained/schooled others. Music is a universal need, after all. Part of the evolution of our species I guess.
2 cents!
 
I'm really not sure what is bizarre about it.

The technology makes it possible for people writing a certain type of music (incidentally, is "21st century music" one monolithic thing?) to render it into audible form, which previously would have required significantly greater resources.

It's only a facsimile, and not one that any reasonable person would expect to approach anything like exactness, but it is still something which can be approached as an art in its own right and held to high standards, particularly if it is one's only option for a "performance."

What's bizarre to me is when people get prohibitive about it and try to life-coach the more symphonic-minded composers away from it, as if at the flip of a switch they're going to reshuffle their entire artistic vision.
Of course I do not mean that 21st century music is monolithic. If you say "Mozart wrote 18th century music." this is a true statement, but it does not mean that all or most 18th century music sounds like Mozart. It's just a shorthanded way of saying that any artistic expression exists within the historical context of its particular time, place and culture. Always has, always will.

What's bizarre to me is the fidelity to the idea that one thing can be another thing. A cat cannot be a dog, a toaster cannot be a vacuum cleaner, and a violin sample library cannot be a violin. Whether you would like the library to be a real violin is irrelevant, because it can't be. Obviously, one can use these tools to allude to the sounds made by the instruments the samples are recorded from, and the desire to create, say, a symphonic sound that is reminiscent of what symphony orchestras do is entirely valid. One can chase realism or representationalism if one wants to, just as a painter can strive to make her paintings look as much like photographs as possible. I wouldn't wish to invalidate this pursuit, but am only pointing out that it's but one choice among many, and that the painting will never become an actual photograph no matter how capable of making it photo-like one becomes, for the simple reason that it's not. It's something else entirely.
 
the painting will never become an actual photograph no matter how capable of making it photo-like one becomes, for the simple reason that it's not. It's something else entirely.
This and the rest of your post feels sort of like it's arguing against thin air, a caricature of a particular approach, which is sort of how it usually ends up feeling when this subject comes up. I've really never encountered anyone who thinks along the lines of the extreme that you're describing, the "fidelity to the idea that one thing can be another thing." I truly don't think anyone is looking at it like that....
 
Aaron Venture's Infinite series is next level... with two caveats though: 1. You need to be fairly proficient at the playing the keyboard to get the most out of it and 2. Infinite Strings isn't released yet. (Brass and Woodwinds are out). He also regularly releases significant updates so his instrument never really get old.
 
Since you already have CS2 + CSS, Arks + BWW, and Cinebrass you already know what to expect from Alex, OT, and Cinesamples. I guess you don’t want to complete any of those series if you think they’re too old, and neither of them offer any complete orchestral series that are newer than those either.

Of the bigger developers, that pretty much leaves Spitfire the only option. Their symphonic series is just as old, Abbey Road is just barely getting started, and in-between that we have BBC which is newer and finished. If you are interested in a classical orchestra rather than cinematic that could be a god choice.

Then we have Audio Imperia with Jaeger, Nucleus, Areia, Solo, etc. They are certainly newer, but much more modern/cinematic than classical in their overall sound. And of course Hollywood Orchestra, though that’s even older than what you have. Thinking about it, I can’t really come up with any complete orchestral series apart from BBC that are newer and actually finished.

In the end I don’t really think what you have is that old (Cinematic Studio Series isn’t even finished yet), or that anything newer is necessarily better. Orchestral samples haven’t really innovated as of lately, at least not in how you work with them, and even with the most current ones you’ll still have to spend a lot of time massaging the samples if you’re aiming for realism. :)
 
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Since you've got so many keyswitch-oriented libraries, try something easier with Aaron Venture's Infinite series. Usability is much better: What do you mean, select one of 4 short samples? I don't want to select a short sample, I want to play a certain duration (MY duration) and the product figures it out! Also tired of reverberations that change volume together with CC1...

Aaron's instruments can be used more like real instruments, so they play more of what you want to express, instead of forcing you to compose for the samples. There's no run you can't do just by playing it in. There's a real integration among various articulations, whereas other libraries sound like the Frankenstein monster when you need, for instance, a short connected to a previous legato note.

The people recommending Spitfire don't think you are going to need fff on any instrument ever.

A disadvantage is, the sonority in the Infinite series can be less than ideal. Currently I wish the flutes were a bit more realistic and the french horn didn't have something weird in its attack. But the sonority has been gradually improving in FREE updates -- very different from most other developers, who like to start from scratch again. Since you already have libraries in which the sonority is great, you'd be able to cast libraries according to the phrase you're playing.

They are easy to mix.
 
Seen that you already own Metropolis Ark 1 & 2, I'd complete the series... There are now SINE ports of all of them. I'd also look into VSL's Synchron series, Orchestral Tools' Berlin series, and last but not least Spitfire Audio's BBCSO and Abbey Road One.
 
Yeah, Synchron Series is almost complete - no Woodwinds package yet, but Synchronized Woodwinds blend really well with it - my favourite are unlooped legato patches - they are very expressive)
 
VSL is so big that it still requires a dongle :laugh:. Talk about Stone Aged. But, I heard rumors they're moving it to iLok cloud so I'll investigate them more seriously then.
 
VSL is so big that it still requires a dongle :laugh:. Talk about Stone Aged. But, I heard rumors they're moving it to iLok cloud so I'll investigate them more seriously then.
correct, same as steinberg is moving away from it's own dongle system: elicenser (vsl is also using elicenser still).
 
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