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First Orchestral Sample Library?

Hey OP just get the Amadeus orchestra, at $149 the value is simply unbeatable.

TL;DR: Start small, focus on learning and playing the long game.
If you had the choice would you choose Amadeus or the Hollywood Orchestra? I convinced my parents to allow me to buy the Hollywood Orchestra over Amadeus. Should I go back and just get Amadeus? I'm incredibly lucky that my parents are supporting me in this way. Thank you!
 
Thank you MarceIM for your feedback. You have been incredibly helpful in this process!
 
If you had the choice would you choose Amadeus or the Hollywood Orchestra? I convinced my parents to allow me to buy the Hollywood Orchestra over Amadeus. Should I go back and just get Amadeus? I'm incredibly lucky that my parents are supporting me in this way. Thank you!

The HO Diamond+solo is on sale now and it will be close to $600.


I haven't used it but I'm sure it's nice.

I'll stick to my initial advice. Get an affordable introductory library like Amadeus which will give you more than enough to learn your skills.

If you are serious about this composing thing you should invest in some piano and music theory classes and get a MIDI keyboard if you already do not have one. That money will be much better spent than on better orchestral libraries.
 
I would also suggest Hollywood Orchestra (Gold Edition), which has only 1 mic, it's relatively dry, and right now costs less than $250. Also, EW Symphonic Orchestra (Gold Edition) would be a nice first library for less than $200, if you like a sound that has a natural reverb (it was recorded in a big concert hall)! I am not sure that as a beginner you would have great benefits from many different mic positions. It could be a little overwhelming (not only for you, but for your PC as well), but that's up to you.

The problem with Amadeus is that there is no support at all, it seems an abandoned product, the library (or even their web page!) has never been updated, and - beware - it expires permanently!

Yes this happened to me yesterday, as I wanted to give it a second try! So I went to my account to download it, only to get the response "your download links have expired", and immediately the page redirected me to a new page prompting me to enter their e-shop to buy a new product!

I suppose I could send them an email for support (i.e. creating new download links for me, if possible), but they still have not replied to my previous emails which I sent them 6 months ago! So I would consider it a great risk spending $150 to buying Amadeus!

If you would really like a Kontakt Player library, including full sections, the most essential solo instruments, plus many extras (like choirs and atmospheric pads), 2 different microphone settings, that sounds very nice, has a modern interface and does not require a high end computer (it weights about 20GB), I would definitely suggest Nucleus Core.

Last but not least, well done to your parents that support your music journey! :)
 
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With $500 with a student discount, you could go straight for a best in class string library like Spitfire chamber strings or CSS. Then you could either augment the winds and brass with something basic (Amadeus, GPO, Kontakt factory), but focus on writing for strings.

I started out with a terrible library (GPO) which was just painful. Not that I could have learned lots with it, but it was just painful, and I quickly realized that I just wasn't poor enough to listen to such terrible sounds.

In fairness Amedeus is much imporoved from those days.


But still, for $500, on black friday and/or with a student discount, you can start buying really, really good libraries. Libraries that you'll be using years from now.


Or the spitfire symphonic woodwinds (not the studio), which are also best and class and possibly the best purchase I've even made. From which you could learn to write woodwind quintets until you can afford a string library.


I also think that its better to learn writing for ensembles that to just start writing entire symphonies. And its not like learning on a cheap guitar. The better the library you're working with, the more expressiveness and nuance you can learn to compose with.


Of course if you want to start writing big thonking trailer music, then just go with Albion 1 or something.


With a $500 budget, if you're serious about composing, you don't really need to mess around intro level libraries.
 
Since nobody has cited VSL, I guess it's my turn. In that price range, the Synchronized Special Edition Vol.1/+ can do both classical and movie's. It sounds great and is very versatile. As noted several times here, it has however a hardware protection key that can be a real pain.

Paolo
 
So many options... want another? I've listened to Nucleas demos and reviews. It sounds very good, has soloists and looks easy to use, although limited in many aspects. Since you like Jeager (I have it) but it does not have any woodwinds, consider the current East West sale. You could pick up Hollywood Woodwinds Gold for only $106 to go with Jeager.
 
If you are serious about this composing thing you should invest in some piano and music theory classes and get a MIDI keyboard if you already do not have one. That money will be much better spent than on better orchestral libraries.
I’ve been playing piano and learning theory for years now haha. I have a nice key board I got almost a year ago, this is just my next step. Thanks for the wise words
 


You NEED the diamond version of the hollywood series for this, so the cloud offering is no option if you want this exact sound abilities. (because of mic positions and even divisi for strings.) and a ton of post processing fx. (not included in the eastwest offerings)
The gold is good, but needs more work, to get the richness soundwise, the diamond offers.(no extra mics, no divisi to name some things you lack, and influence soundscape options)
 
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I would also suggest Hollywood Orchestra (Gold Edition), which has only 1 mic, it's relatively dry, and right now costs less than $250. Also, EW Symphonic Orchestra (Gold Edition) would be a nice first library for less than $200, if you like a sound that has a natural reverb (it was recorded in a big concert hall)! I am not sure that as a beginner you would have great benefits from many different mic positions. It could be a little overwhelming (not only for you, but for your PC as well), but that's up to you.

The problem with Amadeus is that there is no support at all, it seems an abandoned product, the library (or even their web page!) has never been updated, and - beware - it expires permanently!

Yes this happened to me yesterday, as I wanted to give it a second try! So I went to my account to download it, only to get the response "your download links have expired", and immediately the page redirected me to a new page prompting me to enter their e-shop to buy a new product!

I suppose I could send them an email for support (i.e. creating new download links for me, if possible), but they still have not replied to my previous emails which I sent them 6 months ago! So I would consider it a great risk spending $150 to buying Amadeus!

If you would really like a Kontakt Player library, including full sections, the most essential solo instruments, plus many extras (like choirs and atmospheric pads), 2 different microphone settings, that sounds very nice, has a modern interface and does not require a high end computer (it weights about 20GB), I would definitely suggest Nucleus Core.

Last but not least, well done to your parents that support your music journey! :)

For a beginner, Gold is $266 right now. That is hard to beat price-wise. I still occasionally reach for HW Brass and often reach for HW Perc (it's got some nice snares). The winds aren't great though, and I've run into some tuning issues with some of the string patches in the past.

Nucleus which I recommended earlier (but don't have personally), and Geomir mentions here, is $379 on sale right now. I don't have it personally, but it looks quite good and comes with choirs and soloists too. Mic positions are limited, but that's actually probably good starting out. As a bonus, it's got pre-orchestrated ensembles as well, which can be a great learning tool if you do some critical listening to hear what's going on there.

Daniel James does a pretty good run through of Nucleus on Youtube. I'd check it and other videos of both before you pull the trigger on anything.

If I didn't have anything at all, I'd probably reach for Nucleus. But if I needed to save the $113 difference between the two, HO Gold isn't bad.
 
500 USD can buy you quite nice sounds (bundles, or libs). It depends on your longer term goals, if this will keep you happy. Meaning, with most things, and the world of sampling this is true mostly too.. the more you pay, the better you receive. Many libraries/bundles in the lower pricerange, are good, but not stellar. And it is noticable too, when you need high realism in your works. So if it's just for hobby, or noodling around, nothing fancy.. (nothing wrong with this!).. 500 brings you alot!
But if you want to go indepth, as a serious hobby, you MIGHT want to save up more, and buy higher end libraries that offer more detail in sonic abilities (e.g. better legato's, more articulations, better recordings of samples etc).

Since 500 is no pocketchange money to invest... you need to consider the longer run term usability/fun/vision too. Sometimes a higher investment, leads to longer usability. Just my two cents on the financial side.

Again, not saying you should save more money.. not at all... but i think it's worth to overthink it nevertheless (even if you opt not going to save extra money.. the choice you make is well thought out)
 
If you had the choice would you choose Amadeus or the Hollywood Orchestra? I convinced my parents to allow me to buy the Hollywood Orchestra over Amadeus. Should I go back and just get Amadeus? I'm incredibly lucky that my parents are supporting me in this way. Thank you!
Go to JRRShop.com and use the discount code Group. You can get Gold for less than $224. It will work well for a long time.
 
Maybe it's not what you are looking for, but another option if you are learning orchestration is to get Wallander Noteperformer and run it in Sibelius or Dorico instead of a DAW. The reason I recommend this as a start is that for a 129 bucks you get the most complete orchestra with fairly decent sounds, and tons of articulations, and you don't have to mess with expression maps or articulation keyswitchs when you are first learning to orchestrate. Later you can transfer your files to a DAW and use VST's to make your sounds better with other libraries, but at least you have everything at once in Noteperformer to get going, and whatever VST "starter" library you buy may still be missing some things, so you can keep those sounds from Noteperformer (as audio export) and mix them with your VST's in the DAW.

You have nothing to lose trying this, because there is a free 30-day trial of Noteperformer and Sibelius and Dorico, so you should at least get one of the two notation hosts and Noteperformer and mess around with them for a month.

I know it has been posted here often before, but here is Noteperformer playing Star Wars. As a test I downloaded the same XML file and replayed it in Noteperformer/Sibelius myself, and it sounded identical to this youtube video:


Could not agree more.
 
How about Orchestral Tool's Berlin Orchestra Inspire 1 & 2?

Then the OP can slowly build his orchestral sections (Berlin Series) based on his needs...
 
You NEED the diamond version of the hollywood series for this, so the cloud offering is no option if you want this exact sound abilities. (because of mic positions and even divisi for strings.) and a ton of post processing fx. (not included in the eastwest offerings)
The gold is good, but needs more work, to get the richness soundwise, the diamond offers.(no extra mics, no divisi to name some things you lack, and influence soundscape options)

Not necessarily, I've been using Gold for years and never saw the need for the extra mic's. And you actually don't need much post processing with the Hollywood Series (if any). You can also get the "Gold X" CC subscription, which includes close mic's.
 
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