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23 String Ensemble Sample Libraries Compared

Nico Schuele

Nico Schuele

Tolerated Member
Let's compare some string ensemble patches, shall we? 23 of them. Here they are:




1. 01:31 - Spitfire Albion One
2. 02:41 - Spitfire Albion II Loegria
3. 03:40 - Spitfire Albion V Tundra
4. 04:41 - Spitfire Symphonic Strings
5. 05:35 - Spitfire Masse
6. 06:39 - Spitfire Chamber Strings
7. 07:40 - Spitfire Originals: Epic Strings
8. 08:38 - Spitfire Symphonic Strings: Ensemble CS Blend
9. 09:59 - Audio Imperia Nucleus
10. 11:06 - Steinberg Iconica Ensembles
11. 12:07 - Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark I
12. 13:19 - Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark II
13. 14:17 - Musical Sampling Adventure Strings
14. 15:14 - Musical Sampling Trailer Strings
15. 16:13 - Fluffy Audio Venice Modern Strings
16. 17:17 - Strezov Sampling Afflatus Strings
17. 18:16 - 8Dio Agitato Sordino
18. 19:29 - Heavyocity Novo Essentials
19. 20:26 - Cinematic Strings 2
20. 21:24 - Cinematic Studio Strings
21. 22:30 - Sonokinetic Da Capo
22. 23:29 - VSL Appassionata Strings
23. 24:31 - EastWest Hollywood Strings Gold
24. 25:45 - My Favorite One
Click to read more...
 
Was surprised by which ones I liked the most in the context. Hmmmmm..... Makes me think.

I liked Iconica and CS2 and the tone of the longs in EW. Nucleus was also up there. EW has some familiar problems with the shorts that I experience a lot because it's my main library. Hopefully they will fix that in HOOPUS.

But, of the ones I liked the most I was surprised that Iconica keeps on popping up on my radar. Also, I was always afraid of Nucleus because of the lower number of low strings that I'm use to, but it didn't seem to suffer too much from weak low end for ensemble patches. Definitely workable.

I like the different niche offerings in Spitfire over the entire SSS which is weird. It comes so highly praised by the big names I know. They are good and seems like they offer a lot of arts in that full library. But, for some reason it just never seems to click with me fully. Tundra is a chilling non-vibrato sound. I friggin' love that. Can be made to do all sorts of chiller and thriller and horror stuff.

Novo almost got the same sound with the non-vibrato strings but it sounds like they weren't trying for that and didn't quite know fully what they were after and just kind of ended up somewhere and left it hanging. Logeria also has a good tone.

I must admit I think after the 5th spitfire offering I skipped ahead to the next one. I'll need to go back at some point and hear the others.

Thanks for doing this comparison. It has me thinking that my ears aren't so bad. The libraries that everybody tends to rave about I don't particularly like that much. I've kind of gotten out of step with the crowd.

The biggest surprise is how good Iconica sounds. Wow!
 
Great job, thx for doing this, and I thought the piece you wrote for the long and shorts was perfect to highlight the comparisons. To me, I loved the sound of spitfire symphonic. I don’t have that library, but have spitfire chamber strings and HZ strings, so not sure I need SSS. When I first got SCS I was honestly disappointed with all the hype, but the last month or so I’ve been building a template with it and I am blown away by its sound when I’ve begun layering itself with itself to get a bigger sound. I feel like I can get pretty close to the tone of SSS with doing this. It’s this versatility of SCS that I am finding remarkable. The cellos tone is clear with the best definition of any library. Everyone raves about CSS legatos too, but honestly SCS legatos are just as good, if not better than CSS (and I do own CSS too) . I will probably get shredded for saying that. o_O
 
Scalms said:
Great job, thx for doing this, and I thought the piece you wrote for the long and shorts was perfect to highlight the comparisons. To me, I loved the sound of spitfire symphonic. I don’t have that library, but have spitfire chamber strings and HZ strings, so not sure I need SSS. When I first got SCS I was honestly disappointed with all the hype, but the last month or so I’ve been building a template with it and I am blown away by its sound when I’ve begun layering itself with itself to get a bigger sound. I feel like I can get pretty close to the tone of SSS with doing this. It’s this versatility of SCS that I am finding remarkable. The cellos tone is clear with the best definition of any library. Everyone raves about CSS legatos too, but honestly SCS legatos are just as good, if not better than CSS (and I do own CSS too) . I will probably get shredded for saying that. o_O
Click to expand...
Would love to hear some of that layering. I find that SSS sounds like it's lost and wandering in a vast sea of room and SCS sounds great but is of course chamber size. I never thought mixing them would work. I'm intrigued.
 
Akarin said:
Let's compare some string ensemble patches, shall we? 23 of them. Here they are:




1. 01:31 - Spitfire Albion One
2. 02:41 - Spitfire Albion II Loegria
3. 03:40 - Spitfire Albion V Tundra
4. 04:41 - Spitfire Symphonic Strings
5. 05:35 - Spitfire Masse
6. 06:39 - Spitfire Chamber Strings
7. 07:40 - Spitfire Originals: Epic Strings
8. 08:38 - Spitfire Symphonic Strings: Ensemble CS Blend
9. 09:59 - Audio Imperia Nucleus
10. 11:06 - Steinberg Iconica Ensembles
11. 12:07 - Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark I
12. 13:19 - Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark II
13. 14:17 - Musical Sampling Adventure Strings
14. 15:14 - Musical Sampling Trailer Strings
15. 16:13 - Fluffy Audio Venice Modern Strings
16. 17:17 - Strezov Sampling Afflatus Strings
17. 18:16 - 8Dio Agitato Sordino
18. 19:29 - Heavyocity Novo Essentials
19. 20:26 - Cinematic Strings 2
20. 21:24 - Cinematic Studio Strings
21. 22:30 - Sonokinetic Da Capo
22. 23:29 - VSL Appassionata Strings
23. 24:31 - EastWest Hollywood Strings Gold
24. 25:45 - My Favorite One
Click to expand...

And I thought *I* had a lot of string libraries.
 
Akarin said:
Let's compare some string ensemble patches, shall we? 23 of them. Here they are:
Click to expand...

This was great, thank you!

I listened on laptop speakers (I know, lame) and many sounded exactly the same. Kinda embarrassing given that I own so many of these (and more).
 
josejherring said:
Was surprised by which ones I liked the most in the context. Hmmmmm..... Makes me think.

I liked Iconica and CS2 and the tone of the longs in EW. Nucleus was also up there. EW has some familiar problems with the shorts that I experience a lot because it's my main library. Hopefully they will fix that in HOOPUS.

But, of the ones I liked the most I was surprised that Iconica keeps on popping up on my radar. Also, I was always afraid of Nucleus because of the lower number of low strings that I'm use to, but it didn't seem to suffer too much from weak low end for ensemble patches. Definitely workable.

I like the different niche offerings in Spitfire over the entire SSS which is weird. It comes so highly praised by the big names I know. They are good and seems like they offer a lot of arts in that full library. But, for some reason it just never seems to click with me fully. Tundra is a chilling non-vibrato sound. I friggin' love that. Can be made to do all sorts of chiller and thriller and horror stuff.

Novo almost got the same sound with the non-vibrato strings but it sounds like they weren't trying for that and didn't quite know fully what they were after and just kind of ended up somewhere and left it hanging. Logeria also has a good tone.

I must admit I think after the 5th spitfire offering I skipped ahead to the next one. I'll need to go back at some point and hear the others.

Thanks for doing this comparison. It has me thinking that my ears aren't so bad. The libraries that everybody tends to rave about I don't particularly like that much. I've kind of gotten out of step with the crowd.

The biggest surprise is how good Iconica sounds. Wow!
Click to expand...

Everyone has different taste, needs and workflows. I don't like to go with the crowd because people say "this is best" or "that one is better than this one". I select what fits what I'm writing.

Iconica is really a good library with the basic articulations. I place it on the same niche as BBCSO. Good but I have better options.

Scalms said:
Great job, thx for doing this, and I thought the piece you wrote for the long and shorts was perfect to highlight the comparisons. To me, I loved the sound of spitfire symphonic. I don’t have that library, but have spitfire chamber strings and HZ strings, so not sure I need SSS. When I first got SCS I was honestly disappointed with all the hype, but the last month or so I’ve been building a template with it and I am blown away by its sound when I’ve begun layering itself with itself to get a bigger sound. I feel like I can get pretty close to the tone of SSS with doing this. It’s this versatility of SCS that I am finding remarkable. The cellos tone is clear with the best definition of any library. Everyone raves about CSS legatos too, but honestly SCS legatos are just as good, if not better than CSS (and I do own CSS too) . I will probably get shredded for saying that. o_O
Click to expand...

I like SCS a lot too but I rarely use it in isolation. It's usually a layer on SSS to bring more definition. Using the close and tree on SCS, the tree and ambient on SSS.

bvaughn0402 said:
would you mind giving your recipe for your favorite? Like what patches and how you balance them? Great video!
Click to expand...

I usually lower the volume of Loegria in Kontakt and use the close mic only, while on SSS I use a bit of close, full tree and a bit of ambient. This generates a lot of buildups at around 500Hz so a cut there is in order. Lastly, a bit of tail reverb, not a lot, to help with smoothing the transitions.

robgb said:
And I thought *I* had a lot of string libraries.
Click to expand...

...and these are only the ones featuring an ensemble patch :-p

MaxOctane said:
This was great, thank you!

I listened on laptop speakers (I know, lame) and many sounded exactly the same. Kinda embarrassing given that I own so many of these (and more).
Click to expand...

So, there's this director I was pitching a cue to. I made two versions: one chamber sized and one symphonic sized. You know, to show him that we can go bigger when needed. The guy replied to my email with "I think you sent me twice the same file as I can't hear a difference." Sometimes, we need to remember that we are not writing for other lib nerds composers but for non-musicians :)

jaketanner said:
no Cinesamples? Seems like that's the only one you're missing.. LOL
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't have CineStrings. Not convinced by the demos. Maybe one day...
 
Akarin said:
So, there's this director I was pitching a cue to. I made two versions: one chamber sized and one symphonic sized. You know, to show him that we can go bigger when needed. The guy replied to my email with "I think you sent me twice the same file as I can't hear a difference." Sometimes, we need to remember that we are not writing for other lib nerds composers but for non-musicians :)
Click to expand...

oh my...
sometimes i get:..."is this a flute"? (it was actually a solo violin)
:shocked:
 
I enjoyed this video a lot and really liked the composition you used to demo the libraries. I think it demoed them all really well.

I wonder if you'd mind sharing a screenshot of the CC1 and CC11 lanes for one of the Spitfire libraries? Any one will do, I just think it would be a great help in my learning path for writing for strings. It's an area where I could definitely need some help with. No worries if you can't or don't have time though. (I think I mentioned in another thread that your video on ensemble writing has massively helped me in writing one of my favourite tracks so far so thanks again for that.)
 
Mornats said:
I enjoyed this video a lot and really liked the composition you used to demo the libraries. I think it demoed them all really well.

I wonder if you'd mind sharing a screenshot of the CC1 and CC11 lanes for one of the Spitfire libraries? Any one will do, I just think it would be a great help in my learning path for writing for strings. It's an area where I could definitely need some help with. No worries if you can't or don't have time though. (I think I mentioned in another thread that your video on ensemble writing has massively helped me in writing one of my favourite tracks so far so thanks again for that.)
Click to expand...

Sure will! When I'm back at the computer, I'll pull the session up.
 
Scalms said:
Great job, thx for doing this, and I thought the piece you wrote for the long and shorts was perfect to highlight the comparisons. To me, I loved the sound of spitfire symphonic. I don’t have that library, but have spitfire chamber strings and HZ strings, so not sure I need SSS. When I first got SCS I was honestly disappointed with all the hype, but the last month or so I’ve been building a template with it and I am blown away by its sound when I’ve begun layering itself with itself to get a bigger sound. I feel like I can get pretty close to the tone of SSS with doing this. It’s this versatility of SCS that I am finding remarkable. The cellos tone is clear with the best definition of any library. Everyone raves about CSS legatos too, but honestly SCS legatos are just as good, if not better than CSS (and I do own CSS too) . I will probably get shredded for saying that. o_O
Click to expand...
I have both also, and only end up layering SCS with CSS for shorts and long sustains, I just cannot seem to get along with the SCS legato. Even CS2 is finicky. Maybe I'm just too used to the CSS legato at this point... Nothing beats it for me. I just wish CSS has a bigger tone like SSS.
 
josejherring said:
Would love to hear some of that layering. I find that SSS sounds like it's lost and wandering in a vast sea of room and SCS sounds great but is of course chamber size. I never thought mixing them would work. I'm intrigued.
Click to expand...
nothing to showcase at the moment but maybe I can put something together at some point. I get good effect layering SCS cellos legato with other cello separately recorded legato patches (Flautando, con sord). Adding the close and ambient mics, and a splash of high quality reverb like 7thHeavenPro, and I can get decent big sound but retain some of the definition of the chamber strings. This obviously won't sound like 20 cellos playing together, but it sounds def larger than 3. One reason I started doing this was because I was getting tired of hearing washed-out large cello sounds without that biting definition, but my dilemma is I love large, reverb-y string sounds, with a large number of players. I think this strikes a good balance, at least to me.
 
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