jcrosby
Senior Member
Nucleus and Jaeger have strings divided by section in addition to ensemble patches.Hi all,
I am quite a newbie to all things orchestra and am in the process of researching before getting one.
I am looking to get a decent Orchestra, but do have some questions over strings and individual instruments etc.
Have done a lot of research (including on this forum) so know the merits of all the epic orchestras (Met Ark 1, Albion One, Jaeger etc) and from what I have read, looks like Ark 1 comes strongly recommended (though have heard great things about the others) so will probably get that.
My question though is this - all these orchestras look to have all the string sections as combined patches (i.e. high strings, low strings etc), which is great (as I am by no means that well versed in music theory etc), but does this mean you cannot split out individual instruments (i.e violins, cellos etc) and instead all strings are just included in combined patches.
If this is the case, I am looking for recommendations for maybe an second orchestra to purchase (or maybe just the string section even) where they are split down a bit more, so you can just use violins for example, just to counterbalance the full patches etc.
I of course may be completely wrong in the above, and Ark etc might be able to do this, so please correct me if this is incorrect.
Any advise most gratefully appreciated.
Thanks,
Richard
I have all of the arks and both Nucleus and jaeger, Audio Imperia's are my favorite by far (substantially so). I do love the arks, but in a desert Island scenario I'd choose AI's libraries in a nanosecond.
The arks are great, but the articulations aren't nearly as consistent (tonally) as they are in the Audio Imperia libraries. The arks also that have the odd patch where a few articulations feel a touch out of tune, or are lacking the oomph you get in Nucleus/Jaeger. (Audio Imperia's brass is particularly *awesome*)...
Their tone out of the box is dialed in for bigger/bolder/more epic music, and ultimately are less muddy and easier to get to sit together in a mix compared to the Arks... You could basically say they are mostly premixed for you, allowing you to focus on balancing levels where needed...
In terms of just strings, honestly Areia is one of the nicest sounding string libraries I own. It's my primary string library, (and I have a few others - various Spitfire, some OT, Cinematic Strings 2, etc)... Not only does it blend seemlessly with Nucleus/Jaeger, it's quite thorough in its articulations. It also has the best short articulations I have by far... two spicattos and a stacatto, the attacks sound incredibly natural with lots of pre-transient, etc. This is actually really advantageous as you can switch between them, or layer in a Stacatto patch in bigger sections which adds a real sense of a shift in dynamics and intensity...
Some People criticize the Audio Imperia stuff, saying it's hyped. These people tend to prefer a more traditional sound, for the genres you've indicated it's dialed in for that tone out of the box... (Although it can also be dialed back for a traditional sound by either switching to classic mix, or by manually making custom mic settings... I honestly don't know why people complain, I kind of wonder if many of these same people use the tight patches which are only intended for sketching out ideas quickly, and aren't supposed to sound "natural" at all. The idea is you'd sketch with them, then move the midi to tracks using patches with the default pre-delay).
Areia's pre-mixed beautifully. And for the record I write for a higher-profile trailer library who sometimes does live orchestra recordings. They are incredibly fussy when it comes to orchestral albums that aren't going to be tracked live. If something sounds even slightly artificial/hyped/etc I'd hear about it... I've never once received notes back about their tone being an issue... Just saying try and not give too much emphasis to criticisms of the tone... It's dialed in for a modern punchy sound which doesn't appeal to people who prefer a darker underscore tone.
The other bonus is that they should give you a discount on Areia if you own either Nucleus or Jaeger, and if you wait for a BF sale you should be able to get a combination of either two for a nice discount...
Like Nucleus/Jaeger, Areia is divided by sections, in addition to having ensemble patches...
I've attached a few screenshots of Nucleus/Jaeger so you can see they do in fact have the strings divided up...
thing
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