Nico Schuele
Tolerated Member
The last months have seen an increase in all-in-one orchestral libraries. The gamechangingoverhyped BBCSO, the who-needs-legatos-and-mics-and-articulations Nucleus, the next-level hybrid Novo-Forzo-Vento combo, the newbeginningoverhyped Spitfire Studio Orchestra, and so on. All of them trying to carve their place under the sample libraries sun. But there's also mostly-flew-under-the-radar Steinberg Iconica.
Iconica, I've been using it on and off for a year. Never as the only lib in a cue but some of the patches really shine when used in combination with other libs. I'm thinking about the woodwinds, the basses and the celesta. I felt compelled to try it on its own and wrote a track using Iconica only. It's using most of the patches except a few of them in the percussion section such as woodblocks and the likes. Here's the track:
My take on Iconica is:
PROS
- Lots of mics
- Recorded by OT for Steinberg (if you like OT's sound)
- Balanced out of the box between sections
- Next-gen UI and features
- Easy to program
- VST3 so Cubase Expression Maps are generated automatically on-the-fly
- Brass & Woodwinds that come as solo I and solo II for most instruments
- Expressive woodwinds
CONS
- Recorded by OT for Steinberg (if you don't like OT's sound)
- Not running in Kontakt but in HALion! (Hence the VST3 capabilities)
- Not many articulations even though legato runs and repetitions are awesome
- Unpolished glitches left unfixed since release (no CC11 in the basses, for example)
- Licensing from the past on a physical USB dongle
- Steinberg support... need I say more?
Even with its little glitches, I really enjoy using Iconica and would recommend it as an all-in-one package.
Iconica, I've been using it on and off for a year. Never as the only lib in a cue but some of the patches really shine when used in combination with other libs. I'm thinking about the woodwinds, the basses and the celesta. I felt compelled to try it on its own and wrote a track using Iconica only. It's using most of the patches except a few of them in the percussion section such as woodblocks and the likes. Here's the track:
My take on Iconica is:
PROS
- Lots of mics
- Recorded by OT for Steinberg (if you like OT's sound)
- Balanced out of the box between sections
- Next-gen UI and features
- Easy to program
- VST3 so Cubase Expression Maps are generated automatically on-the-fly
- Brass & Woodwinds that come as solo I and solo II for most instruments
- Expressive woodwinds
CONS
- Recorded by OT for Steinberg (if you don't like OT's sound)
- Not running in Kontakt but in HALion! (Hence the VST3 capabilities)
- Not many articulations even though legato runs and repetitions are awesome
- Unpolished glitches left unfixed since release (no CC11 in the basses, for example)
- Licensing from the past on a physical USB dongle
- Steinberg support... need I say more?
Even with its little glitches, I really enjoy using Iconica and would recommend it as an all-in-one package.