Orchestral library reccomendations?

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I'm thinking about buying some orchestral samples, and need reccomendations.

The main thing I need is good brass, though decent strings would be a definite plus as well.

Right now for orchestral stuff I use some Colossus and my Motif. Is there anything under $300 that would offer an improvement over these?

[zircon]

Good brass is really hard to do with samples, unfortunately. It is said that SAM Orchestral Brass is the best in that area;

http://www.projectsam.com/libraries_ext_05.html

But you would need Kontakt or Gigastudio to take advantage of it (preferably Kontakt).

[tgfoo]

If you could stretch out an extra $200 you could pick up the gold pro xp bundle. It will give you a a boat load more articulations and better quality than an full orchestra library you'll find for $300. Also in that price range is VSL SE Standard. Not as nearly as many articulations, but (imo) sounds much nicer than any sub $1000 library.

However, if you can't pull one of those, or you just want brass, zircon's recommendation of the Project SAM stuff is a good one. The complete brass collection though would cost around $500, though you can buy the individual sections piecemeal.

[dannthr]

I second what's been said here, Symphonic Orchestra is going to offer more by way of orchestral sound than Colossus. Their brass is usable, but not the best--it has its limits.

My perfect brass set-up would be Project SAM Brass with VSLs Epic Horns.

But, with Project SAM you could spend all your cash on just brass.

The Gold XP bundle is going to give you a well rounded beginning.

EDIT: My comp crashed when I was revising this with some samples.

I'm a Gold XP user, so I thought I'd give you some idea of the brass in and out of context:

Solo horn, one legato patch (if you want something more convincing you'll have to switch articulations a bit more than this--this is played live on my keyboard):
http://www.dannthr.com/music/tests/ctytheme.mp3
It's actually not that bad. Ideally, of course, I'd be switching from legato to portamento or stacato samples depending on the note character and there's a bit of layering that happens at certain modulation levels which can happen when they're trying to blend between two samples, but otherwise it sounds fairly decent.

Solo brass ensemble (quintet) the short articulations are quite nice:
http://www.dannthr.com/music/hippo/HippoIntro.mp3

The brass fx can be convincing and dramatic:
http://dannthr.com/samples/sketches/battle_cue_sketch_a.mp3

Here's brass in context with an orchestra:
http://dannthr.com/samples/sketches/dan_reynolds_evesmechanicalbody.mp3

The DXF patches can be quite nice at times.

So, it's definitely usable, especially with regards to remixes.

[DZComposer]

I'll also put in a recommendation on EWQLSO Gold Pro XP.

It is indeed a well-rounded library, with decent Brass.

Be warned, though, it is a large library and will require lots of RAM. It comes on 8 DVDs, if memory serves correctly.

It does have it's limits, though. Project SAM is the way to go provided you have the cash. I have the first editition of the sAM Horns, and it is quite impressive. I just don't use it because I no longer use Gigastido. I need to but the new Kontakt version. I'm mostly satisfied with EWQL for now, so I am currently filling in holes for areas that I do not have any sounds for.

[thomas_kresge]

Personally, I use Garritan Personal Orchestra, and its brass is plenty acceptable. My biggest complaint for it goes towards its trumpet sound, but ther brass sounds (horns, trombones, tuba, even muted trumpet) sound plenty good. Trumpets aren't even that bad. And the string sounds are definetily decent. I'm not sure exactly how it works standalone... I have a version that's integrated with Sibelius.

[Lunahorum]

man... I will never be able to afford to make top of the line music. Meh, but I don't care FL studio kicks so much butt anyways. It's not like what I have won't work, but JESUS CHRIST THAT SAM LIBRARY IS NICE!!!!!