At Top Ten Reviews, we have been testing music notation software for more than 12 years. Every time we update this guide, we download the newest versions of the best programs and use them as a typical consumer would. As we tested the software, we noted how easy each program is to purchase and download.
- Orchestral Music Software Free
- Best Free Orchestral Music Software
- Orchestral Music Scores
- Digital Orchestra Software
- Orchestral Music Composition Software
- Best Music Composer Software
- Free Orchestra Composing Software
Most of us don’t have the budget of The Beatles - we can’t afford to hire an entire orchestra. Heck, many of us can’t even afford to pay one or two string players.
That’s why a kick-butt plugin can be a DIY musician’s savior.
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Stringed instruments are the most difficult for software developers to replicate. There are so many different variables to factor in when a violin player gently glides their bow over the strings of the instrument.
This leaves no option but to tediously record instrument samples with complex multi-microphone rigs.
Even after the software developers have the samples, there is still the challenge of programming a plugin that will intelligently play their samples.
Unfortunately, putting in this much effort into a plugin gives the developers no incentive to release it for free.
The best sounding orchestral plugins tend to cost money.
However, that’s not stopping us from also mentioning some interesting free plugins as well!
Whether you are a hobbyist or a professional producer, this article will help you find the plugin of your dreams.
Use the table of contents below to navigate to the section most suitable for you.
Quick Navigation
If you enjoy this article, do remember to check out our complete guide to real-instrument VST plugins.
Enjoy!
First, we’ll look at plugins that have it all -- every orchestral instrument you need in one simple piece of software.
Imagine having more than 500 orchestral instruments at your disposal. Fortunately, you don’t have to imagine it, because the Garritan Personal Orchestra 5 plugin provides that.
It also includes specific articulations for specific instruments as well as different playing techniques.
You can choose from different performance spaces, reverb sounds, and basically customize the sound of the instruments.
Garritan has vastly improved the realism and authenticity of the instruments, allowing you to record an orchestra that listeners might think is an actual orchestra.
Additionally, you can’t build it one instrument at a time instead of using a predetermined, fixed-size, typical section.
Best of all, it’s an affordable package. The quality-cost balance is perfectly suited for any decent bedroom producer, yet it can also be a supplemental plugin for the music producers in high-end studios.
System requirements:
- Windows 7 or later / Mac OS X 10.8 or later
- Audio interface must be compatible with ASIO or DirectSound drivers
- 4 GB RAM
- 16 GB memory
- Hard drive with 7200 RPM speed or more (recommended)
- USB port needed for product installation
Film Score Companion has five main components to it: brass, strings, woodwinds, Big Bang Cinematic Percussion, and the grand piano, Eighty Eight Ensemble.
Brass -- not only do you get the brass ensembles, you have a selection of solo instruments at your disposal. This section includes trumpets, trombones, bass trombones, French horns, and tuba, all with different techniques and methods.
Strings -- this component is great for composing and using as a background orchestra. Thanks to the individual instruments, you can build custom sections piece by piece.
Orchestral Music Software Free
Again, you have the option to use different techniques with first violins, second violins, violas, contrabasses, and cellos.
Woodwinds -- you also have a wide selection of woodwinds, which are actually the closest instrument to the human voice in frequency and tone. So they can be a nice compliment to a vocalist.
Eighty Eight Ensemble 2 -- this component is a beautiful recreation of a Steinway 9-foot CD 327 grand piano, packed into a great piece of software.
You’ll get the real grand piano sound (in 1,500 samples) that you’d expect in your home recordings. What more could you want?
Big Bang Cinematic Production -- no matter what you need - from big drums to supplemental rhythm - the BBCP has you covered.
System requirements:
- Mac OS X 10.8 or later / Windows 8, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Home Premium
- Dual Core 2 GHz, Intel Core i5 or i7
- 2-4 GB of RAM
- 35 GB of memory
- Mac supported plugin formats: VST, AU, or AAX
- Windows supported plugin formats: VST or AAX
If you want real strings played by real people, the Miroslav Philharmonik 2 plugin is the one to check out.
You can choose from legatos to pizzicatos to spicattos to staccatos and all the other “os”. Because just having a good recording of a stringed instrument isn’t enough -- it’s all about making the corresponding samples sound real and stay true to that instrument.
One reason this plugin works, for both beginners and experts, is that the legendary jazz bassist Miroslav Vitous had a hand in it.
IK Multimedia partnered with Vitous to record over 58 GB of sounds including more than 2,700 sampled instruments.
With his vision, the instruments can stand alone or blend in with an entire orchestra.
Plus, you get some of the best post-production options, like five EQs, four dynamic processors, nine modulation effects, nine reverb and delay options, and more.
System requirements:
- 64-bit Mac OS X 10.7 or later / Windows 7, 8, or 10 (needs ASIO driver)
- Mac supported plugin formats: Audio Units, VST 2, VST 3, AAX
- PC supported plugin formats: VST 2, VST 3, AAX
- Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended) or AMD Athlon 64 X2 (Microsoft only)
- 58 GB of memory
You may not have heard of Keith O. Johnson, but you should become familiar with him.
He’s an 11-time Grammy nominated recording engineer and has recorded audio for the Symphonic Orchestra plugin by EastWest.
This piece of software has won many awards, including Sound On Sound's Reader's Choice Award, three times!
The recording of these samples is unique in that Johnson used three mic positions on each instrument: close, stage, and hall.
This means you can choose which mic position you want in your recording, giving you more control and customization and less need for post-production reverb.
Basically, you can get the true sound of a professional orchestra on your computer and in your songs.
System requirements:
- Mac OS X 10.7 or later / Windows 7 or later (need ASIO driver)
- Mac: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.1GHz or higher (PPC not supported)
- Windows: Intel Core 2 Duo, or AMD Dual Core 2.1GHz or higher
- 7200 RMP or faster hard drive (needed for sample streaming)
- 8 GB of RAM
The whole point of Instant Orchestra is to make arranging an orchestra super easy, sans sequencing and annoying setups. This allows anyone to orchestrate quickly and beautifully.
It only takes a minute to get the ideas in your head into audible music.
You can mix and match ensembles, including all of the same instrument or a combo of strings, horns, and woodwinds, for example.
The emphasis is in getting the instruments to flow together in perfect unison.
Plus, you get plenty of effects for post-production, like glissandi, rips, and harmonics, among many others. This plugin also provides playing techniques to make everything sound that much more authentic.
You can even find samples based on the mood you need, giving you a great starting-off point for your arrangements.
System requirements:
- Mac OS X 10.6 through 10.11 / Microsoft Windows 7, 8 and 10, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows XP (SP3 required)
- Mac Intel CPU (PowerPC not supported) / Core 2 Duo CPU or later recommended
- 2 GB of RAM
- 3 GB of memory
- Hard drive speed of at least 7200 RPM
- PC: ASIO sound card
- Mac: Core Audio sound card
Now we get into string plugins. Focusing in on just providing killer-sounding strings means the quality you find may be better than in an all-in-one plugin.
Recorded in the Futura Productions studios, the Orchestral Companion Strings plugin provides beautiful sounds from members of the Boston Pops and the Boston Ballet Orchestras.
They used both spot and ambient mic-ing on these musicians and their instruments.
Under the direction of SONiVOX’s Jennifer Hruska, every sample session was recorded by Emmy award-winning recording engineers Antonio Oliart and John Bono (who also won an RIAA award).
They positioned the musicians in the same way they would for an actual performance, even taking into consideration when certain musicians were absent and treating the room accordingly.
So no matter what your level of producership is, you can easily play these virtual instruments and make them sound like they’re in the room.
System requirements:
- OS X Version 10.8.5 to 10.10 / Windows 8, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Home Premium, Profession, or Ultimate
- PC: Minimum Quad-core processor, Intel Core i5 or i7
- Mac: Core 2 Duo Processor or later; Core i5 or i7
- 2 GB of RAM
- 15 GB of memory
- PC compatible host application: VST or AAX (Pro Tools 11)
- Mac compatible host application: VST, AU, or AAX (Pro Tools 11)
If you need top-notch orchestral sounds that are ready at the touch of a button, Session Strings might be a good choice for you.
They recorded their samples at one of the best studios in Germany, using instruments from the 18th and 19th century played by some of the top musicians from the best orchestras in Europe.
With this plugin, there’s no need to spend hours upon hours tweaking little parts of your arrangements. It’s super easy to get up and running.
The sounds of these instruments don’t require post-production -- they’re at a pro-level right from the gate.
But if you do want to tweak the sounds in post-production, you have EQ and reverb available.
Plus, you have the Animator feature, which takes your orchestra and “funkifies” it. You can use it to riff on chords, adding rhythmic staccatos, spiccatos, or pizzicatos.
System requirements:
- Mac: Intelmac (PPC not supported)
- PC: SSE2 (CPU supplementary instruction set)
- 2-3 GB of RAM
- Free Kontakt 5 Player or Kontakt 5
With a name like Hans Zimmer associated with a plugin (or really anything music-related), you know it’s going to be one of the best.
Using 344 professional players, Zimmer conducted music that eventually became the 205,501 samples in this plugin.
It’s geared toward other composers -- those who can’t always have a full orchestra at the snap of their fingers.
It’s a big and bold piece of software for those looking to create big and bold productions.
Best Free Orchestral Music Software
System requirements:
- Mac: OS X 10.10, 10.11, 10.12, 10.13
- PC: Windows 7, 8, or 10
- 200 GB of disk space during installation, 184 GB needed afterward
- 16 GB of RAM
- 2.8GHz i5 (dual core)
8Dio’s Century Strings is a realistic orchestral plugin crafted by multiple-award-winning producers Colin O’Malley and Troels Folmann.
There are three main volumes in this plugin: Traditional Ensemble Strings, Sordino (Muted) Ensemble Strings, and a bundle with both of them together.
The Traditional Ensemble Strings volume has five main ensembles:
- First violins with six players
- Second violins with four players
- Violas with five players
- Cellos with four players
- Basses with four players
They each have matching articulations, meaning you can blend them together with ease.
The Sordino Strings Ensemble is the same but with muted instruments.
It, too, blends well within itself and with the instruments in the Traditional Ensemble.
System requirements:
- PC or Mac
- Kontakt 5.6 or later
- 204 GB of memory
- 4-8 GB of RAM
- Compatible host applications: VST, Audio Units, AAX
Woodwinds -- the instruments closest to the human voice in tone and frequency. Let’s take a look at the top woodwind plugins.
This plugin is a part of the aforementioned Film Score Companion. SONiVOX is a reliable name, and thanks to John Bono, this is a reliable plugin.
If you can’t afford or don’t need the full Film Score features, the Woodwinds section of the Orchestral Companion is the perfect option.
System requirements:
- Mac OS X versions 10.8.5 to 10.10 / Windows 8, 7 Service Pack 1 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate
- PC: quad-core processor, Intel Core i5 or i7
- Mac: Core 2 Duo Processor or later; Core i5 or i7
- 2-4 GB of RAM
- 15 GB of memory
- PC compatible host applications: VST or AAX
- Mac compatible host applications: VST, AU, or AAX
Some say CAGE is the most comprehensive orchestral plugin.
The Custom Aleatoric Group Effects (CAGE) was put together by Folmann and O’Malley, the same award-winning producers who produced the Century Strings Bundle from 8Dio.
The woodwinds volume includes nine microphone positions for a wide range of sound options.
Under the umbrella of those nine positions, there are two main groups: Ensemble and Divisi. So you’ve got options, to say the least.
The woodwinds sections also have over 380 effects, making it almost impossible to not find the effect you need.
System requirements:
- Kontakt 5.5 or later (not compatible with Free Kontakt Player)
- 14 GB of memory
- 4 GB of RAM
- 2.4GZ+ for PC / 2.6Ghz for Mac
Native Instruments is a trusted name, so you know their Symphony Series Woodwind plugin is a solid piece of software.
It provides 400 different articulations, four different mic mixes, and they recorded it at Montclair Presbyterian Church in Oakland, California. So you get a full, real orchestra sound.
Plus, you get plenty of effects to help your song reach pro-level quality, like true legato, EQ, reverb, compression, and filter.
System requirements:
- Kontakt 5 Player or Kontakt 5 (5.6.8 or higher)
- 54 GB of memory
- Intel i5 processor
In my opinion, every song needs a bit of brass. And with these awesome plugins, you can use as much brass as you want.
Here we see SONiVOX yet again. You can tell their plugins are gold because they have multiple plugin libraries on this “Best Of” list.
With their brass plugin, you get top-of-the-industry brass players playing more than 80 patches of ensembles, sectionals, and individual instruments (like trumpet, trombone, French horn, and tuba).
System requirements:
- OS X Version 10.8.5-10.10 / Windows 8, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate
- PC: Quad-core processor, Intel Core i5 or i7
- Mac: Core 2 Duo Processor or later; Core i5 or i7
- Windows compatible host applications: VST or AAX
- Mac compatible host applications: VST, AU or AAX
- 2-4 GB of RAM
- 15 GB of memory
EastWest is on the list yet again, this time with their brass plugin.
It’s one of the most powerful and realistic on the market. Its quantity matches its quality -- it has 10 times the amount of content than the next guy.
It’s easy to play and uses just one MIDI channel.
This top-notch performance is thanks to producers Doug Rogers, Nick Phoenix and Thomas Bergersen as well as award-winning sound engineer Shawn Murphy.
They recorded these samples in one of the best studios for brass recording -- EastWest Studio 1.
Using five mic positions, the brass sound they’ve capture is meant to perfectly meld with Hollywood Strings.
System requirements:
- Mac: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.1GHz or higher
- PC: Intel Core 2 Duo, or AMD Dual Core 2.1GHz or higher
- 8 GB of RAM
- Mac OSX 10.7 or later / Windows XP SP2, Vista, or Windows 7
- 7200 RPM or faster hard drive
- PC: ASIO driver
The Orchestral Brass Classic is a re-issued version of the SAM Horns, SAM Trombones, SAM Trumpets, and SAM Solo Sessions plugins. The OBC is famous for its beautiful ambient and cinematic sounds.
If you’re a composer for TV, film, or video games, this is one plugin you have to at least try out.
System requirements:
- Kontakt version 5.1.0 or higher
- Mac OS 10.8 or higher / Windows 7 or higher (not XP or Vista)
- i5 CPU
- Plugin interfaces: VST, AU, or AAX (not RTAS
- Compatible with Kontakt (full version) and Kontakt Player (free version)
Built for use with Kontakt, CineSamples’ Cinebrass plugin was recorded at SONY Pictures Scoring Stage and mixed by a pro - Dennis Sands.
Sands has worked on films such as Avengers, Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, and Shawshank Redemption, just to name a few.
Composers created the CineBrass CORE plugin for their fellow composers and accepted feedback from others in the film music community along the way, so you know this is a solid choice for a brass plugin.
System requirements:
- PC: Windows 7, XP, Vista
- Mac: OS X 10.7 or higher
- 2 GB of RAM
- 11 GB of memory
Using a special multiple-microphone setup, Samplemodeling created The Trumpet 3 plugin, a member of their larger brass-plugin family.
They did everything possible to capture the natural timbre of each instrument and present it in a sample.
Its top features include velocity and expression mapping, mutes and wah-wah, breath and wind-controller mode, microtuning, and much more.
System requirements:
- Windows XP / Mac OS X 10.4.11
- 1.6 GHz Core2 Duo CPU
- PC: ASIO driver
- 1 GB of RAM
Percussion is often the glue needed to hold a song together. That’s why getting the right percussion plugin is crucial.
BFD drum plugins are some of the best you’ll find, and BFD Orchestral is an expansion pack including BFD2, BFD3, and BFD Eco.
Perfect for film composition and commercial work, you’ll be all set to glue your song together.
In this expansion pack, you get orchestral bass drums, snare drums, hand cymbals, and other supplemental percussion like chimes.
Each sample seeks to present the true dynamics of each instrument, allowing you to work across many different genres.
System requirements:
- Windows 7 or higher / Mac OS X 10.6.8 or higher
- BFD3, BFD Eco or BFD 2
- BFD3 version: 8.6 GB of memory
- BFD Eco or BFD2 version: 25 GB of memory
We briefly talked about SONiVOX’s Big Bang Universal Drums because it was packaged with other SONiVOX plugins.
Well, now you can get that plugin along with Big Bang Universal Drums, Blue Jay Drums, and Session Drums 1, thanks to the Percussion Companion plugin.
It has pretty much any type of drum you need and they’re all professional sounding. With this plugin, you get multi-velocity and multi-take round-robin programming.
System requirements:
- Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate
- Mac OS X Version 10.8.5 - 10.10
- Dual Core 2 GHz, Intel Core i5 or i7
- 2-4 GB of RAM
- 35 GB of memory
- PC compatible plugins: VST, RTAS (Pro Tools 10) or AAX (Pro Tools 11)
- Mac compatible plugins: VST, AU, RTAS (Pro Tools 10) or AAX (Pro Tools 11)
Rhapsody: Orchestral Percussion by Impact Soundworks
The Rhapsody: Orchestral Percussion plugin includes a compilation of over 50 instruments that were mic’d at three different positions (close, stage, hall).
For this reason, it’s easy to mix these three together and it’s no problem to tweak the sound of the instruments, without it throwing the whole mix out of whack.
System requirements:
- Kontakt 5.3 (full version, not Player)
- 9 GB of memory disk space
- 4-8 GB of RAM
- 2009 Intel processor or better
Now we get to many home producers’ favorite section: the discount rack. In this case, these are all free plugins.
Like the name suggests, these plugins have it all, from brasses to woodwinds to percussion.
VSCO 2 is an orchestral plugin that is powered by 3GB of samples. Its interface allows you to have easy control over the samples' envelopes as well as volume, panning, and reverb. There is an assortment of great-sounding instruments to play around with.
There are no rules or royalties, just free samples.
The only thing you can’t do is sell them to other people as-is. Other than that, make whatever you want with this free software.
System requirements:
- 4 GB of RAM
- 111 MB to 3.2 GB of memory
- DAW that supports VSTi or Audio Units
- 5000 RPM hard drive speed or faster
- MIDI keyboard
A Swedish musician named Mattias Westlund gathered together all of the top-quality, royalty-free orchestral samples from the internet.
Then he cleaned them up, organized them, and created his own library of orchestral samples.
Obviously, it’s not going to match some of the orchestral plugins you’d pay big bucks for, but for $0, it’s not a bad piece of software.
System requirements:
- 440 MB of memory for download
- 16-bit WAV format
Squidfont has several pretty sounding strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion, including effects like sustain, detache, pizzicato, and tremolo.
It’s a free plugin (26 MB) and not much information is available online, so it probably doesn’t meet the professional standard that many of the other orchestral plugins meet.
But heck, free is free.
Free orchestral string plugins often don’t sound super realistic, but that may be the effect you’re going for if you make, say, electronic music.
StringZ offers an eclectic mix of instruments, like eight world string instruments, Celtic harp, cumbus, dobro, kanun, koto, and dulcimer.
If you know what half of those instruments are without looking them up, this is your plugin.
It includes velocity response, a micro-detuner, and MIDI automation.
Overture offers your basic orchestra instruments, and allows you to add four layers made of the 40 instruments, one drum kit, and 10 internal combos.
Some of the instruments include harpsichord, church organ, trumpet, and an orchestra drum kit.
The Cheeze Machine plugin doesn’t even pretend to be realistic sounding -- it admits it’s cheesy sounding in its own name.
It copies the string ensemble sound but in a synth-y type of way.
It has a chorus ensemble, a six-stage phaser, and reverb, presented in a saw-like waveform.
With the FTM String plugin, you get an oscillating string simulation.
It can emulate tons of string instruments, like guitar and bass, while it also offers different percussion instrument sounds, like xylophone and vibraphone.
I mentioned earlier that woodwinds are the instrument that resembles the human voice the closest. But is that true with these free plugins?
The Iowa Alto Flute plugin is one of those that you just have to try to get the full effect.
It’s an underground piece of software with not much info shared about it online.
What we do know is that it’s a sampled alto flute from the University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios.
Here are the versions it’s available in:
Orchestral Music Scores
- Windows 32 VST (28.6 MB)
- Windows 64 VST (28.8 MB)
- Mac OSX VST (32.6 MB)
- Mac AU (32.6 MB)
The Sonatina Oboe is a sampled oboe from the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra sample library.
Here are the versions:
- Windows 32 VST (22.6 MB)
- Windows 64 VST (22.8 MB)
- Mac OSX VST (26.6 MB)
Sonatina Clarinet is a sampled clarinet from the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra sample library. It allows you to switch between three options: solo clarinet, clarinets sustain, and bass clarinet.
Here are the versions:
- Windows 32 VST (29.2 MB)
- Windows 64 VST (29.3 MB)
- Mac OSX VST (33.1 MB)
- Mac AU (33.1 MB)
The Sonatina Flute plugin is a set of sampled flutes from the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra sample library. There are five options you can choose from: flute, flutes sustain, flutes staccato, alto flute, and piccolo.
I said earlier that you can’t go wrong with brass, but does that sentiment hold when using a free brass plugin?
Available for Windows 32 VST, the Brass plugin from DSK has 23 waveforms, two layers, and the ability to select your octave. It comes with effects like delay, flanger, and assignable automation capability.
The Aerophone brass plugin emulats lip valve instruments with cylindrical bores, like trumpets and trombones.
It attempts to capture the true expression of an acoustic performance by oversampling a third.
This small download (2 MB) is available for Windows 32 VST.
DSK’s Saxophones plugin includes soprano and tenor saxes with ADSR envelope control. It also has a velocity curve selector and a reverb effect.
Here are the downloads available:
- Windows 32 VST (9.8 MB)
- Windows 64 VST (10 MB)
- Mac OSX VST (13.9 MB)
- Mac AU (13.9 MB)
VSCO2 Percussion is a sampled orchestral percussion set recorded at Versilian Studios by Berklee College of Music graduate Sam Gossner.
Here are the available downloads:
- Windows 32 VST (131.3 MB)
- Windows 64 VST (131.5 MB)
- Mac OSX VST (138.6 MB)
- Mac AU (138.6 MB)
All of these plugins are excellent choices if you are interested in digitally replicating orchestral sounds.
My favorite plugin on this list has to be Orchestral Suite. Its an all-in-one plugin that offers a ton of quality!
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B-B-B-Breaking Down The Best Hip Hop Sample PacksCompiling a general survey of orchestral sample libraries available becomes more and more difficult every year. The sheer number of companies producing top-quality software for orchestral sampling has increased substantially of late, and there are more options now for the digital composer than ever before in this ever-expanding ecosystem. We in the audio tech world revel in choice and variety, not least so when it comes to virtual instruments. The quantity and quality of libraries available is frankly staggering.
This list is by no means complete, but we at S1E feel that these 30 plugins represent the latest and greatest Orchestral VIs currently available. The list is in no particular order.
The 30 Best Sample Libraries For Orchestral Scoring
e-instruments: Session Strings Pro
e-instruments Session Strings Pro is described as 'Session Strings Pro is the new gold standard for contemporary studio strings.
Take control of an 11-piece ensemble, recorded with the utmost precision in four different settings for maximum flexibility and realism.' Session Strings Pro offers the user a great sound combined with an intutive animator player, this offers not only the sound but the performance of a string section - it's not as complete as some of the others listed here, but well worth looking at if you want to put some great strings on pop tracks.
Take control of an 11-piece ensemble, recorded with the utmost precision in four different settings for maximum flexibility and realism.' Session Strings Pro offers the user a great sound combined with an intutive animator player, this offers not only the sound but the performance of a string section - it's not as complete as some of the others listed here, but well worth looking at if you want to put some great strings on pop tracks.
'Recorded by 11-time Grammy nominated classical recording engineer Prof. Keith O. Johnson, the EastWest: Symphonic Orchestra is the most awarded orchestral collection ever, including winning Sound On Sound's Reader's Choice Award an unprecedented 3-times, and the first orchestral collection to be recorded in a 'state of the art' concert hall where orchestras mainly perform.'
'Symphobia is not your traditional orchestral sample library. Instead of focusing on individual instrument multi-samples, Symphobia offers ensemble multi-samples in various orchestrations and orchestral groups. These playable ensembles cover different sections and groups from the orchestra as well as the entire orchestra playing together.'
'Miroslav Philharmonik is a powerful, integrated Orchestral Workstation incorporating the legendary Miroslav Vitous Symphonic Orchestra and Choir Sample collections into a dedicated plug-in instrument specifically tailored for classical sounds and arrangements.'
“Garritan Personal Orchestra gives you a complete orchestra – strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, and keyboards – with over 200 instrument choices, along with the techniques and control to hear your music with breathtaking realism. This award-winning collection has set the standard for orchestra sample libraries.”
Digital Orchestra Software
'Spitfire Audio: Albion is everything you need to make epic modern music in ONE box. At its heart is a 109 piece orchestra accompanied by a thunderous cinematic percussion section, dynamically layered loops designed by award winning music makers, an enormous steam synthesiser and many more surprises. '
'Complete Orchestral Collection is a brand new compilation of all Peter Siedlaczek libraries ever released by Best Service. This new product combines Peter Siedlaczek´s String Essentials 2nd Edition as well as the well-known Complete Classical Collection 2nd Edition in one Kontakt Player 5 instrument with 26 GB of uncompressed sample content and more than 2800 Kontakt instruments.'
'With the Vienna Symphonic Library, the huge quantity and variety of articulations with nuanced details, enhanced by the seamless integration with the Vienna Instruments sample player helps you create the most realistic renderings of your composition.'
'Produced by Academy Award, TEC and G.A.N.G Award Winning Composer, Troels Folmann and Emmy Nominated Composer and Orchestrator, Colin O’Malley, the 8Dio Adagio String Series is a new-generation orchestral sample library and the most expressive collection of deep-sampled strings ever created.'
'HOLLYWOOD STRINGS has many groundbreaking features not found in any other collection. Finger position is, for the first time, controllable by the user, so you can play as far up the strings as you want, and get a fuller more romantic Hollywood sound. Vibrato intensity and extensive dynamics are controllable by the user. Extensive multi-dynamic true legato has been sampled for all sections in three different categories: slurred, portamento, and bow change. This results in unsurpassed legato performance that has never been available.'
'Berlin Strings is the first True Adaptive Legato(including 4 legato types: Slurred, Agile (scripted), Fast Runs and Portamento), Smaller Sections for more definition and detail, 129 GB of samplesin NCW format (268 GB uncompressed'
'CineStrings is revolutionary in its power and simplicity for recreating the sound of the orchestral string section. The library was designed by composers, for composers, with direct feedback from the film music community during its development. The result is a string library that is easy to use, composer-friendly, with unparalleled recording quality.'
'LA Scoring Strings 2.5 (LASS) brings you a whole new set of tools and revised sonic profiles providing a new level of expressiveness, realism, real-time playability and program-ability to sampled strings.'
'Cinematic Strings 2 is a completely redesigned and updated version of the original orchestral strings sample library. Whilst retaining the warm luscious tones produced in the world class Verbrugghen Hall of the Sydney Conservatorium, the new version features a sleek new interface and even smoother legato.'
'Hollywood Brass is the most powerful, realistic and extensive brass library ever created. There is a focus and ease of use in this Virtual Instrument that is unprecedented. Hollywood Brass runs flawlessly in the completely revamped PLAY 3 engine and has 10 times the content and detail than its closest competitor, without any additional complexity or clutter.'
Orchestral Music Composition Software
'Bravura Scoring Brass is a complete collection of orchestral brass ensembles, soloists, and aleatoric FX recorded with stunning depth in a large scoring studio. Featuring three mic positions, extensive articulations, and incredibly powerful scripting, BSB is an ideal tool for film, TV & game scoring.'
Best Music Composer Software
Session Horns Pro gives you 30 GB of authentic contemporary horns: three saxophones, two trombones, three trumpets, tuba and flugelhorn.
It features 38 pre-arranged section presets across all popular styles to get you started, and is suited to every type of contemporary music.
It features 38 pre-arranged section presets across all popular styles to get you started, and is suited to every type of contemporary music.
'CineBrass is the expansion to the popular CineBrass Core library. CineBrass is comprised of entirely new orchestral brass sample content, using the first-call Los Angeles musicians at the SONY Scoring Stage, mixed by Dennis Sands. Our CineBrass core library, released in June 2011, covers the essentials of the orchestral brass section, and functions as a solid foundation in our composing templates.'
'Orchestral Brass Classic is the re-issue of the most respected symphonic brass series on the sample market: SAM Horns, SAM Trombones, SAM Trumpets and SAM Solo Sessions. known for its ambient, cinematic sound, orchestral brass classic is the only brass library that no film, tv or game composer can afford to be without.'
'Berlin Woodwinds has True Legato (interval sampling) for all instruments and sections! To achieve the highest level of realism and detail, we have recorded every interval up to an octave. That means you will hear the natural transitions from one note to another. Every true legato patch is sampled with three dynamic crossfade layers!'
'The Claire Woodwind Bundle 10 contains Alto-Flute, Bassoon Virtuoso, Clarinet Virtuoso, English Horn Virtuoso, Flute Virtuoso, Oboe Virtuoso and Piccolo Flute. All the libraries contains advanced legato and articulations to cover all your compositional needs'
'Hollywoodwinds is Cinesamples’ award-winning orchestral woodwind library developed exclusively for Kontakt. Featuring wonderfully organic recordings, and groundbreaking programming, HWW is quickly becoming the leading woodwind solution for composers around the world.'
'CineWinds PRO is the long-awaited expansion to the next-generation orchestral CineWinds CORE library. CineWinds PRO expansion fills out the remainder of the orchestral woodwind section, and also offers an eclectic choice of ethnic, Renaissance, and period wind instruments most often used in film scoring.'
Percussion
Impact Soundworks: Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion
'Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion is an exquisite symphonic collection for KONTAKT features a comprehensive collection of 50 traditional & extended percussive instruments recorded through three mic positions.'
'ProjectSAM's acclaimed True Strike series holds the percussion libraries of choice for film, tv and game composers requiring cinematic, powerful percussion samples. True Strike, the first volume in the series, focuses on orchestral percussion. Offering 51 orchestral percussion instruments in multiple concert hall mic positions, True Strike is the only orchestral percussion library you will ever need.'
'Spitfire Percussion is a comprehensive orchestral percussion library featuring the renowned Joby Burgess in Lyndhurst Hall at Air Studios. Alongside a huge array of large and small percussion, timpani, bass drums and cymbals lie a collection of mallet instruments described by Sound On Sound magazine as 'to die for'.'
Free Orchestra Composing Software
'CinePerc PRO is an extremely useful part of our large CinePerc library; the next installment of our popular orchestral series that includes CineBrass and CineWinds. Like those libraries, CinePerc was recorded at the SONY Scoring Stage in Los Angeles, and mixed by master engineer Dennis Sands. This package includes many more percussion instruments for your template'
'Stormdrum 3 is the first virtual instrument to include EastWest's new PLAY 4 software. In PLAY 4, EastWest replaced some third party components; added Avid's new AAX format that will allow Pro Tools 11 users to use EastWest's virtual instruments 64-bit, greatly improving performance; added new time-stretch software optimized for loops (with sync to sequencer); added a new mixer page (with sub-channels for mic positions), added background loading, and other new features.'
'Hans Zimmer Percussion Series is the definitive collection of Hybrid Cinematic Widescreen percussion ensembles, produced by the man who created the idiom; Hans Zimmer. Recorded by Geoff Foster at Air Studios and mixed by 4 Grammy winning composer/ producers'
Imperfect Samples' EBONY Concert Grand is the World's Largest* sampled grand piano. Commanding a powerful and magnificent sound, the piano behind this sample library is an imposing hand-made FAZIOLI ten foot Grand Piano, created by the makers of world's most expensive grand pianos, and is considered by many to be the Elite of all grands.
Addictive Keys isn't just a collection of sampled keyboards. That's easy. Anyone can do that. What Addictive Keys does is to capture the soul and essence of great instruments from multiple angles. That's hard, but Addictive Keys instruments pull
it off and make it look effortless.
it off and make it look effortless.