What is surprising as others have mentioned is how good the free BBC Discover library is compared to more expensive options, especially given that all the others reviewed are also ensemble libraries. Spitfire Audio are to be congratulated for making such an excellent resource available to beginner composers such as me. I should also mention what an excellent resource Composing Academy is for people starting out. Many thanks Simon!
I think it's amazing what Spitfire have achieved with the library alongside offering it for free. Its enabled so many people to gain access to orchestral samples, including young students I teach. I wish I had these kind of resources when I was growing up, discovering composing for the first time!
Dear Simon, while watching the video, different thoughts come to my mind. The most important aspect is certainly the composition itself, and if you put by side that the track has not been mixed yet, it sounds already incredible - only because of the arrangement. Personally, I mainly work with the mentioned free or inexpensive libraries and this is the first comparison video in which the same midi information is compared within different libraries. Thank you for that. I would have loved to have a video like this as I started out 2 years ago. I think the first 3 tracks differ slightly in their volume and brightness, also due to the missing velocity layers or round robins of the instruments which for me is the point in struggle most to get tracks huge and epic. My favorite here is Albion, but I believe that you could achieve a very good result with the first 3 libraries too, if you spend enough time in layering and threatening the sound way more. I would love to see how the tracks could be further developed or how they were composed step by step. In particular, I think the percussion track is absolutely successful and epic. Thank you so much for your incredible work. Sincerely yours, Michael from SevenTearsOfHope 🤗
Hi Michael, yes when I was putting together the video, it really made me realise how important elements such as round robins are. When I listened to just the short strings of the Discover library, the lack of velocity layers and round robins really stuck out. I think the additional long strings, helped to mask that fact a little for the Discover run through! Yes ultimately layering is the best way, using the strengths of each library. I think I'm going to do a video showing how I layered various libraries together, when I originally wrote the piece. Its a section of a longer track, and I'll try to incorporate the step by step composing process I went through with it. Thanks for watching!
@@composingacademy8270 Hey Simon, you inspired me to try my hand at scoring a movie trailer and it was a really fun exercise. Just find a movie trailer you like, put it on mute, and write your own music for it. I thought it might be an interesting video idea that you might want to use as you would do a much more professional job, I used all free notation software, but no DAW's. I chose 'Man of Steel' since the superhero trailers are pretty straightforward in their formula. Here's the link if you're interested in hearing the most generic movie trailer music of all time: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CCU4jydHsI4.html
Hi Nicolas, Apologies for the delay in replying. I'm still learning how the youtube comments work here in RU-vid Studio! Thanks so much for sending the link to the trailer - in short, wow! You did a fantastic job with this, particularly during the 2nd half of the trailer. I'm really impressed with the quality of sounds you were able to get from notation software!
@@nicholaslockepiano2279 In tradional layout of the sounds. Even the bassdrum somewhat right of the middle and timpani quite a bit to the left. As I come from mixing well... pop / rock / dance lows go in the middle, highs left / right and the middle, like in a tradional orchestra in the middle. I'm not alone. "In fact, the second violins used to be seated opposite the first violins, where the cellos normally are [until about 100 years ago]". Blame Leopold Stokowski. I don't agree with him. I would shove the middle down the middle and put the double bass, tuba, bassdrum & low timpani there! Oh well.
The biggest lesson I learned is that a library alone will not make your music sound better. Knowledge is the key to unlock your full potential. I own everything from less expensive libraries like 8dio and Nucleus to the most expensive libraries that Spitfire Audio offers such as Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra Professional. I also own a ton of libraries in between: Spitfire Chamber Strings Pro, Spitfire Studio Orchestra Pro, BBCSO Pro, Hollywood Orchestra Opus Diamond edition, etc. If I had to do it all over again, I would've started with just one do-it-all library (BBCSO Pro) and resisted the urge to buy more until I mastered that one. But those sales prices were just too tempting to pass up so now I have a computer loaded with about 12TB of sample libraries. Many of which I rarely use. I guess I'm set once I finally figure it all out. I just made the mistake of buying everything up front and now it's overwhelming.
Thank you for being generous with your time and expertise. I am so impressed with your presentation. An excellent selection of topics , perfect pacing and just the right level of detail.
Greetings from New Zealand. I watched this video out of interest. Always nice to see what else is out there, and get other people's takes on these libraries. I'm using BBCSO Core. I did get Discover, which I sometimes used when I wanted orchestral sounds in my projects, but for purely orchestral work I knew it wouldn't be up to it. As I see it, Discover is an excellent advertisement for Spitfire's premium products, an advertisement that is actually USEFUL to people, and useful to Music in general. Hats off to Spitfire for producing it. I gravitated to Core last August when Spitfire had a "Summer Sale" (which naturally was in Winter here!) These sales are well worth keeping an eye on, especially if you live in a country like I do that has to deal with currency conversion all the time. Core is a reasonable fit for a hobbyist composer such as myself. I have no need of umpteen mike positions and don't have the computing power to run something like BBCSO Professional, but I DO need individual instruments to be treated as such. It isn't perfect - it lacks things like a Cor Anglais, Bass Clarinet and solo string players, so these have to be added from other sources as needed. But what it HAS given me is my own private orchestra, whose sole job is to play my music, or whatever takes my fancy. Even the likes of Tschaikovsky never had that luxury!
Quickly becoming one of my favorite channels on RU-vid. The organization, simple video layouts, clear communication, and straightforward information really appeals to me. Great job, Simon. I will be using this channel to help my wife learn music. 👍 Also, my favorites are Jaeger/Nucleus and Hollywood Opus Edition. Great comparison video.
Thank you for your kind words! I need to look into the Hollywood Opus Editing. I have the original Hollywood Strings and Brass, so interested to see what the difference is!
Thank you for this. Though my favorite was Albion one, i think originals sounded excellent, and because they sounded different, it’s very nice to have the different sounds of both, especially for layering
I started with BBC SO discover. It’s superb as an introduction and I went on to buy the Core edition. I’ve also got Albion One. Great for sketching ideas and offers a lot for the money, especially when it’s on sale. Thanks for the comparison. I’d love to see a similar exercise for chamber strings or solo strings.
I can highly recommend EastWest Composer's Cloud+, you pay as much as you're paying for Netflix, so everyone is able to buy it I began with this Library collection and still use it as the main library since 2 years
@@composingacademy8270 If only it wasn't so expensive with nearly no sales xD Some day :) .. Right now i'm doing fine with my 8dio stuff I got for ridicolous prices :D
I've always found that the free orchestral library from Spitfire is the best free orchestral library I found, the others don't sound as good. I'm only a student, so I don't have much money for the expensive sample libraries. Thanks for the comparison, now I know that there are some cost effective options available in Spitfire.
Hey Simon, thank you got the video. It was great and I’m learning orchestration and didn’t know too much about free libraries until a few months sgi. I got Hollywood Opus Edition orchestra library. I saw in your showing is all these libraries and looked at your libraries. I get scared in seeing what others have and geez, many libraries. Going to look at more free libraries from Spitfire. I like Albion One. Hope to hear from you.
Strangely enough, the only one that I heard the ascending string line come out of the end was the free discover orchestra. On the others it was buried in the mix. I'm talking about the last three or four bars.
@@composingacademy8270 I am not a keyboard player so Multis or not my usual way of composing. I am sure you can adjust the individual string sections, but if not, it seems to be muddy to my ears. I always prefer to write with individual sections in mind, and control those levels independently then using a multi. That’s just me. I’ve heard incredible markups using these libraries, but not being a keyboard player it would never be something I could accomplish with a multilibrary.
This is a well explained intro. Personally I see it as 'The World of Komplete', but I know not every sample library is for Komplete. BBC Symphony Orchestra is excellent if you want the tradional placement of an orchestra. For media composing however you'll find this is not always necessary,. Having said that, eventually you will learn what instrument is where in a tradional orchestra. The more concerts you see the more you know it out of your memory. In general, for the public: lower sounds on the right, higher sounds on the left. As you can guess, not so nice in media, so low in the mid, high left / right.
Amadeus Symphonic Orchestra by Sonic Scores, $149 MSRP, solos and ensembles, multiple articulations e.g. 10 with solo violins, 'legato', whole symphony patch, choir, guitar (ac&el, bit odd that!). As an absolute beginner I find this useful. I feel it may fly under the radar of many. Probably main users are those who want to sketch ideas while using Sonic Scores main product lines of scoring software.
Hi Peter, I haven't come across that one yet, but it sounds extremely detailed, especially for the price. I'll definitely check it out! Thanks so much for the suggestion
@@composingacademy8270 For me personally, this library differs quite far in quality regarding individual sections or instruments. While brass is aweful some solo woodwinds are quite awesome. By the way: great video!
And here I am, the guy who went out and got the Orchestral Tools Berlin Inspire series first. It's two libraries for about 700 Euros (almost 800 if you bought them separately), mostly focused around ensemble patches with a few solo and special orchestration patches put together. Featuring all the common articulations, a wide assortment of instruments, and all recorded at the Teldex stage, it actually packs a punch, and I still use it to this day even though I got their other products (Metropolis Ark 2, 4, and 5, three of the creative soundpacks, and the chamber strings), they're that versatile. The only downside is you get just one mic position for it. Speaking of OT, I think it's worth mentioning that with their SINE player, one can actually buy parts of some of the libraries. For instance, you don't care for Metropolis Ark's 1 overall sound but like the choir, you can just buy it separately. They also have some free instruments through the SINE factory as well, my personal go to being the jazz band and felt piano. And we can't mention Spitfire without mentioning the LABS. It includes all sorts of free instruments and experimental sounds a person could use in their work. All in all though, I think what's more important here is to think about what kind of sound you want to make. As for myself, I wanted something that could feel big, but wasn't overbearing, and went with the choices I picked after some research and budgeting out for what I wanted.
Hi Arthur, thanks for reaching out. Yes I love how OT offer the option to buy some sounds separately. I'm looking at some of the individual patches in Junkie XL percussion. All of the high quality free options are a game changer for beginners in my opinion. I wish I had access to these when I was starting out 20 years ago! With all of the reviews of sample libraries around online, you are right that it makes sense to think carefully about the sound/style you want to write in and then research according to ones budget
I have BBCSO Discover and die Originals libraries - and I am impressed. Metropolis is great if you want a bombastic sound that cannot be played in real life (I mean in a concert!). It´s Hans Zimmer´s philosophy: he writes music you cannot actually play live as it is (just parts of it and in a Studio). I said I am impressed, because the library I like the most here is Discover! It´s a bit muddy I know, but it has "real" vibe. Originals is very similar, just more "focused" - but to me it has a little less vibe. In Discover the sound is really alive. Really good comparison (from a traditional composer and professional violinist). PS. It would be really great to listen to this comparison without percussion - just long and short notes from Strings and Brass
Hard to argue on the return on investment of Discovery hehe. Jokes aside, as a beginner I'm planning on staying with that until I have a specific need I can't solve through sleight of hand (composition, blending). My hard drive is getting full, and like you said you need time practicing. Each tool needs time for discovery, hence I think it's best to be very careful with your toolbox or else you may end up spending more time reading manuals than creating stuff.
You’re so right about the fact that it is you (the composer) who is the most important, not the sample library you use. Albion One I would say, is the best starter library around as you get so much for your money and it is kind of a middle of the road library in terms of its sound. You can make quite gentle music with it but also big epic stuff. Metropolis Ark 1 has a large sound and can only be used for those large, epic scores. But it is a fantastic library!
Hi, thank you for your feedback. I absolutely believe that the composer is the most important and Albion One is a great library. But there are now some great free libraries out there as well.
lovely composition you make with beautiful orchestral harmonics. I just wish I knew how to connect my cheap piano key board to these sound samples. The notes on my cheap old key board are too tinny and urgently need some nice professional sounds desperately.
Great video, I discovered sample libraries recently and it helped me improve my production quality. My content proves you don't have to know music theory to make fairly good covers, technology can do wonders sometimes,lol Peace, from a Pink Floyd fan.
Dear Simon, thanks for your videos, very useful! A video on how to extrapolate individual parts of instruments and written in detail in musical language (eg viola, cello, etc.) would be interesting. And so for the other tools. So how to get the single parts from an Ensemble string for example.
Hi, I do have videos on how to write for each type of instrument in an orchestra, in my library. Hope they help or let me know if you were looking for something else. Thank you for your feedback!
BBCSO can, I am sayin can, be better than other sample libraries because if carefully produced, with all the vibratos, velocities etc etc, manuely programmed, then it sounds ultra beautiful and realistic
The BBCSO Discover is amazing as it opens up Sample Libraries to everyone. I teach students at school the basics of midi programming using the library and they can get some great results with it!
@@composingacademy8270 I must agree sir, that your videos are by far the best on the net, I have really really learnt so much from you. The BBCSO Discover has been my main library, the only thing with my music is that it lacks maturity. By maturity I mean to say that, my compositions lack the power to immerse the audience into the story I'd like to tell. So far, this is my 6th month into music. I have been a drummer for 8 years so I have some experience in music theory. I still have a lot to learn in the orchestral/hybrid orchestral genre. I really hope to do that by following you in your journey to teach us, the viewers and your subscribers.
Sadly it’s really hard to get discover to sound realistic because it doesn’t have any velocity layers, round robins, or dynamics. It’s a great product for being free, but it does come at a cost of quantity over quality for all the instruments it gives
Extremely helpful, thank you. Albion One sounded best, to my ear. Metropolis Ark is a close 2nd, but I wonder if the UI for it is more of a pain than the Spitfire stuff. I got BBC Discovery, and it is absolutely the best sounding orchestral intro available today (and I've tried lots.) Question: Is there enough new/different content in the Spitfire Originals Epic Brass/Winds and Strings to justify adding them as a next step up, or better to take the massive leap up ($$) to Albion One?
If I wanted one individual library that can take a whole orchestra, I would go for BBCSO Core (or Pro) or OT's Berlin Orchestra Inspire 1. Albion is good but all the patches are pre-orchestrated. Beginners can like that at the very start but it soon pisses you off when you can not play e.g. basses and celli separately. But IMHO if you are working with the whole orchestra, you should at least know how each section works. Metropolis Ark 1 is great but is focused on large & epic only. At the very least if you want to go with Orchestral Tools' products, get Ark 1 & 2, thare is already a great discount on this bundle and you also get the silent and darked end of the orchestra. And if you really want to use the whole orchestra features, get the whole Ark 1-5 bundle (it is briliant I can tell). Rather than Ark 1 it would be better to present Berlin Orchestra Inspire 1. It is priced same as Albion and it is in the beginner range, also focusing on low RAM and CPU usage, being able to be swiftly used on laptops. Or Berlin Orchestra which is around €849. But I definitely understand you had to use libraries you had and won't spare another almost 900 bucks just for a video! :-)
Can we take a moment to appreciate how great the Originals series from Spitfire Audio is!? For a measly £87 it gives results that are comparable to its more pricey counterparts. Yes, it is missing the synth part; but for the orchestral part, it is an absolute bargain!
Yes they’re adding more and more, even having a choir now!! And yeah they charge 87£ for them, but the exchange rates don’t matter. Because each one is either 29£ OR $29. You don’t have to convert to USD because they offer it for 29 units regardless of dollars or pounds.
@@danielrennie8444 yeah. I was referring to the three libraries in the originals series used in this video for the comparisons, whose combined price is 87€/$/£.
Red ROOM audio has a sketching orchestra called Pallette. The sound is not that great but it can cover quite a lot. Will you do a video on how to layer libraries? Your videos are great with enough information in a video that is not too long.
Hi Joe, many thanks for the suggestion- I will definitely check out Pallette. Yes a couple of viewers have asked for a video on layering libraries - I'll see if that can be my next video :-)
@@composingacademy8270 Thank you. Please do it before 6 July if possible. They are having 50% off in sale and i want to decide whether to buy it or not 😂😂
I made a start with 'orchestral libraries' this year. It sort of started when I bought the Output Engines, including - progressive / cinematic - Analog Strings --> ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TTHNDxVQM3Q.html & Analog Brass & Winds --> ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ya4tr6u7yqM.html. Both great for media composing, even interesting sounds for your music productions. Then Native Instruments worked with Project SAM to offer Symphobia 1 & 2 for if I'm not mistaken half off. A demo of the latter two with 3: Lumina & True Strike --> ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qi9zrKU1Of8.html
... Also, I'm Dutch. That helps with choosing ProjectSAM. I can't tell you why it sounds like home to me, but it does. It might be because of [Tivoli]Vredenburg. The three pillars of the company: ambient, multi-mic setup in a concert hall, the right set of articulations & instrumental effects that cannot simply be recreated using individual samples. Since ProjectSAM's first product was SAMhorns, I present you here Brass orkest Conservatorium van Amsterdam in TivoliVredenburg earlier this year with film music (nevermind the Dutch speech in between) --> ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-v5l_plmapHA.html
And of course, Brass orkest Convervatorium van Amsterdam translates to Brass Orchestra [of the] Conversatory of Amsterdam in case you haven't figured that out yourself. After all, Dutch is very close to English. In fact the word for brass in Dutch is messing, but they opted for the - even for me - more well known term brass. Messing sort of feels outdated to me, you might also say it's messing with my understanding of language :)
Hi Simon, I'm hooked into your Video's. Great stuff!!. I have the Spitfire BBCSO Discover as a starter. A while ago I ask the question of which Library to use to start with in A FB Group of Composer's. They told me that the most value for you bucks is a subscription for Hollywood strings and all the other stuff you get. I did it and I'm no sorry about that. I bought a fast 2 Gb SSD and it works fine. When I'm more into Orchestral I can look what to use more. At this moment I spend alot of time into my education. Thanks for your information! 👍