Tip: while using Orchestra Layers, you can go to the Performance tab and set up layered articulations such that you can have the Major Chords trigger at low velocities, Minor Chords at high velocities and Sus4 Chords at the highest. You can adjust the range as you please as well. This makes writing on a keyboard so much easier. Highly recommend it, especially for layering.
Another great feature of the BBC Discovery plugin is how it still sounds SO good with just a tiny footprint - 200 MB! Go back five or ten years, and you would probably be paying hundreds for any one of the products featured here and be ploughing through a massive, dry user manual to find out how to operate your expensive DAW. What a great time we're living in to have a bedroom studio!
Orchestral Tools SINE player lets you layer multiple patches. I like to combine both of their free pianos (Ratio & Spindle) with (also free) Helix Strings (sustain). Just for playing around.
You can do some pretty advanced stuff in SINE too with the polymap feature. Morphing/crossfading between articulations, different articulations triggered based on note velocity or any MIDI CC (like staccatissimo for low velocities, staccato for mid velocities, and marcato for high velocities for automatic switching between short articulations based on how hard you hit the keys on your MIDI controller), and a lot more.
Mike, just want to thank you for all that you do to bring us such great info. You are not only a great teacher, but a great source of quality free and/or low-priced plugins in a sea of plugin choices that are on the market. Thank you, sir!
The instruments/sounds inside SAM's Free Orchestra left me absolutely speechless, as in "ready to out into a big bombastic feature film score quality" - good. That being said, the selection is really limited and you can probably never score anything with it alone, it's just a really great freebie to complement your other libraries. The BBC Discover is amazing, you really get a full orchestra and a selection of articulations with that. All for free, which is just incredible. But the whole orchestra, with all it's articulations is a bit over 200 MB, which is less than many single instruments within Nucleus, Ark 1 or some other popular library. Considering its all in all just 200 MB is mind-blowing and for that it sounds fantastic, but you still hear that it's just miles and miles away from the sounds like within SAM (which are just a few selected instruments of Symphobia, that is a paid library). Since I own Nucleus Full and all the orchestral tools essentials (which are also great valie imo) I never use Discover, while I use SAMs free orchestra (now there is a version 2 even) all the time.
Very useful overview. It could be my creative limits but the ProjectSam Free Orchestra definitely pushes people towards “epic” music, so I’m not sure it’s that versatile. I agree on #1 BBCSO Discovery is great. I would just like to be able to really tone down the built in reverb. You can turn it up but not take it off. But it’s FREE (and now you don’t have to wait to get it, like we did), so I should just be thankful, really.
Would also be great if you could make a video about how to compose a simple orchestra symphony, just the very basics, I mean how the single sections interract with each other, with which one to begin or whatever would be noteworthy for a beginner.
Oh Cheese! I've been using BBCO Discover very much lately, with different instances per articulation... Great tip with the keyswitches... Now i can build articulation maps in CWbB for it! I'll try the versillian one too... Cheers!
@@CreativeSauce it was a pain setting 4 tracks for every string, or be held to just shorts and longs. It's an amazing plugin, but the legatos on the long notes must be crafted to be believable. Be well Mike!
I love the BBC Orchestra. My only criticism of it is that some of the sounds can be rather "muddy" in a mix because they have a lot of room ambience that can't be removed. The tuned percussion suffers from this in particular. However, the horns, trombones and celli are magnificent.
I learned how to move the BBCSO key-switches after several messages back and forth with Spitfire. Obvious when know know. Not so much otherwise. Found some of the untuned percussion VERY quiet. And with my diminished hearing, the triangle is just about silent. But managed a workaround.
I just downloaded BBCSOD and haven't had the chance to get stuck in just yet, however, the enormity of Spitfire Labs is amazing as well. So many cool sounds!!! Foghorn is quite Brahms-y...
MIKE!! You do such excellent work here. It’s amazing how much you bring to an immense number of people who are best helped by the level and the pacing at which you do your teaching. THANK YOU SIR! 😎🤚
ive never felt more compelled to need to give my gratitude as much as i feel now. thank you very much mike for this very informational and beneficial video
Great review Mike - like others I hadn't spotted the key switches in BBC SO Discover - probably because they are a bit hidden as you say! My only criticism of the BBC SO (which is great in many ways) is the baked in reverb. I have all the others (Project Sam Free Orchestra is amazing if slightly misnamed) apart from the Orchestools which I keep being tempted by but with Miroslav & Garritan (bought at huge discounts) in my armoury it seems a few Gb too far but I'd say it was essential for anyone without a full orchestra! Nice product placement at the end😉 Seriously, Mike's course is excellent for anyone getting into music production and there were things in there that I didn't know about Cakewalk after many years of use!
Nice! I think the key to making good tracks with these is combining the best elements from them, I like how the strings in the VC Orchestra sound a lot more than in BBCSO
My search has brought me to your page and truly you have given me the answers I was seeking with respect to orchestra plugins. Thank you and Thank you and Thank you so very much indeed.❤🎉
Thankfully I found BBC Symphony a few weeks ago. If anybody knows how to expand the Tubular Bells range there using the "Tune" feature I would be so thankful (I literally need a note to finish my track). It works with semitones, but for some reason it uses decimals, which makes it impossible for me to set it to the tone I need.
@mika L I actually tried many things so I reached out to Spitfire and they told me I can fine tune the plugin from -3 to +3 octaves from the default tuning point, in cents, holding Shift while using this Tune control, as otherwise, this will be in sts. The exact value is not possible to enter. I still have to try this but I think It'll do the job. Thanks for the help tho!
I had Discover for a while. Then they had a sale on Core. Cool. But then they had sale on the full Professional version. Well, who can resist a sale? Right? 😂
Used BBCSO Discover for a while and I really like it, in case I need to address some of the inconvenient, that is this version of BBCSO doesn't have legato articulation and the long artics are just pretty slow, so this may not be fit to pretty fast song while didn't want to use other artics (at least for my prespective)
I've had the Spitfire BBC SO Discovery for a few months now the only complains I have is the bass drum just doesn't deliver the power i'd want and all the strings in the long setting have such a long build up it's really noticeable in faster pieces you feel like you have to slow down to compensate or over layer the midi to tray and get a "natural" note change with starting another long build up.
am i the only one who has a problem with Sine.When i'm using it,it's decreasing the volume whenever i playback until it's gone.If there's someone who knows how to fix it,please let me know 🙏
Have you come across a double bass where a bow can be used? Been looking for one that can give me a nice low bass sound (more like a now on a bass guitar) BBCSO is awesome but realised note velocity cannot be controlled which Studio One could. Speaking of which I got one free with my Presonus Audiobox Go. Had great features but then realised it wouldn't let you use third party VSTs unless you paid for it which was a major disappointment. So Cakewalk it is 😊
What i hate about instruments sellers is that they don't care at all about the indie developers that are struggling to make video games and we often skip meals just to pay for all the software we need and they don't even offer an indie license like most software companies are currently offering to the small guy's! Don't get me wrong i know there is a lot of free vst like the one shown here but they are very limited when you get yourself in a serious composition. These companies are still running on the gold wave but they are soon going to be out of a job with the advance in AI. I will never buy a game or an album done by AI but this is going to be very hard for the millionaires of music when it will hit at their doors, greed always lead to the abyss.
I am a Cakewalk user from ever since the MIDI-only "Twelve-Tone Cakewalk" DOS days. Over the years it grew more powerful, adding Cakewalk ProAudio, then it became Sonar, one of the top DAWS in terms of "bang for the buck". Then it went bankrupt, to the horror of thousands of users. To much surprise and celebration, it was bought out and resurrected by Bandlab as a free DAW. For that price, nothing even comes close, even Reaper, FLStudio, or any of the mega-dollar DAWs like ProTools, CUBASE, Magix, Sadie, and of course anything from Apple.
Thank you for this comment, I was looking for a new DAW, I’ve haven’t composed since Acid belonged to Sony. But I knew there had to be a DAW out there that supported 64bit VST3, and wasn’t a major gouge to your pocket book.
Hi Mike, I'm just looking for a free orchestra, but I don't know if I need a DAW. I'm looking for something in exe format. I had the free Vital Text to Wavetable plugin in exe format, but I couldn't figure out how to enter text for singing. I uninstalled it. I also have Alter / Ego, which does not require DAW, but I can not configure.
Thank You for these amazingly grea t videos and tips! About those keyswitches in BBCSO: When I add them to my tracks with Piano View, they don't usually work (for example, switching from violin long to violin spiccato C0 and C1). I just wonder, what am I missing? I've noticed that many people create separate tracks for different articulations, but is that necessary?
Awesome reviews! It's amazing that these companies are giving away such great quality libraries for free. LABS usually comes very highly recommended, but I found that their library artificial sounding. Especially the strings. It comes with of ton of stuff, which is great, but if I had to rate realism/sound quality only, I would put LABS last on this list.
There were no LABS here, it’s BBCO Discover. As for realism, I would recommend you to go to your local philharmonic and listen how a real orchestra sounds like in real life, not in all those Hollywood soundtracks. You would be surprised.
