Which All-In-One Orchestral Library is BEST for Beginners? Tier List 

Thank you! It's motivating to get such amazing feedback on this marathon :)

thank you!

Thank you! Super curious, too.

THIS! I so agree! I would also suggest to rank Orchestra Complete 2 higher because the unique engine makes beginners feel powerful. That engine makes you want get the MIDI and try to dissect/replicate the complex articulations it does on the composition.

VSL rules. Sounds are the ‘realest’ to me. Love my VSL!

Thanks! I didn't include Cinematic Studio Series on purpose, because it is not an all-in-one orchestra. They have dedicated products for strings (CSS), brass (CSB) and woodwinds (CSW) and a piano, but no percussion. The idea of this video was to list those libraries, that are one product which contains the entire orchestra.

Thanks, glad to hear it was useful :) Have fun trying out Iconica Sketch, I don't have experience with it!

Thanks for your feedback, Brent! Glad you like the video :) I had to go for the regular prices for comparison's sake. Can't anticipate what developers will come up this Black Friday (or next summer, or BF 2023). The video would become outdated faster than I could say "Vienna Symphonic Library Synchron Prime Edition".

Ark is fantastic indeed. For me not perfect as a first library when you have nothing else and want to cover as much ground as possible. But as an addition to power up your orchestra with organic epicness? Hell, yeah!

I have Nucleus Lite and and Essentials 1 and I have to say, the cover a crazy spectrum, you can really do almost anything, just the separated strings are missing a bit for me. Considering getting Aeria Lite still. Then add all the good freebies like BBC discovery, SAM FreeOrchestra 1+2, Spitefire Labs etc and you have an insane range of HQ instruments and sounds to make incredible orchestral (epic) music for a total of 250-350 dollars.

@@amarug Full nucleus might be the best value if you want full sections. You get EVERYTHING in it, plus you get solos which I use constantly

@@amarug Also you can upgrade to full nucleus for a discounted price if you have lite, that's how I got it actually

@@AndrewPRoberts thanks for the info! very tempting!

The best library I have ever purchased. I have the Pro one now, but having Core in my smaller internal SSD always available is a no-brainer. And the quality is top-notch!

@@paopis Love the modularity!

I'll echo this sentiment. I have Miroslav, got it in the Group Buy last year. Loaded it once and played around with it, but IKM have made it unusable with the workflow and dated (and bloated) software. I would re-sell it, if I could.

This! I dare to say sound-wise, is not even that far from the rest. It is the UI and the workflow that kills it.

What's so bad about the workflow? Curious because i own it, just never bothered to install it so far.

@@beatz04 outdated GUI mostly. Sound-wise is pretty competitive even though is not a modern library, but for the price you can get it in deals, it might be a great option.

Yeah I agree. I think it was unfair to knock it down because of its file size and that it uses ilok. Sure ilok is annoying but you get such amazing value for your money with the subscription. I got one year for $60 with the student discount and blackfriday sale and you get access to all their other products too. That's insane. I generally hate subscriptions but in this case it's worth it especially for a beginner. Subscribe for a year or two, and during that time while you're learning save up to outright buy your favourite libraries.

You missed the part that this was ranking for BEGINNER composers. East West stuff is not for beginners in any way, until you want them to run away and never compose anything, of cause. It’s too overwhelming for beginners. And yes, my whole PC has only 1TB of space, and it’s really common thing for most people. So no surprise it’s not an S-tier.

Need. Moar. LIbraries. :)

Then you might be interested in this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1zzyhKblFTc.html. It seems that Miroslav 2 is now being given away for free.

You could’ve just buy Miroslav 2 CE edition... which is way cheaper, especially on discounts. I remember once it was even less than 50$.

Haha good luck finding the best candy for you! Hope i was able to help sort it out a bit more clearly.

@@KevinKuschel i love Albion one but maybe it's just the demo piece they use but i can't find nucleus ? But i was quite partial to symphonic motions. I'm not a pro and I'm not film scoring but I've this crazy idea to put orchestral music behind the 70s heavy rock genre and I'm quite serious, my mind goes there with some pieces but I'm not sure if there is a specific piece on spitfire that would suit a hint of heavy rock .. I'm talking genesis, deep purple, led zep, whitesnake and a few others. Just want to recreate that fab decade with orchestral behind it all. Don't think such a genre exists ? but I'm doing my own thing :) thanks for the video

Agreed, I think the more you advance you start filling in specific needs as you go. I love layering close and dry libraries with roomier ones!

@@PeterTMusic Facts!

Yeah its definitely subjective, i have both but never use nucleus at all anymore because bbcso sounds so much better to me

Same rating I think, because you'll have to compare it to the other libraries' sales prices. Looks like you are already very well equipped with All in One orchestras. Maybe makes sense to branch out into more specific needs (e.g. dedicated section libraries, or the Ark series)

Part of the reason Discover is ranked so high is because it’s completely free and it can seamlessly convert all projects to Core or Pro if you choose to upgrade later.

Yeah, not to mention that for 150$ you’ll get all the sections with almost every orchestral instrument, and lots of them would also have solo mode, which is insane. Basically, it’s like Nexus in terms of options, but with poorer sound quality and way more cheaper.

I think Audio Imperia are the best for beginning composers. Now only do they cover what you need, but their sales and crossgrade prices are excellent. I've also found their customer support to be top tier.

As long as the "award-winning standalone plugin" hosting the instrument and articulation controls is neither multitimbral nor capable of purging samples that are not in use, I will refrain from buying Spitfire Audio products. Given that there are differences in track delays to take care of, you have to have single tracks for each articulation. This is not beginner friendly, and you need a big CPU with even bigger RAM to handle this. There is a reason why the trusty Albion 1 is still on Kontakt. The BBCSO Discover is too good to be true (even with the %§//&% player) but you have to keep in mind that there is only one velocity layer for everything (even BBCSO Core has "up to 3" only). The S-tier pick depends on the genre of music, imho. There is no "best" beginner's library, there is only something that will work for the individual. And since (to my knowledge) VSL is the only company that lets you try before you buy (30 day demo!) I would recommend to start here. Even if you don't buy it, you'll get a grasp of how a good interface should look like and how a professional library can sound on your machine.

Very good summary! Besides EastWest and Orchestratools, I always loved the simplicity and sound of the Project Sam VSTs. They sound great out of the box and their multis are extremely inspiring to me.

@@spinelldete Core IS now capable of purging unused articulations. It was like that when I bought it last August. I just found out how to do it recently, and took out all the articulations that my current project wasn't using. It turned a 6.18GB project into a 5.2GB project.

Thanks! Totally valid point. To me, I would encourage a beginner to get an All-in-One library that offers individual patches, because they might end up buy a second All-in-One library afterwards, when they require section control. Before then jumping into individual section libraries. Some people can probably skip the second step and jump directly from ensemble-all-in-one library to the dedicated section libraries (a strings library, a brass library, a percussion library etc). But I think they lack some sketching tools in that case. Again, totally subjective, but if I had the choice between an all-in-one orchestra that has both individual patches + summary patches compared to an all-in-one orchestra that has only summary patches, for the same price, I would choose the more flexible one. Again, totally depends on the composer, their workflow, the genre they write, and their taste on which library sounds best to them.

@@KevinKuschel Really think the BBCSO Freebee is a no brainer. I am also not a pro and yes there are limitations but if you come from being a keyboardist that want to dabble and learn there is no idea in putting 500 bucks into the first couple of years, and the quality in the free version is already lightyears better than what you find in an avg. Hardware keyboard, even compared to what is available of 3'rd party sample expansions to eg. top workstations like the Korg Kronos. And really even you are a natural self learner, if your not already studying composition most users will find it overwhelming to have a full orchestral tool available with all its articulations and microphone choices. EW composer cloud would also be a good start as you get really much for your money and how many of us don't already have 2-3 streaming services running on a monthly basis. cut one of them and you have access to like 95% of all their products that would cost thousends of dollars if you had to own them all, and you can disable your sub at any time. If your already a Pro I don't like the subscription type as it will most likely come to some of the products going unavailable at some point in time and then you suddenly can't access your old projects just to do some kind of remix or use it as part of a new project. I currently have a NI Komplete Select 13 which I plan to upgrade when there is a ver 14 rebate option as you said here the new factory library is actually really descent where you in earlier versions had to go CE version to get some descent orchestral libraries or buy them seperate. Imo there is really much usable for any types of musical genre in the new Complete 14 Ultimate package On that matter the Albion One library, even it still sounds nice, it is getting a little old with only 3 layers of expression in the sounds. I still like the new Spitfire engine even it do need more cpu an ram the more instruments you load, but It still amazes me that Kontakt after all these years isn't better at streaming samples as it is, no matter if your using a spinner or the fastest gen 4 nvme ssd. The Korg Kronos is nearly 15 years old and is doing a better job in streaming with a dual core 2010 Intel atom processor and a sata SSD than Kontakt on a 2022 mid -high end PC.

Have you set your Nucleus instruments from 125ms to 250ms on the sample start knob? Improves the legatos.

@@KevinKuschel Yes, I tried it first at 125ms and then to 250ms. I find Areia to have a smoother legato tradition when using it with Nucleus But, it's been some time now since I've messed with Nucleus so I'll try it again since I was just learning the ins and outs of the library at the time. Would overlapping the notes slightly help?

Hey, check my video on The Score, I touch on that topic a bit there. They are great for creating good-sounding results and finding inspiration. They are also very useful to learn from the presets that the developers put together, what instruments to blend and how they are arranged. At least to some basic extent that can be helpful for a beginner. But you won't write full orchestral pieces with them.

Most of beginner composers don’t have a free terabyte space for it. And also that much options are overwhelming for beginner.

@@user-vy9ll3jl3v Exactly, beginners can download the patches individually, dont need 1 TB to download them all together. Also, if you just get each basic instrument of the orchestra KS patch you're ready to go in 20 minutes with 200 GB max.

Hey Mark, don't know much about it, don't know anyone who uses it. Personally, I am not impressed by the sound and it seems pretty old. Also, I don't see any upgrade path to dedicated libraries from the same developer. So, I am not sure it makes for the best ecosystem as a beginner All-In-One orchestra in 2022.

GPO is very dated and not worth it today. It integrates nicely with Finale though. But other than that, you're better off with free libraries especially for strings. The harpsichord, pianos, and harp are decent from GPO but check out check out BBCSO Discover and the free instruments from Orchestral Tools Sine Factory, especially the Helix strings. And for 2€ the Organic Samples Majestic Horn from Orchestral Tools is a steal.

Same rank.

Totally agree! Amadeus is bang for a buck considering how many solo and ensemble sections it offers plus so many articulations! BBC Discover is not even near

Note Performer is so different and unique in its use case that I wouldn't compare it to sample player based libraries, since it's used with notation software. For composers who use notation software, Note Performer is a great upgrade compared to the standard sounds included in these notation programs. Although I heard that Musescore is catching up with its Muse Sounds.

If you can get it that low (and the others not!), the sound suits your style, and you don't mind about the 1 mic mix only, it's a good option.

Yeah, and Nucleus was on sale for 200$ in the Native Instruments sale until a few days ago. Hard to keep up with those, that's why I sticked to the regular prices. If I compared sales prices of the past, the video would become outdated as soon as one of the devs makes a better promotion than what I state in the video. Hope you still enjoyed it. Brace yourself for Black Friday 2022! Coming soon in your area.

@@KevinKuschel Except OPUS is always 60% off. The sale never ends, lol.

They’re on par, but BBCSO is more useful in classical orchestral music and Nucleus is better for modern/hyped orchestral imo.

S-tier for beginners on a small budget who can’t afford Nucleus full or want to try out orchestral composing first.

Thanks for sharing this part of your composer journey! The issues and challenges you wrote about couldn't be more real (especially the RAM upgrade, and then finding out it wasn't enough... same with storage). As a beginner, it's important to focus on the basics and then gradually expand as you improve. That's why I recommend to start with all-in-one orchestral libraries and not get those dedicated section libraries too quickly. With Nucleus, I like that there is a Basic and an Advanced tab in the user interface. You CAN dabble with some settings, but you don't have to if all of this is still overwhelming to you. This level of convenience is crucial for a good beginner library imo.

something happened. I had HO for over 10 years without installing it on the machine. actually i forgot about it. The HO play version felt so horrible to use. but then I bought opus Edition and HO got a new life. I don't know what happened, but the whole library feels like new and is a pleasure to use. It is now in my new template as the main library.

@@jussivalter New Opus engine is really good and always upgrading sounds in background.

Read that again

​@@losangulos I did and don't see anything wrong with my comment. Had to remember what the hell I was talking about though since it's been months lmao