Cinematic/orchestral instument suggetion

[flagos]

Hi! Any suggestion for a good instrument/plug in/package for cinematic/orchestral sounds?

Thanks!

[tavasti]

What are you limitations? How much you are willing to pay, and can it be some windows-plugin you run with wine?

[j_e_f_f_g]

The first, most important question is "What format are you looking for? Sfz? Kontakt? sf2? VST? LV2?". And the software you plan to use for composing will affect your choices, since few apps support all those choices.

[flagos]

Thanks for the answers! Currently my setup is very modest. Ubuntu studio and Ardour5. Sometimes I use QSynth, Yoshimi and Hydrogen. In the past I tried Wine but I couldn't make it run in an acceptable way.

[Michael Willis]

A great place to start would be @j_e_f_f_g's No Budget Orchestra Plugins. They're easy to use, cover a wide gamut of instruments and articulations, and don't have the issues of compatibility or licensing that you'll find in a lot of the other options.

[j_e_f_f_g]

If you're not using WINE, then this eliminates all commercial products. Those are all either kontakt format libraries, or Windows format VSTs. Both must be hosted by Windows software (which means WINE on linux).

There are currently 4 complete orchestras in a format that can be used by linux apps like ardour, qtractor, muse, etc. The good news is that all are free, so you can try them all. They are:

1) SonatIna
2) Versilian Studios Community Orchestra (VSCO)
3) No Budget Orchestra (NBO)
4) Virtual Playing Orchestra (VPO)

All 4 are available in sfz format. These require you to load the sections of the orchestra (violins, trumpets, flutes, etc) into an sfz player such as LinuxSampler or sfizz, and then pull in that player as a plugin in ardour. It's a bit clunky and cumbersome a workflow, but it works.

NBO (disclaimer: I'm the guy who makes it) also comes in another format -- a collection of linux plugins (LV2). They don't require a separate player. Each orchestra section appears in Ardour's menu of plugins, so you can easily add them to tracks, route them and control them individually in ardour, add individual effects to them, etc. This version of NBO also has additional features over the sfz version, such as subsections (french horns I and II, violins I and II, etc). It greatly improves the workflow.

You can download the sfz versions of Sonatina and NBO from http://www.bandshed.net/sounds/sfz/ . Search google for 2 and 4 download links.

For NBO's plugin version, go to https://sourceforge.net/projects/nbo-plugins/files/ and follow the instructions there to install. Actually not only is the complete orchestra available, lots of other instrument collections are available such as acoustic and electric pianos, drumkits, electric basses, harpsichord, etc. There are also solo orchestra instruments such as solo violin, solo flute, etc. The No Budget collection is a work in progress and eventually will provide you with all the General MIDI instruments. So, you can get a substantial collection of instruments just from this set.

Sonatina is the oldest library, although a newer version (which I can't seem to find a download link for) is supposed to be freely available. The link above is for the older version.

Versilian and No Budget are more recent.

Virtual Playing Orchestra isn't really a unique orchestra. It's made up of sounds from the preceding three, with slightly altered settings for the sfz player.

[flagos]

Ok jeffg! Thanks very much for the delailed info! I'll be trying some of these packages in the next days.

Regards!

[d.healey]

If you're not using WINE, then this eliminates all commercial products.

https://librewave.com/