Vienna Symphonic Library - opinions and advice

[Traver]

Hey,

 

I've been looking to expand on my sythn selection (I only have the two that come with Cubase Studio 4, and I find them pretty lacking), in particular my selection of orchestral instruments.

After some looking, I'm especially intrigued by the Vienna Symphonic Library, which looks like it's one of the best of its kind.

So my questions are:

 

1. If you have tried it, would you recommend getting it?

2. Does it run on vista?

3. Does it work with Cubase Studio 4 (kind of a no-brainer, but I want to make sure)

 

Thanks in advance.

[soundwave106]

On the basis of the two collections that I had (the VSL instruments that came with Kontakt 3, and the EastWest symphonic instruments that came with Colossus), I went with the EastWest collection (Symphonic Gold). I felt that the EastWest instruments were a bit more expressive overall, and had a bigger sound that I was wanting.

 

I'm pretty happy with Symphonic Gold (though I haven't had it for that long).

 

Some say that the Vienna solo instruments sound more realistic, and that is probably true. But personally I weigh a bit more towards expressiveness. They are both quite good from what I can tell. The really high end VSL stuff does seem to have more articulations from what I can tell, but I can't say for sure, having neither EWQL Platinum, nor any Vienna package other than what is essentially a demo.

 

I would see no reason why either would fail using Vista or Cubase, they both are Kontakt based.

[P321]

1) It depends what option you're looking at. Some are extremely expensive, and will likely be overkill to all but those doing classical orchestration. If you're just looking for some very nice orchestral instruments in the background of a song then the smaller packages would probably suffice.

 

2) The Kontakt based versions should. I don't know about their own custom playback engines though.. Check their websites for that info.

 

3) As long as they support the VST standard there should be no problems.

 

As for EWQL Vs VSL, they're both good. VSL is deliberately recorded "dry" so that you can add your own reverb or convolution impulses and place the sounds in whatever space you want. EWQL took the different approach of including the original reverb ambience of a concert hall in their samples, which means they're more immediate, but perhaps less flexible depending on what you're looking to do with the samples.

[MartinHines]

The Vienna Symphonic Library is really a company and "Vienna Instruments" are really a product line.

 

http://www.ilio.com/vienna/instruments_index.html

 

The "starter" package for the Vienna Instruments is the "Vienna Special Edition":

http://www.ilio.com/vienna/special.html

 

At the other end is the "Vienna Super Package" which is comprised of 18 different Vienna Instrument products, and the "whole ball of wax" version will cost over $18,000 (plus the computers to run them on).

 

All of the Vienna Instruments are 24-bit libraries (as are EastWest's Symphonic Orchestra Platinum and Platinum XP Pro).

 

I have tried the older versions of the VSL products (and East West's Symphonic Orchestra) and both are very nice.

 

The real question is how much money do you want to spend, and how detailed of an orchestra do you need?

[Traver]

I'm looking for something in the pricerange of about 500 USD max, so the Vienna Special Edition is in that range.

 

I'd be using them to create darkwave/neoclassical, so that means I'd be making whole songs with nothing but classical orchestration.

 

The EastWest Symphonic Gold package looks really good as well. I don't think I'd be too bothered about the natural reverb, since I often add reverb to almost everything myself, anyway. Plus the EastWest is a lot cheaper.

 

Thanks for the great answers so far

[zzzxtreme]

I use Garritan Personal Orchestra

I love its violin simulation or articulation or watever u call it (not just samples)