Frequently I’m asked by churches and college professors what libraries to get to have a professional sound. I have all but two of the libraries listed below and that’s the SONiVOX Woodwinds and Brass as they’ve just been newly programmed for Kontakt 4.1 and therefore, are back on the radar screen. I personally use the Vienna Instruments Woodwinds I, II, Brass 1 and Brass 2.
ABOUT KONTAKT
Kontakt is a sampler and while you don’t need it to run the programs below, it’s good to have because it will make your life simpler and it comes with a good starting selection of the Vienna Symphonic Library, including harp and celeste.
Kontakt is very efficient and loads programs in your template into RAM. Depending on how dense your orchestral template is and how much you have in your system, this means that you can record an entire work in one pass without having to record strings, then brass, etc.
By staying with an all Kontakt approach, you also lower your learning curve. There’s video instruction for less than $50 to learn Kontakt so in a couple of days you’re working with comprehension.
THE CORE
The core collection is L.A. Scoring Strings, the SONiVOX woods and brass, and TrueStrike Percussion 1. All of these have been used in hundreds of movie, television and game scores.
ADDING TO THE CORE
HollywoodWinds provides runs and other scoring effects that would take too long to execute with any library and not sound nearly as well. It’s recorded with live players.
Symphobia is a program that’s hard to describe, but let’s just say that it’s the Swiss Army Knife of orchestral sample libraries providing both string and brass effects you hear all the time but are not part of any other library.
LASS and Symphobia 1.2 melt together as this video demonstrates.
Wallander Brass isn’t a sample library, it’s a brass library that’s sample modeled. It’s also highly underrated. Listen to the demos by Steve Mazzaro to catch a glimpse of how powerful this library is.
If you’re a church or recording religious music, VOXOS is an SATB choir that can be useful in dozens of ways. The demos speak for themselves.
MIXING
LASS and SONiVOX are recorded in their seated orchestral positions making mixing easy. With Wallander, you can position the brass onstage to blend with LASS and Symphobia, which again simplifies production time.
REVIEWS FROM SONIC CONTROL
VOXOS
L.A. Scoring Strings
LASS: The New Workhorse Library
Symphobia
Quantum Leap Spaces
KONTAKT 64BIT LIBRARY SUGGESTIONS
These hold true for either Mac or PC.
Kontakt 4.1
L.A. Scoring Strings
Symphobia 1.2
SONiVOX Woodwinds
Hollywoodwinds
SONiVOX Brass
Wallander Brass
TrueStrike Percussion 1
VOXOS
Quantum Leap Spaces Convolution Reverb
OTHER OPTIONS?
There are many other options, some more expensive, some less expensive. But every library I’ve listed here:
1. Is Kontakt 4.1 64bit, compatible Mac or PC (except Wallander which has its own player and is also 64bit native Mac or PC);
2. Has strong tech support and customer service from each of the above companies;
3. Has a solid track record in film/TV/game production;
4. Has virtually no system integration issues on either Mac or PC platforms;
5. Has been reviewed highly by both customers and reviewers alike and a number have won awards.
