Comparing Orchestral Sample Libraries | Part One (Classical Era)

[@DJKLProductions]

As someone who owns the Spitfire Audio Symphony Orchestra, the entire Berlin Series from Orchestral Tools, as well as a couple of the Synchron Libraries (and also VI Series with MIR Pro 3D), I have to say that I like the latter two the best. I've never really got on with Spitfire Audio, except as a source for layering libraries, LOL! VSL's qualities lie in the clarity of the sound, as the spatial sound of the Synchron Stage is crystal clear (with the VI Series it's obviously down to the dryness of the samples, although how transparent the sound is also depends on the room you place them in when using convolution reverb). VSL's libraries always sound like typical recordings of classical music. Orchestral Tools, on the other hand, sounds like Hollywood, but from before the Hans Zimmer era, resp. old school (not meant negatively, but rather positively). You could also describe the characteristics as something between classical and "epic" sound. Both VSL's libraries and the Berlin Series from Orchestral Tools are characterised by an incredible variety of articulations and variations, which makes them very flexible! So, now to Spitfire Audio: let's start with the Symphonic Orchestra. This is also characterised by a good range of articulations, although not as many as the others, but for my taste the reverb of the room is too much (AIR Lyndhurst Studios). Even from the spot microphones there's so much wetness on it that it's unbelievable. Especially when you bring up the whole orchestra, the reverb piles up so much that there's a big risk of getting muddy. But that's a strength for layering! I don't have much experience with the BBC Orchestra, but I have the impression that the brass has too little power. It doesn't feel like it goes beyond mezzoforte (forte at best). This seems to be a general weakness of newer SA libraries, that the brass "runs out of steam". Perhaps you can comment on this. But now a few words about your video and the resulting series: I think the concept is very good! It's much better than many other "library KZbinrs" who just improvise or who clearly lack MIDI programming/production skills. Of course, what plays into your hands is that you're using masterfully orchestrated works, and we know that good orchestration is half the battle. That's the best way to compare libraries! Thank you for your work!

[@guyshard]

I started with SA but rapidly invested in OT and VSL: "Beauty is in the ear of the Beholder" :)

[@N-JKoordt]

Good work - and a lot of it 🙂 The most convincing was the VSL Synchron Series, but I really enjoy the Spitfire sound - and of them, the BBCSO was more realistic. They all have their strengths and weaknesses - only one was close to sounding like a real orchestra all the way through.

[@michaelrasbury]

Noteperformer is amazing particularly with its ability to replicate many string section articulations. I’ve done some similar professional work to this where I had to “compete” with the composer’s Noteperformer mockup. Section strings were definitely the biggest challenge.

[@alexpapas99]

That is a BRILLIANT series. Brilliant idea! You're doing WORK❤

[@lishuixuan0130]

VSL sounds great! Super realistic

[@nader5235]

spitfire Symphony Orchestra

[@charlesyateschalfant]

Bottom Line = If you have the DAW skills, ALL are capable of excellent results. Especially for Film/Cinematic music. However, a full library like BBCSO Pro and VSL Synchron, the results can be better due to extensive articulations.

[@themysteriousspeeddemon]

I am very curious on what these orchestra vsts would be like for film scores from the likes of Elmer Bernstein, Alan Silvestri, and Danny Elfman. before the whole idea of the "EPIC" music became a thing.

[@themysteriousspeeddemon]

P.S I want to invest in on of them, I want to have a VST that sounds like a score you would hear from an 80s movie, I mean from movies like Robocop, Ghostbusters, Stripes, and Trading Places films that have these raw sounding recordings, that sound natural.

[@vhego]

Synchron sounded like a modern recording from a professional orchestra. BBCSO sounded like the karajan’s berliner era ahahah

[@vhego]

But with less punch in the later part

[@JudgeFredd]

Great much appreciated video !

[@cubaseman1487]

Thnks for this video. For me Spitfire Symphony Orchestra 2024 Best. I love use with Kontakt 7. And I love new GUI. Sound is Amazing.. Best Regards

[@横澤暁生]

That was very interesting! I thought the two OT libraries sounded particularly good, but I thought they were too clean and didn't feel like ‘live instrument sounds’. The Spitfire sounds, especially the BBCSO, were too realistic and kind of captured the nasty bits of live instruments. I have a BBSCO pro and it sounds great, so I guess it's all about use in the end, but I'm getting tired of it taking too long for adjusting and mixing, so I'll probably buy one of the OT products when I get the chance. Thanks for the great comparison video! P.S. If you're going to use it for writing a classical music or submitting university assignments like I do, I'd recommend the BBCSO or SSO. The SSO in particular has a lot of articulations and my friends love it.

[@Noctarilfate]

Thanks so much for this helpful comparison Alex! In my opinion, VSL's full Synchron range sounds the best here until we get to the fast portion of this piece in the 2nd half. There, when the tempo increases, it starts to sound synthy to me. Honestly though, they all sounded pretty good! I wouldn't say that there's any obvious loser far below the others.

[@paolotramannoni7445]

Great comparison (with the greatest music!). While all have a very good sound, the VSL and OT perform much better in quick accents and agile groups. Just listen from bar 15 - SA libraries play weak accents, and make the fast notes after them disappear. As for VSL and OT, the difference between the reduced and the full editions is very evident, in particular with the faster string passage at the end of the excerpt. Here, Duality Strings is probably unrivaled.

[@hittjett]

Synchron really did shine here overall, but this is Mozart. These samples seem best suited to that sound. I was also pretty taken with BBCSO, except for the brass, which is my least favorite part of that library. The OT Mains sounded pretty good overall, but I don't think it was the winner. If you manage to do more of these in different styles, that will be very telling.

[@AlexHeppelmann]

I probably agree with your assessment overall with this one. Any excerpt that you'd like me to test next?

[@hittjett]

@@AlexHeppelmann I am not sure that specific examples would be necessary because they would be very personal choices. I would choose things that I knew really well and knew exactly what they should sound like, and I would choose things that tax the libraries in different ways. Here are a few examples: Debussy La Mer Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2 Holst, Mars the Bringer of War These could easily be replaced by any number of pieces.

[@AlexHeppelmann]

@@hittjett That's funny that you mentioned these pieces, I had already planned a Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and was considering the Holst!

[@PerchHunter]

@@AlexHeppelmann If i may would be great to hear also Sergei Prokofiev - Dance of the Knights i think it will be perfect test especially for strings

[@hittjett]

I don't envy your task. It is a tall order, but the result of such an exercise tells one an immense amount about these libraries. I find that NPPE tells me very similar things without nearly so much effort. I don't dabble in it a lot, but I find myself using BBCSO with OT brass most of the time. Somehow, SSO never quite pulls it off. It lacks definition (possibly good for Debussy). But I would be very keen to see if you find anything that can pull off that Rachmaninov.

[@lishuixuan0130]

I love your demonstration! But as someone who has listened to Don Giovanni many times, should the fifth bar be Staccato?

[@winknotes]

That was really interesting. There were certainly aspects of each library that shined brighter in different parts of the music. But overall I'd call it a toss-up between full VSL Synchron and full OT libraries. Where those fell a little short were the exposed trumpet notes toward the beginning of the faster section. I actually thought Synchron Prime sounded best in that section. In fact it was surprising how good Synchron Prime sounded in general. I also like the sound of BBCSO especially the strings. I'm wondering if the conclusion of all your demos will be use a little bit of each library based on the style of music of course.

[@AlexHeppelmann]

Ultimately a blend of several different libraries might be best. My Jurassic Park mockups on my Patreon page use a combination of VSL and OT, but it really depends on the specific task.

[@winknotes]

@@AlexHeppelmann This is a great and fair way to evaluate what those situations are though and which libraries favor certain styles best. Thank you for putting this out.

[@JohnNotstamos]

I'm not a trained musician, just a guy who goes off of sound so keep that in mind when I say my opinions Orchestral Tools Berlin has really good brass, but Orchestral Tools Berlin Orchestra has good strings. For me, a guy who can't buy every single one, I think I'll avoid VSL Synchron + Prime, has that vst strangeness that reminds me of 90s daw orchestrations . Since I wanna do something similar to Japanese anime, I'll keep an eye on the OT. BBCSO is great, but I'm not rich so this is both compare and contrast alongside budgeting Edit Honestly re-listening, OTB Orchestra has setbacks in how it's volume flows with its strings 8:56 vs OT Berlin Series 16:32 that I'd actually go focus fully on OTB and not OTBO. Will probably grab a different soloist violin VST like Bohemian Violin to really get good contrast

[@magnussvahn2433]

How about an excerpt from Lutosławski's Symphonic Variations? It features both chamber-style passages and contrasting full orchestra sections, along with some interesting combinations of sounds.

[@AlexHeppelmann]

Thanks for the suggestion!

[@sekritskworl-sekrit_studios]

Was this "Scanned" into Dorico by chance? Not judging... I'm just new to this and wondering if Dorico allows scanning.

[@brentmarquez9057]

Thanks for the overview. I'm just starting to get into all of this stuff and am a little overwhelmed with the options. For example, is noteperformer a library that you use with a notation software like Sibelius/Finale only? Are all of these libraries compatible with notation software or do you need to use a DAW program like Logic Pro/Reaper etc.? Also, I keep hearing about Kontakt and these libraries being used with it somehow, but I'm confused - is Kontakt some kind of supplementary plugin/tool, another library, do we need it for orchestral composition along with a library like BBCSO etc.?

[@AlexHeppelmann]

It can definitely be confusing. Noteperformer is designed for notation software only (Dorico, Sibelius, Finale). That's what I'm showing in this video near the beginning. Noteperformer also separately sells a bunch of playback engines (NPPE) that integrate commercial sample libraries into the notation software, so that if you own VSL Synchron libraries, or BBCSO for instance, it's relatively easy to use in your notation software. Without the NNPEs, it's still possible to set up VSTs into Dorico (not sure about the others), but it's not so easy. I'd check out the Noteperformer website if you're interested. And Kontakt is a sample player that hosts a lot of libraries (Cinematic Studio Series, Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra, etc...). Most of the big commercial libraries that use Kontakt work with the free version of the player. BBCSO, and many other libraries use their own sample plugin host software, so no need to worry about Kontakt. Hope that helps!

[@jsfotografie]

VSL Synchron Series for me thx for the great work :)

[@AlexHeppelmann]

You're welcome!

[@iancurrie3763]

Note Performer is always a great place to start from. I am a VSL fan but don't like the sound of their strings (as an avid classical listener - both recorded performances and live I just don't think they sound real). I prefer the OT sound but working with Berlin Strings is frustrating. I did very much like the Spitfire mockups. I have these libraries but never use them due to inconsistencies & frustrations but the only library you called out in terms of that is the Berlin series.

[@AlexHeppelmann]

Yeah, NP sounds pretty darn good for what it is. I haven't used these Spitfire libraries quite as much as Berlin or VSL, but I did notice a lot of weird programming and intonation issues with SSO.

[@winknotes]

I like BBCSO too but never used it because it was frustrating to work with until I started using it with the NotePerformer playback engine. That was magic!

[@VivaswanSriHarsha]

Synchron Prime edition just good. At places sounded like a music software’s playing but the shorts had clarity. The ending sounded simple, not as if it’s meant. Berlin Orchestra was ok. It had this classical feel but it sounded like as if it’s lacking expression & found sudden dynamics at places May be I am wrong but that’s how I felt. The ending was not the best. BBC SO was extremely lively to my ears. There’s a little clarity to the places where Winds were suppose to be heard as the way they should be heard. It has a lot of expression & the modern age feel. The ending was just fine. Not the best & not bad at all. But the overall sound has this true Symphonic feel. Now, the Spitfire SO’s beginning sounded like as if Karajan or Abbado was conducting the piece. It took good but the winds sounded not really good. At times there was this synthetic feel. But the overall sound to me sounded much bigger than the BBC SO. As a matter of fact, it sounded bigger than all & are you you haven’t had the surround mics on when playing? It had that feel completely thruout. I think the Berlin Series sounded weak to my ears, of all. Although there were parts where the strings sounded truly real, followed by the bars where the winds play the lead. The ending sucked (sorry) to my ears. The Synchron series, the beginning I felt the attack was a little slow, compared to the rest. But the overall piece has more definition than the rest. But the strings from 19:52 sounded like chamber-ish & it had this rough tone that makes it sound synthetic a little but from 20:04 it sounded really good. I think the best of all to me, with perfect ending. Had a lot of clarity as if I am hearing the original recording. Thanks a lot for making this Alex. Vivasswan Sriharsha

[@AlexHeppelmann]

Thanks for taking the time to share such detailed thoughts on each version!

[@eriong.7446]

I don’t know why, but vsl sounds synthy to me, no matter what mockup I’m listening to. I’ve tried a few of them with their demo licenses and I really wanted to like them because they are very detailed, very easy to program and vsl is the most consumer friendly company in this business, but they just have a synthy quality to my ears. (I LOVE, love, just love their pianos though).

[@iancurrie3763]

Totally agree. I LOVE the Synchron Player and am a big supporter of VSL but man the violins sound HARD and SYNTHY in the higher registers. Hard to get anything 'beautiful' out of them.

[@tylerpedraja6049]

Sounds good! I've good a Mozart mockup on my channel using samplemodeling strings. Underrated library!

[@AlexHeppelmann]

Thanks! Samplemodeling are difficult to use, yeah?

[@tylerpedraja6049]

@@AlexHeppelmann they are definitely more involved than other libraries, but you can use expression maps to handle many of the common articulations: soft attack, hard attack, etc. You don’t have to do much manual twiddling with the controllers if you set it up this away