Are there good freeware Orchestral Strings VST plugins out there?

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Ukho
Posts: 68
Joined: 30 Jun 2021

29 Nov 2021

Hi! :)

As I am on a very tight budget, are there good freeware Orchestral Strings VST plugins out there?

If so, which one do you recommend?

Thanks! Chris
"Music is a place to take refuge. It's a sanctuary from mediocrity and boredom. It's innocent and it's a place you can lose yourself in thoughts, memories and intricacies."

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miscend
Posts: 1955
Joined: 09 Feb 2015

29 Nov 2021

There are some decent free libraries like the BBC one. It's free if you fill out a survey.

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/ ... -discover/

And Spitfire Labs

https://labs.spitfireaudio.com/

But for most others you need Kontakt.

https://projectsam.com/libraries/the-free-orchestra/

https://alpineproject.wixsite.com/main

Ukho
Posts: 68
Joined: 30 Jun 2021

29 Nov 2021

Thanks, gonna check it out immediately.
Is Kontakt easy to install into Reason?
"Music is a place to take refuge. It's a sanctuary from mediocrity and boredom. It's innocent and it's a place you can lose yourself in thoughts, memories and intricacies."

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jam-s
Posts: 3035
Joined: 17 Apr 2015
Location: Aachen, Germany
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29 Nov 2021

Kontakt works quite well as a VSTi in Reason. But depending on the kind of orchestral library you fancy it might be a problem that Reason does not offer a way to use it multitimbrally:
That is instead of having a single instance with multiple midi tracks controlling different instruments in the Kontakt multi you'll have to use multiple instances with single instruments in each.
If the orchestral library makes heavy use of Kontakt multis (e.g. for articulations) this can be quite a drag.

Ukho
Posts: 68
Joined: 30 Jun 2021

29 Nov 2021

ah, ok. Understood.
"Music is a place to take refuge. It's a sanctuary from mediocrity and boredom. It's innocent and it's a place you can lose yourself in thoughts, memories and intricacies."


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Benedict
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Posts: 2747
Joined: 16 Jan 2015
Location: Gold Coast, Australia
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29 Nov 2021

As pointed out Spitfire will gift you BBCSO Discovery and LABs. With care, they are very useful.

This score was 100% Discovery (and my first use of it):


This one is a couple of LABs:


Seeing you appear to be a Reson owner, don't forget that you have Orkester which is actually a really good collection of instruments and sections. They do see very dry and therefore thin and ikky until you remember that these are all close-mic'd and separated. Pop them together into a Bus with a "room" that suits the material and they can really shine as well as anything else. if you want that Action Strings thing, add in an ARP Player. The pull-away strings starting around 1:15 were done that way:


Combining samples with well-designed synth sounds can really help bulk up the sound:


Stick with it, it is huge subject and a long road,

:-)
Benedict Roff-Marsh
Completely burned and gone

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