These libraries …
Sound great
Seem to be massive
But I can’t justify the price knowing I’ll just tinker with it .
Are any free / usable as part of a rental / monthly subscription. I have the spitfire labs ones already.
Some Labs libraries are really great, I’ve used some Labs strings way more than the coveted Chamber Strings, for example.
Is there a specific sound you’re after? Strings, entire orchestra?
The Spitfire Originals series (€29 a piece) has some nice strings (intimate/epic), for example. The Discover edition of BBC Symphonic Orchestra is free if you take a survey. Or if you can wait for the Spitfire Christmas sale, most libraries are 40% off then. Other sales throughout the year, the summer sale should be just around the corner.
I have the bbc
I think tune wise I liked special requests ‘father ‘ or something like that …
but in general it’s mostly strings that I hear in my head.
The only big subscription service I know is EastWest. This model really doesn’t appeal to me, so I have no idea how good it is. I guess you’d need to bounce your stems to audio otherwise you wouldn’t be able to use your projects once you quit the subscription.
I have a jv1080 with orchestra card, I’m sure I read it was heavily used on goldie’s first album by rob playford … and it’s on Roland cloud. I may turn it on. It’s been sat there years gathering dust.
I‘ve mentioned this here before, but the Orchestral Tools libraries are really nice and you can buy many of their instruments by the instrument.
Time to dig up this thread. Made this short piece today. My beloved Kawai K-200 piano and some string VSTs (Spitfire’s Olafur Arnalds Chamber Evolutions and Felt Instruments Blisko).
Edit: That is actually a sort of companion piece to this slightly more electronic track I made over the weekend. This one’s also got the same VSTs and piano plus a Moog Matriarch arpeggio.
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Yes, I score for picture
I use EastWest and Spitfire
I really like the sound and simplicity of Spitfire BBC, I use the Pro version on a dedicated PC built specifically for it,
Their purpose built plugin interface is beautiful.
EastWest has always been a pain, IMO, but pretty extensive. I use it if I need something a little “brighter” and more aggressive.
But, TBH, I’ve thought about letting my license go, I haven’t used it in at least over a year. Pretty much exclusively Spitfire,
I find myself using dedicated solo articulations less and less with the Spitfire BBC. The lead articulations usually get you where you want to go. I’m not into programming super intricate solo stuff, if it’s violin, viola or cello, I get someone in to track it.
All of that being said, for the last year or so, most the stuff I’ve been working on hasn’t even had a lot of orchestral elements. Especially not traditional stuff. Seems it may have fallen a bit out of fashion.
This is great though, less orchestral programming means more/easier/fun money for me. 
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