Best instrument for sampled strings and brass

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pharohoknaughty
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2015/11/27 11:59:53 (permalink)

Best instrument for sampled strings and brass

I am re-installing and upgrading right now, so it is a good time to figure out what works well in Sonar, and what sounds good, and is reasonable in price for strings and brass. Plus Black Friday sales abound.
 
I really don't need anything more than authentic sounding strings and brass, which I use for sprucing up my R&B and Rock tunes.
 
Imagine the bridge on My Girl or the fills on Papa Was A Rolling Stone. The stings are very full sounding, and have a quick attack to support a fast moving melody. This is more or less what I am looking for.
 
I have the full Platinum license but I am still running X3 Pro.  I quit installing Dim Pro a couple years ago because it seemed to make my projects unstable and it did not seem to have samples I liked. But I do have Dim Pro available.
 
Now Cakewalk is selling Rapture Pro, and I suspect that in time Dim Pro will eventually be abandoned in favor of Rapture Pro. It also appears that even though the Rapture Pro has all of Dim Pro inside of it, that a project using Dim Pro will not easily convert to Rapture Pro (at least that's what I gather reading forum posts).
 
Native Instruments is a vendor I have not dealt with in 20 years, so I don't have a good read on the zen of Native Instruments. But they have Komplete Player for free and then I could license their Session Strings.
 
I really hate to install a bunch of software I don't use.  The Windows Registry suffers. I prefer a stripped down computer, so trying a bunch of free demos puts me off.
 
So does anyone have advise on what to do? Give Dim Pro another chance, upgrade to Rapture Pro, or go to Native instruments, or some other approach?
 
Thanks
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
#1

4 Replies Related Threads
    eph221
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    Re: Best instrument for sampled strings and brass 2015/11/27 14:37:52 (permalink)
    Greetings Pharo,
     
    The alto/tenor (combo) sax patch on dim pro is decent, but by far the most awesome sax sound (that I've found) is the Kontakt factory instrument sax.  It's so easy to get mind bogglingly great realistic solos out of it.
     
    Session strings is great as well.  the BEST strings I've found so far are EW/QL Hollywood Strings (or Orchestra).  EW/QL has a lot of articulations, but I'm kind of a slug on valium with respect to midi customization.
     
    Cheers!
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    eph221
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    Re: Best instrument for sampled strings and brass 2015/11/27 14:43:07 (permalink)
    I should say those recommendations are for reasonably priced software.  I'd go with Kontakt or Komplete if I were you but at $59 with the gobble promotion why not pick up rapture pro?  It's kind of a no brainer.
    #3
    pharohoknaughty
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    Re: Best instrument for sampled strings and brass 2015/11/27 19:36:18 (permalink)
    eph221
    Greetings Pharo,
     
    The alto/tenor (combo) sax patch on dim pro is decent, but by far the most awesome sax sound (that I've found) is the Kontakt factory instrument sax.  It's so easy to get mind bogglingly great realistic solos out of it.
     
    Session strings is great as well.  the BEST strings I've found so far are EW/QL Hollywood Strings (or Orchestra).  EW/QL has a lot of articulations, but I'm kind of a slug on valium with respect to midi customization.
     
    Cheers!




     
    I found a youtube demo of Kontact Factory sax and it was impressive. Is there a catch? Free stuff is suspect these days.
     
    This is tempting as a fit to my limited orchestral needs.
     
    So for instance, if I got the free Kontact 5 Player and the free Kontact Factory sample library and may be the Session Strings on sale right now, what do you think would be the "gotcha"? Does it work well in Sonar? Any weird copy protection problems? Or is the only downside the potential the possibility that I would want to keep buying more stuff like I do with Waves?
     
    Thanks 
    #4
    eph221
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    Re: Best instrument for sampled strings and brass 2015/11/27 20:23:55 (permalink)
    Think of Kontakt's free stuff as loss leaders, it's still very good.  You may be tempted to buy Kontakt some day. I think there are only trumpets and saxes (I may be wrong) but you might want bones.  I subscribed to the EW/QL library...it's 29.99 per month.  That has everything you could possibly imagine but it's all not top shelf necessarily;  you have to audition everything.  Their Hollywood Orchestra stuff is great.
    #5
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