Opinions about scoring tools - Symphobia, EWQL, etc.

I know there will probably be a lot of differing opinions on this and it's ultimately about taste and technique - however...
 
I'm not a classical composer, but I've read a few books about orchestration and like to think that I'm hobbyist classical composer...  I've been doing some scoring for some projects, but they have not been orchestra scores and I've used mostly Omnisphere for those.  I'm hoping some projects that are in the works will give me the opportunity to use some more traditional scoring sounds.
 
I currently own Hollywood Strings, Woodwinds, and Brass Silver editions.  I like them enough, but I want to buy something more. I'm interested in Symphobia and am interested in other opinions.  Do you like it?  Also, between Symphobia 1,2,and 3...  What's your favorite? What would you recommend I buy?  Are there any other suggestions out there? 
 
Symphobia is really pushing my budget...   

While not cheap, Albion One is a very nice fOrchestral Tool.

I have East West, but only about 10 products, and they are good,
and especially good when on sale.

Vienna Symphonic also has a good reputation....but very pricey...

There are a lot of tools out there...ranging in price from free to thousands...

Kuusniemi
I think the first thing you need to ask is, what are you missing? Since you have silver editions of the EastWest Hollywood series, I'd look into upgrading them to Gold. There you basically have everything you need to write pretty much everything that uses an orchestra.
 
So what are you looking for? A different sound? Something for fast and easy writing? Something bigger? Something special?
 
All of the scoring tool packs have a different character and their real differences come from the fact that they have a slightly different sound. Spitfire Albions are recorded at Air Studios, Orchestral Tools Metropolis at Teldex. Symphobia's are for the quick and easy writing and are not for traditional orchestra writing. Vienna Symphonic Library is recorded very dry and silent, so they need a bit of work with a good reverb, but are excellent for layering.

Yes!  I think I should spend some time really figuring out what I need.  I guess it's hard for me to justify spending 600 on upgrades...  Am I really getting that much more with Gold?  I am thinking about getting the silver version of Percussion just to round everything out.
 
However, I think what I really want is the preset ensembles.  As I learn more, I'll be able to create my own, but I think it would be nice to have those presets ready to go.
 
The Albion series looks great!  Plus, I'm a teacher and could get a 30% discount.  Which makes a $350 price tag for Albion One very attractive...  I could get One and Two for the same price as Symphobia.
 
 
 
 

Fleer
You may want to check what the upgrade to Hollywood Gold gets you on top of Silver. And while you're checking, you might think about the older EastWest Symphonic Orchestra, including solo instruments. Still sounds great at bottom price.

I've looked into it.  I would definitely be interested in having the Gold edition, but I'm not sure I'm up for paying that much for an upgrade.  I looked into Symphonic Orchestra when I bought the Hollywood stuff - however, users on this forum suggested that the Hollywood stuff was significantly better.
 
In the end, I have a bit of a bitter feeling about EWQL.  It's nothing big, but a bunch of little things - if it was only one it wouldn't be a problem.  The ILOK thing is odd.  The instruments are really heavy on the system.  I emailed customer service once and they didn't respond.  Their pay structure is funky to me - they have sales so many times throughout the year - I don't understand why they just don't mark their products down to reasonable prices.  The different editions seem to be designed to just take away features for no reason other than to entice you to buy more.  I don't think they did it to allow users who might have less money to still get some of the experience...
 
I don't get that impression from many other Virtual Instrument companies.  For instance - Spectrasonics gives free updates to patches.  When I've emailed them, they always respond within a day or two.  You can just really tell that they care a lot about audio and the business side of things is second priority.  No scams.  I really liked how I got a free upgrade to Omni2 because it had been announced when I bought Omni1.
 
Spitfire Audio gives me a similar impression.  Being a high school teacher, I often get educational discounts, but every now and then I get the opportunity to make money.  It's never been a problem, but it's always in the back of my mind.  Spitfire expressly says "If you get a side gig for some extra cash - great!"  That little stuff means a lot to me.  
 
Enough of the rant...  I think I just want to try a different company besides EWQL.  Although the Composer Cloud option is very enticing.

ARK 1 is a brand new huge library by the highly acclaimed Orchestral Tools (Berlin Strings).  It is very powerful, it's "CAPSULE" GUI/control system is just smashing...and intro price of 299 euros is a huge savings till end of the month...  we have a couple threads on it in software and deals and VIControl is all ga ga about it too... 160 GB, choir, sectioned orchestra, percussion, drums, guitar, bass... a real powerhouse... 22 pages and growing at VIC.  I think ARK is by far the deal of the year whereas Symphobia is shall we say, a bit dated...Symphobia 1 is the best of the Project Sam line but pales in comparison to ARK1...  (I have both OE 1&2 and rarely use them)
 
AlbionOne is lovely but cost more for way less... and you just get ensembles
 
 
 

If money was no object I would say at least the gold versions of Hollywood Strings, Brass and Percussion but stay away from Hollywood Woodwinds. I would get Berlin Woodwinds for winds. I have Albion I and it sounds great but for me I mostly use it to layer with other instruments. Not having individual sections bothers more than I thought it would. I also have OT's Metropolis Ark I and it is growing on me but not overly impressed. The Choirs in it are by far the best and the strings really cut through nicely but the brass and other things I find are not that much different than what I can get with the Hollywood series. I also have products from 8dio, Sonokinetic and several others but EW is always my go to orchestral libs because they are the most flexible. Since price does seem to be a concern I would get either get Symphonic Orchestra which sounds great right out of the box without much work or the Complete Composers deal when it is on sale. You can't beat EW's sales. That is my 2 cents,

A final brain splatter:

Agree on some of the above...although imo ark 1 kicks the butt of ew...much more playable. ARK's brass is totally badass. And its automatic key switching capsule system results inn way more intuitive shifts rather than the laborius, boring and to me uninspiring separate tracking or keyswitching of all the other libs.

Btw, Daniel James just did a 3.5 hour live stream on ark 1 late last night...
http://www.twitch.tv/hybridtwo/v/34038175

I rarely touch ew any more...it is way too heavy on system resources and ew has done nothing about this. Indeed they abandone every library...no updates...no fixes. My system is very robust. I do not consider it a naturally playable library whereas OT and companies like Virharmonic (the bohemian violin) are revolutionizing the industry with A.I. assisted algorithmic patch/articulation shifting. This IS the future...artistic intuitive playability.

Albion uest...wish i could give it to you...only useable for rather weird compositions and turns out to just sit on my hard drive...

The smaller Albion, Loegria is very delicate and had an awesome percussion section. DJ has a 1 hr youtube on it. I don't feel EW can begin to approach this beauty...if you can picture/write ostinatums, this and the other spitfire orchestral offerings have a cool ostinatum programer/generator which is quite amazing. Unfortunately my small brain and poor eyesight really dislikes their cryptic GUI. Beautiful sound though... An expensive adventure if you enter their world of mural

Google project sam guy roland you tube for some great walkthroughs... While I've gone in a different direction, Sam does a nice job of prepackaging a variety of combo sounds you may enjoy! Lots of lovely baked in combos

Each of the Above is a different approach. I tend to gravitate towards playability and Beautiful sound...and I'll punch EW in the face again...they fail and the company abandons Each product they put out. I have loads of EW from my early days gathering dust...

Enjoy the ride...

Also - would it make any sense to START with Leogria?  Or do I really need to have Albion 1 to make Leogria work?
 

mikebeam
Thanks for all your input.  Yeah - I think I'm leaning towards ditching EW.  Their composer cloud thing definitely is attractive...  I would pay 30 bucks just to have an hour with each of these products.  That would be enough time to make my decision.
 
Just to throw another product out there for comparison.  Does anyone have experience with Vienna Symphonic Libraries?  I like their pricing structure - seems like I could start small and if I like the products invest in additional instruments and such...  
 

I have VSL libraries and use them frequently. They are top notch, but geared more toward classical composing than any of the other libraries you are thinking. The great thing about Vienna is their solo instruments, especially the woodwinds. They are some of the best there are.
 
The VSL libraries are recorded dry so you need a good reverb with them (I use the Convolution Reverb in Vienna Suite, since it has some very good music halls choose from). Also if you choose Vienna you really have to get Vienna Instruments PRO which is in my opinion the best damn sampler around. It beats Kontakt any day, but it's only for Vienna libraries.
 
I would advice against spending too much on the Special Editions since they are stripped down versions of the full libraries and contain only a few velocity layers. They're good to start with but for serious writing you either need to use the Special Editions for layering or get the fuller versions.

Kuusniemi
Also, if you're looking for something to write quickly with then Cinesamples has CineSymphony Lite: https://cinesamples.com/product/cinesymphony-lite

Good one... Daniel James reviewed this and loved it...also came up with some unique ways to get amazing results...

This actually makes the most sense of everything discussed!

There's just too much good stuff out there!  

Vastman
Yes but we're trying to focus on your conveyed needs... money being one of them.  There is a LOT more...
 
I urge you to take your time... I've acquired several things i don't use and regret it... listen to all the demos, vids, and walkthrus... and reflect...

Vastman
Yes but we're trying to focus on your conveyed needs... money being one of them.  There is a LOT more...
 
I urge you to take your time... I've acquired several things i don't use and regret it... listen to all the demos, vids, and walkthrus... and reflect...

Absolutely!  Part of why I hate that 'sales' model...  These are all great suggestions.  I think Kuusniemi made a great point about figuring out what I really needed before anything else...  

I got the Vienna chamber strings(se) and I'm loving them. I hate dongles, but this might be worth it. I'm planning on picking up the woodwinds and other string too as well as VI pro. The flexibility is awesome and they sound great. They do take a bit of work when it comes to reverb and eq, but IMO it's worth it.

Impact sounds works just came out with a new library called orchestral colors that might interest you. It has brass, strings, woodwinds and a choir. It takes the ensemble approach, but I believe you can split in into separate instruments too. It's not too expensive either(comparatively).

If you've looking for good deals, I'd check out wivi band and wavesfactory too. Their black toms and suspended cymbal libraries are awesome and only cost about $20. Wiviband is amazingly playable and has woodwinds and brass.

Chandler
I got the Vienna chamber strings(se) and I'm loving them. I hate dongles, but this might be worth it. I'm planning on picking up the woodwinds and other string too as well as VI pro. The flexibility is awesome and they sound great. They do take a bit of work when it comes to reverb and eq, but IMO it's worth it.

Impact sounds works just came out with a new library called orchestral colors that might interest you. It has brass, strings, woodwinds and a choir. It takes the ensemble approach, but I believe you can split in into separate instruments too. It's not too expensive either(comparatively).

If you've looking for good deals, I'd check out wivi band and wavesfactory too. Their black toms and suspended cymbal libraries are awesome and only cost about $20. Wiviband is amazingly playable and has woodwinds and brass.

Do get VI Pro. It makes the world of difference with Vienna libraries. You're going to love the humanize part of VI Pro... :)