Wondering if anyone has experience with this suite or other all-in-one alternatives (bang/buck) for live use.  I've got a choral concert coming up in April and really don't have the budget, space, or good enough string talent locally to hire musicians (which I would prefer).
 
I'm thinking of using my personal desktop and Surface Pro 4 with a keyboard and drum pads.  At my last church, I pieced together 4 Roland mesh pads with an older Yamaha drum module that worked remarkably well for Timpani but haven't really utilized VSTi's for solo strings and woodwinds.  In this work, there isn't much brass other than a low ensemble in one piece.
 
My plan isn't to play everything but just important bits and pieces of the score throughout.  I've got some excellent solo strings but this seems to cover a lot of bases for $199.  https://www.uvi.net/orchestral-suite.html
 
Anywho, thoughts or suggestions?
 
EDIT to add: I do have NI Komplete 9; Albion 1 & ONE; Kirk Hunter, etc..  Another consideration is CPU hit since I may be using several different instruments and will need them easily accessible.  So wondering also if UVI workstation would be a lighter hit as opposed to Kontakt 5?

Maybe also check Garritan GPO and GIO.

GPO a good advice from Fleer.
 
This may be borderline blasphemous, but even the old IK Philharmonic can be dynamite if you have this. I got 2 or whatever version from years ago.
 
The samples are not crisp. The articulations fall way short of the latest Kontakt libraries. Velocity is about it. You can however layer the instruments and come up with some killer sounds that in combination (IMHO) compete with the best megabux libraries if you are not seeking a quiet solo articulated passage.
 
Other observation is that with all the fire power you already have, careful artistic use already has you over the top and nothing else for any price will enhance what you are already capable of.
 
John
 
(edit)... Save the $199 to get some clothing for the kids or a couple week's groceries

Thanks gentlemen.  The only Garritan instruments I have is what came with Sibelius and/or Finale.  I do have Philharmonic but like the strings of my other libraries.  I guess I am mainly trying to work out how to get the best sounds most efficiently with what I have.  I hadn't seen this library and thought there were good usable sounds in every section and thought it might be more efficient used out of one standalone engine, in this case UVI.
 
I'm okay using one at a time but to set it up for multiple instruments - I'm not as learned.
 
I'm an empty nester but I do like to eat, so thanks John for the reality check!

I think the advantage of uvi is their compression is way better than any one elses which results in a far smaller footprint or file size/memory required is far less/cpu hit shuffling larger files around is less... This would seem to be important on a surface which is very limited in all of these areas.
 
Any of the budget orchestration packages should work for live use but the advantage of uvi is more can stay resident, faster load time, and room to do more in other areas. 
 
The one downside to uvi is it is not multi core.  However, it IS an efficient engine; you'd have to pose this question to EvilDragon over at VI Control to get a clearer pic on which is most efficient cpu wise... He designs for both.  
 
 
 

Thanks for your input Dana.  This is really the kind of info I'm looking for as I need to find out exactly what and how many instruments I can have locked and loaded.  I just need to work through it all and spend time setting it up and testing it.  First I need to get my notes in order and decide which instruments are most important and when they are needed - a road map so to say.
 
I don't know all the technical details on how UVI and Kontakt handle the sample loads but I am getting some noise using some larger Kontakt instruments like Mercury whereas UVI seems to handle TrueKeys pianos very well.  Probably not a good comparison but it got me to thinking of what I can do/trust with either in a live setting.
 
My main DAW has 16GB RAM and both libraries are on SSDs.  My Surface has only 8GB but is also an i7 with an SSD.
 
Obviously I need to do some mock ups and figure out what I can safely handle instrument-wise but thought I'd seek some advice here for ideas.

Also, I have been watching some tutorials on Albion ONE and it does seem I can get quite a ways with what I have as John suggested.  Another case of needing to learn what I have to the fullest before succumbing to GAS (to which you Dana are no help!  )
 
In fact, the work we are performing by Joseph M. Martin is a very contemplative piece with some very haunting and expressive solo lines.  Nothing seems appropriately capable except that damn Bohemian Violin and Cello.  No way my wife was going to approve ..... until I played her the demos.  We may be making a designated donation!

Hi,
If you have two machines you can have some instruments on the main DAW and Orchestral Multi on the other as the VSTi host only. Connect them via rptMIDI / LoopBe. Compose them on MIDI tracks and then drive them together for full orchestral effect.
 
Regards
Snehankur

Thanks Snehankur, I haven't ever done that but have been curious about it.  Just to clarify, we will be playing these instruments live as opposed to utilizing recorded media/midi.  I have the backing tracks but it is such an expressive piece, my concern is keeping 40 voices in sync with all the tempo fluctuations.
 
But this certainly may be a viable way to share the CPU load.

If you're looking at all-in-one type solutions, you might also want to check out HALion 6.
Lots of decent content, supports custom scripts (for advanced libraries), and it's multi-core optimized (which I don't believe is the case for UVI/Falcon).
 
HALion 6 is (IMO) what may be the first (single) virtual instrument that's a good replacement for a hardware type workstation.  Even advanced arpeggiators... like you'd find in Kronos or Montage