Carl Ewing

Interesting. Hadn't tried it yet (have Musio). Just compared: The Kontakt version has two version - regular and "Classic". It also has two mixes - "Raw Mix" and "Tim's" mix. I've only ever used the "Tim's Mix". It seems Musio uses the Raw mix. I think Musio also uses the regular version and not "classic", and I prefer Classic with Tim's Mix. However - going back and forth between the "Raw Mix" regular version in Kontakt and the Musio version, they seem very close. But the Kontakt version is much easier to play, especially with dynamics. That might a scripting difference. I think it's the same samples, but the Kontakt one seems to respond better to mod wheel touches and legato seems much better. The thing about Musio though is that you would also get the expansion, which has 13 additional articulations (sul pont, pizzicato, fx, opens strings, marcato, etc.) which are an additional paid library for Kontakt. So I'd say that although it isn't exactly the same as the Kontakt version, it's still quite good, and you'd get the expansion as well. Definitely worth it. They've just added a solo Violin to Musio as well (Taylor Davis violin, which is seprate from the CineStrings solo stuff)) but I haven't tried it out much yet. That $299 is a crazy deal imo.

I'm not convinced by any of the demos I've heard. I think they've made them so easy to play on piano that they don't have a realistic sound. For example: They seem much more suited to big pop mixes, but not for intimate soloing. They do not sound realistic to me (at all). Compare to, say, Tina Guo Acoustic Cello (from almost 10 years ago): ^^ That is incredible sounding IMO. It's my favorite virtual solo instrument of all time. Actually, almost favorite. The Cinebrass Core / Pro solo brass (especially the horns) are incredible. Also from 10+ years ago - something was in the air 10 years ago, because not many libraries have caught up to these still. I think it also comes down the players. Nothing can replace a world-class soloist playing even single notes one at a time. They inject that artistic style into every single note. The Youtube demos of Performance Samples upcoming Vista II release are sounding very promising though.

I do most annual purchase in November / December, and although I had a large budget, I've been pretty conservative (yes, this is conservative lol): Audio Imperia: Talos, Aeria Lite, Nucleus, Cerberus, Jaeger. Considering Solo. The reg. discounts, loyalty discounts, and crossgrades made this releatively cheap. Cinesamples Musio: just the annual sub ($90 for 12 month). I'll probably grab the whole non-sub deal for $299 before end of year as I'm quite impressed with what's already there. 8Dio: Majestica Ultra (upgrade), Silka Choir (they gave me $30 deal for owning Insolidus) Excite Audio: Motion Harmonic (love this developer, use Console & Expanse a lot.) Kiloheart: Phase Plant. (Now convinced it's the best granular synthesis engine around, even eclipsing Absynth, Quanta 2. Maybe not Kaivo.) Audio Ollie: LA Modern Percussion Skybox Audio: Hammer + Waves collection + expansion. Presets: A few preset packs for Omnisphere. Looking at a couple more from String Audio / Unfinished. Cherry Audio Polymode: Got it for $6! Hardware: New flight cases for mobile rig. **Still to come: Choir purchase. Still can't decide between Audio Imperia Chorus + Performance Samples Oceania I & 2....or....AudioBro's Eternity Complete. Both Chorus & Oceania set come to the same price as Eternity Complete. And I've used Chorus & Oceania before at various studios and more than capable. Hmm. I can't decide yet. New solo orchestra library: Can't decide. I'm not inspired by anything I currently have except Tina Guo cello from Cinesamples and the solo brass in Cinebrass Core / Cinebrass Pro. I really don't like the scripting in most solo stuff I have, or find them dated sounding. (Cremona, East West, Joshua Bell, Orchestral Tools, stuff, etc.) Maybe Audio Imperia Solo, but there's solo stuff in the other AI libraries I just bought, and more in Musio, so probably unnecessary....for now. **Abandoned purchases that were on the list: Project Sam: Pandora KeepForest: Devastator Bundle Various boutique experimental libraries: Sonic Coutour, Ben Osterhouse, Silence + Other Sounds, Sound Dust, etc. Last year I focused on experimental stuff, this year wanted some mainstream generic stuff. Soundiron: Mimi Page Zero-G: Ethera Gold (3.0): still deciding on this. Orchestral Tools: Salu, Modus, and some of the Fabrik / misc. libraries. No sale, no buy. Maybe they'll do a proper sale at Christmas. Spitfire Audio: Albion complete. I own most, was considering getting Neo and Solstice individually, but only want a few patches from each so not worth it. Liquid Sonics: Was thinking of picking up another one of their reverbs. I still might. No plugins this year except one that was dirt cheap! It's a miracle. Really had self control this year. But the year ain't over.

Ya - it's $30 discount for owning Genesis ($469). I think it's too high for me considering it just got released and there's absolutely no reviews / detailed walkthroughs. As other forums have pointed out, one could pick up both Audio Imperia Chorus (if you quality for $325 loyalty pricing) and Oceania I & II bundle ($150 sale) for the same price. Having both of those would cover massive amounts of high-quality choir work. And I already know what those sound like / what they can do...and was looking at Chorus before Eternity was announced. And knowing Audiobro, Eternity will have crazy sales next year. I think I will wait.

Ha - it really is a beautiful library. But definitely comes with a warning that if you buy it and first load it up you'll probably be surprised how dry / harsh it sounds. There's a real wooden texture to it, that's probably closer to the real instruments than most libraries. I rarely ever use it by itself, because I'm just not good enough to mix it / program it properly. I hear demos of it all the time and think "I own that library, but I can't get it to sound anything like that". Ha.

I agree - this is a really annoying thing in this business imo. It's also amazing how that type of environment can impact real world trends. When everyone is buying the same brands / libraries, it has major impact on the sound of...say, trailers, or commercials and dramatic scoring. I see it less on the popular music front, perhaps because there's a lot more collaboration going on - where you get more distinct sounds. For example, you can here the same vocal libraries or string libraries or drum / percussion libraries being used over and over again in scoring (it's funny to look back on the 2000-2010 era where every score had Stylus loops and Atmosphere / Omnisphere presets and East West orchestra, then 2010 - 2020 where everything had Heavyocity drums and Spitfire strings / brass), whereas in pop music it's (at least) different singers or musicians and a wider range of engineers, instruments, studios, producers and gear on each album. The scoring industry really does have a sound - unfortunately - and that is really driven by these libraries and community loyalty to a few specific brands. And it's not because these brands / libraries are necessarily the best, or even the right library for a particular artist, but because of the marketing / peer pressure...and especially commercial pressure...to buy "the best" and sound like what's in style. But what's in style is largely influenced by what tools are being used the most, which is driven by the same marketing, peer pressure, commercial pressure, which just creates a feedback loop. The bonus of all this is that there is a major demand for unique sounding artists - in scoring at least. It's very very easy to stand out. Not surprised guys like Ludwig Goransson (Tenet, Oppenheimer, Black Panther, Mandalorian) or Daniel Pemberton (Into the Spiderverse, Enol Holmes, King Arthur, Michael Mann's upcoming Ferrari) have done so well recently. They don't come from the Remote Control world (Zimmer & Co.), pull from really diverse genres. Goransson produces all Childish Gambino's albums, and has produced a lot of pop & hip-hop - Adele, Timerlake, Kendrick Lamar, etc. No surprise he creates sounds nobody's heard before in scores, and that immediately gets copied & replicated in all the sample libraries...like that pulse from Tenet, which was already common in pop / EDM, but he pulled it into scoring, and has become the new "braaaaams". And Pemberton is very good at pulling from jazz, fusion, funk, electro, avant guard, etc. to create really cool and extremely unique scores that are (imo) way more interesting than the usual composer crew that score basically everything else. But ya - I do see those forums like VI-Control as extremely toxic, and I find it exceptionally difficult to inject any kind of "outside the box" thinking to any conversation. Apologies - i kinda rambled there. I'm probably talking out of my *****. Lol.

Ya - LA Scoring Strings was their first big library - and is an exceptionally detailed library - with reeeeallly deep programming features. Possibly the most advanced instrument scripting on the market. But it is also exceptionally classical sounding - i.e. quite dry / sharp, some would say cold, and can very difficult to mix. The legato is absolutely gorgeous though, and is highly customizable (you can get extremely natural long / deep bends that no other library has been able to replicate). Tone wise - complete opposite of most modern orchestra libraries, which have a much warmer tone and are much easier to mix with other libraries, especially in modern scores. Note: I use LASS a lot to back up wetter / warmer libraries. It cuts through mixes like no other, so great when you need certain leads or short articulations to cut through a mix. Here's a very short example of the LA Scoring Strings tone: (there are some great neo-classical / complex string arrangements done with it that sound incredibly good - it's short articulations, when programmed well, are second to none): IMO - it can be one of the most beautiful strings libraries around - many, many people are loyal to it's sound - but trying to mix with it - and learning how to program it - it takes a lot of time. Other libraries are much more intuitive and streamlined to just load, play, record and done. Anytime you open LASS you're likely in for hours of engineering. It's definitely a key reason (along with the very dry tone) why it faded from most conversations. But it's still highly respected, I find mostly with really traditional / classical types. However, AudioBro eventually released Modern Scoring Strings, which is also exceptionally well programmed / produced, but it still has quite a classical tone, but much warmer (imo) than LASS. Easier to work with & mix with, but requires some heavy manual reading. Short example (seriously, the portamento / legato in their engine is incredible): As for Genesis Children's Choir - well, it's just the greatest damn thing ever. It's just a "buy it, you'll never need another children's choir ever again". I played it for days when I first bought it. I'm very biased. I am a little bit concerned about the Eternity demo...as it has a much colder / plasticy sound than the children's choir (especially those sopranos), but hoping it's just the person who did the demo and that it's easy to tone it down a bit. Anyway - I've always been a big fan of AudioBro. I think they just took a much more classical direction that isn't particularly popular with certain composer crowds (especially VI-Control crowd, which seems to lean much more to the Hollywood sound - seen in the Orchestral Tools / Spitfire Audio obsessions). I totally get it, but I still find AudioBro libraries beautiful in what they do. But in a very specific style. (EDIT: I have never tried their Brass or Drum / Percussion libraries. I honestly don't even know what they sound like. I'm guessing they're very good, but I don't want to listen because then I'll buy them lol.)

AudioBro's Eternity releases tomorrow at noon (EST). I'm hoping for sub $300 intro price, or cheaper with crossgrade from Genesis Children's Choir. https://audiobro.com/eternity-adult-choir/ Genesis is possibly the greatest sample library ever created, so hoping that Eternity does the same for adult choir. But if it's priced too high I'll be back to looking at Audio Imperia's Chorus. This is the first library I've ever set alarms for to check reveal price on launch lol.

Unless you're making a soundtrack for a gloomy British detective TV series, most of their stuff has minimal range. I think they listened to an Olafur Arnold's album and thought "everything should like that! including our epic percussion!" Okay, not that bad. I just find all their libraries very dull, and at this point, extremely dated sounding, as they really went overboard with that warm & airy soundtrack style - think felt pianos, string harmonics, tape this, tape that, muted percussion, Max Richter, Olafur Arnolds, Nihl Frahm, Jon Hopkins, etc. which was very much in style in 2018 but is now relegated to terrible "slow burn" low budget Netflix dramas. I was also extremely disappointed in Hammers and HZP. It's unbelievable the amount of hype put behind those products, and they are not produced well IMO. I think their string and brass (with the exception of BBC) sound like the orchestra was on heavy doses of Ambien, and the legatos all sound awful. That's my opinion anyway. I understand a lot of people love their stuff, and a lot of great music gets made with their libraries. I just personally fall asleep every time I load one of their libraries. I also find it funny that "Collossus" is their "epic" Albion library, and it's possibly duller sounding than the low mod wheel settings on anything in Metropolis or Audio Imperia's Nucleus / Jaeger / Talos / Areia. (Also - LABS is seriously an incredible free library of instruments. Major props to them for making all that available for free. It's really a wonderful series, especially for composers just starting out. That alone makes me feel bad for criticizing their products.)

I have no idea. Maybe you don't spend much time using these plugins extensively in a professional context, but have strangely strong opinions about them?

I specifically said that you're getting the core Sonible AI tech for $50. And that's all recent tech - not ancient bits of code from the 80s lol. You pay the Sonible premium if you want the UI and feature set. Which is fine. But that Fast Bundle is excellent tech and hardly a joke. But you seem to be easily marketed to.

These plugins were designed based on the same tech in Sonible's Smart series. They worked in collaboration. https://collective.focusrite.com/blog/focusrite-and-sonible Sonible has a superior UI, and some additional features, but sonically, they are built on the same core tech, and I doubt anyone could tell the difference in an A/B shoot out. That free promo during the Masterclass was basically getting most of Sonible's AI tech for $0 dollars. I don't think many people realize that...and probably skipped the Masterclass promo and are now considering blowing lots of cash on the Sonible BF sale thinking they're getting a deal. And this promo puts the Fast Bundle at $51.68.

I own Albion One, Legacy I, II, III, IV and V - Collosus is $161 for me. I can complete the Albion series for $671. However - I've regretted almost every Spitfire purchase I've ever made (and I own a lot) - so I've learned my lesson. Good marketing though. They bamboozled me a couple times.

It's kinda funny though. Black Friday isn't till Friday, and I'm basically done with purchases except 1, which I'm waiting for, because one developer has a product launching on Friday that I'm waiting to check out. However - I do still think some of the best deals will start on Friday. I actually should have waited on a few things. For example, although I got a good deal on Hammer + Waves yesterday, there are now Black Friday coupons launched today that would taken off an additional 10% (or more). Tons of discounts are now being released through the usual "influencers" on Youtube that stack on some existing sales. This happened last year too. I got impatient. Got a lot of what I wanted through Audio Imperia, however, I still think additional discounts are going to come from somewhere starting Friday. This has happened before with other developers who launched sales early, and then incentivized further on the actual sales weekend. Seriously, I need more patience lol. While we're on the subject: Best Deal: getting 8Dio Silka for $30 because I already owned Insolidus. Worst deal: Probably Audio Imperia (and I bought A LOT). I know it wasn't a good deal, because some of this stuff was bundled for cheaper over 2 years ago! But I had a budget, and it came slightly under (with the crossgrade discounts) and just went with it. And will be using these libraries on a project starting Friday, so whatever.

I'll have to entirely disagree with you on subscriptions. What you're saying defies every single business metric on the subscription economy globally. Subscriptions are growing in every single industry across the board. And that's not going to stop. What will happen in audio is what happens in every other industry - some subscriptions will succeed, some will fail. But they'll be around forever. The problem with subscriptions in casual talk is that every single subscription ever launched since and including Adobe's Creative Cloud was deemed "a total failure" and "will never work". There's is always, and I mean, every single time, the statements "i've heard it's not selling well". This was tried with publicly traded companies (Adobe, Spotify, Netflix, Disney, AMC, etc.) but the quartlery reports showed the opposite. For private companies, we have no data to rely on, so it's rather meaningless to speculate. Time will tell. But there are few audio companies that have launched subscriptions and then abandoned them - and all of them have expanded content every year. Arcade, Plugin Alliance, Composer Cloud, Splice, Loopcloud, etc. are extremely popular globally. I see them in every single studio I go in, without exception. There are now a mainstay of the industry, and now baked into the budgets and workflow of thousands of commercial studios. (Musio will be no different. ) These corporations are not going to suddenly shut down these services to these studios / artists - it would make no business sense, since subscriptions are far cheaper to service (and easier to market) than a catalog of individual items, have far simpler infrastructure with low overhead and predictable monthly / annual revenue, and a massive paying customer base. I do agree having both options - subscription and traditional purchasing options are ideal - but depending on marketshare, that isn't always the case (see Adobe). I've had the subscription argument a thousand times. I always say "liking them is irrelevant - it all comes down to metrics". It's either working or it isn't. Everyone says they hate subscriptions (not realizing they are no different than what's been around for 100+ years with newspapers, gyms, cable packages). They are nothing new. And the hate clearly doesn't translate to reality, considering the largest corporations in almost every industry (Amazon, Adobe, Netflix, Spotify, Apple, Microsoft, etc.) all use them, and earn enormous revenue from them year after year. The subscription economy is projected to hit (and is ahead of projections) to hit 2 Trillion in 2025. Almost every single industry now relies on them - and they are more popular with young people than old. It would be virtually impossible to tell an 18 year old aspiring producer today that "we're shutting down Splice and Loopcloud and you'll start buying individual loop packs like we did in the 90s at $20 a pop, mostly filled with crap you don't want.". That's never going to happen again. I'm sure we'll agree to disagree. But I still think, Musio for $90, to try out the whole catalog is totally worth it, even if it's abandoned in the future. I honestly would have saved 1000s of dollars having a subscription for Spitfire Audio - I would not have bought half the stuff I own had I actually tried it out first. And so much stuff I've bought from them has now been abandoned. It's what I like about Composer Cloud. I once spent over $2000 on East West's Platinum Orchestra, Ra, Storm Drum 1 & 2, the original choirs library, etc. many years ago. All of those libraries got replaced within 5 years - they were all risky purchases, and all eventually required paid updates to Player edition for compatability. (None of them will even run in Kontakt anymore because they can't be authorized. Although they may have fixed that. Doesn't matter, I don't use them anymore. Although the Opus editions are MUCH better, and make those libraries more useable.). So it's $2000 down the drain. $2000 is 10 years of Composer Cloud at my locked in rate (on year 5 I think)...where I get the entire catalog, only install what I like, get new stuff to replace old stuff over time. And all libraries are getting ported to Opus player, which I don't have to worry about. This is why I like subscriptions. EDIT: As a note - I would like subscriptions less if I could try all of this stuff before I bought it. But after 20 years, I get tired of "buy and pray" with every purchase. I love being able to install an entire company's catalog and find the stuff I like and delete everything else (and potentially buy what I like later). It honestly saves so much money and stress in the long run.

I was thinking - if you're on a super budget, there's also Musio subcription - which currently has 3 months basically for free - so $90 for the year. That has the Voxos Choir. It also has all the solo instruments from CineStrings, CineBrass, CineWinds + decidicated solo strings like the Tina Guo Acoustic Cello, and Taylor Davis solo violin, and a few others. Voxos is fairly basic compared to other options, but it's definitely useful. Honestly, Musio sounds way better for what you're looking for, because it's so cheap for a year, and gives you pretty much all the content you're looking for.

Although I don't own it - I am specifically looking at Audio Imperia Chorus. This is the "buy it and don't need anything else" choir (for adult choir at least). I've used it before at a colleagues place and it really is the best & easiest to use choir around. However, even on the current sale, it's over $300 (price will depend on if you're a first time customer, or have other products). I think for price / quality, 8Dio is still the best. For the cost of Chorus, you could pretty much buy every 8Dio choir - Lacrimosa, Liberis, Requiem Pro (quite old), Silka / Insolidus choir. Which would cover a lot of territory, including children's choir. (Although AudioBro Genesis is the best children's choir around, by a mile.) There's also Strevos Choirs - like Chorus, these are workhorse choirs. I don't own them, but they are used extensively in the scoring community. Storm Choir is the big one, but it's also over $300. Then there's the male / female choir splits "Wotan" and "Freyja". I can't comment on these - have never used them, but they are very very popular. However. What everyone is waiting for right now is the release of Eternity (adult choir). It comes out on Friday. It's made by AudioBro, who also made the Genesis Children's Choir. They haven't listed prices, but the demos on their site make it likely that it'll be like Genesis, and likely be the best choir on the market. I would honestly wait until that's release, see what the price is. However - the AudioBro stuff can be a bit more involved (programming, etc.) so may not be right for you. Although, if it's like Genesis, hitting any note with sound amazing. Ha. So my recommend is to wait till Friday and see what the Genesis price is, and maybe get some initial impressions. If it's a decent price I'll probably buy it immediately. But with the style you said you're composing in, and needing ease of use, AI Chorus is the one. 100%. It's just pricey.

To follow up - ya, this Hammer + Waves collection is one of the best purchases I've ever made. This might the most beautiful keys instrument ever produced. I got the collection (piano, electric piano, chimes and prepared) and spent hours going through presets. It's both an incredible emulation of the core instruments (easily one of the best Suitcase 73 VSTs I've heard - I own a real own, and I could easily sell it now - it's the only emulation to get the random sticking mallets thing right), and absolutely stunning ambient effects machine. I had no idea the effects engine was that powerful. Some of these presets are beyond incredible. Just a gorgeous collection of sounds. On the 8Dio front - if you own either Silka or Insolidus, 8Dio will send you an invoice to get the other one for $30. You just have to message them. This Black Friday rules.

Seriously - so impressed with this Hammer + Waves stuff. I didn't grab the Wurli 145B yet - but good to know it's also high quality. Don't know if it's done elsewhere, but they designed a mechanical hand contraption to do all their recordings - basically repeating perfect velocities over and over again for round robins. And there must be a TON of round robins, because there's slight noise in a couple notes, but you have to hit the note at the same velocity like 20 times before you hear it again. And no worries on the advice. I yammer on a lot. Haha. Glad some info might be useful! I think you've mentioned before you did marketing for some of these companies? I've never used the Kirk Hunter stuff either. Sometimes there's just too much to try out.

Even adult entertainment needs symphonies. I can't compete with William's live orchestra though. He wins all the awards.

Oh. Professional composer (not using my real name!). I spend A LOT of time on library searching as I run a mobile system and multiple studio systems, so I have two totally different setups - one that is lightweight (as RAM, CPU, hard disk light as possible) and one that is heavy duty and with no memory, CPU, drive limitations. So I'm always looking for better lightweight libraries, which means trying as much stuff on the market as possible. This means comparing a lot of cheaper / lighter weight stuff (eg. Audio Imperia, Musio, 8Dio, etc.) against the monsters like Orchestral Tools. There's some surprisingly amazing lightweight libraries that do an excellent job. Audio Imperia I'm especially impressed with right now (I'm a complete fanboi this week) - I've picked up most of the catalog during this sale and endlessly impressed with how small / simple the libraries are considering the immense / quality / versatility of the sound. Really great for fast sketching, or getting a great sound with minimal computer setup. Definitely not as detailed / natural as the big brand stuff (and has a more full / forward sound that perhaps isn't great for intimate tracks...although Nucleus and Solo seem more on the softer side....especially the 'classical' mixes), but really impressed so far. I wish a colleague of mine was on this forum. He owns literally everything single thing on the market (it seems) and can go on and on about what each is good for. As a piano player yourself - I recommend another recent purchase: Hammer + Waves. This thing is incredible. I think you can get just the acoustic piano for ~$80 on sale. The sound design patches are possibly better than the acoustic / electric pianos. Insane the sounds that come out of this thing - especially the prepared piano (different library from acoustic) sound design / experimental patches. Just beautiful ambient weird stuff...that sound design engine is wild. https://www.skyboxaudio.com/collections/complete-bundle-instruments

Got Convolver for $10. Coupon code worked! This is a great tool. Allows you to take the envelope / characteristics of one sound and apply it to another. Similar to how a convolution reverb works, but you can take anything and apply it to anything else. (You can also just use it as a convolution reverb). So if you had a weird glitchy delay stereo modulated sample, you could apply it to a guitar pluck, and it'll give the guitar pluck all the same characteristics. Opens up some really crazy sound design possibilities. And if you use the Phase Plant browser, you can load your target sound into the synth, then just start browsing through any other sounds on your harddrive, and it'll auto-preview what your target sound would sound like with any other sound you click on applied to it. Just played with it for 10 minutes and it's awesome. For an example taken from one of the "how to" videos - guy recorded himself softly tapping on some objects in his house, then applied that recording to a harp sound, and the harp inherits all the soft percussive elements from the tapping recording, almost acting like delays against the harp's sustain. Super, super cool stuff.

I have Collectors Edition so have the full Komplete Symphony Series. I think the brass is extremely underrated. Although CineBrass Core / Pro are my primary brass, I'm still surprised Symphony Brass was received so poorly. There's some excellent patches in both the strings, brass. The percussion I think is absolutely excellent - it's one of the best orchestral percussion libraries for the price IMO. The winds are pretty awful though imo. About the NI Symphony strings. There's a funny video of a guy comparing the Komplete Symphony Series Strings with Spitfire Symphonic Strings and how similar they are. Understand that when it came out, people were specifically shitting on those Komplete strings compared to that specific Spitfire library. It's so funny. I think some people just have to mentally justify the money ($800 for Spitfire Symphonic Strings) they put out for these libraries. The string library was made by Audiobro (LA Scoring Strings, Modern Scoring Strings, Genesis Children's Choir), and the brass were made by SoundIron. I wouldn't trust impressions of that orchestra library - IMO it's much much much better than people give it credit for. I've used it a lot, and amazed it came with a Komplete Ultimate CE update. And for sure - I'd definitely recommend searching "Audio Imperia Nucleus" walkthrough videos. Very very good for the sale price. This is done with Nucleus: (And sorry to hijack the thread. I actually love a lot of 8Dio libraries!)

Actually - scratch my comments about Kontakt Factory Library 2 orchestra. Just spent some time with it. It's not very good and really limited. It's deceiving, because there are a couple spectacular patches (eg. the Cello / string spiccatos are strangely excellent), but it's really just a "hey, here's some basic orchestra patches if you don't already have any". My recommend would still be Audio Imperia Nucleus, considering the sale price + having strings, brass, winds, choir, percussion + being extremely intuitive / easy to use (meaning less customization) + quality is excellent for $225. And it gives you good crossgrade opportunities for their other products in the future.

Do you have Komplete 14? If so, you should have Kontakt Factory Library 2 which includes an entirely new orchestra library made up of selections from Orchestral Tools libraries (the really expensive ones). It surprised A LOT of composers, since it's a 1000x improvement over the old Kontakt library orchestra. There are some absolutely amazing articulations in that set. Audio Imperia's "Lite" libraries are also on sale for $80. Limited articulations, but Areia Lite (strings) & Nucleus Lite (orchestra) are pretty great for the price. Actually the full Nucleus library is on sale for $225. It covers the entire orchestra. Walkthrough video. The thing about Audio Imperia libraries is that they are great for hybrid styles - like using orchestra in pop or electronic music or rock. They have a very upfront sound, and 2 mixes, Classical (softer, but still quite full), and "Modern" (more full cinematic / trailer / pop music style). And they are dirt simple to use. I think I would go the direction of Audio Imperia based on your description of how you use orchestra. A lot of walkthroughs and reviews of their Nucleus, Aeria, Talos, Jeager, etc. libraries that should immediately show their unique tone. Their solo instrument is also quite good for pop music, as the mixes / recordings are quite forward sounding. If you want an idea of how forward sounding their libraries are -- for example, their spicatto patches -- here's a comparison of spicattos across 40 different libraries. IMO each Audio Imperia selection (Jeager, Aeria, Nucleus) stands out as the best for more hybrid genre use. Many others have that very warm cinematic tone that disappears in non-soundtrack mixes. But some stay that makes the AI stuff sound overly cold / machine like: