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Best Service/Sonuscore New: The Orchestra Elements - Free Features | Free Presets | Free Instruments

Larry Shelby

By Larry Shelby
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PavlovsCat

PavlovsCat

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Tianzii said:

I just tried the Elements and is amazing. Guess I’ll have to wait and check for this deal now. :)

Yep, this is the kind of free library that inspired me to create a list of recommended free sample libraries. And if you add this together with the free orchestral freebies like The Free Orchestra 1 and 2,  VSL,  Spitfire BBC...and a bunch more, you can cover a lot of ground. If you need a great piano and don't own Kontakt,  SonicCouture has a superb one. If you have Kontakt and want another great piano library,  8Dio has one they used to charge $250 US for.  Sure, you need to go find a bunch of developers to cover all the bases, but you can do it for free. 

Ten years ago,  the available free sample libraries where nowhere near the quality of what they are today.  Today, a lot of devs are using freebies to provide not only a taste of their work, but to establish a direct line of communications to market to these users,  so the prevailing mindset is that they've got to make really good freebies. The Orchestra Elements is an example of developer getting that right,  IMO. Kudos to Sonuscore. 

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DamienF

DamienF

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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Tianzii said:

I just tried the Elements and is amazing. Guess I’ll have to wait and check for this deal now. :)

I've got it last Black Friday, when I bought Ear Master and a discounted SonicCouture library (BS is the only SonicCouture reseller AFAIK)

Edited by DamienF
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Starship Krupa

Starship Krupa

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Wow. This is amazing good fun.

It has me contemplating buying the next step up, The Orchestra Essentials. I trust that there's no "GROUP" or whatever discount available at JRR or Best or Larry would have mentioned it.

Is the current discount price the usual price or does it actually usually sit at $99? I definitely want the Essentials upgrade.

What I like: the articulations sound great, and I was able to grasp how they're pulling off "play a chord and get an instant arrangement," which is layered arpeggiators. I love synth patches with layered arpeggiators, it's one of my favorite things about Hybrid 3 and the A|A|S synths.

The different instruments and articulations also load instantly, which is a big advantage over SampleTank/Miroslav.

@PavlovsCat, the way that it's limited is that you can't change what instrument is loaded into each slot. Try clicking on the little arrow to the right of an instrument's name and you'll see what I mean. So I'll guess that Essentials does let you do that.

Even if I stayed with only their programmed arpeggios, it would be nice to change out say, the trombone bass sound for a cello or oboe.

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Larry Shelby

Larry Shelby

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9 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Wow. This is amazing good fun.

It has me contemplating buying the next step up, The Orchestra Essentials. I trust that there's no "GROUP" or whatever discount available at JRR or Best or Larry would have mentioned it.

Is the current discount price the usual price or does it actually usually sit at $99? I definitely want the Essentials upgrade.

What I like: the articulations sound great, and I was able to grasp how they're pulling off "play a chord and get an instant arrangement," which is layered arpeggiators. I love synth patches with layered arpeggiators, it's one of my favorite things about Hybrid 3 and the A|A|S synths.

The different instruments and articulations also load instantly, which is a big advantage over SampleTank/Miroslav.

@PavlovsCat, the way that it's limited is that you can't change what instrument is loaded into each slot. Try clicking on the little arrow to the right of an instrument's name and you'll see what I mean. So I'll guess that Essentials does let you do that.

Even if I stayed with only their programmed arpeggios, it would be nice to change out say, the trombone bass sound for a cello or oboe.

Nobody has a discount on it that I can find.

KVR has 10% Off of the Full "The Orchestra" which is $149 before discount.
If you have KVR Points you can use those to further reduce the price
 

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Starship Krupa

Starship Krupa

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I'm really digging what this thing does with just simple chords, but digging deeper I'm confused about certain aspects. There's no documentation I can find except for the comparison chart on their website.

The main question I have is whether its preset slots and articulations can be accessed via keyswitching or automation or whatever.

For instance, I'd like to start a piece with a 3 chord loop, go for a few times on one pattern/preset, then switch to another pattern/preset using the same 3 chords. Can this be done without having to set up another track with the instrument set to the patch I want to use?

Most orchestral instruments that I've seen, even the simple ones like Orchestral Companions, allow keyswitching. I can't find any evidence of it with Elements or Essentials. If there isn't some way to switch articulations/patches on the fly, that kind of limits the use of its sounds outside of the "animated orchestra" trick.

I'd like to find out before I drop the fiddy on it. Seems like it would be a pain to have to use multiple instances of Kontakt Player, each one set to a different patch.

I'm not familiar enough with Kontakt to know whether I can set up multiple instruments within it and access them on different MIDI channels. Can you set it up with multiple NKI's and use it multitimbrally as you can with SampleTank? That would be one possible way to get around the absence of keyswitching in The Orchestra Essentials (if it's actually absent).

The comparison chart also says that you can't save user presets in the Essentials version, which seems like an odd thing to leave out in a paid version. The workaround would be to use the DAW's own preset manager, but why force people to do that?

It definitely has great honeymoon appeal, but before I invest, I want to know how much I'm confined to using the 99 presets it comes with (33 voicings, 33 rhythms, and 33  complex "animated orchestra" presets) and how easy it is to use multiple of them in the same song. If it's too limited I'll just stay with the free version.

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MusicMan

MusicMan

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1 hour ago, Starship Krupa said:

I'd like to find out before I drop the fiddy on it. Seems like it would be a pain to have to use multiple instances of Kontakt Player, each one set to a different patch.

I wouldn't at all be surprised if it's free with purchase over x amount at the Black Friday sales later this year at Best Service. That's how I got it. I really quite enjoy it, but free is better! ?

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Starship Krupa

Starship Krupa

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9 hours ago, MusicMan said:

I wouldn't at all be surprised if it's free with purchase over x amount at the Black Friday sales later this year at Best Service. That's how I got it. I really quite enjoy it, but free is better! ?

Hmm. Best sells a certain PreSonus product I won't name in the hybrid version. I'll wait for Black Friday and see if I can snag both of them.

Messing about with this freebie has shown me how they set up the layered arpeggiators, which can translate to other synths. Their samples and presets are awesome, but I'm not sure there's anything there that can't be approximated with some effort in other products that include arpeggiators, like Miroslav-on-SampleTank.

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