Free Cinematic Sample Pack has a total of 100 sound effect samples in 24-bit WAV format. They’re primarily designed for cinematic productions, but can be also used with success in EDM, minimal, techno, house – basically in any genre that needs some texture, motion or transition effects. Top 3 Sound Design VST Plugins From This List We have looked at 29 of the best sound design plugins but let’s give you our top 3. For us, first place has to be Absynth 5 By Native Instruments, this powerhouse of the synth has some of the most unique presets and capabilities.
Orchestral VSTs have never been more accessible to producers.
Soaring strings, fluttering woodwinds, and deep brass will bring an epic and emotional quality to your tracks and enhance their dramatic energy.
Orchestral libraries can contain thousands of samples and several instrument specific articulations. It’s not surprising that many paid orchestral plugins can cost upwards of a thousand dollars.
You get what you pay for when it comes to plugins, but the quality of free has been on the rise.
That’s why I’m rounding up the 6 best free orchestral VSTs capable of emulating a real orchestra.
Let’s get started.
1. Spitfire LABS
Spitfire LABS is a top contender when it comes to free plugins.
LABS is an ongoing series of free software instruments made by musicians and sampling experts in London. It’s updated with new sounds constantly, and sports an easy to use user interface.
Their soft piano plugin is still a go-to piano sound for many professional composers. Some musicians have used it to write entire albums of solo piano music.
LABS offers top quality string samples, warm brass samples, and several other unique additions of the orchestra.
LABS offers top quality string samples, warm brass samples, and several other unique additions of the orchestra.
2. Orchestral Tools Layers
Orchestral Tools is a high quality orchestral library creator. It’s no surprise that their free offering packs some of the best free orchestral sounds you can get.
Layers’ packs 17 GB of orchestral samples. It includes four different microphone positions and a variety of articulations.
It allows you to generate full chords with one touch of a button. It’s also capable of MIDI keyswitching, which gives you tons of control to blend instrument sections and shift dynamics.
Layers’ was recorded on the Teldex Scoring Stage in Berlin. This recording environment gives it a professional sound with top quality acoustics. It’s one of the most realistic sounding free orchestral libraries available.
3. The Total Composure Orchestra
The Total Composure Orchestra is a full orchestral sample library. It was created by using samples that are in the public domain.
Vst Cinematic Plugins With The Best Sounds Like
The public domain consists of creative work that has no exclusive intellectual property rights. All the 1500 samples in the total composure orchestra are pre-cleared for use in your music.
The public domain consists of creative work that has no exclusive intellectual property rights.
The Total Composure Orchestra uses Native Instruments Kontakt as a sample loader. That means you’ll get access to the advanced Kontakt scripting features that make samples sound even more realistic.
Kontakt isn’t free, but it’s a worthwhile tool to invest in if you plan on using more orchestral libraries in the future.
4. Project Sam’s The Free Orchestra
The Free Orchestra by Project Sam is a collection of samples from many of their paid products. It’s the high quality sample platter of orchestral libraries.
Vst Cinematic Plugins With The Best Sounds Sound
The Free Orchestra’s samples range from epic string staccatos to dystopian sound design.
The Free Orchestra’s samples range from epic string staccatos to dystopian sound design.
The best thing about this orchestral VST is that it runs in the free version of Kontakt—the Kontakt Player. This is perfect if you want to get started with Kontakt libraries without the commitment of buying the full version.
The Free Orchestra features incredible options for sound design. Parameters such as envelope controls, effects, octaver, and reverse make it one of the most versatile plugins on this list.
The Free Orchestra is the perfect entry level orchestra for any genre.
5. BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover by Spitfire Audio
BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover is another incredible offering from Spitfire Audio. Discover was designed to make orchestral scoring accessible to all music creators.
In the past, you would have to make an investment of hundreds of dollars or more to begin composing with an orchestra.
Discover includes 35 instruments and 47 techniques. All the instruments are premixed into one mix signal. This gives you a bit less control than a paid library, while still boasting a professional sound.
Discover includes “mode switching” which allows you to share your compositions with others. Composers that have different editions of the Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra can play and edit your music. This is also convenient if you plan on upgrading from Discover to one of Spitfire Audio’s paid offerings.
6. Versilian Chamber Orchestra Community
Versilian Chamber Orchestra Community is an open source version of Versilian Chamber Orchestra 2. It was created for musicians that want to create better sounding music using sample libraries without the cost.
The VSCO Community edition comes with 19 unique instruments, and 3000 individual samples. The library includes the basic articulations of the orchestra. It allows you to create realistic mockups right out of the box.
You’ll need a sample loader to run this library. Luckily, this library is compatible with the free sample loader Sforzando, which runs .sfz files.
This is a helpful non-proprietary format that stores instrument data for software synthesizers.
VSCO Community is also compatible with the full version of Kontakt.
Fork over the Orch
Free orchestral libraries used to ‘sound’ like they were free. Now, you can get a pro orchestral sound in your DAW with no financial commitment.
These libraries are a dime a dozen. Try them out in your DAW and make an epic banger.
They’ll be a good indicator of what will come next on your shopping list.
Top 10 Epic Cinematic Music Sample Libraries 2019
Cinematic music is getting more and more popular and library developers keep updating their existing libraries as well as continuously releasing new ones. And we have to keep up with the industry, so here is our top 10 pick of cinematic music sample libraries for this year. In no particular order of course…
1. Output – Analog Brass & Winds
We absolutely love a good hybrid sample library when we see one, and this is really something! It will cover all of your needs for that fat hybrid brass sound, featuring a ton of great patches which will keep you inspired for years to come. This blend of orchestral instruments and synthesized sounds is truly the future of film scoring and is perfect for both newcomer composers and seasoned professionals.
2. Audio Imperia – Jaeger
Vst Cinematic Plugins With The Best Sounds Effect
This one got popular really fast due to its big and somewhat dry-ish sound. The samples are recorded mostly close up without the big room sound so you have the flexibility of tweaking it to your liking, but also using it as a layer on top of your already existing orchestral libraries. It adds a really nice punch. And that solo vocal patch featuring Merethe Soltvedt… Just wow. A must have if you are into big action and trailer sound.
3.Heavyocity – Forzo & Novo
These are Heavyocity’s first entries into the orchestral domain and these guys know their stuff! Forzo is a massive brass library that just oozes with bombastic sound. The patches are of the highest quality and there is plenty of room for hybrid sound design. It is more versatile than previously the mentioned Analog Brass & Winds because it has orchestral brass samples, not just hybrid and sound designed sounds.
Novo is like Forzo, only for strings. Perfectly sampled string sections both organic and hybrid so there is plenty of fun in the box. For the biggest and boldest sound in trailers, try combining these two together with Audio Imperia’s Jaeger.
4. Native Instruments – Straylight
Vst Cinematic Plugins With The Best Sounds Guitar
This is something really fresh and rather cool by Native Instruments. They rarely make a cinematic sounding library themselves, but when they do it is really something. Straylight is basically your one-stop shop for big ambient soundscapes, drones and pads. You have tons of different sound sources, both organic and designed and you can blend two of them together in order to create something totally unique. It’s plain and simple to use with a beautiful GUI. If you are working on a sci-fi project at the moment, you need this!
5. Zero-G – Ethera Gold
The latest iteration of the Ethera series focuses on the epic side of cinematic music. Besides having heavy trailer sound design and percussion patches, Ethera Gold is packed with a lot of useful sounds for big and epic cinematic music, plus it has a strong solo female vocalist engine at its core.
6. Best Service – Strings Of Winter
This one comes from the amazing people over at Sonuscore, the creators of sample libraries such as The Orchestra, Action Strikes and Action Strings. It’s not just another standard string library because it has a lot of patches of rather interesting articulations performed by a 41-piece string ensemble divided into sections. If you are looking for something fresh in your string library, feel free to check this one out.
7. Sample Logic – Trailer Xpressions 2 The BOOM Experience
Sample Logic are veterans at creating cinematic sample libraries for almost 10 years now and the BOOM library guys have been making industry-standard sound FX and foleys almost as long as Sample Logic has been making sample libraries. It was only natural for them to join forces and bring us a comprehensive collection of sounds built specifically for trailer composers. This library has all the goodies you can hear in trailers such as booms, braaams, swooshes, hits, impacts, sub booms, risers, downers, you name it. If you are looking for a cool addition to your collection, look no further.
8. Audio Imperia – Artifact Reanimate
The guys from Audio Imperia can sure make an awesome sounding cinematic library, plus the GUI design on a few of their latest products has been as awesome as their sounds. Artifact Reanimate is their latest addition to their plethora of cinematic hybrid libraries, based on a redesigned and expanded version of their popular Artifact Fractal library.
Artifact Reanimate is a lot more than just a re-release as it combines the original “Artifact Fractal” content with the newly created “Artifact Tonal” content under one roof and inside their latest sound design engine version that offers extra manipulation options. The original collection of massive, gritty and hard-hitting percussion sounds has now been completed with a large array of tonal tools that fit many musical environments and a variety of styles.
9. Heavyocity – Mosaic Voices & Mosaic Keys
These two are latest newcomers to hybrid sound design libraries developed by Heavyocity and even though they have been available for less than a month they are already gaining in popularity. The new Mosaic series is presented as a new “passion project” from the Heavyocity team. For this new series they focused on inspiring vocals and instruments with sound design from single musical elements to create a pallet of sounds for use in the NOVO-esque hybrid engine that looks and sounds spectacular.
10. KeepForest – AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit
This is your swiss knife of trailer scoring. The AizerX Classic Trailer Toolkit is the newest product from KeepForest studio, based on the original AizerX engine with improved functionalities. This library contains a completely fresh and massive collection of hand-crafted high-quality sound effects created by the KeepForest team, a new wonderful sounding AizerX synth with presets, including pads, piano, basses, plucks, keys, etc… and other instruments waiting to be explored. This is your non-stop shop for big cinematic sound!
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