Since we are talking about Orchestral and String samples, what’s your take on the strings that come with Logic Pro X?
I have never used anything from Spitfire (I think they are very pricey) but their demos sound awesome.
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Logic Pro strings are decent for some things, but not nearly as high quality as a real orchestral strings library. Then again, the Spitfire free version’s strings are not that good either. 
And to be honest, everything in the high end realm of orchestral libraries will cost a lot of money. Afflatus Strings costs 799 euros now when I checked, and it’s my favorite string library.
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Thanks or the tip, I’ll keep on looking for some good strings, I’ll check out Afflatus Strings 
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It all depends on your budget Peter, but in the end you get what you pay for as with most products in the world. 
Hey Paeter, I agree with Mikael, logic strings are great for certain things, such as pop production but not good for orchestral mockups. They just take too much processing to get them sounding even half decent.
Here are a few cheaper alternatives I think would be beneficial on a budget for you to get.
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epic strings by Spitfire - £30 (same strings as what is in Albion 1 but you just get shorts and longs)
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Nucleus light - you get the whole orchestra, it sounds awesome but the articulations are limited - $99
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Orchestral tools layers - sounds great but it’s all of the orchestra at once, so very very limiting, a good layer to have though - it’s free
The East west cloud orchestra - this is a great option for beginners. You can get the Hollywood series and so many more on a subscription base for £22/$30 a month
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Thanks for the advice!
I think that is the best way to go. Start with some cheaper alternatives and when I get a better understanding on how to work with them go for something more complete. I’ll check out your recommendations. Which strings do you use?
Thanks for te advice!
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I personally enjoy spitfire audio strings so I mainly use them, but I have others that I layer in too these days most string libraries are similar. You can get great results with whatever you pick. I enjoy dryer libraries so my main string patch is studio strings by spitfire audio. Some prefer a wet library, you get a lush sound with a wetter library which is a big plus, but you lose detail and if your using a few instances then you can get additional room build up you need to EQ out. Dryer libraries are great for detail and they don’t hide anything you may have programmed badly, so they force you to be more expressive, but there are cons too… being so dry makes them sound slightly smaller and this can work against you for bigger orchestral works.
So I’d say you need both ideally. A wet library for size and a dry library for detail and precision. Obviously this is just info for when you gain experience but these are the things id be looking for. I’m terms of wet libraries, I lean towards Albion 1 which is great, but as I said, it suffers from lack of detail and too much room build up in one or 2 frequencies just like all well libraries.
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Just a disclaimer. Obviously I’ve stated I enjoy spitfire stuff but they aren’t perfect. Yes, they’re probably the best sample library out there atm but they do a few things wrong, that other libraries get right.
I’ve used an awful lot of libraries due to my background and spitfire are generally great all around. I’ll say thins though for anyone wanting to know.
Spitfire are great for
- strings
- woodwind
- hybrid granular orchestral stuff (I love this side of the company)
- free labs libraries (theyre a must have!!)
- they do classic film and classical genres fantastically
- they’re the best for articulations
What they don’t do so well
- they could do their labelling better. Often keyswites aren’t labelled, and a few other really small details.
- generally, brass are always too bright for modern work, but are fantastic for that gritty John Williams sound.
- some articulations are a bit made up (super legato for instance). Doesn’t help compositional learning is all… all articulations are great but these can be confusing for beginners.
- the spitfire stand alone gui is probably one of the best out there but it’s bot optimised yet, so it’s a bit of a cpu hog with some of the bigger libraries that use it, so stay away from the Hans Zimmer stuff until that is fixed - apparently coming soon. This is the only thing people are really frustrated about.
Over all they’re amazing but this is something I’d take into consideration. I just don’t want anyone to think spitfires the one to go for just because I say I use them most though they labs range is absolutely free so there is no reason not to get it!!
Included in the labs range is a free strings patch too so I’d say before buying anything, try there out!!
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Just got my free copy yesterday and it’s actually quite good; they definitely did a good job of making you want the full library. My only cons are that the natural reverb from the recording studio is so clean and spacious that I don’t think I could use this library as a layering tool, as I like to use Valhalla Room Reverb on my master bus (because it just sounds so good!) so I’d have to do the reverse and use this as my main library w/o a rev plug-in and then use another drier library to layer. But this leaves my with fewer articulation choices.
Second, I don’t like the a3 choice for woodwinds. I’m so used to hearing the classic a2 orchestral set up that three instruments with all the slight audible nuances between them sound a bit synthetic to my ears.
Third, the off-set on legato notes is too long and they run together too much making quicker legato passages sound, um…blah, so only slower passages. Unless of course I’m doing something wrong there😅
On the positive side, I think maybe they did an update since I first checked this out, but there seem to be more dynamic layers than i expected. Sounds like about, mp < ff
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Cool man, though I’d suggest you don’t use reverb on your master. Set up a dedicated bus for it and blend the right amount in as a send effect.
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