First Look: The Orchestra Complete + Strings of Winter by Sonuscore

by

Sonuscore takes its fan-favorite orchestral Kontakt instrument and expands on it in an epic manner. The Orchestra Complete is a gem for not only quickly sketching out orchestral performances and discovering inspiring new passages, but it also boasts a revised and updated sample pool with newly recorded cinematic and world strings articulations that have me falling in love all over again with this virtual instrument.

Jump to the Videos of The Orchestra Complete w/ Strings of Winter by Sonuscore

Jump to the Demos of The Orchestra Complete w/ Strings of Winter by Sonuscore

 

First Look: The Orchestra Complete + Strings of Winter by Sonuscore

The Orchestra Complete Main Kontakt Player Instrument Navigation

The Orchestra Complete w/ Strings of Winter sells for $399 from Sonuscore
Upgrade are available from $119.00 and Strings of Winter is available as a separate Kontakt Player library for $149.00.

For all details, the official The Strings of Winter & The Orchestra Complete pages at Best Service

 

One of my most popular reviews was a video I did checking out the original release of The Orchestra (link) and for good reason. When first released, The Orchestra promised easy entry into creating orchestral phrases and rhythms by plopping down just a few chord changes.

Arpeggios Controls

This is thanks to the libraries Arpeggio and Envelope engine which allows time-sync’d automation of the libraries Multi-Sampled instruments.

Velocity Envelopes Page

The sample sets from the recording’s original library were from session sampling of an 80-Piece Orchestra and delivered String sections, Brass & Woodwinds.

With the upgrade to The Orchestra Complete, we see the library now contains some melodic and non-pitched percussion as well as instruments and articulations from the new Strings of Winter recording session. For Strings of Winter, the developer sampled a 41-piece string orchestra and delivered string sections of multi-sampled instruments with actriculations adding a cinematic dimension to the library ranging from Trills, Sul Ponticello, Harmonics, Col Legno and Bartók Pizzicato.

The Orchestra Complete also offers up a Morin Khuur Ensemble instrument. The Morin Khuur, which is the national instrument in Mongolia is an ethnic bowed string instrument that is also referred to as the “horsehead violin”.

I also want to mention that there are some great sounding “Bonus” patches for Choirs and String FX.

The Orchestra Complete – New instruments included in the upgrade

With the inclusion of the new sampled Percussion, Strings of Winter, Morin Khuur Ensemble and the Bonus instruments, the library expands more than doubly from its previous sonic capabilities and offers users some truly remarkable playback.

I usually don’t write a lot of text for these kinds of video reviews, but I can’t wrap up the review without mentioning the new Midi Export feature. This is a real game-changer for The Orchestra users. It allows you to play chords, in real-time, and trigger the powerful arpeggio and envelop controls and then drag-and-drop the midi from your performance into your DAW.

I am fast in my DAWs piano roll so this means being able to adjust, reprogram, modulate as well as add other instruments – think sub synths playing along instantly with your Basses, or rhythmic pulsing synth atmospheres playing along with your lead strings. The most exciting thing with midi-export for me here is that we can now trigger other orchestral sample libraries to playback what The Orchestra Compete generates.

Kontakt Snapshot Presets

To be perfectly blunt, I never got around to including the original The Orchestra into my workflow. Although I found the Original release inspiring, I felt that some of the multi-sampled instruments fell just short or the level of playback that I was looking for in my orchestral package. The shining gem of the original was the Arepiggio and Velocity Envelop functions.

With the updates and newly included samples, I am re-invigorated about this library. It now has more depth and it such a pleasure to work with I am hoping to slot out some time to sketch out some music with the instrument and export the midi to use other instruments such as synths and other premium orchestral libraries and then have a fair comparison. Either way, I can’t wait to jump in and start working with The Orchestra Complete and its new midi export feature.

In this the video above, I take a first look at the library and share what I discover playing through a number of presets and getting an overall feel for what the instrument has to offer.

Sonuscore‘s The Orchestra Complete and Strings of Winter sells for $399 from Best Service
Upgrade are available from $119.00 and Strings of Winter is available as a separate Kontakt Player library for $149.00.

For all details visit Best Service

 

Facts

The Orchestra Complete + Strings of Winter downloads as 11.7 GB
The Strings, Brass and Woodwinds come with standard articulations and True Legato while the included Strings of Winter
articulations range from Trills, Sul Ponticello, Harmonics, Col Legno to Bartók Pizzicato.

The library is comprised of Multi-Sampled Instruments and the engine houses independent appeggiators and velocity envelopes for sequencing capabilities.

In total there are 302 ensemble presets categorized as Colors, Rhythms and Animated,

The Orchestra complete comes with a Drag to Midi functionality and is a Kontakt Player Instrument that loads into your libraries tab and requires the Full or FREE version of Kontakt 6.0.4

Sonuscore‘s The Orchestra Complete and Strings of Winter sells for $399 from Best Service
Upgrade are available from $119.00 and Strings of Winter is available as a separate Kontakt Player library for $149.00.

For all details visit Best Service

Demos of The Orchestra Complete w/ Strings of Winter by Sonuscore

Videos of The Orchestra Complete w/ Strings of Winter by Sonuscore

PROS

CONS