First Orchestral Library, Symphobia 1 or Albion One?

[SteveR]

I want to buy my first orchestral library. I've narrowed my choices to Project Sam, Symphobia 1 or Spitfire, Albion One. Comments/advice to help me choose? TIA

I'm running Cubase Pro 12 on PC.

[cosmicdolphin]

They are both good sounding libraries, having used both I reach for Syphobia more - I think it's because I prefer the interface rather than the sounds being the deciding factor

I just find it more intuitive and it hase some really good multi's which I've found handy for Sync.

[superkons]

I say Albion ONE, I use it quite often, and also because I do not have/have never tried Symphobia, but have heard many good things about it

[richardferrym]

agree, vote for Albion ONE

[SteveR]

Thanks for the comments all. I bought Albion One in the end.

I saw a good YouTube comparison which didn’t have a clear winner because they both are obviously very good, but it had a lot of seemingly impartial detail on both. I went with what I thought would suit me best personally. I liked the idea of the multi’s with Symphobia though, so to test a potential workaround for mulis with Albion, I loaded a few sections from the free BBC SO Discover on different DAW tracks, selected all the tracks simultaneously and played my keys. The result was similar to a multi. It certainly sounded good, except that each instrument section was on its own track, which could be handy for mixing and editing. A nice feature of BBC SO btw is that the note ranges are set to match what the actual instruments can play, so you have your keyboard splits set according to the real instruments, keeping it authentic. I thought that was pretty neat.

Anyway, happy to have a nice setup to work with now. Thanks for the input.

[chartzog]

Thanks for the comments all. I bought Albion One in the end.

I saw a good YouTube comparison which didn’t have a clear winner because they both are obviously very good, but it had a lot of seemingly impartial detail on both. I went with what I thought would suit me best personally. I liked the idea of the multi’s with Symphobia though, so to test a potential workaround for mulis with Albion, I loaded a few sections from the free BBC SO Discover on different DAW tracks, selected all the tracks simultaneously and played my keys. The result was similar to a multi. It certainly sounded good, except that each instrument section was on its own track, which could be handy for mixing and editing. A nice feature of BBC SO btw is that the note ranges are set to match what the actual instruments can play, so you have your keyboard splits set according to the real instruments, keeping it authentic. I thought that was pretty neat.

Anyway, happy to have a nice setup to work with now. Thanks for the input.

I started with BBCSO Discover and later purchased the “Core” version. Albion looks interesting. How do they compare with each other? I like how quickly BBC loads compared with for example EW Opus which tends to load up slowly and tends to give me dropouts during playback sometimes.

[BradleyHagen]

I am currently looking at Orchestral libraries as well, and wanted to hear some thoughts on these:

1.) Nucleus by Audio Imperia
2.) The BBC Core (I have Discover...it sounds pretty great to my ears!)
3.) Orchestral Tools Berlin Bundle
4.) Cinematic Studio Strings

I have the NI stuff, and EW Opus/CC and it seems like the NI is overused by composers in just about everything, and I find EW to be rather CPU intensive and clunky. I am just a tired old rocker trying to learn and branch out into composing orchestral content at some point.

[melodea]

I'm in the same spot. I have Albion One but I'm not overly impressed. I've heard Chris Hein's Ensemble Strings and they kinda blew me away! Strangely almost nobody is talking about that library! Does anyone have an option about the Chris Hein stuff?

[BradleyHagen]

I did go ahead and get BBCSO Core, and it is quite good.... Not sure if it is for Epic Trailer kinda stuff, but for straight up traditional orchestral (which is where I need to start anyway...) it is pretty spot on. I think they are running a 50% off sale right now