Virtual Instrument Plug-in Software and Libraries

[RealPickle]

I second Mark that for solo stuff finding real players is ideal. Having said that, I've used the Native Instruments Stradivari Violin library to good effect. If you're composing a concerto or something it won't cut it, but to just have some solo violin lines over an orchestra it works pretty well. I got it as part of a Komplete package so I have no idea how expensive it is on its own.

For orchestra overall, I highly recommend Musio. It uses the Cinesamples library and what's good about it is it's a subscription model, so you can try it out and only pay like $10 a month to see if it works for you. I find the sounds to be really good and the interface is very user-friendly.

But 100% also what Bradley said--if you don't learn how to program the strings properly, you'll still get the dreaded "sounds fake" feedback.

Hope that helps!

Edit: After writing this I realized this thread is a year old haha. But for anyone *else* wondering, I stand by my recs!