A Basic Guide to Orchestral Sample Libraries

Author: StormSound

Last updated/Changes made: Information for all updates is available in the GitHub repository.

What is this guide?

Hi everyone,

Looking back to when I was just starting out with virtual instruments, I realize that it took me a very long time to piece anything together. This guide is meant to be a resource for people who want to learn more about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the most bread-and-butter and/or popular orchestral sample libraries. This guide is not meant to be the ultimate orchestral VST shopping list, just an introduction to some of a composer's best options.

I'll do my best to keep this up to date as new libraries are released. If you have any general questions, comments, or input, please post in this associated forum thread over at VI-Control. On the other hand, if you want to report a specific issue, please check out the instructions here. If you are overwhelmed with the information in this guide, I would recommend creating a thread on the VI-Control forum that asks your question and/or explains your situation. There are lots of people there willing to help you out – just keep in mind that the community can be biased toward specific developers, so don't take anyone's word as gospel.

It's unrealistic to expect me to have extensive experience with every single one of the libraries included in this guide. Instead, you can view this as a resource meant to introduce you to the best options out there so that you can do some more research on the products that interest you and make a final decision for yourself.

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