Miroslav Philharmonik... or something else?

[ras52]

I've been hearing great things about Miroslav Philharmonik, and I've heard great - as far as I can tell through YouTube videos - from it. It's currently going for 60 EUR (around half-price) in a Black Friday deal, which would make it a no-brainer, except... it doesn't work out-of-the-box with Pro Tools 11, my DAW of choice. For it to work, I'd also need one of the paid versions of the 64-bit Sample Tank 3 player, starting at 80 EUR.

So... this deal effectively reduces the "tax" on using Pro Tools 11 to 20 EUR, and of course I'd get a truck-load of Sample Tank instruments too, so it still seems like a good buy....

Yet I'm still niggled by the thought that Miroslav P is now regarded as a "legacy" product, which leads me to wonder, are there alternatives which come close without a greatly inflated price tag?

[paul_5]

I use the East West Symphonic stuff, and that's a legacy product too now.

To get around it incompatibility with PT I'm running the free version of Kontakt (I think it's Kompact - see what they did there?)Player to load up the libraries. Couldn't say how it compares to the Miroslav libraries though.

[Skol303]

I don't own Miroslav - the DAW I use (Reason) has an orchestra sound bank that's good enough for my purposes. But what I've [i]heard[/i] of the Miroslav library sounds great and very good value for money.

If you have money to burn then have a look at the Spitfire Audio libraries:

http://www.spitfireaudio.com

They're expensive, but the demos I've heard sound stunning.

[lowdown]

Miroslav is great if you are on a budget, and want to get a (very) usable Orchestral mock up together,
also good for learning Orchestral techniques and how it all fits together and works.
It used to be one of the big boys back in the days, and indeed was quite expensive.
But it is hard work trying to get excellent results together and time consuming.
The modern day libraries are more advanced with articulations, performance keys,
Hall reverbs, and a whole load of other considerations aimed at ease of use.

Yes, The Spitfire Audio range is excellent, and as good as it gets.
It is more a specialised library, where you build up various sections so
it will get very pricey. They do have the 'Albion/Iceni' series which is pretty much
a full Orchestra with limited expressions. They are around the £350/£400.(uses Kontakt 5 free player).

If you want full on Symphonic and Cinematic High quality sounds with everything catered for,
from Choirs through to the Orchestral Instruments and the large percussion drums plus risers/hits,
sound design, Keys etc, one of the best out there is 'Essentials' or the new 'Essentials 2'
from Project Sam.(Also uses the Kontakt 5 free player). Around £250.
Very little mixing required, all the Instrument patches are recorded in their correct panned position and space.
The articulations are really good and key switched on the keyboard, so real time performance is
pretty easy to get the real human effect.
https://www.projectsam.com/Products/Essentials-Series/1446

Demo sounds/Videos.
https://www.projectsam.com/Products/Essentials-Series/1446

There is something Similar from Vienna Instruments (VSL),
but You will need a Steinberg Key to license it.
http://www.vsl.co.at/en/211/261/2064/2067/1751.htm
About the same price as above.

There are others, but are more expensive.
I suppose at the end of the day it depends on what you want to use it for.
If you intend unleashing the next big block buster on us all, Miroslav
is more than likely not the tool, but if you are on a budget and not short on time when composing,
certainly worth considering. I have heard some pretty good end results on Youtube.
Proberly worth listening to all the various demos these companies put up,
and decide what fits your composing needs and available finances.

Edit: I nearly forgot. Another excellent library is East West Symphonic Orchestra,
with upgrade paths to their gold and platinum series. Quite cheap, but needs
an iLok account. Careful with this one, it seems on various DAW forums
that it's own sampler player can cause problems (although not with all it seems).
http://www.soundsonline.com/Symphonic-Orchestra

Edit 2: And there is more, Cinesamples have
their full Orchestra (light)@ $299 until December 2nd.
Another winner in the same vein as all above.
http://cinesamples.com/product/cinesymphony-lite

Edited November 26, 2014 by lowdown

[Rumple]

The Sample Tank player used to be free, you only paid if you wanted the library of sounds, maybe that's changed now though as it's a few years since I downloaded it.

[ras52]

Thanks for the input, guys, especially the detailed response from Mr Lowdown!

If it was the 60EUR I guess I’d go for Miroslav now to get my feet wet, as I clearly need to do some homework before committing to something pricier – I’ve only just found out what key-switching is The Vienna stuff looks marvellous but overwhelming....

@Rumble, there is a free version of Sample Tank 3, but only the paid versions support importing “legacy” instruments :-(

My context is that short-term I’d like to add orchestral textures to commercial songwriting demos – for which I think Miroslav would do fine – but later on I want to get into more fully-realised sync-ready productions. Not to mention to weird uncommercial arty stuff ;-)

[Rumple]

[quote name='ras52' timestamp='1417013267' post='2616083']
..
@Rumble, there is a free version of Sample Tank 3, but only the paid versions support importing “legacy” instruments :-(

[/quote]

That's a shame I use an old free version SampleTank 2 with 3rd party samples, they must have changed that feature

[ras52]

[quote name='Rumple' timestamp='1417014852' post='2616124']
That's a shame I use an old free version SampleTank 2 with 3rd party samples, they must have changed that feature
[/quote]

ST3 is 64-bit only, and it's the only version that works with Pro Tools 11's AAX interface. The joys of being on the bleeding edge