APD Top 5 Orchestral Libraries

Today is a special blog day, and once again we hope everyone is being smart and staying safe during these difficult times!

Today I want to do another “Top 5” blog, but this time I’d like to focus on my favorite genre… orchestral music! These are my top five favorite libraries in the APD Shop for traditional orchestral/cinematic music (in no particular order), and in today’s video, I’ll do an extensive breakdown of exactly how I use them to make a cinematic orchestral cue.

1. Sonuscore Lyrical Violin Phrases: this library, along with it’s sister libraries “Lyrical Cello Phrases” and “Lyrical Vocal Phrases”, are incredibly useful phrase based libraries for adding a human touch to your compositions. Not only do they feature a TON of phrases, in any key and many different scales and styles, they include a legato instrument as well for writing your own melodies and phrases. These phrases can easily be the secret sauce to pushing your compositions to the next level.

2. Harmonic Subtones Emotional Cello (Best Service): A super deep sampled cello library, the playability, sound, and versatility of this library is on another level. Featuring a massive amount of articulations and playing styles, and a beautifully realistic legato that can do anything from slow, expressive lines to fast and agile virtuoso playing, this instrument is my favorite solo cello on the market currently. While I do love other libraries such as Cinesamples Tina Guo Cello Legato, this library is far more versatile and flexible in what it allows you to play, and sounds just as realistic.

3. Sonuscore Origins series: The Origins series by Sonuscore feature beautifully sampled plucked and hammered string instruments, but the real magic lies in the arpeggiator which adds life and movement to your chord progressions, and adds processing and effects while still maintaining a natural, acoustic sound. I love this series for adding a natural “synth style” sequence/arp to an orchestral production where synths would be out of place.

4. Impact Soundworks Orchestral Bundle: Featuring a ridiculous amount of content, here I used the following: Rhapsody Orchestral Colors, Furia Staccato Strings, and Vocalisa (Slavic Womens Choir). The Rhapsody Orchestral Colors series is perfect for sketching and ensemble/chord based patches, as well as clusters, effects, and other more atonal articulations. You get the whole string, brass, and woodwind section mapped across your keyboard for easily sketching out ideas quickly. Furia Staccato Strings I used for a more aggressive short string sound, and the Vocalisa Choir has a beautiful, unique tone that really cuts through a mix and in some ways is superior to a more traditional, classical symphonic choir.

5. Soundiron Insane Bundle: Another huge bundle, for this track I used the amazing Venus Women’s Choir and Steel Tones. The Venus choir has some of the best legato I’ve ever heard, buttery smooth and flowing, and adds a ton of realism and depth to the track, even used sparingly. The choir is huge in content and I only use one articulation, so it’s worth checking out other demos to see all it has to offer. Finally I used Steel Tones to add some percussive/metallic texture to the track, which just adds depth and “ear candy” and a bit of texture.