Orchestral Tools / Berlin Orchestra 'Inspire'

[Piet De Ridder]

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Everything that follows is copied from the pre-order announcement mail:
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When musical ideas flow, being quick is crucial. That's why we designed a virtual orchestra that combines a phenomenal sound with the capabilities of a fast writing tool. Berlin Orchestra Inspire is based on the Berlin Series, which was developed over the last 5 years. Today it is one of the largest and most detailed orchestral sample collections in the world, which is used by many composers around the world and in countless Hollywood productions. With Berlin Orchestra Inspire we bring the sound and power of the Berlin Orchestra to smaller and mobile systems. A Symphony Orchestra in one box: Strings / Woodwinds / Brass / Percussion / Grand Piano / Harp.

Not too wet, not too dry - just right
All instruments of Berlin Orchestra Inspire are recorded at their natural seating positions; articulations and instruments are in natural balance to each other. This is the best basic requirement to achieve a sonic impression where all the instruments are blending together to a full orchestral body. Not too wet, not too dry – the perfect acoustics of the Teldex Scoring Stage allow to stay flexible for any kind of production. The carefully merged microphone blend convinces with a powerful and shimmering sound. Simple to use – right out of the box.

A flash of inspiration - your arrangement just minutes away
Berlin Orchestra lnspire is a layout orchestra for quick and stunning results. Use Berlin Orchestra Inspire where ever you want to be creative - All you need is a single machine with 8GB of RAM and the free Kontakt Player.

Pre-Order Special
Pre-Order now for just 249€ + VAT.
Normal price will be 399€ + VAT.
Release Date: July 14

150€ of vouchers
With your purchase of BOI you will receive two special vouchers that can be used in the OT Store:
a 50€ voucher, good for any purchase
a 100€ voucher, good for any purchase higher than 600€
The vouchers can not be combined in the same order. Vouchers will be sent upon release of Berlin Orchestra Inspire and are not refundable.

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[Guy Rowland]

(Just posted and then removed a duplicate thread on this)

Initial thoughts - a crowded marketplace now. Sonically sounds really really good to me, though lacking in bells and whistles (well, except the glockenspiel ha ha).

Dear God, the mixing in that trailer video though - sheesh, that's a ball dropped there, that's a candidate for my worst-audio-in-an-audio-product video.

[NoamL]

It's basically Spitfire Masse for BS+BWW+BB.

Personally a pass, but this is going to be a #@$#ing must-have for deadline composers. I assisted a composer who used Ark all the time and I can't imagine him passing on this! It sounds better than Ark! Like I hate the concept of "We orchestrated for you" libraries but this really does sound fantastic.

[Yasin Yavuz]

Initial thoughts - a crowded marketplace now. Sonically sounds really really good to me, though lacking in bells and whistles (well, except the glockenspiel ha ha).

I have most of its competitors. It's obvious OT checked them out and tried to offer something more.

[NoamL]

Watched through the screencast over lunch. Frankly, at $300 this kills Sonuscore The Orchestra and Symphobia 1+2 and many similar products, and takes a big bite from Spitfire Albion. At the eventual $450 price perhaps all those devs (except Sonuscore) can breathe a small sigh of relief.

This library is intelligent. Everything fits into 8GB because that's the relevant standard for off the shelf laptops, and they’re catering to the newbies who haven’t bought Kontakt. Actually designing for the right audience, what a concept.

It's not a shallow product. There's not just your generic Kiddo-Trailer-Composer string and brass stabs and susses, but all kinds of well orchestrated combinations.There are even wind and brass solo instruments and a decent array of percussion - solo timpani, solo harp - all for the same price as the revamped Albion1 which has NONE of these features (think about it, would a newbie composer rather have a high quality solo timpani WITH rolls, and a solo trumpet, solo horn, solo flute and solo clarinet in addition to all the ensemble patches? Or would they rather have a hundred Brunel loops and Steam pads? I see OT aiming much closer to the mark here).

For newbie VI composers, I have a hard time seeing how this does not become the premier “first library” product. For the rest of us, I am having a hard time talking myself out of it at $300. I wasn’t even tempted by Masse or Sonuscore The Orchestra. Sonuscore's product in particular is getting whipped here as their mid tier sounds and their "Here, budge over, let us compose for you" arpeggiator with a hundred or more presets, just isn't enough value when you can get what is effectively a starter kit of the Berlin Series for just $50 more.

I think all of this underlines how Orchestral Tools has been proceeding from square 1 with a very coherent vision - doing exactly what they envisioned for strings, brass, woodwinds, then putting them together in Inspire, and offering auxiliary orchestral ideas in their Ark series. Meanwhile you have Spitfire Audio who have some genius products like the frankly industry-changing Scary Strings and its EVO successors, just to name one product line... But the SSO series is a rationalization of BML which never made too much coherent sense put together (like the brass patches are a1/a2/a6 for every brass section), and they've depended on the selling point of AIR to convince everybody that SSO and the Albions all fit together.

[Scoredog]

I just don't see this as a competitor for Sonuscore, almost totally different animal. Sonuscore is really about the arpeggiators, the library is bare bones. This is considerably deeper with more detail and no auto arranger which is basically what Sonuscore's arpeggiators are. Very few people are going to buy Sonuscore for it's pure sounds.

[Guy Rowland]

Yes, I agree Scoredog. Its closest competitors I'd say are CineSymphony Lite and AlbionONE, though it has its own slant and as you point out Noam, it offers quite a bit more in a few areas, but I guess Albion ONE has the loops and steam band to partly compensate. CineSymphony Lite has never seemed the most compelling product to me, and is looking a little less compelling tonight (despite the 25% off sale). ProjectSAM has their own skew - the OE series I guess is a closer comparison, and has an even broader range of instruments. Even now, still no-one else has anything much like their multis, well, except now The Orchestra.

But for straight ahead broad composing without frills, Inspire sounds best in class from the walkthrough, though I still love Albion's tone too. The size is great, agree with you Noam that its a perfect laptop library. Again, its an easy pass for me, but I admire it as a product.

Just don't understand how a product with that much care and attention gets a mix like it has on the trailer video though. Unfathomable.

[NoamL]

AlbionONE also has better sounding legatos IMO. Just trying to think of ways that Albion competes back.

Perhaps the best "X is like Y" is that this Inspire is going to be the EWQLSO of the current sampling generation. Kind of incredible how far sampling has advanced.

(You're right, Lumina is still in a niche by itself)

[Guy Rowland]

And you're right about those Albion legatos. I've been a past critic of Spitifre's legatos, but to be fair they've been improving year on year, and ONE is miraculous there.

Back to Inspire - and The Orchestra for that matter - I think switching to a single mic mix is absolutely the right choice. Albion ONE is 40gb - could be 13gb if it were one mic position, which is much more laptop friendly. So another agreement - OT knows its market here. Another way to chop a third off the size is 16bit - as long as the samples are normalised first, that's such an easy win with (imo) pretty much no quality reduction. Don't know if The Orchestra did that, but Inspire doesn't.

[KyleJudkins]

Wow, I'm really considering this.

1. Because my gf might switch to a tablet

2. I could be extremely lazy and feel confident mixing my template with this, while having a nice sketching tool

[bigcat1969]

PDF of articulations and such... The most basic as you expect Legato, Sustain, some type of Staccato.
http://www.orchestraltools.com/resource ... nspire.pdf

It's my birthday I got it. I'm trying to learn how to write music and this looks perfect for the guy with little knowledge, experience or talent who wants to learn. Simple uncluttered, good sound.

I would happily lose the piano for a solo violin and cello.

I can make my own arp script for Kontakt. I can't make Berlin quality sounds. This over The Orchestra any day.

Listen to the screencast. Wow beautiful. Got chills.

[Lawrence]

I wonder about the CPU hit. At the pre-order price, this would be less than Ark 1, which I have. Intriguing.

Many of the combos sound very nice. I doubt the legato will be real agile. most of the demonstrated stuff is pretty slow. Slow legato Horn solo is very pretty, as is the slow legato trpt.

There is somewhat of a danger of the dreaded giant harmonica/combo organ with some of the combos.

Overall pretty impressive sounding, especially for the price.

[Linos]

It packs a lot of content for the price, especially the intro price. The really down to the most essential articulation list and the fact that most patches are several instruments in one patch restrict its usefulness to sketching only, though. I would have been interested if it was closer to VSL Special Edition: a cutdown version of the Berlin Series. One mic position, a selection of the most important articulations, instruments balanced against each other at a reasonable price. That would be a different product though, so I'll pass on this one.

[Desert]

I wonder about the CPU hit. At the pre-order price, this would be less than Ark 1, which I have. Intriguing.

Many of the combos sound very nice. I doubt the legato will be real agile. most of the demonstrated stuff is pretty slow. Slow legato Horn solo is very pretty, as is the slow legato trpt.

There is somewhat of a danger of the dreaded giant harmonica/combo organ with some of the combos.

Overall pretty impressive sounding, especially for the price.

Wondering if my MacBook Air would handle it, too.

[woodrose]

There is somewhat of a danger of the dreaded giant harmonica/combo organ with some of the combos.

This is one of my fears as well. Does anyone here have the library and can chime in on whether this is a real issue here?

[mickeyl]

There is somewhat of a danger of the dreaded giant harmonica/combo organ with some of the combos.

This is one of my fears as well. Does anyone here have the library and can chime in on whether this is a real issue here?

You'll have to wait for two weeks to get an answer. Release date is 14th this month.

[woodrose]

There is somewhat of a danger of the dreaded giant harmonica/combo organ with some of the combos.

This is one of my fears as well. Does anyone here have the library and can chime in on whether this is a real issue here?

You'll have to wait for two weeks to get an answer. Release date is 14th this month.

I'm obviously not very observant today. Thank you.

[bigcat1969]

Actually I got it because I've always dreamed of a giant harmonica! (That's a joke son)

[Tobias Escher]

I have it, but I guess it does not count when I say that it does not sound like a combo organ

Desert: If your MBA has 8 GB Ram you should be good! They all have SSDs as far as I know, so disk speed will be no issue.

[Lawrence]

Tobias-is there a danger that all the positive things I said are true as well?

[Erik]

Might be my 1st leap into OT, as I want to immerge myself into these warm waters for a couple of years. Have to find the cash though - I've missed Art Vista sales and my good plan about getting Emotional piano has vanished, ahah, so that might help in the grand scheme of things. I concur with Guy here : what a weird mix for the trailer !
Have to be sure though it won't overlap too much with Albion One - just a hobbyist here.

[Yasin Yavuz]

Have to be sure though it won't overlap too much with Albion One - just a hobbyist here.

I have it. If you need a technical comparison between them, here are my thoughts:
1. Inspire has bigger pitch and dynamic ranges for legatos. Sound is drier and more aggressive. In Albion One modwheel between 85-127 doesn't make any difference.
2. Organisation of patches looks a bit better. You get all articulations in one patch with bonus articulations like marcato or trills for some. In Albion One you get keyswitch patches, but legatos are not included in them.
3. Albion One with included legacy patches you have pre-recorded runs and effects while Inspire is mostly basic articulations.
4. Inspire has 4 solo instruments and a full violin section with legatos, Albion doesn't.
5. Inspire doesn't have any synth or loop patches, Albion has steam band and brunel loops.
6. Percussion sections are totally different. Albion is hybrid epic, Inspire is traditional.

[Lawrence]

Yasin, do you like it/love it/not so much? Strengths, weaknesses?

[Yasin Yavuz]

If you say, I want an affordable and realistic orchestral package for basics and don't need a lot of individual sections and articulations. I would recommend this one over Projectsam OE, Cinesymphony lite, The Orchestra, UVI Orchestral Suite etc.

[Lawrence]

If you say, I want an affordable and realistic orchestral package for basics and don't need a lot of individual sections and articulations. I would recommend this one over Projectsam OE, Cinesymphony lite, The Orchestra, UVI Orchestral Suite etc.

Not to push, but how do you plan to use it? Thanks.