Orchestral Tools Black Friday Sale - 50% off Main Series

[Linos]

Official Announcement by Orchestral Tools:


'Hey everyone,

It’s that time of year again, and today we’re really excited to be launching our Black Friday sale.



For the first time ever, we’re offering the community our entire flagship orchestra at 50% off. That means all 17 individual collections on SINE, and every one of the 5 bundles too—but only until December 3.

The Berlin Series spans over a decade's worth of unparalleled orchestral sampling releases: From massive orchestral ensembles to intimately detailed solo instruments, this is an entire orchestral ecosystem under one consistent, creative vision.

That means that every section of this modular orchestra stands alone but also meshes perfectly with the others, each having been meticulously sampled on the iconic Teldex Scoring Stage.

And, because the entire Berlin Series is 50% off, you can pick and choose from the whole flagship orchestra and plug any holes in your template.

So if you’ve been waiting for an opportunity to complete a bundle, snag a specific collection, or take the plunge and completely renew your template—now is the best time.

We’ve set up a landing page where you can find details on all collections and bundles featured in the campaign, and check out some of our favorite Berlin Series demos from over the years:

https://www.orchestraltools.com/promoti ... riday-2023

Happy hunting,

Best,
OT'


Good prices for the bundles. I'm a little torn. I have the Symphonic Strings (which I like), Berlin Strings (like them less than I thought I would), and the Solo Srings (like the tone, but hate to work with them due to inconsistencies). I am interested in the brass mainly. I like that you have individual players, and the classical mellow sound. But the library seems to have its fair share of inconsistencies too. Plus, despite the 50% off, at €430 (including VAT) it's an investment. The complete bundle would be better value (€650 for me). Oh well. There's a bit of time to decide.

[Malachistos]

Hm. Seems a new main library is coming in december. I don't like this type of sale.

[Muziksculp]

I'm still waiting for OT to release an improvement update for their Berlin Strings library, so far this hasn't happened. I won't be purchasing anything from them until they release this update.

[Linos]

Cards on the table. Who uses Berlin Brass regularly? I read that it sounds classical, and that should be right up my street. And I like that it offers individual players rather than just a soloist plus ensembles. However, I also have Hollywood Brass and Cinematic Studio Brass, as well as the Sample Modelling French Horn & Tuba. And I fear that I would have to deal with the inconsistencies and less than ideal workflow of Berlin Brass. In the end, I might not use it at all. Not an easy decision. At the moment I am leaning towards saving the budget for remote recordings instead.

[Lawrence]

I have all those and more, so it’s hard to pony up for Berlin Brass. I bought Cinebrass on the recent glitch sale, have Adventure Brass and the rest of SM.

The SM Horn is really versatile and can be made to sound quite good.

[My name is Nobody]

Cards on the table. Who uses Berlin Brass regularly? I read that it sounds classical, and that should be right up my street. And I like that it offers individual players rather than just a soloist plus ensembles. However, I also have Hollywood Brass and Cinematic Studio Brass, as well as the Sample Modelling French Horn & Tuba. And I fear that I would have to deal with the inconsistencies and less than ideal workflow of Berlin Brass. In the end, I might not use it at all. Not an easy decision. At the moment I am leaning towards saving the budget for remote recordings instead.

Maybe NoamL could indicate better, as iirc he had found that the difficulty lies in the inconsistent volume levels within each instrument section where the challenge lies. Thus making it sound like a coherent section requires a lot more work.
It does sound gorgeous though.

I am looking into the whole con sordino strings as I have the violins 1 from a recent sale.
Anyone here willing to offer some useful comments on the whole library?

[bbunker]

Cards on the table. Who uses Berlin Brass regularly? I read that it sounds classical, and that should be right up my street. And I like that it offers individual players rather than just a soloist plus ensembles. However, I also have Hollywood Brass and Cinematic Studio Brass, as well as the Sample Modelling French Horn & Tuba. And I fear that I would have to deal with the inconsistencies and less than ideal workflow of Berlin Brass. In the end, I might not use it at all. Not an easy decision. At the moment I am leaning towards saving the budget for remote recordings instead.

I don't use Berlin Brass regularly, but I think that kind of answers the question. I was planning on using it almost exclusively on that vintage Sports Rock project, and it ended up on a few pieces, but ultimately it ended up being more of a hassle, and not sounding as good, as CSB, and was pretty much replaced out and has stayed that way. There are a number of inconsistencies that seem minor until you get into them, with the volume disparities between players in the sections needing some unique solutions, and playing styles varying quite significantly at times between sections.

Things like the 16th note and triplet repetitions are a unique source of frustration. There's enough variation at times in performances between players from 'Ta-ka-ta-ka' to 'Doo-bie-doo-bie' to make it feel a bit loose and defeat the purpose of the repetitions. When they work they're great, of course, but - depends on your capacity both in time and effort to make it work.

One hurdle I've got to overcome is that I don't like the lower brass at all. The bass trombone and tuba performances feel quite idiosyncratic. Not wrong, just - a bit strange. A bit 'fruity,' especially on shorter notes, if that makes any sense.

In the end, it might be worth a look (I haven't seen what the price is down to now) and I don't necessarily 'regret' having them, but I will definitely say that the quirks involved has kept them from being the 'go-to' that I imagined when approaching them, having come very much from a place similar to your thought process.

Hope that helps!

[Linos]

Thank you everybody who chimed in! You have confirmed my suspicions that I would probably not be too happy with the library. I will save my budget for other things.

[Tobias Escher]

I'm still waiting for OT to release an improvement update for their Berlin Strings library, so far this hasn't happened. I won't be purchasing anything from them until they release this update.

The update is a bit delayed, because it will be more extensive than planned and had a HUGE lot of testing and weighing recordings going on.
I've spent weeks poring over the tiniest reports.

Hm. Seems a new main library is coming in december. I don't like this type of sale.

What makes you think that? I'm genuinely curious.
I'm not involved in product planning, so I have no stake in this. But I remember OT saying repeatedly that there won't be "X is going to the trash, now Y is our new main thing for this and that section". I would hate that, but I see nothing that points in that direction.

[Muziksculp]

The update is a bit delayed, because it will be more extensive than planned and had a HUGE lot of testing and weighing recordings going on.
I've spent weeks poring over the tiniest reports.

A bit delayed ? I think it's been more than a bit now.

Anyways. Thank You for the feedback, I hope it gets to be one of the best string libraries on the market once it gets all the improvements via the update.

Oh... and Does this mean the update won't be released this year ?

[Tobias Escher]

A bit delayed in the sense that it is later than the intended release date (which, contrary to some speculations never was "a year ago"). I'm afraid I genuinely do not know when it will be released, could be next year, I really don't know.
My impression is not that it is much delayed, honestly, but admittedly I don't follow the rumour mill closely

[Malachistos]

"What makes you think that?"

There was this big announcement on vicontrol that something big is coming our way in december. Speculation is running wild. But if it is one if their biggest releases it might be something bigger then just one orchestral section.

So this sale feels a bit oddly timed, before the reveal of something new and shiny. It might probably not be a 100% normal bread and butter orchestral library, but I still view those as main libraries. Might just be hot air.

[Muziksculp]

A bit delayed in the sense that it is later than the intended release date (which, contrary to some speculations never was "a year ago"). I'm afraid I genuinely do not know when it will be released, could be next year, I really don't know.
My impression is not that it is much delayed, honestly, but admittedly I don't follow the rumour mill closely

I'm still surprised that the Berlin Strings library Update is not getting very high-priority to be released this year.

Given your reply, it might not be released until 2030. Good luck to us waiting for it.

[Tobias Escher]

"What makes you think that?"

There was this big announcement on vicontrol that something big is coming our way in december. Speculation is running wild. But if it is one if their biggest releases it might be something bigger then just one orchestral section.

So this sale feels a bit oddly timed, before the reveal of something new and shiny. It might probably not be a 100% normal bread and butter orchestral library, but I still view those as main libraries. Might just be hot air.

aaah, ok
Rest assured, nothing is being replaced. This is a "standard" BF sale and is totally unconnected to what's coming, though I'm pretty sure you'll like it.

I'm still surprised that the Berlin Strings library Update is not getting very high-priority to be released this year.
Given your reply, it might not be released until 2030. Good luck to us waiting for it.

I much prefer it getting very high-priority to be done well.
Ir won't be 2030 for sure, but I also will not have it released end of December where no one is at the office and no one can help people if they have questions. So either it comes quickly, or start of 2024 or so. I really have no idea.