Does anybody know of a DECENT software package of GOOD instrument VST's? Ones that will work with Reaper. The only instrument VST's I have are leftovers from another program I no longer use. There are a few nice FREE ones but I would rather pay for good compatible VST's that hunt and peck for free ones.
I am guessing this may be costly. I am looking for a FULL instrument pack.....pianos, electric pianos, brass, woodwinds, percussion.
The ones I have been using are hit or miss and I'd rather have more pro quality ones. Thanks....
I just got an email from UVI promoting a new orchestral product. Its called Essential Symphonic Orchestra Collection
Doesnt have pianos.. but that may be because they have a full product line for pianos as well
uvi.net
199 direct.. maybe you can find cheaper through another vendor.
if its what its touted to be, it may fill a void in that price range. it seems to me like the "tier 1" orchestra stuff is like mirislav etc.. which i think is pretty old samples and not a lot else that has a full instrument set. Then there is stuff that is way more expensive so maybe this UVI product is a good one.
IK sampletank may be less expensive, but from what I have read, not as high quality.
I have not used either paid product so maybe demo what you can and look for more educated suggestions.
I have tried free instruments with sampletank 3 and in my opinion it is a mixed bag.. piano was pretty nice, the other stuff... not so much.
I own both NI Komplete 8 and SampleTank 3, and the NI stuff is absolutely of much higher quality.
If I were just starting a VSTi collection, I'd begin with Kontakt and build the collection from there. Even if you don't want to "hunt and peck", there is something to be said for variety and not using one developer's stuff exclusively. With Kontakt you can find/create pretty much any virtual instrument you can imagine.
Along the way in your search it would be good to pick up a decent soundfont player -- one that can handle both .SF2 and .SFZ files if possible. Plogue offers a good one for free: sforzando.
GOOD as in "good" or in "stunning, studio-like quality"? For an instrument bundle, Kontakt is likely the best one. But that said, in my ears it's still far from good.
Take the pianos: they're all recorded the same way, not a single one with room mics to be blended in etc.. The Clavinet is super clean - not something it is known for. Orchestra articulations: vanilla. Synths: okay. Drums: no comment. In short: everything is a tad on the "too clean" side. There's no real dimension to it.
I think for "really good", you will have to rely on third-party libraries - or in case of Kontakt as your sampler engine, add-ons. But you might start with the included Kontakt instruments first and move on if you feel certain ones are lacking too much. The sampler and its possibilities per se are amazing!
__________________ Windows 10x64 | AMD Ryzen 3700X | ATI FirePro 2100 | Marian Seraph AD2, 4.3.8 | Yamaha Steinberg MR816x "If I can hear well, then everything I do is right" (Allen Sides)
Agree with NI recommendations. REAPER + NI Komplete is hard to beat in terms of bang for the buck. I think it's worth every penny. Saves me all the time I used to spend looking for plugins or samples. Everything I've ever needed, at least for sketching out ideas, is in there. I've added some stuff on top but alot of that happens to be Native Instruments products as well. I like their stuff. It's very solid and polished.
Just upgraded my PC and had to make some choices as I wanted to go fully 64-bit.
On the old PC, I had Sampletank 2.5 and all the Spectrasonics stuff (Omnisphere, Trilian and Stylus RMX).
On the new PC, I had to decide whether to update to Sampletank 3 or go with NI Komplete 10. I went with NI for a variety of reasons and I think I made the right choice. The main reasons were:
There are such a wonderful variety of sounds in NI Komplete, I keep coming across instruments that sound good but have hidden depths for easy customisation.
From my initial experience, NI support has been fantastic. I had two issues (mostly my own fault) that I raised support tickets for on a Sunday and had answers that worked by mid-Monday morning.
There were lots of new instruments that I probably wouldn't have normally bought but have inspired me to try out new musical styles and techniques (i.e. Polyplex and Rounds)
Looking at a lot of anecdotal evidence on this and other forums, IK Multimedia don't seem to treat their customers with much respect (see good NI support story above in contrast)
The NI Komplete package gives me a lot of future options such as sampling and scripting in Kontakt and synth tweaking in Reaktor which I'm sure I will delve into eventually.
By the way, I love my Spectrasonics stuff but if I had to go for one package for all-round versatility it would be NI Komplete.
Regarding the point earlier about everything in Komplete sounding too clean, that is probably true but it is easier to "dirty up" sounds than to make poor sounds pristine.
There are a couple of my old Sampletank (Sonik Synth) sounds that I miss and they did "fit in the mix" well but, honestly, I'm pretty sure I can replace them all with the Kontakt 5 library sounds.
Thank you for all the replies....looks like I will check them all out. Kontact seems to be the winner. I am also seriously thinking of getting the Roland gr 55 guitar synthesizer. I play keyboards on most of my compositions but I am really not a fast player. And I stumble alot. I am thinking I could use a guitar synth to play the fast keyboard parts. But I am still researching this piece of equipment. I love using Mr Ray 22 for its Rhodes tone. It is really the only tone I like to use. I use the "Mellow" patch which sounds good to me. However it crashes in reaper because of some issue with "Synth edit".
So I have to decide whether to invest in Better VST's and still struggle with my keyboard skills, or get the guitar synth and play all my keyboard parts on guitar.
You don't need a midi interface or a hex pickup. I have a GR-20 and a Roland Ready Strat, but most of the time I just plug any old guitar directly into the audio interface and use the Jam Origin plugin. For me, it tracks as well as the GR-20. However, when you say "fast" keyboard parts, you should realize that midi guitar stuff doesn't track really, really fast, especially in low registers, whatever you are using. At least in my experience, don't expect to play 16th notes at 120 bpm.
Thank you for all the replies....looks like I will check them all out. Kontact seems to be the winner. I am also seriously thinking of getting the Roland gr 55 guitar synthesizer. I play keyboards on most of my compositions but I am really not a fast player. And I stumble alot. I am thinking I could use a guitar synth to play the fast keyboard parts. But I am still researching this piece of equipment. I love using Mr Ray 22 for its Rhodes tone. It is really the only tone I like to use. I use the "Mellow" patch which sounds good to me. However it crashes in reaper because of some issue with "Synth edit".
So I have to decide whether to invest in Better VST's and still struggle with my keyboard skills, or get the guitar synth and play all my keyboard parts on guitar.
Bob, does the Roland Guitar Synth have a USB/interface that you can use to run directly into Reaper? I haven't owned a GR since about 1983. If it DOESN'T, then buy something else -- it will be nearly useless in recording with a DAW.
Yes, love MrRay22 but it is a very old VSTi. The commercial version is not much more stable. Many synths have great Rhodes and Wurly-like presets, even freeware Synth1 has some.
Bob, does the Roland Guitar Synth have a USB/interface that you can use to run directly into Reaper? I haven't owned a GR since about 1983. If it DOESN'T, then buy something else -- it will be nearly useless in recording with a DAW.
The GR-20 does not have USB (don't know about the GR-55), but it has midi in and out. You just connect it up to your audio interface with midi cables, if it has midi. If it doesn't, you use a cheapo (around $40) USB midi connector.
Komplete tends to go on sale every year before they come out with a new version. Maybe it's coming up soon? I recall about $400 for Komplete here in the U.S. (the version that's going to be replaced by a new version).
Just upgraded my PC and had to make some choices as I wanted to go fully 64-bit.
On the old PC, I had Sampletank 2.5
On the new PC, I had to decide whether to update to Sampletank 3 or go with NI Komplete 10.
Hello, I was in the same situation, I wanted full 64 bits.
The thing is, my budget was limited, and so for $99 I chose the Sampletank3 upgrade path!
I don't regret at all! To be honest, after having bought TotalWorkstation (ST2.5 + Sampletron + Miroslav +...) at $150, I was not fully happy, because the quality of the sounds is not consistent at all!
But once you have found the good ones, you realize they are really good, have more character than the ones you find by default in Kontakt. This is really what I was looking for, as I produce hiphop beats.
And in ST3 they added very good sounds, the basses for instance are really really nice; ok the Scarbee MM bass is very good, but in ST3 you can find very similar stuff. Only problem is you have to dig more deeply
But for the price, I am really happy.
I also bought Dimension Pro for a very very cheap price some time ago, and use it for some sounds, such as the mute trumpet that is exactly the one I was looking for, and never found elsewhere.
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Cedric Simon aka FrozenjaZz
Fresh beats - www.frozenjazz.com
Hello, I was in the same situation, I wanted full 64 bits.
The thing is, my budget was limited, and so for $99 I chose the Sampletank3 upgrade path!
I don't regret at all! To be honest, after having bought TotalWorkstation (ST2.5 + Sampletron + Miroslav +...) at $150, I was not fully happy, because the quality of the sounds is not consistent at all!
But once you have found the good ones, you realize they are really good, have more character than the ones you find by default in Kontakt. This is really what I was looking for, as I produce hiphop beats.
And in ST3 they added very good sounds, the basses for instance are really really nice; ok the Scarbee MM bass is very good, but in ST3 you can find very similar stuff. Only problem is you have to dig more deeply
But for the price, I am really happy.
I also bought Dimension Pro for a very very cheap price some time ago, and use it for some sounds, such as the mute trumpet that is exactly the one I was looking for, and never found elsewhere.
I actually love SampleTank3. I also own most of the old IK synths that were 32bit only and had serious issues in Reaper 64bit...Until the SampleTank upgrade and EVERYTHING is imported and played from one GUI.
Great tracks Frozen Jazz, by the way!
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The Sounds of the Hear and Now.
Hello, I was in the same situation, I wanted full 64 bits.
The thing is, my budget was limited, and so for $99 I chose the Sampletank3 upgrade path!
I don't regret at all! To be honest, after having bought TotalWorkstation (ST2.5 + Sampletron + Miroslav +...) at $150, I was not fully happy, because the quality of the sounds is not consistent at all!
But once you have found the good ones, you realize they are really good, have more character than the ones you find by default in Kontakt. This is really what I was looking for, as I produce hiphop beats.
And in ST3 they added very good sounds, the basses for instance are really really nice; ok the Scarbee MM bass is very good, but in ST3 you can find very similar stuff. Only problem is you have to dig more deeply
But for the price, I am really happy.
I also bought Dimension Pro for a very very cheap price some time ago, and use it for some sounds, such as the mute trumpet that is exactly the one I was looking for, and never found elsewhere.
You inspire me to spend a little more time with ST3. I mainly got it because of the generous upgrade price, and it enables me to run Miroslav without the bridge, but I haven't dug too deeply into the actual bread & butter instruments. I haven't found any basses in ST3 that compare to NI's Scarbee, but, again, I haven't spent a lot of time with it. I will look into what's there a bit more deeply.
Welcome the holy grail of looking for vsts. There are so many and lots of decent free ones. I'm going through the process myself of finding ones and have come to the conclusion that a comprehensive package would eliminate some time but I'm too cheap to close the deal when the price starts becoming hundreds of dollars.
The reason is that every plugin I've demo'd has some really good sounds but also a bunch of sounds I may never use. The only plugins that you really seem have to pay more for are the realistic pianos and other acoustic instruments.
I'm an electronic/guitar guy so it's easy for me to find lots synthesizers. But I also love presets so I recommend demoing Tone2 synths and Synapses Dune2. Tone2 follows the bothersome business model of lots of add ons but their basic synths sound great. They even offer one called Firebird for free.
For guitar, I've been playing with the LePou amp sim plugins (free) and a Rosen Digital cab ($8) with great results. Rosen has a cool business model where you only pay for what you want. The difference between digital cabs is rather too subtle for my ears so I just grabbed an Orange 4x12 and figured I couldn't go wrong. You will need a digital cab to make the amp sims sound their best.
I like simple and modern sounding drums so if you do too, check out Izotope idrum for $49. Lots of presets and kits with an easy to program interface. They also have a more expensive product called Breaktweaker with lots of possibilities for programming wildly cool beats.
And yes, it's dirt cheap for what it delivers, and may sound different (better even? ) than NI's offerings!?
__________________ Windows 10x64 | AMD Ryzen 3700X | ATI FirePro 2100 | Marian Seraph AD2, 4.3.8 | Yamaha Steinberg MR816x "If I can hear well, then everything I do is right" (Allen Sides)
If memory serves if you download Drum'ica and install the Kontakt player from it and register that player, then you are eligible for cross-grade pricing. I think that makes Kontakt and Komplete much cheaper. Your mileage may vary.
Komplete Ultimate is an amazing package, but has holes. The biggest one being individual orchestra instruments. It has nice sections like Session Strings and Horns and Action Strings, but for say a solo violin you are stuck with the basic and old instruments from the Kontakt factory library. Also not much on the guitar instrument front.
Speaking as a little indy, freebie instrument maker, there is nothing out there that is free that does the orchestra at a pro level. There are a couple nice individual instruments, oddly several great Cellos, but you'll have to buy something else to get a solid orchestra if you go with KU.
If memory serves if you download Drum'ica and install the Kontakt player from it and register that player, then you are eligible for cross-grade pricing.
Sorry, you could crossgrade from the player that comes with Sehnheiser - DrumMic'a! to Kontakt full. You couldn't cross-grade straight to Komplete from this version of player.
Sorry, you could crossgrade from the player that comes with Sehnheiser - DrumMic'a! to Kontakt full.
That's the same price as the Komplete Crossgrade ... what a nonsense ... for 100 bucks more you can buy Komplete 10 Full Version. So this Kontakt Crossgrade isn't a nice offer at all.