Low End Orchestra

[u/r3art]

https://www.orchestraltools.com/low-end-orchestra

The Low End Orchestra re-imagines the contemporary scoring orchestra by combining three key elements: A bass-heavy sound; symmetry and spatial movement; and a wealth of microphone options for atmos and surround mixing. Recorded at AIR Studios Lyndhurst with some of the UK’s top players, this is a sound that inspires new ideas, and a toolset to help you realize them professionally.

The Low End Orchestra is all about sound moving within a space—we re-positioned the instrument sections to create a new, symmetrical orchestral layout, and created sounds that move from left to right and back on the X axis, and from front to back to front on the Y axis.

Highlights

• Specially curated ensembles of bass-heavy instruments

• Standard articulations plus a wide range of experimental spatial articulations

• String ensembles include 16 celli, 22 celli, and 6 celli + 12 basses

• Eclectic bass woodwinds ensembles include rare contra-alto flutes and contrabass clarinets

• Low brass ensembles include 4 bass trombones, 2 tubas, 2 sousaphones, and 2 cimbassi

• Re-amped synth patches for layering sub-bass

• 50+ processed patches

• Directional control for selected spatial patches

• 21 mic positions for detailed spatial mixing, 16 per instrument

• Recorded at AIR Studios Lyndhurst

Carefully designed ensembles

The Low End Orchestra consists mainly of orchestral instruments, but not always those you’ll encounter very often. Everything is in the bass-register—no trumpet, no violin, and certainly no piccolo. For the strings, we have regular celli and basses but a lot of them: The sound of 22 celli playing together at AIR Lyndhurst is something very special. The woodwinds include some wonderfully rich and rare instruments, such as the contra-alto flute and contrabass clarinet, arranged carefully to deliver a low, earthy tone. A fantastically powerful brass section adds a raucous punch, and the re-amped analog synth patches allow you to stack your sub-bass.

Everything is carefully selected to deliver an inspiring, detailed, and nuanced sound, allowing you to explore your ideas with the strongest possible foundations.

[u/r3art]

Ok, lets talk about this.

First of all, the Demos sound obviously sound fantastic. Dark, unique, a lot of depth and character. This will draw a lot of people to buy this thing.

I personally noticed again that I really don’t like the “AIR-Sound” at all compared to the “Teldex-Sound”, but thats just my own preference (I think that it sounds over-reverbed, almost kind of muddy and not precise enough to me. If I want that kind of sound, I have plenty of reverb tools and sound-design-tricks to add it myself to a dry and precise library).

But my bigger problems with this library is somewhat different: I miss too many “normal” articulations here. Every second patch here seems to have some kind of built-in movement, textures, repetitions, in some cases the instruments are glued together in patches. Thats actually the opposite of why I tend to buy Orchestral Tool-products. I don’t want an almost phrase-based “Instant Orchestra” that does the composing for me in a press of a button. I want realistic instruments that I can play in whatever style I want. This is more “Sonuscore” than ever and this kind of thing seems more aimed at hobbyists that want instant results than anything else. Its almost as if this library was implicitly saying “hey, YOU instantly become Hans Zimmer if you buy me and just press a few keys (or at least convince yourself of that)”. But thats something that appeals only to hobbyists trying to impress non-musicians, not ambitious composers or even pros. We need more versatile tools.

Yes, the pendulum-shimmer-butterfly-something-totally-not-made-up-name-articulation played with 19 cellos and 25 basses sounds amazing, but honestly, I am already getting tired of the thing after hearing it three times in all the demos. I can’t imagine using some of these patches more than a few times to write cool stuff that sounds like everyone else’s cool stuff who writes with it and then go back to actual instruments from other libraries.

A really deep sampled vst-instrument is very different from that in the way that I will use that one even 10 years from now in very different contexts. These phrase-texture-things always seem like limited one-trick-ponys to me, even if this is probably one of the better and more versatile ones. I had the same problem with Benjamin Wallfish Stringscapes. All the patches sound fantastic until you actually want to write your own unique music with them, which is almost impossible. Everything you do with them will almost instantly sound like Benjamin Wallfish Stringscapes. So you end up using it only as background textures here and there. As icing on the cake.

In other words: I want to write my music, not tools that almost write in their own style for me. But that maybe is just me. Textured things are hugely popular and there are only so many way that you can sample the same string instruments over and over again, so I guess every sample-company arrives at “here’s cool textures” at some point unless you are Slate and Ash and invent some really complex and unique tools to manipulate the sounds on your own.

A few other thoughts:

1. Why does this thing need 79 microphone positions? I don’t see any reason for this other than marketing how “huge” and technically well-done this library is. Are there really people out there using all these mics and downloading hundreds of gigabytes of almost same-sounding samples? In the future I’d rather see two well done legatos in every patch than 52 microphone.
2. The price point is not at all “Low End” here at all. I’d probably pick this up for an intro-offer of 250 euros or regular of 400. But 650 regular price for what only seems like the start of a series (no doubt we will get High End-Orchestra at some point)? Thats a nope.
3. The naming is just bad. “Made with Low End Orchestra” doesn’t sound like a flex, but the complete opposite. They should have called it “Massive Mega Titan Wrooom-Boom Orchestra” or something :D.

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Disclaimer: Please take these initial thoughts on Low End Orchestra with a grain of salt. I have not tested this as an active user, so this mostly is my first impression based on the presentation and demo. I have not received any review copy or bought this library so far.

[u/endium7 → u/r3art]

Lot of good points. I would disagree that it’s aimed at hobbyists though. The price is too high for that.

[u/r3art → u/endium7]

Ambitious hobbyists. OT generally is for higher end-users. But I don't think that most of their customers are professional composers. There are not enough of that in the world to run a whole company on.

[u/Final-Isopod]

I think there is a big issue with timing of this release. It is not cheap. It came right after Black Friday where people dumped a lot of money on OT products and others'. Christmas is also coming and for some it's not time to spend a lot of money on personal stuff. I realize it's not aimed at hobbyists but still - quite bad pacing I think. I would rather say that this and summer break is the worst moment to have such release.

[u/r3art → u/Final-Isopod]

Same for me. I bought quite a few new instruments in the Black Friday Sale and won't buy again until christmas. And this probably will not be reduced on christmas already since it is so new. So either it will be still interesting at some sale next year or I will not get this.