Orchestra and choir, impeccably sampled.
Garritan Instant Orchestra is designed for those who know little about orchestration or do not have the time to build them. The idea is to provide a large variety of lush, playable orchestrations with the least time and effort. Garritan Instant Orchestra includes many special orchestral effects in strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion that you often hear in movies. These effects consist of glissandos, rips, clusters, harmonics, instruments playing in non-traditional ways, and techniques that cannot be created with individual samples.
Garritan Instant Orchestra Review
Miroslav Philharmonik is a powerful, integrated Orchestral Workstation incorporating the legendary Miroslav Vitous Symphonic Orchestra and Choir Sample collections into a dedicated plug-in instrument specifically tailored for classical sounds and arrangements. For the first time, this famous and historical symphonic collection is available as a virtual instrument plug-in for a fraction of its original price. This is the (digital download) version of the program.
Beautifully recorded at the Dvor¡k Symphony Hall in Prague by Miroslav Vitous with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, these sounds have a texture, warmth, and beauty that is unrivalled in the sample world. Now you can have them at your fingertips and on call any time of the day or night.
Miroslav Vitous Symphonic Orchestra and Choir Samples are some of the most playable and inspiring sounds ever produced for symphonic arrangements and composition. They've marked the aural atmosphere of hundreds of movies and productions and have become the tool of choice for many award winning composers.
For incredible acoustic realism, the string, brass and woodwind sections were captured in the proper acoustic orchestral positions in Dvor¡k Symphony Hall in Prague. There's no need for placement simulation with panning, just call up the elements of the orchestra and they naturally 'fit' together and sound like a symphony. These sounds have a texture, warmth, and beauty that is unique in the sample world.
The Miroslav Philharmonik's plug-in is based on an enhanced version of the SampleTank workstation architecture which has been modified specifically for Orchestral composition, offering 16 multitimbral and full control over the tempo and pitch of the sounds. Each of the 16 multitimbral parts can be loaded by selecting from the more than 4,200 orchestral instrument sounds included. All of the instruments can be easily found in neatly organized folders within the browser window, and a convenient search function allows you to input your own keywords into the sound database to help you quickly and easily start composing.
Customer Reviews
Great 'Little' Orchestra
For the money, Instant Orchestra is unbeatable. The sound quality is good to excellent depending on the sounds used, and the operational approach, playing sections and even 'full' orchestra with as little as one key, is a very useful feature. Although I primarily compose and record Blues, Jazz, and styles of Rock, it will be a fascinating addition for creating different sonic soundscapes.
Great for the Price
This orchestral library does what it is designed to do at a low cost. There are plenty of fun sounds here, and the main purpose of this library is to throw quick ideas together and to use it for added effects to your tracks. Because the main selling point of this library is having pre-arranged ensembles and sounds ready out-of-the-box, it is best paired with another orchestral library that separates individual instrument patches, such as GPO. You can't get anything better at this price range (but there are definitely better products if you are willing to spend a grand).
I would also like to use this review to address what I believe are a few ill-conceived criticisms made by Mark William, who also reviewed this library below and gave it the lowest score. Here are my comments on his critic:
Firstly, Mark missed the point of this orchestral library, which as I described above, is DESIGNED to have pre-mixed/pre-arranged ensembles and instrument groupings. This is the purpose and selling point of this library. Garritan has another product that offers all the instruments of the orchestra in separate patches, and that is the Garritan Personal Orchestra. I do feel sorry that Mark did not realize this before purchasing this product.
Secondly, I do agree with Mark that the blended textures do lack that powerful sound that you would find in ProjectSAM or EastWest products. However, that is because Garritan products are not pre-mastered or overlaid with effects. Garritan provides the raw sounds that you yourself must then mix and master as needed. For some, this is a set-back and a challenge, for others, this provides some freedom.
The pre-arranged intervals of certain patches is annoying. I agree with Mark on this point. I assume this is intended for producers who have little to no music theory training and want to throw in special effects to projects that are not intended to sound like your traditional orchestra.
Thirdly, and probably my biggest complained of Mark's criticism, is his lack of understanding when it comes to organs and harpsichords. I have never in my life seen an organ or harpsichord keyboard that stretches to 88 keys. Harpsichords never reached more than about 5 or so octaves, and organs typically are the same. The difference with an organ is that higher and lower pitches are achieved NOT by the length of the keyboard but by adding lower and higher sounds via the levers and knobs. This is based on the real instruments' limitations and qualities. As a pianist who has also played on a harpsichord AND taken organ lessons (and who is about to complete his DMA in Piano Performance and Pedagogy), you can take my word for it. Adding 88 keys on these instruments would make them sound like fake synths. You can find an awesome organ that has loads of knobs and sound options in the GPO, btw.
All in all, this library doesn't compare to the pre-mastered sounds you get with EastWest libraries, Metropolis Ark, and the likes, but it can be quite useful WHEN PAIRED with another orchestral library. That, and by applying your own mixing and mastering skills to it. Lastly, please, everyone, research a product before buying it!Garritan does it again...
Garritan produces a great collection of virtual instruments. Instant Orchestra is another fine addition. A great tool for adding orchestral sounds to your songs without being an orchestrator. Nothing touches it for the price.
Never thought i'd make sounds like this in a million years.
I'd give it a 3.7 if I could, but feel it's more of a 4.0 than a 3.5. When you use it to its strengths It sounds really good. I'm a guitarist and a bassist that is trying to get into video game music composition, so i've had to buy a midi keyboard as well as some VSTs. I also need a lot of versatility ranging from orchestral, to synth, and I bought this because I have no knowledge of arranging. Honestly this plug in is so good that I doubt i'll be purchasing anymore orchestral instruments ( now choirs is a different story.)
Two days after I bought it I was able to create some very impressive, unbelievable stuff. If you've got a good ear, you won't need to know anything about arranging or even the keyboard to use this plug in. The brass is very VERY good in this software. I'd say it's worth it for the brass by itself. Great percussion too. The strings are good but there is a noticeable difference between the strings and the brass. It's more difficult to get good sounding string patches without tweaking, but just loading up the Full octaves brass patch was enough to have an excellent sounding brass section. I'm mostly knocking off a point for the strings, although I understand that strings are a pretty hard section to get really well in samples. I don't really like the choir much, but that's because I want a choir that can do more than say ' Ha'. So i'm also looking into choir plug ins. The solo stuff isn't too great, but like I said, that's not its strength. It's strength is in the combinations it has. I do enjoy how the different instruments are set up for different octaves, making it easy to switch which instruments I want to use, based on the octave on the keyboard. I've been able to make aggressive sounding stuff, as well as soft sounding stuff. All in all, great product, you'll spend some time tweaking the string patches, but you can get good sounding strings too. The choir is kind of meh.eeed
i have a MD=992 keyboard midi RadioShack will work the Garritan orchestra with it
Sounds great for the price!
First off, I'm not sure what the one reviewer meant by 'maybe it's good enough for game composers'. Game composers use top of the line libraries and live orchestras! But this is a great tool for mockups and even productions.
Garritan Instant Orchestra
we had been researching orchestra software for a few months , wanting to get into film/t.v.scoring ...after trying some demo's we found the Garritan Instant Orchestra was right for our studio. the quality of the instrument sounds were outstanding! as most of the folks here have no backgroung arranging orchestra's we loved the way this software has patches with sounds 'grouped' that worked well for us...all of the personal working here were able to 'get around' and lay great sounding tracks within twenty minutes of sitting down . the first material tracked to video sounded great ,and we like being able to try the software demo before spending any hard earned cash!!!
Garritan Instant Orchestra opinion
Keep in mind that I'm a hobbiest not a professional. I was initially going to buy GPO5 but then read and watched videos about Instant Orchestra (IO). I figured IO would be better suited for me because I don't have any training in putting together orchestral music. Since IO has put together many combinations of instruments I thought it would be better for me. I do like IO BUT it has a lot of useless 'patches' in my opinion. Lots of dissonant instruments and variations I wouldn't use in my music. That's not to say others wouldn't like those particular features - just not for me. I don't own GPO5 (yet) so I can't compare it to that. I need to say that IO does have nice samples and combinations but not as many as I hoped for.
Pretty good
It is a great tool to inspire you orchestrally. Brass sounds powerful. String patches do sound a bit lower quality, but for the money I would say get it! It has built in presets that are really helpful. Loads up fast and as I said for the money, its really good!
Not so much
I am not happy with the sounds. They are not up to the competition, even at this low price point. May be good for gamer composers but that is about it.
Not what I expected
This is indeed a pre-created assortment of orchestral sounds but I found it hardly useful. If you are creating a home video of your family or maybe a movie project for high school it would be perfect but otherwise quite unusable. The sounds are OK but lack power - I haven't found any that were useful right out of the package. I've tried to incorporate it in some of my music several times but I've always ended up replacing it with sounds that I already had in my arsenal before buying this. I also tried stripping the sounds down removing effects etc.. but the system is just designed to serve a single purpose of instant gratification so it's useless for me. I had to break down and purchase a professional Orchestral suite-much better- I didn't want to waste any more good cash taking short cuts. .
Not So Good
A Bit dissapointed....Clumsey to operate, not great samples...
Not for anyone serious at all
I already have some pretty good virtual instrument software that comes free with my professional multi track recording software. I never really needed the orchestral instruments as most of what I record and perform is more in the jazz genre. However, I was recently asked to score the soundtrack for a documentary movie about a period during and immediately after the civil war. Looking into the free orchestral software that I already had, I found that there were elements that lacked in tonal quality. Much of the brass was pretty monotone and lacked rich overtones that accompanied the real instruments that were being represented. Any of the solo strings were also poor quality. I could get around some of these issues using effects and different room reverb settings. My DAW software has a high range of quality studio quality features.
My client was looking for good quality backing composition but is also working on a budget. Since this is all background, it does not have to be the quality of say......Michael Kaman's work in feature films. So I wasn't out to spent $1000 on software.
After looking (not hard enough evidently) I settled on Garritan. Wow......What a terrible mistake. I regret not looking into this a little more thoroughly. But it's really my fault for thinking that I could settle.
The bads: Where to start? Well....more than half of the sounds are just random instruments tossed into a sound byte with god awful intervals that have no rhyme or reason.
Before I continue I want to stress that I am not here to hate on this company. But it is my professional opinion based on years of experience with midi, and keyboard effects that this software is not worth what they are asking for it. In short.....Keep looking if you want anything more than a toy ans sound effects. This is by no means for anyone serious. And I sincerely hope that others head the warning of a dupe who was stupid enough to think that anything at the... price range would be useful in any professional application. Yes....I messed up. You want better quality, buy a DAW setup and take advantage of it's free sounds as they are sure to beat the daylights out of Garritan's software. Plus....you can actually use the DAW part.
I will randomly pick some of the selections and go over them as I write so that you can get a good idea of what you'll be up against if you purchase this software.
Blending Textures: Useless. Most of these sounds are saturated with so much chorus that they have no business being anywhere near an orchestral software package. Others, like the 'Easy Strings' are all done in set intervals that are very limited. Everything is in 5ths on one or two and there is no way to change them. Just really useless unless you want an 'Alice in Chains' writes an opera effect. Some of the others are set up with minor 2nd intervals???? Why??? Who is going to write a whole score in minor seconds? Of all of the sounds in the Blending Textures, I found maybe 2 that were remotely useful. Seriously. Most of the sounds were reminiscent of the old Kimbal organ effects. Funny I should say that just now because I was having an old friend (Classically trained organist) listen to some of these sounds and that was the very first word out of their mouth. Actually it was Lowery.
Brass patches: Again.....Set intervals that are largely useless. Doesn't sound like brass in most of the cases, and when it does, it's in these useless intervals. I cannot give this brass a low enough rating. Makes my free software sound as good as the 2001 space odyssey soundtrack. And anything that says clusters (and there are many of them) like 'Brass Clusters' in this software.....just don't click on it. Absolute garbage. It's exactly what it says, a cluster of random intervals that make no sense and will hurt your ears to listen to. In my 30 years of teaching and 40 years of writing and performing, I have never, ever found a use for these sounds.
Keyboards: Piano, Harpsichord, are as good as any low cost Walmart Casio keyboard. Terrible tone and oddly enough, not a full 88 key span. What's with that? Which makes the 'full' organ even a bigger mystery because it is only 4 octaves. The organ doesn't really sound that bad but that seems to be the whole problem with this software, everything sounds like it's coming out of an organ. Stands to reason. But why only 4 octaves of a full organ. Makes no sense.
Percussion patches, Pitched percussion patches, and String patches: I can lump these 3 together as all three seem to be the strong suit of this software. Although not top quality, I did find patches that I could use in the strings section. Some of the intervals were bad but for the most part, there were things that I have used. Solo string stuff. You will need to know your way around the effects and controls section to get good use of them. The tone of the solo string instruments isn't bad. Kind of nice in some places, but I did have to use extra effects when blending them in with other instruments.
All of the percussion seems to not be terrible but I already have several full catalog of drum and percussion sounds and loops. But if you don't already have any of this stuff, it's all here.
All in all.......Wow! Don't bother with this software if you are serious about orchestrating anything. Spend a few more dollars and get something that gives you better options and higher quality sounds. My expectations weren't really all that high for this. But 90% of this software never met them.
Sorry Garritan.....Nothing personal. I would rather have my own choice of how I want to blend my colors. You made it much harder to do that.
Garritan Personal Orchestra Tutorial
Garritan Instant Orchestra Plug-in (download)
Item ID: InstantOrchOrchestral Software Instrument with Strings, Brass, Woodwinds, Keyboards, Harps, Choir, and Orchestral Effects - Mac/PC Standalone, VST, AU, AAXMore Info...Windows PCAUVSTSoftware Compatibility
Most software is compatible with both Mac and Windows computers, but check to make sure.
If you're using Pro Tools, AAX plug-ins (or RTAS for older versions) are what you need. Most other Mac DAWs support AU plug-ins. VST is compatible with a number of Mac and Windows programs. Be sure you choose plug-ins that work with your DAW!
To learn more about software compatibility, check out our buying guide.
List Price:$179.95+Free 2-year WarrantySpecial 6-month‡ Financing Offer