Top 5 FREE Orchestra Plugins

🔗 PLUGIN LINKS
#1 Spitfire Audio BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover

#2 ProjectSam The Free Orchestra

#3 VSL Free Big Bang Orchestra

#4 Versilian Chamber Orchestra Community

#5 Orchestral Tools Layers

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What are the best FREE orchestra plugins you can get? Lets talk about my Top 5!

Note - Links provided in this video description may be affiliate links, meaning that if you choose to purchase products using these links, a small commission may be paid to me for referring you. Thanks for helping me and the channel.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:37 Orchestral Tools Layers
03:39 Versilian Chamber Orchestra Community
06:43 VSL Free Big Bang Orchestra
10:18 ProjectSam The Free Orchestra
12:11 Spitfire Audio BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover

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[ammy]

Tip: while using Orchestra Layers, you can go to the Performance tab and set up layered articulations such that you can have the Major Chords trigger at low velocities, Minor Chords at high velocities and Sus4 Chords at the highest. You can adjust the range as you please as well. This makes writing on a keyboard so much easier. Highly recommend it, especially for layering.

[orderd]

Another great feature of the BBC Discovery plugin is how it still sounds SO good with just a tiny footprint - 200 MB!
Go back five or ten years, and you would probably be paying hundreds for any one of the products featured here and be ploughing through a massive, dry user manual to find out how to operate your expensive DAW.
What a great time we're living in to have a bedroom studio!

[darrenhirst]

The BBC Orchestra sounds amazing and that's why I love using it. Its good for any genre of music.

[stevenkaiser]

Mike, just want to thank you for all that you do to bring us such great info. You are not only a great teacher, but a great source of quality free and/or low-priced plugins in a sea of plugin choices that are on the market. Thank you, sir!

[rafikify]

This is the video I was looking for so many years, can’t thank you enough !

[MeWreck]

Orchestral Tools SINE player lets you layer multiple patches.
I like to combine both of their free pianos (Ratio & Spindle) with (also free) Helix Strings (sustain). Just for playing around.

[MeWreck]

I'll be the first to admit, that I've missed the possibility of moving the KS in BBCSO Discovery. Thanks Mike!

[timothythomasmusic]

Did not know about the key switches being moveable. Learn something new everyday from you, Mike. Thanks!

[ImNotFlawless]

This was actually helpful. Coming from me, a poor musician, free vsts that sound good go a very long way in the right hands. Thanks for this.

[rox]

I'm glad not to be the only one missing the movable keyswitches. Thanks a lot.
Great video from the 5th to the 1st plugin. Nice job!

[alwaysaplanb]

Very useful overview. It could be my creative limits but the ProjectSam Free Orchestra definitely pushes people towards “epic” music, so I’m not sure it’s that versatile. I agree on #1 BBCSO Discovery is great. I would just like to be able to really tone down the built in reverb. You can turn it up but not take it off.
But it’s FREE (and now you don’t have to wait to get it, like we did), so I should just be thankful, really.

[jettlethedragonpeeltheoran]

I love the BBC Orchestra. My only criticism of it is that some of the sounds can be rather "muddy" in a mix because they have a lot of room ambience that can't be removed. The tuned percussion suffers from this in particular. However, the horns, trombones and celli are magnificent.

[roqueavellaneda]

Oh Cheese! I've been using BBCO Discover very much lately, with different instances per articulation... Great tip with the keyswitches... Now i can build articulation maps in CWbB for it!
I'll try the versillian one too...
Cheers!

[amarug]

The instruments/sounds inside SAM's Free Orchestra left me absolutely speechless, as in "ready to out into a big bombastic feature film score quality" - good. That being said, the selection is really limited and you can probably never score anything with it alone, it's just a really great freebie to complement your other libraries. The BBC Discover is amazing, you really get a full orchestra and a selection of articulations with that. All for free, which is just incredible. But the whole orchestra, with all it's articulations is a bit over 200 MB, which is less than many single instruments within Nucleus, Ark 1 or some other popular library. Considering its all in all just 200 MB is mind-blowing and for that it sounds fantastic, but you still hear that it's just miles and miles away from the sounds like within SAM (which are just a few selected instruments of Symphobia, that is a paid library). Since I own Nucleus Full and all the orchestral tools essentials (which are also great valie imo) I never use Discover, while I use SAMs free orchestra (now there is a version 2 even) all the time.

[MenachemRosenberg]

Would also be great if you could make a video about how to compose a simple orchestra symphony, just the very basics, I mean how the single sections interract with each other, with which one to begin or whatever would be noteworthy for a beginner.

[MatthewSwasta]

I just downloaded BBCSOD and haven't had the chance to get stuck in just yet, however, the enormity of Spitfire Labs is amazing as well. So many cool sounds!!! Foghorn is quite Brahms-y...

[danepaulstewart]

MIKE!!
You do such excellent work here. It’s amazing how much you bring to an immense number of people who are best helped by the level and the pacing at which you do your teaching.
THANK YOU SIR! 😎🤚

[VentureOffroadAustraliax]

Another great video Mike. Some fantastic free sounds that you've shared. Thanks

[joegrint]

Great review Mike - like others I hadn't spotted the key switches in BBC SO Discover - probably because they are a bit hidden as you say! My only criticism of the BBC SO (which is great in many ways) is the baked in reverb. I have all the others (Project Sam Free Orchestra is amazing if slightly misnamed) apart from the Orchestools which I keep being tempted by but with Miroslav & Garritan (bought at huge discounts) in my armoury it seems a few Gb too far but I'd say it was essential for anyone without a full orchestra! Nice product placement at the end😉 Seriously, Mike's course is excellent for anyone getting into music production and there were things in there that I didn't know about Cakewalk after many years of use!

[cadenzapetestudios]

Thanks Mike, I had most of these but I always learn something new and your usage tips are very helpful too!!! 😀