What are the best VSTi/soundbank libraries apart from EastWest??

[Barncore]

Hey folks,

So about a year ago i bought Logic Pro 9 for my imac, and i'm looking for some new sounds as i'm pretty tired of the default Logic ones. One of my friends recommended EastWest's quantum leap symphonic gold pack and it looks pretty good but i want to see what else is out there.

I'm not new to writing music but i'm something of a noob when it comes to soundbank libraries, so treat me as such. (i.e. i only just learned the terminology what a VSTi is).

Now, as for the STYLE/GENRE of library i'm after, it's very broad. I make electronic music and rock music that also incorporate elements of orchestral and world instruments, so i'm just looking to know WHO ARE THE BIG PLAYERS of the soundbank library world?

I've been looking at EastWest's Ministry of Rock (1&2), aswell as 'The Dark Side' pack, which have me drooling with desire. (i'll get them once i have the money). I've also seen LA Scoring strings get demo'd on youtube and they sound great. I also saw vienna soundbanks get demo'd on youtube and they sounded pretty good.
But who else exists??

As far as i'm aware, eastwest are the best. Is this true?
What else exists out there?
Specifically looking for:
- The best brands of electronic music sample libraries (various styles)
- The best brands of accoustic instrument libraries (i.e. guitar, drums, bass, pianos, organs, etc)
- The best orchestral libraries (strings, winds, percussion, etc etc etc you get it)
- The best world instrument libraries
- anything else i may not know about.

Anyone who can help guide me towards understanding this field of things too i will be hugely grateful for. Or if you can point me in the right direction with a link to some sites/articles/guides that specialize in this then that'd be good too.
Cheers chaps!

[KO1]

Hi
here you have some links

-http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/komplete-8-ultimate/

or you could just buy this if you not interested about bundle
-http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/kontakt-5/?page=2519

and the try 3rd party libraries
you will find lots of links on this site
-http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=kontaktplayer2
there are links to sites by products
Vir2 Instruments | Home
Big Fish Audio | Music Loops, Drum Loops and Virtual Instruments
Kirk Hunter Studios
tonehammer_divide_screen

you could also try ik multimedia
-http://www.ikmultimedia.com/philharmonik/features/
-http://www.ikmultimedia.com/sampletron/features/

if i remind myself something more i could send you an e mail
i hope i could help

sorry about my english i know its not good

[KO1]

another link

Cakewalk - Studio Instruments - Studio Instruments Strings

[KO1]

Spectrasonics Virtual Instruments
Synthogy
MOTU.com - Welcome to MOTU Audio
UltimateSoundBank - Virtual Instruments

i think thats all i got right now

[KO1]

here is some other stuff you might like to chek
mixing mastering and other plugins

Over 100 Plugin Processors - Mercury Audio Plugins Collection | Bundles | WAVES
Flux:: sound and picture development
iZotope, Inc - Audio Signal Processing Hardware, Software, Plug-ins, Technology Licensing
Instruments
Synapse Audio Software | Orion | Dune | Production Tools
Home | reFX
Rob Papen virtual synthesizers, instruments and effect plug-ins.
u-he
V-Station

cheers

[Barncore]

Thanks!!

I already have kontact and izotope, but it looks like there's some nifty stuff there! I haven't heard of most of it yet. I'll check 'em out tomorrow.

[offki]

Vir2 and tonehammer. For kontakt.

[Miffytherabbit]

My money for a sample library would have to be on Spectrasonics' Omnisphere. Over the last 12-20 months I've "disposed" of over 15 hardware synths, including PCM synths like the Korg M3 and Yamaha Motif, as well as analog synth's such as an Oberheim OB-X 8, "Halloween Face" Odyssey, Korg Polysix, Polymoog, Roland VP 330 Vocoder, amongst others. I had to do this due to down-sizing, and knowing my studio was going to be the size of a sitting room and not the size of the top floor of a house.

Maybe not surprisingly, although I used the odd plugin and used Logic daily for sequencing duties, I had a gut wrenching feeling I was going to pine forever over the synths I'd flogged. It was mainly due to buying Omnisphere and Trilian that made almost forget I'd ever owned my room-hogging synths (especially as some of the older ones were throwing tantrums every five minutes, parts were getting harder acquire, and the pots made horrible noises when you turned them).

I'd say that Omnipshere beats hands-down Kontakt and it's full library (which I'm thinking of selling, because the sounds, apart from the VSL additions, are unengaging). It also beats hands-down my M3, Motif and JV-1000 (which I've kept because its got a more-or-less full length piano size keyboard) combined, in terms of it's sound palette X 100. The vast raw sample data supplied is nothing if not eclectic, and it's only down side is that it doesn't cover all ground. If you need a sound-set that is just bread and butter but perhaps lacking the inspiring factor of Omnisphere then maybe Collosus or Vir2 VI1, which both contain medium standard offerings covering all basses. A colleague of mine has both, as he writes more conventional library music, and in a mix they work pretty well, although having auditioned the VI1's Piano, I wasn't very impressed. Ironically the pianos supplied with Kontakt's libraries are better.

The upside to Omnisphere is sheer inspiration. There is a medium learning curve to get the very best out of all the features, but once you have, it becomes clear that you can do more or less anything you want with any of the sounds. Also the raw sample data is itself multisampled, which leads to to incredibly good audio audio quality. And the icing on the cake is that it has a very usable virtual analog synth built into it as well.