Orchestral Tools are yet another Berlin-based music technology company - what is it in the water there? - and one who specialise in producing, you guessed it, orchestral libraries. However, these can be a little different, to say the least. The company’s award-winning Metropolis Ark collections supply everything from bombastic orchestral parts for trailers to deep and epic sounds, while Junkie XL Brass is their ‘artist’ title, a collab with the famous composer and producer. However, these retail at €549 each and €749 respectively, so how do you fancy some Orchestral Tools manoeuvres on the cheap, and a free player to go with them?
Sine me up
Orchestral Tools’ Creative Soundpacks are just that: packs of distinctive, themed sounds that run within OT’s new SINE Player that you can download for free. It’s a kind of easy-to-use Kontakt player with neat OT touches - see below - within which you can download individual parts and presets of the Soundpacks, or the whole lot should you wish. You can load them up and play, with extra mixer and dynamic controls and more. Yet importantly for many of us - and in particular those who might have been put off by the knowledge bar to entry required for some orchestral libraries - you don’t need to know much (indeed anything) about an orchestra to get the best from them.