What is the difference between these two libraries? Are they both normal Kontakt libraries or are there separate versions for Win and Mac? Are they both really over 600 gigs??

 

They are two orchestral libraries recorded with different players at different places. In short, they sound different and yes, they are pretty big (Spitfire has a tendency of quantity over quality). If you are willing to put time into learning them, both will work the same, they just have different characters and maybe different articulations for the niche stuff. I particularly moved on from Spitfire, there are better libraries around when it comes to strings.

 

Thanks for the info @shinjiya , first time hearing Spitfire is lower quality, I thought their Symphony library is top tier modern orchestra as far as virtual instruments go. Is there a better modern symphony orchestra (full philharmonic) library? What would you recommend?

 

Last edited: Jul 6, 2026 at 12:43 PM

I’m also curious, which ones have you found to be better? I tend to like more direct sounding strings “Beatles” like. But I also need more regular strings for other production/arrangement styles

 

Shinjiya nailed it. I would add that Kontakt player is much easier to work with (sample purge, stacking instruments, midi ports/channels). You don't need these massive libraries though unless you're picky about individual orchestral instruments. Albion One and Solstice can cover a wide range of cinematic palleted, including synths, with ~85% less disk space.

 

I wouldn't say it's low quality, but I would say it's outdated. For strings, my current favorites are: ProjectSam Lineage Strings, Impact Soundworks Tokyo Scoring Strings and Sonuscore LUX Orchestral Strings. Those libraries stand out because of how deeply programmed they are and how much of the friction of programming they also take away from you. These days, I won't subject myself to program strings without lookahead, and it's even better with Tokyo/Lineage because they also trigger articulations based on note length. Can't really go back to Spitfire after that.

Of course, each library with their own use cases. Listen to them and see if they work with your project.

 

Like others, I've tried both and moved on.

BBCSO was an immediate 'oh yeah' for the sound and playability, but the player was buggy. With SSO, there were too many scripting inconsistencies, and the overall tone didn't resonate. No sample library is perfect but I hit issues/obstacles with SSO far too early in the writing process. Definitely a library you have to write for, as opposed to write with.

 

I tried SSO for a while, sound is great but dynamics changes and some articulations can feel weird at times, not something you would really notice if you're making some sort of background stuff, but if the orchestra is the main thing in your music then you might run into trouble from time to time.

That said, for an all-in-one orchestra solution it's pretty good and it can get fairly cheap, and while the size is big you can get rid of some patches if you want (at least in the kontakt version) to make it lighter.

I've only used BBCSO a couple of times, didn't really vibe with it so i never touched it again.

Sounds like you're looking for more of a chamber orchestra sound. BBCSO and SSO are symphonic orchestras, too big for that kind of sound although i guess you could try the closer mics.

SSO uses kontakt, but BBCSO only works with it's own player. Both work on win and mac, it's the "player" software that has a win or mac version.

Nah, i remember SSO being closer to 300Gb or something like that, it says 360 in the webpage so that checks. BBCSO has a few versions, the bigger one is indeed 600 and something.

 

I bought a few small spitfire libraries and now i have no way of accessing/downloading them so i would not buy from them again. Everything has went against the wall since splice bought them.

UJam has some great hans zimmer plugins with some built-in licks and Sonuscore LUX Orchestral Strings are really good if you're looking for expressive strings controlled by the mod wheel.