Here it is in all its err... glory? The full free orchestra, strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion. Some other stuff too.
http://bigcatinstruments.blogspot.com/2014/09/bigcat-maize-vstis.html

 

Interesting project BC

Tested the 32bit violin and it sound nice! Only issiue (might be a little one) is that this violin has a very special range for a violin - you can play notes below lowest g, infact you can play 3 halfnotes below that!

Keep up the good work

 

Good catch it is a very special violin recorded using Extended range strings...
http://www.electricviolinshop.com/sensicore-extended-range-violin-string-singles.html
Also I'm lying my ass off.

Anyone notice any other mistakes or irregularities? I haven't tried making VSTis in forever and I tend to miss a couple glitches when making instruments. Any feedback appreciated.

Also let me plug the whole Sonatina thang if you have Kontakt 5.
http://bigcatinstruments.blogspot.com/2014/07/sonatina-symhony-orchestra-for-kontakt.html

 

hey man you made all those instruments ?

 

Yay VSTi!

Also, Extended range is good. Sometimes you get MIDIs with notes all over the place or you want a violin-ish sound which covers a large range. If the range was limited, some notes would not sound - very irritating and you have to go hunting for an instrument with possibly inferior sound but extended range.

 

Oh yeah BigCat keeps quite busy and we all benefit.

 

I've made them with a lot of help. Other than the City Piano, I've used samples from public domain and creative commons. Also Matt McKay spent about a month making the huge script for the Big Organ and guys from here tested it and gave suggestions. Lately I've started using a script/GUI by Mickaël Ménager. So quite a community effort.

 

Bump for 4 new VSTis.
The Sonatina Violas to compliment the Violins.
The Sonatina Choir both Male and Female as choir VSTs are hard to find.
The Cute Emily with 4 velocity layers from the man, DSmolkin. (But try his SFZs instead)
The Skerratt London Upright Piano from KungKrill for a neat upright about the house feel.

 

Bump for complete String Section, some Bass in the house, an acoustic guitar, The Whisper Piano, trumpets and horny... err horns!

 

Bump for finishing the Woodwinds. Getting close to the whole orchestra.

 

Sweet!

 

A bit late on this, but I found with the SSO samples (and they say this in their website too), that they added some reverb.

This is fine for Orchestral mixing scenarios. But for pop mixing scenarios, pre-reverbed sample may be undesirable (if you want dry sounds or if you want more control over reverb as you're adding it yourself post, as reverb on reverb sounds crap)

Eg, on a pop-classical piece, I used a SSO Glockenspiel, but I had to use a de-reverb VST to make it sound right.

My suggestion: use the original non-reverbed samples (From Iowa or w/e). Just something to think about, but may be too late now.

 

I might mess around with some of the Iowa stuff. Unfortunately it tends to be very dodgy as far as being in tune.
Part of the advantage to using Sonatina is, if I understand correctly, he used some symphonic stuff that had a pretty liberal free use license at the time but has since been placed off limits to folks like me. If I just point to his license I'm OK, but I can't use it otherwise. Ah the confusing world of Public Domain and CC samples!

 

Ah, yes, tuning.

IIrc, sfz has a parameter to compensate for tuning, idk if maize has something similar.

Although SSO might be more in tune (perhaps via sfzp), I think I heard a few out of tune things here & there.

You could also compensate for tuning by resampling, but that's also more effort.

 

I can work on some Iowa stuff, the brass and woodwinds are decent, but the strings oh boy...
Anyway bump for finishing up the orchestral finally.