Hopefully, this doesn’t ruin movie magic for you forever, but we have to break it to you that a lot of the orchestral music you hear in films isn’t being performed by real musicians. Because, while it may seem like the film industry is happily setting fire to money at every opportunity, there are budgeting concerns involved. These days, the orchestras used on scores are either commonly one of the top ensembles in Eastern Europe, a hybrid that expertly blends a few musicians with a VST orchestra (virtual studio technology), or sometimes a score is 100% samples.
It’s not simply down to budgeting – the orchestral VSTs are just that damn good now. Thanks to the likes of Spitfire Audio, Native Instruments and Vienna, many people sitting in cinemas are completely oblivious to the fact the oboe they’re hearing was played on a keyboard.
Whether you want to use this technology for demoing orchestral parts, to score a film or media project you’re working on, to blend with real instruments or just to write some orchestral music for the joy of it, Headliner is here to conduct you through the best orchestral VSTs currently available. So, timpani roll please, and start that metronome, as we head out into the virtual concert hall.