It’s packed with woodwind, brass and string sections, plus the ability to layer sections up into one sound (hence the name), and assign full major, minor and suspended chords to one note for swift creative possibilities. Where else to find an excellent virtual orchestral library than from a company called Orchestral Tools? The Berlin-based developer has recently wowed us with Junkie XL Brass and Time Micro, and now returns with Layers – a completely free orchestral plug-in instrument. You get over 250MB of sounds, a very decent manual, envelope and basic reverb options. Upright Piano, though, is worth a download on its own, as it is possibly the finest free piano out there as it features samples from a Yamaha at Berklee College of Music. We have also included pianos in this section and some come in the orchestral options with several other titles here (in Spitfire’s case, you can download two piano packs).
You’ll need to download several of the packs for a fuller orchestral effect, but it’s a great, pro experience – so good, in fact, that we have a dedicated tutorial on how to get Labs up and running to create some free classical sounds. Here, you simply download the Spitfire Audio app and can choose from all sorts of packs – some 17 at the time of writing – that include many an orchestral tool, synth pads and atmospheres.
Spitfire Audio is one of the most respected producers of orchestral instruments in the world and has an amazing set of freebies via its Labs platform. You can get very decent results from it – considering it’s free – but it’s a shame it’s PC only. It features more than 50 instruments and combinations, four layer sounds at any one time and a very decent set of envelope controls for extra nuance. License:Freeware (Free) File Size:4.98 Mb. DSK is a fantastic developer of freeware and paid-for apps, with a mountain of titles to try and this is perhaps its largest in scope. VST Preset Generator is a software to create randomly (or semi-randomly) generated presets for your favorite VST instruments and effects.