The Ultimate VST Guide For Cinematic Composers

For years, the number one question musicians ask me is about the VSTs I use.

If you’ve hung around for a while, you know the disclaimer I’m going to say next:

Great VSTs do not a great composer make.

Today, even the free sample libraries provided with most DAWs or downloadable online are robust enough to make genuinely great sounding orchestral mockups—provided you know how to use them.

(That’s what I teach inside my Orchestral Mockup Fundamentals course.)

But…

If you’re still interested, or feel you’re at a level where you’re ready for the upgrade…

Allow me to present the end-all list of my go-to VSTs.

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• Cinematic Studio Strings — Hands down my most-used string library. The learning curve can be steep as these strings aren’t super playable, but if you’re willing to compromise with some latency, these deliver on legato performance and overall richness.

• Cinestrings Runs — Exactly what the title suggests: runs. A must-own if you’re into that fantastical, John Williams-esque sound.

• Strezov Afflatus Strings — A total mixed bag of a string library, ranging from experimental patches to more traditional, but a go-to. Favorite patches are harmonic legato and Middle East strings.

• Tina Guo Cello — More of a special use case kind of cello for me, but great for that expressive, soloistic sound.

• PerformanceSamples Solos of the Sea Violin — Another solo string library, with pretty much one function: expressive legato violin. Think James Newton Howard’s “The Village” score.

• Samantha Ballard Harp — Shameless plug, but I made this and it’s the only harp VST I use. It’s intimate, highly playable, and has the lowest noise floor of anything on the market in my humble opinion.

• Cinematic Studio Brass — For the more classical sounding brass stuff. Less cinematic trailer, more traditional Hollywood. Biggest issue is the latency.

• Cinebrass/Cinebrass Pro — A few patches in here including Monster Brass and the 12 French Horn patch make the whole library worth it.

• ProjectSam Swing/Swing More — If you like the big band sound, these libraries deliver (on brass, saxes, and more).

• Cinematic Studio Winds — I love this library. Super playable, minimal latency compared to other CSS libraries, and beautifully mic’ed winds.

• Hollywoodwinds Runs — The wind counterpart to Cinesamples’ string runs library. I use this on too many tracks.

• ProjectSAM TrueStrike — An underdog in the percussion VST world, but my go-to. Great orchestral selection, great mic positions, and reliable.

• Damage 2 — A must-have for more cinematic/trailer-type scoring. Big, beefy drums to your heart’s content.

• Spectrasonics Keyscape — This library is a huge staple in my toolkit these days, and a ton of fun to play. Hyper-realistic pianos and other keyboard instruments.

• AmpleSound Guitars — This company’s got some great guitars, and all of them are highly playable.

• Native Instruments Session Guitarist — Does one thing, and one thing well: strummed guitars. Tempo-synced, cool rhythms, and a great bed underneath tracks.

• Damage Guitars 2 — Less heavy metal, more cinematic soundscape electric guitars. Great for Inception-style ambient trailers.

• Strezov Choir Essentials — A surprisingly versatile library for the price. Limited in syllables, but as with all Strezov products, the legato is phenomenal.

• Oceania Choir — Has that very specific, “O Fortuna” / “Duel of the Fates” kind of sound. Love the automatic syllable shuffling for easy performance.

• Ethera Gold — Without a doubt the best solo female vocal library I’ve heard. I use this on pretty much every JRPG track I write.

• 8dio Insolidus Choir — Think Skyrim ambience. Very classical, reverent, and somber. Not my favorite with legatos, but great for pads.

• Omnisphere — What can be said? It’s a classic. So many patches… like, so many.

• u-he Zebra — Less synthwave like Omnisphere, more dark trailers and drama scores. Some 3rd party libraries like The Unfinished make amazing add-on patches.

• Strezov Balkan Orchestra — My favorite patches are the duduk and the Balkan choir, but there’s a ton of other fantastic instruments in here.

• AmpleSound Winds — I use their Asian woodwinds on pretty much every JRPG track I write.

• Trailer Box — Insanely underpriced for what it does. If you want an affordable first library for trailer percussion, this is it.

• Devastator Warzone — Try core before Pro to get a feel. It’s a phenomenal library for trailers with a ton of hybrid sounds.

These aren’t all of the VSTs I own/use, but they’re by far the most-used.

If you wind up grabbing one of these libraries and aren’t getting them to sound the way you’d hoped, consider enrolling my Orchestral Mockup Fundamentals course.

It’s a 3-hour program that helps you bring your VSTs to life without spending hours tweaking templates or programming with a mouse.

(I’m a keyboardist, so I’m all about performing my music.)

Happy music-making. 🎶

Zach

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