Sketching Chamber Orchestra

Sketching Chamber Orchestra for Kontakt 5.6.8 or later

The Sketching Chamber Orchestra features two dozen instruments from the VSCO2 Community Edition in only 1.25 gigs using Kontakt's lossless compression.

The instruments feature Convolution Reverb with 25 presets and 3 twiddly knobs, Full Envelope Control, 3 Band Equalization, Scripted Legato for Strings, Brass & Woodwinds, Faux Round Robins for sustains, optional loud and soft articulations for many sustains, 2 Round Robins for most shorts, cool scripting to show which articulation is in use (that took some work!) along with scripted Modwheel Crossfading and Ensemble patches for many instruments. There are also experimental patches for chords and programmable arpeggios.

Samples created by Versilian Studios Samuel A. Gossner along with Simon Dalzell & Samuel Hébert. Please consider purchasing the Professional Edition. I did and then I bought it.
Please follow the link above for a complete list of musicians and technicians.

Scripting by Matt McKay, Joe Stevens and friends. Special thanks to Evil Dragon.
WIPS scripting was created by Robert D. Villwock.
Modwheel scripting was created by Nils Liberg.
Ensemble scripting was created by Jay Bacal.
WIPS, Modwheel & Ensemble scripting were developed for use by the modding community and made available for non-commercial projects like this one. All rights are reserved to the scripters. 

Samples are Creative Commons 0 / Public Domain: Versilian Studios & Samuel A. Gossner
Instruments are Public Domain: Me

The Sketching Chamber Orchestra is respectful dedicated to Sam Gossner and as a memorial to the late Robert D. Villwock.

I have no affiliation or endorsement with anyone mentioned and any mistakes are my own.
By downloading you accept the Limited Warranty & Liability.

List of Stuff in the SCO

Strings - All instruments have scripted legato except the Harp (that sounded weird)

Full String Section - Arco Vibrato, Tremolo, Spiccato & Pizzicato
Solo Violin - Arco Vibrato, Tremolo, Spiccato & Pizzicato
Violin Section - Arco Vibrato, Tremolo, Spiccato & Pizzicato
Viola Section - Arco Vibrato, Tremolo, Spiccato & Pizzicato
Cello Section - Arco Vibrato, Tremolo, Spiccato & Pizzicato
Solo Contrabass - Sustain, Sustain Vibrato, Tremolo, Spiccato & Pizzicato
Harp - Plucked

Brass - All instruments have scripted legato
First Chairs - Sustain, Staccato & Vibrato
Solo Trumpet - Sustain, Staccato, Vibrato & Straight and Harmonic Mutes
Solo French Horn - Sustain, Staccato & Mute
Solo Trombone - Sustain, Staccato & Vibrato
Solo Old Trombone - Sustain, Staccato, Vibrato, Falls & Buzz
Solo Tuba - Sustain, Staccato & Vibrato

Woodwinds - All instruments have scripted legato
Solo Lite Piccolo - Sustain, Staccato & Vibrato
Solo Flute - Sustain, Staccato, Vibrato & Expressive Vibrato
Solo Oboe - Sustain, Staccato & Vibrato
Solo Clarinet - Sustain, Staccato & Vibrato
Solo Bassoon - Sustain, Staccato & Vibrato

Percussion
Orchestral Percussion
Timpani - Single Hits and Rolls
Marimba
Glockenspiel
Xylophone

Keyboard
2 Pianos
Organ with pedals both Loud and Soft settings

An Orchestra - Experimental Chord and Arpeggio instruments
These instruments use standard reverb and not convolution.
There are programmable Arps and a dozen types of chords depending on the instrument.

Strings, Brass & Woodwinds Chords and Arps multi
Strings, Brass & Woodwinds4 Arps multi
Strings Chords & Arps
Strings Chord Progressions
Strings 4 Arps
Brass Chords & Arps
Brass 4 Arps
Woodwinds Chords & Arps
Woodwinds 4 Arps
Woodwinds Arps and Melody

Bonus Instruments (must be downloaded  separately)

This is a lovely harp from Sam and EtherealWinds. Note the license.

Etherealwinds Harp CE for Kontakt 5.6.8

Harp SFZ, VSTi, etc... page

EWHarp: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license: Versilian Studios

The Conductor for Kontakt 5.6.8
The Conducator has baton swishes, cloth crinkling and ripping, flies buzzing, mumbled naughty words and audiences grumbling and even a gunshot for that authentic concert sound.
Created using Public Domain samples from Freesound.org. Thank you Free Sounders!
The Conductor is Public Domain

bigcat's Amazon ebook page

Mihai Sorohan Choir

Soundcloud Demo

Vowel Ensemble Choir for Kontakt 5

Vowel Ensemble Choir for SFZ

The internet has allowed for collaborations across time and distance. 

Seven years ago this thread appeared on KVR.  Mihai Sorohan and his friends and family had created an ensemble vowel choir. I'd happily downloaded it much later and made myself my own little Kontakt version because that's what I do. Over at Scoring Central (run by the guy who created the Sonatina Orchestra) where I hang out with friends and musically gifted AIs, someone asked about free choirs and mentioned this free ensemble. Somewhere someone mentioned that it was nice but it would be nice if it sounded fuller this reminded me of the Kontakt script J's Ensemble Maker created by Jay Bacal over a decade ago. This script can multiply solo instruments by up to seven through Digital Wizardy understood by about a dozen Kontakt scripting pros in the world. So after finding a public domain piece of clipart and using the freeware GIMP graphic editor to fake a woodburned GUI look, out came the Kontakt instrument.

But folks on VSR and SC wanted an SFZ version and I don't know how to do that. Fortunately Sam Gossner the headman at Versilian Studios (the guys behind the VSCO2 Orchestra) has created and given away a free folder-to-SFZ converter and made a nice video on how to use it. So after a bit of confusion and renaming 110 files I was ready to send out the SFZ version. I just wished I knew how to make a ketswitched patch for it, but hey you can't have everything right? Then into my inbox comes a full keyswitched version from Pytchblend from KVR. And that is how using freeware, samples and help from friends a free choir is put up on a blog.

From Mihai's blog...

"The choir patch was developed by Mihai Sorohan together with Richard Osborn for Mu.Lab Multisampla and Selcuk Bor (from Symphony of Specters) for Kontakt.
 

Choir: Citrina - soprano & alto, Jelena - alto,Roman & Dimitri (Timohi) - tenor, Jonny Zed - tenor, Mihai - tenor & baritone"

Also from Mihai's blog are the conditions for use...

"By downloading the provided files you accept the following terms:

• You get a personal non-exclusive non-transferable right to use the sample content as an integral part of your musical composition, in combination with other sounds, for both personal and commercial purpose. You may not use it for commercial sample libraries (put it on a CD and sell it, sell it online, etc) 
• You may use the sample content as an integral part of your musical composition, in combination with other sounds, for both personal and commercial purpose. 
• I don't accept any responsibility for any damage, loss, liability, injury or upset caused to or suffered by you as a result of misusing this material. "

Legato Vibrato Piano

The gang over at Vi-Control have a bizarre thread about a legato piano that started on or around April Fool's Day, VI crashed recently so its tough to say. Being a bit crazy I decided to see what would happen if I used Big Bob's WIPS scripts to create a legato piano with vibrato. It sounds pretty weird.

Legato Vibrato Piano for Kontakt (5.6.6)

Soundcloud Demo

Instrument and Samples: Public Domain.

WIPS scripts: Copyright Robert D. Villwock 

Freesound

Here is a collection of 5 toy piano type instruments.

Toy Pianos for Kontakt

Note this requires Kontakt 5.6.6 or later.

Creative Commons Attribution: Beskhu,  Corsica_S, Poissonmort

Creative Commons Sampling Plus: Tombola

Public Domain: Taylor Sampled

This chap named pjcohen has put up some really nice drum, cowbell, harpsichord and standup acoustic bass samples. Bass is up first. To quote the gentleman.
"This standup bass was sampled using a direct pickup as well as stereo overhead mics for some room ambience. Articulations include a normal pizzicato, or finger plucked note; a stopped note as performed with the finger; a stopped note performed Bartok style; and some miscellaneous sound effects: a slide by the hand down the strings, a slap on the strings, and a knock on the wooden body of the bass. Do enjoy; feedback is welcome!"

pjcohen standup bass for Kontakt

Note this requires Kontakt 5.6.6 or later.

Instrument and Samples are placed in the Public Domain.

Sauron974 placed five Shofar samples in the public domain, "An 18" ram's horn shofar being sounded from a few feet away."

Sauron974's small shofar for kontakt

Note this requires Kontakt 5.6.6 or later.

Instrument and Samples are placed in the Public Domain.

I asked over on the Cakewalk forums for any ideas for instruments. Fleer suggested a deeply sampled pan flute which I have utterly failed to deliver, but in searching I found this really cool instrument. Made by Mr. Shoes as he explains, "I used a 3/4 in. diameter PVC tube stopped at one end and water to create all of the notes. the notes have even temperament. they may be slightly off in terms of tuning at the top end, but overall, I'd say not too much." There are 20 samples and I stretched the ends a bit so you have over 2 octaves of PVC pipe and water goodness.

Mr. Shoes Panflute for Kontakt

Note this requires Kontakt 5.6.6 or later.

Instrument and Samples are Creative Commons Attribution: Mr. Shoes.