The composer calls the VSL library "a huge leap forward sound-wise, even though I still can't get it to work properly." He also uses the orchestral libraries of Peter Siedlaczek and of Miroslav Vitous ("great all-rounder, but a little too clean sometimes"), as well as Kirk Hunter's string library ("great sound, but very scrappy programming"). While these libraries are good enough for string and orchestral mock-ups in demos and for most film and TV work, Richter prefers to use real instruments on his albums. Similarly, few of the samples that make it onto his albums are canned. All outdoor environmental recordings on The Blue Notebooks are the real thing, recorded by him using DACS in-ear binaural mics.

"For Star Fox Adventures, I used the Advanced Orchestra Library as the VSL was not available at this time. We have the advantage of being able to use many great sample libraries, so we draw our samples from many sources."

Tweet from Robin Beanland in which he says he used the Peter Siedlaczek sample library when scoring Nintendo 64 games.

"When you know that you are going to be using real players it actually frees you up because you don't have to worry so much about the programming details. A real orchestra will sound well produced, and so it can be quite a speedy way of writing once you know the setup. We had a decent budget but with a smaller budget you have to make do with samples. The difference between 30 different human beings playing one string chord and you trying to fudge it on samplers is still big. I know there are new Giga string sample libraries coming out, but we were using the Peter Siedlaczek stuff for mock-ups — you can get away with it for still, slow stuff."

Rather than hire a 70-piece orchestra (which he did for Myst 4), Wall turned to libraries, choosing from the Vienna Symphonic Library, Project SAM for brass, SAM True Strike Orchestral Percussion library, Sonic Images sample library, Peter Siedlaczek’s Advanced Orchestra for some of the woodwinds and “a sprinkling” from the Gary Garritan Orchestral library. The result was more than 90 minutes of score (including cinematics and in-game) that was then divided into tracks that were one-and-a-half to two minutes long.

The track that set the wheels in motion for me, way WAY back in early ‘99. 95% produced on a Roland JV1080 + SR-JV80-02 Orchestral Expansion Board. THEE sound of Tomb Raider… and some Peter Siedlaczek samples too.

"I just use loads of CD‑ROMs which I play through the Akai CD3000. I do like the Miroslav Vitous Symphonic Orchestra Samples. The other one I use a lot is Peter Siedlaczek's — that's another orchestral set, and there are actually five CDs of his stuff. The most important thing is that they were recorded in a room with the orchestra sitting where they're supposed to sit — in other words, the basses come out of the right‑hand side. I once had an engineer who didn't know where the orchestra sit and was complaining because it was too right‑heavy — well, that's where they sit, you know!"

"My first idea to remedy this was to buy orchestral sample CDs, the Peter Siedlaczek Advanced Orchestra CD-ROMS were great, other sample CDs came as orchestral riffs on audio CD which had to be sampled in manually."

Composer and music producer Lior Rosner utilized Peter Siedlaczek's Advanced Orchestra for the timpani in his Power Rangers compositions. It is confirmed that prior to the 2000 series "Lightspeed Rescue," he employed this orchestral sample library for the full orchestra in his work on "Lost Galaxy." This information is supported by a video provided by Dheeran Cartoons on YouTube, featuring "Power Rangers Lost Galaxy Episode 001 Quasar Quest 1 | Season 7."

"There are some parts that are standard faux orchestral‑style film score — for which I made extensive use of the Peter Siedlaczek orchestra disks and the older ProSonus orchestra library — but other parts were a little less conventional," explains Robb. "There was a disco scene, for example, which I actually used a Think Tank track for, and a few techno sections where I was free to use more of my synth arsenal. The worst part was that some of the cues were supposed to sound deliberately cheesy, which isn't easy when you fancy yourself as a composer, to take that sort of direction. I'd be saying 'Yeah — but I don't want people to think that I actually compose like that!'"

"I generally use Emagic’s Logic software on a Mac workstation, and have 3 PC computers on the side that act like instruments, because I run a software program called “Gigastudio” on them. This software basically turns each PC into a powerful sampler. Into each of the Gigastudio computers, I load instruments from various libraries, such as:

• Miroslav Vitous Symphonic Orchestra (for solo instruments- especially winds- and some percussion)
• Peter Siedlaczek’s Advanced Orchestra
• Garritan Orchestral Strings
• Vienna Symphonic Library

…And some others, too. Just lately, I’ve also been using the “EXS24” software sampler, which allows you to load in many of the same types of instruments directly in Logic on the Mac, which is very convenient because everything is located within the same environment, and you avoid the complication of all the extra cables."

Jeehun's pick of the sample CDs. "I have the Advance Orchestra five‑CD set, Peter Seidezlick's Orchestra, and World Orchestra. I use a lot of choirs, so I have the Choir Colors and the Orchestral Colors. When I need electronic sounds I'll sometimes seek out weird sounds from CD‑ROMs, load them into the K2500 and tweak them a little bit. For sound effects I use the Hollywood Edge library from the post‑production house Sound Deluxe, which is a 30‑CD set of all kinds of sounds they've created for different projects."