While there are only two woodwind and two string ensembles, brass is a big focus – trumpets, trombones, bass trombones, cimbassi (contrabass trombones with a bent shape and trumpet-like valves) and tubas. So, everything that is present here is all about sounding bigger than big. The highest part of many instruments’ range also gets left out. Instead, there is an ensemble of high strings, and one of low strings. Another very interesting missing element is that the strings are not divided into first and second violins, violas, celli and basses. Even the contrabassoons and tubas are recorded as ensembles of four – that’s very unusual, as a standard orchestra only has one contrabassoon and one or occasionally two tubas. The third thing that’s missing is solo instruments – except for the piano and band instruments everything is an ensemble (and there is even a guitar ensemble instrument).

Again, this library is all about big and loud, and those instruments are more about warmth and subtlety. So, no flutes, clarinets, oboes or English horns, and certainly no piccolos. The second most obvious thing that’s not there is high woodwinds – only bassoons and contrabassoons are representing the woodwind section. Big and loud is what this library is all about. For those not familiar with classical dynamics markings, mf is mezzoforte or “pretty loud” and fff is fortisissimo or “very very loud”. Everything sampled here is between mf and fff, and some things are only sampled at fff. Nothing was sampled playing quietly (well, almost nothing – the drum kit is the only instrument that does include soft velocity layers). The most standard thing you’d expect to find in an orchestral library and which isn’t here is quiet dynamics.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this library is that it leaves out anything that isn’t epic. It runs in Kontakt and the free Kontakt Player. It includes strings, brass and orchestral percussion, as well as a piano, male and female choirs, and a band of two guitars, one bass guitar and drums.

And second, it’s dedicated to huge epic sounds. First, even compressed it takes 70 GB of space. Orchestral Tools Metropolis Ark 1 is a huge orchestral library in two senses of the word.

Brass: metropolis ark 1