..or coerce uhm convince whoever made the symphony orchestra VST to port it to Linux :)That would be good! If I correctly interpret Linuxdsp's postings about the shift from LV2 to VST in what is now branded "OverToneDSP", although Linux VST and Windows VST are different, it's not all that hard for the developer to set things up to build both from the same code. It might be a bit harder, of course, if the symphony orchestra VST was never created with platform portability in mind in the first place...
For the record, last I looked into it, EW (And VSL) used an iLok, that by itself is a good sign you will not be able to use it under WINE on Linux. iLok requires drivers that just don’t exist on Linux, and likely never will. And before it is asked, no you can’t run the drivers under Wine, that isn’t what it does really.
Garritan I talked to some time back as they were using the SFZ format for some of their stuff, and they didn’t seem opposed to possibly having compatibility with something like LinuxSampler, but haven’t heard anything since then and haven’t really followed up with them.
I have a copy of Miroslav laying around I need to check and see if that works or not under Wine.
SeabladeIve tried various freely availible vsts including ones that were highly recommended and worked on windows.
most of them were either buggy or just didnt function.
Some windows VSTS however to seem to work fine but then theres reports of them just not working randomly after being working fine for a while and some even failing to load after crashing never to work again.
If you want an orchestra could you not use linux sampler and load samples, im sure youc ould find some decent orchestra samples/
I am all ears if you know a source for decent free samples I could load. But as far as I understand, it’s not the samples alone that makes the professional vsts sound so well, but also some programming that layers and changes them intelligently.
Maybe Seablade’s Miroslav works?
Otherwise I have started to wonder about using a midi orchestral expander hardware. Maybe somebody got some experience with these? How good can they be?
When you say ‘midi orchestral expander hardware’ what exactly are you referring to? There are some systems that are designed to ‘fill out’ an orchestra, for instance in musical theater. Personally I don’t have a high opinion of many of the dedicated systems, and they are far less flexible than you would think.
On the flip side you have touring shows like Wicked that have three or four stations in their pit running Kontakt, many people think they are running dedicated hardware when they really have 3 or 4 (I can’t remember how many off hand) computers running bog standard samplers dedicated to it in rackmount cases.
SeabladeI think of something like the Ketron SD 1000 or SD 2. But yes, it that what is called “MIDI expander” does somewhat differ. I imagine a little box, that has a simple display and a few buttons, and contains hundreds of high quality samples comparable to EastWest or Vienna, that I could use via midi… does such a thing exist?
hardware Sampler brother 
my opinion
If you use windows, so… load Native instruments Kontakt 5 things and try.
But its not linux
this is the direction
some people are making it possible to use R. Pi as harware sampler.
But if you have an orchestra, you need some 8 or more audio outs.
No one is making good sampler annymore ( kurzweil k25000RS and simmilar)
Ketrons have also two chinch outs!!! Poor thing.
Hi quallity viena libs need hi qualitty audio gear,
manny outs to control it and so on…
You could try a muse research receptor? I have heard mixed results (Truly mixed, meaning some very good and some bad). Make sure to double check plug-in compatibility.
SeabladeOther than something like that, yes hardware samplers and good synths are what you are looking for.
Seablade
I was looking in to one of those some time ago:
http://www.smproaudio.com/index.php/en/products/v-machines/v-machine
Don’t know how well they work, but it could be something to look in to.
I have heard they do not work well. I have never tested them though.
Seablade
It depended a lot on the actual plugin if it worked well or not.
I was interested in a vst with grand pianos, especially the Bösendorfer, but since I never could find out if it worked or not, I shelved the idea.
Would be fun to get my hands of one of those machines to experiment with.
My point is that from what I heard it works far worse than the Receptor for example, and is a somewhat poor choice for this. Obviously this is all heresay and conjecture at this point as I have never gotten my hands on one to test. On the flip side I doubt it would work much better than say AVLinux with Ardoue/Wine/WinVST installed for most people, but on the plus side at least if it crashed it wouldn’t take down Ardour with it:)
SeabladeYea, I have the same problem as you had, Ralf: I would be willing to buy an expensive vst, if I only knew I could get it to work. But well - now I will investigate these alternatives. (Sonatina is still the best native Linux orchestra out there, right?)
Just to complete this: I think I have finally found a solution: The Roland Integra-7. I’ll need to test it somewhere, but the reports are promising, and it may well also dissolve all my desires for other vst-instruments.
Id be curious to hear your take on the module, and using it with Ardour when you get some time to sit down with it for a while.
SeabladeI’ll be happy to report. It will be some time, until I will get round to it.
I have now looked into it: The orchestra sounds of the SRX 06 Board (that the Integra uses) don’t convince me. I am not even sure that I like them better than Sonatina Orchestra sounds, if they are boosted a bit in the mixing/mastering process. Roland’s string sounds in the RD700nx have never convinced me, and the SRX sounds are not better, maybe even the very same samples. It feels like they are optimised for simple chordplay, string layers in pop songs, but I think they just don’t work for complicated melodies. They are so straight, without any articulation, that they sound almost artificial, I find. No comparison to Demos of EastWest or Vienna. I admit, my testing was only brief, but it has discouraged me already to buy such an expensive piece of hardware. Well - so I remain in search of a good linux-compatible orchestra. But I think I should open a new thread about this.
Artur.-
Why dont you try Airwave VST bridge on Linux, its like Festige, you can load Windows VST, if i could only install it on Fedora…
@Artur Have you given LinuxSampler a look? It can load three different sample formats, including the outdated .gig format. I think Akai and Soundfonts are supported too. It is kinda a bear to figure out how it all works as a plugin to Ardour, but once you figure it out, it works very nicely! It also has an instrument editor, if your into modeling your sounds, or creating them from scratch.
You didn’t mention what orchestral samples are running, but maybe they could be converted. There are a few commercial products out there that do this sort of thing, Chicken Systems comes to mind as one. If the conversion is accurate, all your layers should remain intact too.