Rhapsody: Orchestra Colors
Strings, brass, winds, and choir ensembles, sampled in sections for maximum control and flexibility.
US$99
Hear Rhapsody: Orchestral Colors In Action
- Unstoppable (Dressed) Brad Jerkins 1:23
- Orchestra of Lights (Dressed) Andrew Aversa 0:48
- Pillars of Creation (Dressed) Blake Ewing 1:01
- Runes of the Occult (Dressed) Zhao Shen 1:27
- Defeat (Dressed) Henning Nugel 0:58
Reviews
Simon Franglen
Titanic, Skyfall, Spectre, Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water
Impact Soundworks make detailed, emotive instruments. I’ve happily bought over two dozen of their libraries which should say everything. They get used every day.
Mark Portmann
Ariana Grande, Luis Fonsi, Celine Dion, Quincy Jones
"[ISW]'s instruments consistently deliver the sound, feel, and reliability I need to do my best work. Thank you for raising the bar and making tools that inspire."
Neal Acree
World of WarCraft, Diablo III, StarCraft II, Overwatch
"Impact Soundworks has some of the most creative and innovative libraries out there. From world instruments to the insanely deep sampled Shreddage guitar series the Impact catalog is full of must-haves and unexpected and inspiring surprises. Highly recommended!
Stewart Winter
Co-founder, VideoHelper
"I'm a keyboard player -- I can't even make a REAL guitar sound convincing. But Telos and Rosette are my go-to guitars because they sound incredible, sit well in a mix and are so easy to configure to my personal playing habits. I'm constantly discovering new ways to play them and they've saved my ass more times than I can count. And the pedal Steel is still my favorite library of its kind for Country, Folk and organic layering behind synths."
Brian Pickett
PAW Patrol, Lucas the Spider, Daniel Tiger
"I never would have thought that sampled guitars could sound as good as ISW's do. The fact that I can use them to lay down a realistic solo is unprecedented. They’ve pushed the boundaries of realism."
Rosette Mandolin – Sound on Sound
Rosette Mandolin review
"The sound of the library is very pleasing...the more I used the library the more I felt I was learning how to write idiomatically for the instrument." "Rosette Mandolin provides a good sound that could have many applications, with versatile input options that cater to writing realistic mandolin lines, impossible 5+ note chords and everything in between." Thomas Field, September 2024
Richard Jacques
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, Mass Effect, Overwatch 2, James Bond 007: Blood Stone
"I'm a huge fan of the Ventus Winds series. They feature rare instruments deep-sampled to an incredibly high level of detail. It's so liberating to have such a wide range of articulations & phrases that perfectly capture the nuances and performance style of these instruments... from beautiful to haunting, celebratory to sorrowful. Each is expertly recorded and the sound quality is superb, sitting in the mix with ease. If you want to add authentic world winds to your palette, then look no further."
Kevin Manthei
Angry Birds Mystery Island, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Villainous, Neverwinter, Star Trek Online
"ISW creates some of the most inspiring & realistic guitar sample libraries. I had to write a bunch of really gritty, angry heavy metal & sports action rock cues. I used Shreddage 3 Serpent for leads and was blown away by its onboard processing, programming, and amazing live-sounding leads. I also created a signature sound based on the lead guitar in David Lynch's Twin Peaks series, originally played on baritone guitar. [Serpent] built a convincing replica of that sound just using on-board FX. It was so fun and easy to do!"
Audio Demos
- Unstoppable (Dressed) Brad Jerkins 1:23
- Orchestra of Lights (Dressed) Andrew Aversa 0:48
- Pillars of Creation (Dressed) Blake Ewing 1:01
- Runes of the Occult (Dressed) Zhao Shen 1:27
- Defeat (Dressed) Henning Nugel 0:58
Overview
An all-in-one symphonic library that makes it easier than ever to bring your orchestral ideas to life! Features 30,000+ detailed samples of strings, brass, winds, and choral ensembles, along with a unique library of chords & voicings that puts the full palette of symphonic tones at your fingertips. With Rhapsody: Orchestral Colors, there’s no faster way to create fully-voiced orchestral textures!
Product Info
30,000+ orchestral samples
Includes strings, woodwinds, brass, and choir, plus custom ensembles, with each section recorded in unison for a polished out-of-the-box sound. Customize your section blend!
Three mic positions: close, decca, outrigger
Recorded in a medium-sized hall matching our Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion library for a natural, detailed sound.
Ensemble and split patches
Ensemble patches include unison and chords for each section, while Split patches cover individual sections: tuba, trombones, horns, trumpets, basses, cello, violins/violas, bassoons, high winds, men’s choir, and women’s choir.
Includes 4 core playing techniques
Each section features sustain, staccato, staccatissimo & tenuto, as well as simulated legato.
Chordmaker patches
Play lush, wide major or minor chords with a single key press across any custom ensemble or articulation. Multiple voicings available depending on where you play.
Features
Massive voicing engine with randomization features
Play tons of chords and inversion with a single key press
Multiple gorgeous reverb options
Easy routing of each section to Kontakt outputs
Requirements
8GB of disk space
7200 RPM hard drive or solid state drive recommended.
4GB of RAM (8GB recommended)
Higher amounts of memory let you load more instruments.
Kontakt 5.3.1+ Full Version
This library is NOT compatible with the free Kontakt Player.
Kontakt Requirements - Mac OS
Intel Macs (i5 or higher): macOS 10.14, 10.15, 11 or 12 (latest update).
Apple Silicon Macs (via Rosetta 2 & natively on ARM in Standalone or in hosts that support it): macOS 11 or 12 (latest update)
Kontakt Requirements - Windows
Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10 (latest Service Pack, 32/64-bit). Intel Core i5 or equivalent CPU. Graphics hardware support for OpenGL 2.1 or higher. Windows 10 strongly recommended.
Tutorials
Introduction & Overview
Featured Artists & Composers
Lena Raine
Celeste, Chicory, Minecraft, Guild Wars 2, Deltarune
Instruments from ISW are a staple of my soundtrack work for games. Vocalisa has been a mainstay vocal aesthetic of nearly every game I’ve worked on including Celeste & Chicory: A Colorful Tale. Shreddage 3 has also given me the confidence to write some really fun guitar riffs & solos despite not being able to play a real one. I’ve started incorporating Tokyo Scoring Strings into the acoustic side of my scoring work, and can’t wait to try out more from ISW in the future!
Christopher Gordon
Ladies in Black, Mao’s Last Dancer, Salem’s Lot, Master and Commander
“Impact Soundworks’ range of guitars and fretted instruments sound amazing and are crafted and nuanced with expert detail. Intuitively set up to get straight to composing. And I have a real soft spot for the juicy, screaming Shreddage 3 Hydra!”
Brian Pickett
PAW Patrol, Lucas the Spider, Daniel Tiger
“I never would have thought that sampled guitars could sound as good as ISW’s do. The fact that I can use them to lay down a realistic solo is unprecedented. They’ve pushed the boundaries of realism.”
Rhapsody: Orchestral Colors is the companion to our critically-acclaimed Rhapsody: Orchestral Percussion virtual instrument. Recorded in the same focused, neutral, and highly-versatile hall, this library offers the rest of the orchestra: strings, brass, winds, and choir ensembles, all deep-sampled in sections for maximum control and flexibility.
The heart of the library is our custom orchestrator engine that transforms single MIDI notes into beautiful, lush chords and textures across multiple ensembles. Unlike “pre-baked” orchestral libraries, Rhapsody: Orchestral Colors gives you individual control over the voicing of each section – for example, violins/viola, celli, and basses can all play unique chords, voices, and intervals. We’ve also recorded two octaves of unison notes for each ensemble allowing you to create your own chords from scratch!
The highly flexible sound of Rhapsody: Orchestral Colors, recorded with three mic positions, is suited equally to chamber music and classical mockups as it is lush film scores and epic cues. Every section has its own unique mic mix controls and output routing so you can mix each orchestral ensemble to taste. Film, TV, and game composers will love the versatility of this library and how quickly their orchestral ideas can be transferred to the DAW.
We know that you will love the power and flexibility of Rhapsody Orchestral Colors, and as always, we hope this instrument will inspire and enhance your music. Enjoy!
- Low & High: Pre-orchestrated triads built on the root note
- Fat: Super-dense doubled chords
- Octaves & Power: Octave unisons and 4th/5th intervals
- Aleatoric 1-3: Up to three random notes triggered per key press
- Int2: Performs the third and fifth triad without the root note
- Scale degrees: Plays the 2nd, 3rd, 4th.. etc built on the root note
- Intervals: Performs two note intervals from 2nd to 7th
Each section can also be set to Random or Split modes. In Random mode, the voicing used will be selected at random from a user-selected pool. This is fantastic as an inspirational tool! Split mode allows for up to three voicings to be used depending on what part of the keyboard is used.
Besides the ultra-powerful chord mode, we’ve also included Unisons patches with two octaves of single notes sampled per section. From contrabasses to violins/violas and trumpets, that’s a total orchestra range of C1 to C6! The Unisons can be played in Natural mode, where each instrument triggers only in its natural playable range, or in Zone mode where each section can be assigned a different keyboard region.
Rhapsody: Orchestral Colors includes extensive settings and performance controls to further customize the library. Our convolution reverb sports a selection of custom, hand-picked impulse responses ranging from huge concert halls to small chamber spaces – an easy way to achieve drastically different tones with one click.
Other useful features include the Doubler, which doubles the size and width of every ensemble, Extra RR, which adds even more variations to every section (great for ostinato staccatos), and Staccato Tightness, allowing for the full range of short notes from loose and full to ultra-short and tight.
Reviews
Rhapsody Orchestral Colors – Sample Library Review
“I am a big fan of Ensemble libraries. When I first heard about Rhapsody Orchestral Colors I couldn’t wait to check out the functionality … it did not disappoint. The samples themselves sound fantastic and I really love the dynamic range going from ƒƒƒ (pretty damn strong) to pp (very quiet) … [RSO] is a wonderful tool to sketch with and the samples sound so good you can use them without having to orchestrate out all of your parts. ISW has created a great sounding set of powerful orchestral ensemble & chord tools that anyone can afford AND quickly learn to use.”
Don Bodin (Sample Library Review)
Rhapsody Orchestral Colors & Percussion – Designing Music Now
“If you are looking for an all in one complete orchestral sample library that won’t break the bank and still sound legitimate – look no further than Rhapsody Orchestral Colors and Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion. These libraries were recorded in the same hall so it makes mixing a breeze. Combined, these two libraries are a must-have for quick yet realistic-sounding orchestral compositions.” (Designing Music Now)