We may find many products when seeking for instruments libraries category “Strings” (this is also true for percussions!)

So first  I will list some and then review them one by one (or redirect to already excellent reviews made by others), for now we are speaking of orchestral music the solo or small ensembles will come later.

Diverse strings ensembles which I have in mind and for some I experienced:

From within an orchestral library

• the basics are in the older one’s like Edirol HQ orchestra (discontinued) or IK Multimedia’s Miroslav Philharmonic. The last beeing still in sales (only 32 bit). REMARK this is not the same as the Miroslav’s Strings
• Complete orchestral collection (Peter Siedlaczek).  Here we have many patches with keyswitches. It is a mixed dish and may take time to explore and find the needed one.
• Garritan’s Personal Orchestra, the other one beeing Instant Orchestra (remembering ProjectSAM’s products)
• East West products, they always in a variety of options. Symphonic Orchestra Silver, Gold, Platinium and Platinium Plus! The funny thing here is that Silver and Gold are also named “complete” but only the platinium plus is “complete” Prices ranging from around 100€ to 500€. Beware that the great sounding demos are mainly from the top end product.
• ProjectSAM’s Symphobia 1 and 2, accompanied with Orchestral essentials 1 and 2. OEs are selection of the preceding ones so do not except to get a complete range of instruments. As Garritan  Instant Orchestra ProjectSAM have also readymades ensemble textures and/or progressions named Animator and Orchestrator.
• Cinesamples are also offering a variety of products from Cinesymphony lite to the full range of cinesymphony Core and bundles. Also the readymades Cinestring runs and Cineorchestra
• Spitfire’s Albion and BML series (Sable & Mural). I found the strings in Albion just superb!
• Sonokinetic have also a “normal” playable orchestra named Da Capo. Their other products are “ready made” transitions, runs and phrases.
• VSL products which I do not know at all (unless the basics VSL included in Kontakt Factory Content counts). They have been pioneering the instrument libraries for long but for some reasons I have kept myself out of it.
• One honorable mention to Indiginus Solid State Symphony which is not an orchestal library but an inspiring small all-in-one synth tool.

Libraries about strings only

• Cinematic Strings, I will go more in detail with this one!
• Berlin Strings, relatively unknown (not marketing agressively) and not cheap at all. The patches includes also a mini phrase sequencer à la Albion.
• Audiobro’s LASS (LA scoring strings) serie. LASS include sophisticated scripting about articulations, dynamics and more.
• East West, Hollywood strings Gold and Silver editions
• Miroslav’s String Ensembles 2.0, this one is 64bit.
• Cinesamples Cinestring CORE
• 8DIO have some of the best products, the Adagio collection with ensembles, divisi and also solo instruments. Adagietto  released after Adagio, purpose to serve an whole strings orchestra ready to play. Agitato serie in which are some very developed scripting automation in favor of playing and sounding realistic.
• Native Instruments Action Strings, readymade articulations and rhytms.

Most of those products are running in Kontakt except VSL and Garritan

And now some listening: