I’ve been in this situation before, not necessarily to create classical music, but to employ “realistic” strings in certain productions without having to contract an orchestra.
The consensus among all the producers I know is to hire a violinist for the violin parts, and you can use sample library strings for your backup string section. Obviously this is because the violin is often the highest-mixed element in the section, and because of it’s almost impossible-to-recreate portamento which is key to the realism of a violin solo.
I’m thinking though that may not work for classical, where there is no pianos and drums and other pop elements to mask the fakeness of the backing strings.
In any case, even though I haven’t tried GPO one of the major studios here in Toronto took it back to the store and won’t use it anymore, claiming there’s stereo phasing issues with it?! I think that’s pretty odd coming from a professional package, but that’s what they said.
The movie scorers I know swear by Vienna Symphony Orchestra, I know there’s like 20 versions of that package I don’t know which is “the one”, but these are vast, vast sample libraries with hundreds of phrasings for each instrument in the various sections, so with intricate programming and sound selection (and I assume a whole lot of track freezing) you can create highly realistic orchestral scores. Another key is to make proper use of your Waves IR-1 convolution verbs, using realistic chamber impulses and individually affecting each instrument in proportion to how they would be physically arranged from the mics in a real chamber.
Finally, I’d suggest, even though I’m using a Mac now and can’t even try it, Synful Strings. I’ve been hearing serious things about this, and the demos sound pretty unbelievable: http://www.synful.com.
Cool.
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