Cinesamples Musio

You can browse the full Musio catalogue within the plug‑in while the Instrument Rack shows all currently loaded sounds on the left side of the UI.

Cinesamples’ subscription package promises an awful lot of bang for your monthly bucks.

Cinesamples’ extensive catalogue of Kontakt‑based orchestral sample libraries will be very familiar to those who inhabit the world of film and TV composition. They create premium libraries suitable for high‑profile projects and, as with the obvious competition from Native Instruments, EastWest, Spitfire and others, they are also priced accordingly. For example, one of Cinesamples’ most popular orchestral strings libraries — CineStrings Core — will currently cost you upwards of $400.

Understandably, therefore, building a complete orchestral palette via individual Cinesamples Kontakt libraries represents a significant investment. Or maybe not... because Cinesamples have now introduced Musio. This platform provides access to a substantial (and growing) selection of their sample libraries for either a $9.99 per month subscription or a one‑off payment of $399. So, what exactly is Musio?

Top‑tier Sounds

The Musio platform combines two key elements; a catalogue of sample libraries and a plug‑in front end to access them with. In order to keep this review at a reasonable length, let’s address the first part of the Musio equation — the catalogue of sample libraries — by saying something simple and on‑point; the libraries themselves sound fabulous.

Within the current Musio catalogue, you get access to a huge selection of the CineBrass, CineString, CinePerc and CineWinds titles, the various Drums Of War libraries, the Men and Women Of The North vocal libraries, a whole range of the more specialist titles and, currently exclusive to Musio, a series of ‘Artist’ titles and some more contemporary libraries covering classic synth and drum‑machine sounds. Cinesamples maintain a complete list of what’s currently included on their website and for orchestral/hybrid orchestral composers, you could easily create a complete score without stepping outside the sounds Musio has to offer. And, since Musio’s launch, Cinesamples have been gradually porting more of their individual libraries over to the Musio format, so this is a catalogue that is undoubtedly going to expand over time.

Access All Areas

Musio is actually available in two forms; Musio and Musio 1. The former is the subscription model and currently priced at $9.99 per month (or $99 per year if purchased annually). An active subscription gives you unlimited access to the existing libraries via the Musio plug‑in front end, as well as access to any new library additions, and all updates to the plug‑in itself.

In contrast, Musio 1 is available for those that prefer a one‑off payment. For $399 (less than the price of many of the single Kontakt‑based libraries) you get perpetual access to all the Musio libraries available at the time of purchase as well as lifetime updates to the Musio plug‑in. With either Musio or Musio 1, you get an initial 30‑day trial period for free.

Whichever way you go, Musio undoubtedly offers an amazing amount of sample content at a modest price.

Within a specific library, you can easily audition and download sounds as required.

The Front End

However, one key point is worth noting. Access to the sounds is exclusively through the Musio plug‑in rather than Kontakt, and there are some notable differences. The Musio plug‑in (AAX, AU and VST3) offers four key functions; instrument browsing/auditioning, sample downloading, sample management (in conjunction with a further app — Musio Connect — but they work seamlessly together) and sample/instrument playback. As shown in the screenshots, this is all done via a modern UI with a very streamlined design.

The Explore (focused on new library additions) and Catalogue (a comprehensive list of all the currently available titles) tabs provide alternate ways to browse the library catalogue, while the very useful Search option (located top right) lets you type in your search term and Musio will provide a list of all the individual instrument patches that match from within the entire catalogue.

The streamlined design ethic favours a compact control set for individual instruments but there is enough control to tailor sounds to your needs. Key parameters are linked to the mod wheel by default but others can easily be assigned to MIDI CC numbers.From any list of instruments, you can audition a brief example (useful to find exactly the sound you are looking for) and then download it to local storage. The Load option will also download the instrument’s samples if needed and, once done, the instrument will appear within the Instrument Rack on the right of the UI. Yes, a speedy Internet connection is useful but, that aside, this is a very simple and streamlined process. The Musio Connect app provides additional options for handling things like local storage details and provides a list of all the instruments currently downloaded. Incidentally, one Musio feature requested by early adopters has been the additional option to download a complete library with one click; at the time of writing, that’s apparently something Cinesamples have in development.

Like Kontakt and Opus, Musio can be multitimbral and, for each instrument, you can specify both the MIDI channel and the output channel (provided your DAW supports multiple outputs). The Instrument Rack also supports presets so you can easily save/recall your own instrument configurations.

However, perhaps the most striking element of the Musio’s UI is the simplified control set available for each individual instrument once loaded. This minimalist approach is most certainly a deliberate design choice by Cinesamples; you are given just enough options to shape the tonality, dynamics and ambience applied to the sound, but without the myriad options you might find in a typical Kontakt‑based instrument (including some of these same Cinesamples instruments in their Kontakt format). The Musio concept is designed for those composers who just want to load their sounds, fine‑tune the most important properties (or not), and then get writing. No fuss, no distractions, just high‑quality sounds you can get to work with.

Those tweakable options that are included vary by library. Importantly, for many of the orchestral libraries, this does include keyswitchable articulation presets (including a neat system for customising the key layouts), but there are also some things that some users might think are a little too streamlined. For example, whereas the Kontakt‑based Soundscapes library provides you with options to change the way the sample playback engine manipulates the underlying sample used in a preset, in Musio, you don’t interact with the sample at such a deep level, although there are useful sound‑shaping options. The same is true of the exclusive‑to‑Musio synth sounds. These don’t provide a full virtual synth engine with oscillator controls; samples provide the sound of the original oscillators and Musio then lets you adjust some filter, envelope and effects options (similar in concept to IK Multimedia’s Syntronik). It works well but it might not appeal to those that like to program their synth sounds from scratch.

That said, it’s clear that Cinesamples have a development program laid out for Musio and certain features have already been added since the initial launch. Cinesamples have also announced that advanced mixing support is also on the way, supporting multiple microphone positions for libraries with a suitable sample base. The feature list will undoubtedly continue to expand but, hopefully, without compromising what is, in use, a very attractive and streamlined workflow.

One further feature is also worth highlighting. If you regularly work with collaborators also using Musio, sharing projects becomes incredibly easy. Whatever selection of instruments you might use in creating the project will automatically be available to your collaborator even if they have not yet downloaded the specific presets. For lead composers employing a writing assistant or two, this could be a massive workflow benefit.

As a composer, I’m not sure I can think of a bigger bang for your buck than a product like Musio might bring.

A Bigger Bang?

There is undoubtedly a debate to be had about the merits of subscriptions versus one‑off perpetual purchases. However, if your music is part of what puts food on the table, as an investment in your business, Musio’s $9.99 per month is probably less than you would be paying for your phone contract, your fibre‑based Internet access, or even a moderate coffee habit. As a composer, I’m not sure I can think of a bigger bang for your buck than a product like Musio might bring.

Of course, as a one‑stop virtual instrument shop, Musio is not the only game in town. If you prefer a one‑off purchase for a ‘mega‑bundle’ of virtual instruments (and plug‑ins), Native Instrument’s various Komplete bundles (see the December 2022 issue for a review) provide an alternative to Musio 1. For the subscription route, the most obvious comparison is EastWest’s Composer Cloud. Both of these alternatives are very impressive, but Musio brings a distinctive streamlined workflow that will, I suspect, appeal to a broad audience. Does that include you? Well, that free 30‑day trial is there precisely so you can find out. Musio is a pleasure to use and on a bang‑for‑buck basis it’s an undeniably impressive package.