Hollywood Scoring Tools
by EastWest · Instrument · Arranged scoring instrument
Not rated yet
Hollywood Scoring Tools is an Opus instrument that plays ready-made, composer-arranged Scores across 10 instrument slots, with over 300 Scores and 164 instruments.
It is on pre-order for $199 (regular $399), with release set for October 29.
Best for: Acoustic Instruments, Keys & Synths, Sound Design. Genres: Ambient & Cinematic.
Keywords: film & game audio, cinematic, arpeggiator, choir, chord generator, hybrid, perpetual licence, sequencer, sound design, subscription, world instruments.
What it does
Hollywood Scoring Tools is a scoring instrument that starts from finished arrangements rather than single instruments. You pick a Score, play chords, and up to ten instrument slots perform the parts together. EastWest's stated aim is to get you "from blank session to finished score" faster.
- Scores and presets: over 300 composer-made Scores and more than 1,000 presets, filtered by 14 genres (Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, World and others), 12 styles (such as Tension, Underscore, Wall of Sound and Hybrid) and time signature.
- 164 instruments: drawn from orchestral, synth, band, world, choir and percussion sounds, which you can swap into any slot.
- Ten slots: five are shown on screen at once; each has volume, pan, octave, reverb send, solo and mute.
- Arpeggiator per slot: every slot runs its own arpeggiator with editable note order, rate, velocities and sequences.
- Sections: keyswitches move between Intro, Main A, Main B and Outro, plus an ending; patterns run one, two or four bars at half, normal or double time.
- Sound and effects: per-slot attack and release, a 3-band parametric EQ and three insert slots with 21 effect types, plus a global convolution or algorithmic reverb.
- MIDI export: drag a multitrack MIDI file into the DAW, one named track per slot, so you can reassign the parts to other libraries. User Scores can be saved.
It runs in EastWest's Opus player, which is included, and is NKS-ready. At the time of writing it was on pre-order for an October 29 release at an introductory price, with a crossgrade offer for owners of Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition and Hollywood Fantasy Orchestra. The license is perpetual. It is also part of the ComposerCloud+ subscription, which has a 14-day free trial.
When to use it
Hollywood Scoring Tools is a sketching and cue-building tool, not a library for writing each part by hand. Compared with Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition or BBC Symphony Orchestra Core, it gives you arranged, multi-instrument parts from a few chords instead of single articulations, and it adds synths, band and world instruments the orchestral libraries don't cover. It is less detailed than those libraries for real orchestration, but its MIDI export lets you move a sketch onto them later. Unlike Arturia's Augmented STRINGS, which builds a sound around one instrument family, it is about whole arrangements. Forum users compare it closely with Sonuscore's The Score, so owners of that may find little new here.
- Best for: fast cues for film, TV, games and trailers, and sketching arrangements to export as MIDI.
- Genres: cinematic, trailer, action, horror, fantasy, documentary and world-flavoured media music.
- Look elsewhere if: you want to write every line yourself (Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition or BBC Symphony Orchestra Core), or you already own Sonuscore's The Score.
- Tip: use the multitrack MIDI export to rough out a cue here, then replace each slot with your main libraries in the DAW.
What producers say
Early forum reaction is curious but mixed, with doubts about value and storage rather than about the idea.
- VI-Control thread users liked the Opus mixer integration, the drag-and-drop multitrack MIDI export and the new world instruments.
- Criticisms: several posters said it "looks like Sonuscore's The Score, in EW's player", and others wondered whether it is redundant for owners of other EastWest libraries.
Where to buy
- EastWest: $199 (regular $399)
Tutorials and reviews
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