Emotive chamber orchestra

Inspired by Rachel Portman’s work and created together with her, Tides gives you a carefully curated orchestra to navigate the waves of human emotion and expression. Chamber strings combine with a cast of special character instruments, and everything is designed to soar and sing—recorded in a musical context with a very special lyrical legato. Tides encourages you to write what you feel. Ideal for scores beyond the mainstream, where subtlety, nuance, and ingenuity combine.

Chamber orchestra meets captivating character instruments—a unique ensemble for emotive arthouse scores.
About Rachel Portman
Rachel Portman’s music is multi-faceted and impossible to categorize. Revered by many composers as a true icon, she’s perhaps best known for her pastoral scores for literary adaptations, or for being the first female composer to win an Oscar. But focusing solely on these achievements misses out on the incredible range in her work, and on the exceptional level of creative and artistic expression within her music, her unique ear for melodic detail, and her fluid sensitivity for sound and instrumentation. She has composed more than one hundred scores for film, television and theatre, and written an opera, as well as a body of her own concert music. She remains an active and very much in-demand composer. We are absolutely honored to have created Tides with Rachel.

Highlights
Curated chamber orchestra for arthouse film music
String ensembles and soloists
Selected woodwind and brass soloists
Mandolin, dulcimer, accordion, soprano saxophone, and more
Lyrical legatos on strings, solo woodwinds, and brass
Synced rhythmic patterns
Measured trills in multiple variants
7 mic positions
Recorded at Teldex Scoring Stage, Berlin
Ensembles and instruments

Curated character instruments
In addition to conventional chamber orchestra instruments, Tides contains a selection of instruments overflowing with special sonic character: Musette accordion, mandolin, concert guitar, dulcimer, and piano. We've also included the harp from Berlin Symphonic Strings to complete the ensemble.
Compositional devices
Tempo-synced patterns
Choose from multiple basic patterns played on the same note to create moving harmonic backings. The rhythms are recorded in various tempos and are locked to your DAW tempo.
Measured trills
Use tempo-synced measured trills to animate chords in your string arrangements. Tides offers trills in both directions—up and down—to create vivid and moving harmonies.
Lyrical legato lets your melodies sing
Tides utilizes extraordinary, long transitions on its lyrical legatos to offer unparalleled expression and musicality. For the soloists, we've used a single dynamic layer to ensure the pure sound of an expressive performance without any crossfading or layering artifacts. To achieve all of this, we recorded the legato intervals within a musical context, staging the performance in a curated dynamic designed to let the soloists' instruments sing.
"Choosing instruments is incredibly important. I think of the different instruments in the orchestra as characters."
―Rachel Portman
Runs in SINE
Mic merging
Preserve your system resources: Fine-tune your mix using multiple mic positions, then merge into a single channel within the player.
Greater usability
SINE is designed to complement the compositional workflow. Create on the fly with auto keyswitch options, and easy remapping tools.
Download single instruments
Choose only the instruments and mic positions that you currently need—no need to download the entire collection at once.

Artist Series
Tides by Rachel Portman
Emotive chamber orchestra
Teldex Scoring Stage, Berlin


Works with Orchestral Tools’ SINE Player—NOTE: Latest version required!
Size
258.5 GB of samples (92.8 GB SINEarc compressed)
SINE system requirements
Mac: macOS 10.15 or higher | Intel Core i5 or similar | Apple ARM chipsets supported | At least 8 GB RAM (16 GB+ recommended)
Windows: Windows 10 | Intel Core i5 or similar | At least 8 GB RAM (16 GB+ recommended)
Formats supported: Standalone, VST, VST3, AU, AAX