An orchestra hit is a sound effect consisting of isolated staccato note or chord synthesized from the sounds of many orchestral instruments together, or sampled from a single sforzando performance. The orchestra hit sound was propagated by the use of early samplers, particularly the Fairlight CMI's ORCH2 sample. The sound is used in pop, hip hop, jazz fusion, techno, and video game genres to accentuate passages of music. In video games, it can also be used as a standalone sound effect, often to indicate a special gameplay situation.

The orchestra hit has been identified as a "hip hop cliché". In 1990, Musician magazine stated that Fairlight's ORCH5 sample was "the orchestral hit that was heard on every rap and techno-pop record of the early 1980s". The orchestra hit has been described as popular music's equivalent to the Wilhelm scream, a sound effect widely used in film.

Precursors to the popular samples can be found in contemporary classical music, for example in Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird.

Use of short samples (such as the orchestra hit) became popular in the early 1980s with the advent of digital samplers. These devices allowed sounds to be replayed at specific times and at regular intervals by sequencing, which was extremely difficult through previous methods of tape splicing. Samplers also began to allow sections of audio to be edited and played by a keyboard controller.

The orchestra hit was popularized in Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" (1982) and used soon after in Kate Bush's "The Dreaming" (1982).

In "Owner of a Lonely Heart" (1983), Yes used an orchestra hit that was sampled from Funk, Inc.'s "Kool is Back" (1971).

By the mid-1980s, the orchestra hit had become commonplace in hip hop music, and its ubiquitous use became a cliché.

Other examples of use in popular music include Duran Duran's "A View to a Kill" (1985) and En Vogue's "Hold On" (1990).