Spitfire Audio releases British Drama Toolkit

[tack]

Spitfire have been busy lately. On the heels of their solo strings, they've released a new library called the British Drama Toolkit. Currently on for $149 as a promo price.

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/ ... a-toolkit/

Paul's walkthrough:



Some interesting stuff in here, and the price is pretty good, I think. Paul's initial two-handed demonstration sounded rather nice, IMO.

[wst3]

I haven't been this intrigued in a while. The workflow is fascinating. Sadly I do not think my keyboard chops are sufficient to take advantage of this approach. I may still buy it - the sounds are quite good, and definitely different than anything I own. Or they appear to be anyway.

[Guy Rowland]

Agreed. The textures and chordal work I think is likely to withstand closer scrutiny than the featured instruments, but for the price one can't quibble. As is often the case I'm not sure I have so much of a practical use for it, but its good to see something different and nicely done.

Funny you mention keyboard chops Bill. Mine are famously terrible, but actually I don't have the same thought here - I think it will be pretty easy to get nice textures going with fairly simple playing, and I do like improvising doing stuff like this. It's very easy to throw out the rubbish progressions and mis-hits after all.

EDIT - meant to say its nice to see something from Spitfire without 37 mic positions, this is lovely and light and their choice of mic position sounds very good.

[Quasar]

I haven't been this intrigued in a while. The workflow is fascinating. Sadly I do not think my keyboard chops are sufficient to take advantage of this approach. I may still buy it - the sounds are quite good, and definitely different than anything I own. Or they appear to be anyway.

I haven't been this intrigued in a while either, in part because my keyboard chops are the single strongest aspect of anything I can do that is DAW-related, and this could be, potentially, a very slick means to layer in some motion and atmosphere that one doesn't usually associate with sample libraries, if used wisely and judiciously.

I really like what I heard from this. Intro pricing until August 9th...

[Scoredog]

I'm not a great keyboard player, hell i'm not even good but this is a ton of fun.
This library might even be fun for midi guitar since no mod wheel is needed.

[Lawrence]

Christ. Why do I bother writing.

Not to take anything from Spitfire-this seems a brilliant product and sounds fantastic to me. Why anyone would worry about keyboard skills is a mystery to me. You don't have to play, just hit some keys.

I felt this way about the Sonokinetic libraries, but this is even more so. Insta-documentary, in this case.

[wst3]

I really wish you hadn't said that Guy, and Quasar, and Larry - now I'm rethinking it... I really do not need another library, but this one is intriguing, and it sounds lovely.

[Lawrence]

I think I'm the cheapest guy on this board-well, I just bought it.

[Guy Rowland]

I think I'm the cheapest guy on this board-well, I just bought it.

And.....????

[Lawrence]

Bought it, set it to download, wrote a track, no energy to check out tonight. I'll let you know omorrow night your time.

[Guy Rowland]

Deal.

At the risk of sounding just a near-permanent grouch, one thought I had when listening to the walkthrough is that wallpaper music is not bound by genre. There was a big fuss a year or so ago at a British drama (Gosford Park perhaps?) where the music was drowning out the dialogue, with a deluge of complaints to the BBC. When I took a listen, I thought the mix was just fine, but the problem was the music itself. It sounded very refined, genre-perfect, beautifully played wallpaper, simply slapped all over everything that quickly became terribly fatiguing. The big danger of something like the BDT is that it simply makes refined wallpaper music (not a criticism of a well-conceived product, but rather just how it will be temptingly easy to do this with it),

[Raymond_Kemp]

Guy, we can argue for years on which elite rules our lives but on this particular subject I'm with you all the way.
By the time I listened through the video I was bored. The creation of the dirge goes hand in hand with guitarists like me getting my hands on a keyboard and DAW so as to place my fingers on said keys and hey! says me, I'm a composer.
But ...........if it can be done it will be done. Just watch the latest TV drama and listen.

[Lawrence]

Couldn't resist trying it, who needs sleep. Yep, you guys get it.... that's what it is and that's what it does, the moving rug thing. It's hard to control too. Can't play anything fast, the movement in the lower layer of the sounds is the key, but you're stuck with it, no control over the chittering movement it does. It adds life to the sounds but on it's own, it sounds like a bad loop. The essential sound of the woodwinds is nice, but no legato, three layers at most, often one or two. Same with the strings...nice sound but they don't do much It's a one trick pony that does the somber wallpaper things really well as long as one of your fingers doesn't hit a key too hard or soft, which is, of course, editable later.

These are very quick first impressions...maybe there's more to it in the manual or whatever. Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks Larry, that's sorta what I expected I think. Do you have any of the EVOs or their other textured stuff? Although its a different take on it, it feels like that's where the most useful stuff is, I found myself wondering if there's a bit of an overlap or if this is quite distinct from those.

[Lawrence]

No EVOs, and I suspect you’re right.

[Scoredog]

It has a bit of overlap to the EVO's, but here you can play individual instruments instead of things stuck in a group. As I mentioned on VI you won't write your next concerto with this, but putting together medium to slow evocative cues is like nothing else. I am not having an issue with transitions because I am not trying to make it do something it was not designed to do.

Start to Finish 20 mins, added Tina Cello on unison line near the end.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x5oxwhghrssyi ... e.m4a?dl=0

[bigcat1969]

I was watching Game of Thrones and thinking at one point that the music as appropriate and completely generic and boring. It felt like and endless loops of swelling with drums going boom. occasionally they changed key. Didn't know it was called wallpaper music.

[cadenzajon]

BWT - British Wallpaper Toolkit. Just doesn't have the same ring to it...

I agree this library is very much a one-trick pony, and it seems to do it quite well, but it's just not a trick that I find much appeal in.

[kpc]

I was watching Game of Thrones and thinking at one point that the music as appropriate and completely generic and boring. It felt like and endless loops of swelling with drums going boom. occasionally they changed key. Didn't know it was called wallpaper music.

I feel the same way about The Simpsons. Now that they’ve released Alf Clausin from his duties the music has gotten so generic and stale. Really a shame.

[Guy Rowland]

Now that they’ve released Alf Clausin from his duties the music has gotten so generic and stale. Really a shame.

They've done WHAT?!!!!!!

Alf Clausin is a genius, his scoring of the Simpsons is my ultimate comedy scoring reference point. Always for drama, never for comedy, consistently made it funnier. When did they boot him out? A dark day indeed....

[kpc]

Yup - almost a year ago now, they fired him. From what I can tell, it was kind of a dick move.

Alf Clausen Fired

Now they have something called Bleeding Gums Library that they are using. But again, it sounds stale and lifeless.

(Sorry for the off topic posts)

[bigcat1969]

And his whole orchestra apparently...

[Guy Rowland]

Sorry for the continued tangent, but holy crap that's depressing. "A different kind of music". That says to me the beginning of the end of the Simpsons - the music is as integral to the humour as the script, the cast and the animation. Absolutely wretched.

[playz123]

BWT - British Wallpaper Toolkit. Just doesn't have the same ring to it...

Love it!

[playz123]

Start to Finish 20 mins, added Tina Cello on unison line near the end.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x5oxwhghrssyi ... e.m4a?dl=0

Craig, I hope you won't be offended if I offer one minor observation I had when listening to your piece (and others), both here and on the 'other' forum? It's that I somehow suspect, that if YOU were creating this 'combination' of sounds from scratch, you might possibly balance some of the included instruments from BDT just a little differently? I refer mainly to the strings and possibly their dynamics. But certainly once the Tina Guo cello is introduce at the end, to me that combination is much better balanced and thus far more impressive...at least to my old ears. Cheers.