Spitfire BBC Symphony Orchestra

[Lawrence]

I don’t have a thing against him. I admire his entrepreneurial spirit. I’m just not enamored of his long winded and, for me, unhelpful videos.

[stonzthro]

It is more of the Twitch crowd his format appeals to, I think. I have a few friends who have twitch on all day while they work - keeps them company. I'm sure if he condensed it to even 20-30 minutes, he'd have a few more views.

[Karma]

Just to add something I have read on Facebook, just now.

It seems like all the demos for this library were mixed by Joël Dollié, who is a professional mixing engineer. He definitely mixed the legato demo (which he shared on FB) and when asked about the others - he says, that he just did some nudging on them.

I am not sure about the Andy Blaney demo but in any case, I thought it was worth knowing that these (at least the legato demo) were in fact professionally mixed. I am not saying that it is a bad thing, just worth knowing.

Hi Tanuj, apologies for the somewhat late bump but I wanted to clarify: Joël and I worked together on this mix. Every decision made is something that we both agreed on and spent a fair bit of time going back and forth. We really didn't change much in the end, a few standard mid cuts and a little panning. I had my own mix previously and we just tweaked from there. Joël is a friend of mine and we've worked together a fair few times in the past. He tends to often mix for the trailer genre, and jumped at the opportunity to mix something a little different.

Andy's demo is not mixed by Joël, nor are any of the others. In fact, Andy's demo is the closest thing to a pure representation of the BBCSO without even adding any additional reverb. I purposely aimed for some contrast in comparison to Andy's demo, and wanted to show the softer side of the orchestra with somewhat of a more modern Hollywood-esque mix. After all, a lot of people will probably end up using it that way. Hope that helps clarify!

[Tanuj Tiku]

Just to add something I have read on Facebook, just now.

It seems like all the demos for this library were mixed by Joël Dollié, who is a professional mixing engineer. He definitely mixed the legato demo (which he shared on FB) and when asked about the others - he says, that he just did some nudging on them.

I am not sure about the Andy Blaney demo but in any case, I thought it was worth knowing that these (at least the legato demo) were in fact professionally mixed. I am not saying that it is a bad thing, just worth knowing.

Hi Tanuj, apologies for the somewhat late bump but I wanted to clarify: Joël and I worked together on this mix. Every decision made is something that we both agreed on and spent a fair bit of time going back and forth. We really didn't change much in the end, a few standard mid cuts and a little panning. I had my own mix previously and we just tweaked from there. Joël is a friend of mine and we've worked together a fair few times in the past. He tends to often mix for the trailer genre, and jumped at the opportunity to mix something a little different.

Andy's demo is not mixed by Joël, nor are any of the others. In fact, Andy's demo is the closest thing to a pure representation of the BBCSO without even adding any additional reverb. I purposely aimed for some contrast in comparison to Andy's demo, and wanted to show the softer side of the orchestra with somewhat of a more modern Hollywood-esque mix. After all, a lot of people will probably end up using it that way. Hope that helps clarify!

Thank you for posting here Luke. Yes, absolutely nothing wrong with mixing it. You are right, it will certainly be used in that way by almost everyone.

FWIW, I liked your demo as well as Andy’s.

It is the first time I heard that a spitfire demo was mixed by someone other than the composer. Usually, these are marked Naked/Dressed by other companies. Perhaps even some earlier demos were done this way on other libraries. It’s just the first time I read somewhere about spitfire.

How was your experience working with the BBC library?

[Karma]

Thank you for posting here Luke. Yes, absolutely nothing wrong with mixing it. You are right, it will certainly be used in that way by almost everyone.

FWIW, I liked your demo as well as Andy’s.

It is the first time I heard that a spitfire demo was mixed by someone other than the composer. Usually, these are marked Naked/Dressed by other companies. Perhaps even some earlier demos were done this way on other libraries. It’s just the first time I read somewhere about spitfire.

How was your experience working with the BBC library?

Thanks a lot!

I enjoyed it for sure, I think one of the most interesting things about the BBC is the space and recordings themselves. There is a real sense of 'depth' to the Orchestra, and as the hall is well treated the tail is quite short and manageable. It's odd... I don't think I'd particularly enjoy a performance in Maida Vale, but the space lends itself very well to sampling because of these things.

It's a vast difference from AIR, which I actually think could benefit from more depth when compared to BBC. Having access to things like Mids and Spill is great as well, and I now really wish there was something similar in the SSO libraries. I suppose this is all personal preference though.

As with every library there will be strengths and weaknesses. I really don't get too fussed by things like how many round robins there are or how many dynamic layers as long as it's not severely limiting. There are always limitations or drawbacks with every library, and with that there are certainly ways to work around them.

The most important thing for me with samples will always be the recordings and the space itself. If they're good then everything else is a bonus. Well... maybe the performances help too!

[Stakk]

I think DJ's unedited preview is pretty helpful and nicely presented (in terms of video quality and audio quality). Maybe because I have a habit to skip parts of video all the time :-)

It is a legit criticism that ad-lib walkthroughs are either unmusical and/or too long winded, however, I found DJ walkthrough's musicality to be better than a lot of other "naked" walkthroughs.

I see a lot of criticism toward loading time in YouTube comments, but honestly I doubt anybody who is willing to buy a new $900 library would run it from a HDD (2TB SSD is $200 a piece nowadays).

My expectation was frankly low, but the impression I got from DJ walkthrough about this library is pretty good (other than brass leads). Mellow woodwinds vibrato performances are especially good to my ears. Dynamic layers and ranges seem a bit mediocre, but it is not a dealbreaker at all (to this date, still only a few libraries do this better). I can see that fff performance is not this library's purpose anyway.

[riffwraith]

To those who have the lib - how are you finding it? The player and it's potential issues not withstanding; I am talking about the lib itself.

I have listened to some use demos; there is one on the VI forum that is very good - in terms of the composition. But I am hearing nothing groundbreaking here; I hear absolutely nothing that can't already be done with other libs.

What say those who have it?

[gtrwll]

I haven't had as much time to spend with the library as I would have liked to, but my experience at the moment is good. What I get from this that I don't get from others is that easiness to get a cohesive, balanced sound. I did my demo without touching mix faders and with one EQ on the mixbus, just by controlling dynamics (or velocity on the shorts) on each instrument.

[IFM]

So far I love the sound and it has been working well. Looking forward to incorporating it into my template.

On a side note, like an accident I couldn't look away from the monster that is the BBC thread in VI. I found it odd that there was what seemed a large number of New Members posting in that thread with negative comments. .

[Lawrence]

So far I love the sound and it has been working well. Looking forward to incorporating it into my template.

On a side note, like an accident I couldn't look away from the monster that is the BBC thread in VI. I found it odd that there was what seemed a large number of New Members posting in that thread with negative comments. .

Now THAT would be a rare piece of balance.

[DrQuest]

Guy Michelmore takes a look. If you want to skip the kid on Christmas day part, go to the 4:30 mark, or so.

Guy can be a bit silly sometimes, but I enjoy his enthusiasm (and his ostinati). YMMV.



Best,

Geoff

This is so good for an unboxing. And learning the instrument. No faffing around , click - oh it does this!, move on and compose. Very nicely done. And the BBC sounds good! Just make it all work!

[playz123]

On a side note, like an accident I couldn't look away from the monster that is the BBC thread in VI. I found it odd that there was what seemed a large number of New Members posting in that thread with negative comments. .

My observation as well.
The more I delve into BBCSO, the more I like it....in spite of some flaws that need fixing. It’s after instruments are combined that one truly begins to understand the value of having a complete orchestra recorded in the same place at roughly the same time.

[Jaap]

My observation and this is my first big Spitfire product.

I find it a mixed bag. I really love the sound and timbre as a whole. They did a splendid job on that. It also has a nice amount of articulations for most instruments (but then again no mutes for the brass...). I bought it for an upcoming project where I have to write mainly orchestral pieces and it is very suited for that as it is a nice complete sounding package.
Woodwinds are very nice and usuable, same as with most of the strings. The brass is a complete let down to be honest. I don't know who did the QA on the Horn, but he/she should be fired to be honest, same as the horn player(s). I cannot understand at all why they are at all happy with that. Lots of inconsistent sampling, odd out of tune stuff, in some of the lower parts you hear the horn player struggling to hold up his embouchure. Stuff I have not heard in any of the sample libraries before, even the old East West Symphonic Orchestra did a much better job on that.
Also the lack of dynamic layers is very audible and same with the transitions. However if you play extremely gentle, you can work your way around it a bit.
The lower brass is nice. The trombones are quite ok, same as with the Tuba, but had to EQ the heck out of that thing as it is very very muddy in the 300 - 500hz region, more then in other libraries, but after applying a tweak on that its ok.

The strings are nice, sometimes a bit too much unbalance in the volume, which is annoying if you keyswitch and have to also adjust the volume... The leader strings are nice, but the vibrato transitions, specially in the cello are horrible, you need have it or above 50% vibrato or just off, but slowly taking the vibrato away from 50 - 0 or the other way around gives odd phasing issues and very out of tune sounds on some notes.

The percussion and tuned percussion, harps etc are nice. Nothing overly spectacular, but just good and decent.

The player is working ok now on W10 and Cubase, though RAM management is still utterly confusing. Cubase is saying it uses only 17GB RAM somtimes, while my task manager is notifying me 45GB or RAM usage. I have 128 GB of RAM so its not a big issue, but its strange and that is certainly not happening with Kontakt or Play.
The different mics are nice and give good tone and flavor changes and add for me some good depth. Happy with that part.

Overall I am happy with it and it is finding its good use in my production now, but some things sounded like a rushed job and very sloppy sampling to be honest.

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks for the review Jaap. It's sorta what I expected really, and given that the whole selling point of this is to be able to use a totally unified orchestra with all the bleeds from one section to the other, its a pretty big problem - the moment you cannibalise it by replacing parts with other libraries, you're taking away its USP Your comments also chime with what I felt from listening to demos and walkthroughs, that its really only the woodwinds that stand out as really good to have above other alternatives. I doubt they'll ever split it, but if they sold the woodwinds for £199 I'd probably jump on them.

[Jaap]

You're welcome Guy and indeed, by replacing it by other libraries it takes that away indeed. However, overall I think it is a good library and specially if you work with cc1 and cc11 together, you get splendid results. Just like with any library it takes some time to get to know it and find a good way to work with it.
I can write it off for my business and could deduct the tax during the sale last week so it was for me a good price and for that amount worth it.
I remembered buying the old East West Symphonic Orchestra Platinum and a bit later the early releases of Hollywood Strings and Brass Diamond and the prices we paid for that... things have changed! But still a few hundred euro's is a few hundred euro's (or pounds, or dollars )

[NoamL]

Thanks for the review and impressions Jaap.

I too would probably jump on the woodwinds and the tonal percussion sounds great too.

[Linos]

Currently I am debating whether I should add flagship libraries for brass and percussion, or go for BBC SO. I have enough string and woodwind libraries. For brass and percussion, I am using the Hollywood series and VSL Special Editions. I could add Cinematic Studio Brass/Sample Modeling brass, and maybe Rhapsody percussion (any other recommendations for orchestral percussion?). Or would I do better to add BBC SO?

Still unsure about this. If I own one or more flagship libraries for each section of the orchestra. And assuming that a dedicated flagship library does better than BBC SO with its limitations (2 Dynamic layers only, not best in class legato and transitions). All put together, will an orchestra consisting of flagship libraries from various developers be more flexible and give better results than BBC SO? Or does the consistency of the hall and recording process over the whole orchestra add something more than the sum of its parts?

[riffwraith]

Hey Linos

CS Perc and Brass are excellent choices. So is SFA's JoeyB perc. As is OT's perc for that matter.

I am still undecided as to whether or not I would buy OT's BB again. I guess I would, as I have found some use for it, but there are many shortcomings and inconsistencies - much more than one would expect from a major company and a flagship-type lib.

Let me know if you would like me to throw something together for you.

Cheers.

[Linos]

Thanks for the recommendations @riffwraith! Berlin Brass is a no-go for me due to the inconsistencies. But I'll look into the other libraries you mentioned, especially the percussion. The question remains though, should I go for individual sections or Spitfire BBC SO?

[riffwraith]

It's a decent Q to ask, but as I did not go for BBC SO, I can not help you there. Did you watch Daniel James' wthrough? That might help, if you have not.

[Lawrence]

Linos-I've been thinking about a few of the same things, specifically adding CSB to my HB and SM brass. I probably will go for it after the new year. I have Rhapsody percussion-it's no frills, but it does a solid job, is well recorded and has great ease of use.

[Linos]

Yes, I have browsed through the Daniel James videos and other reviews. From these it's clear that instrument for instrument there are better options out there. The brass seems to be weak, and in the walkthroughs single instruments are not very convincing. But when you put everything together for an orchestral mockup? Demos seem to indicate that this can sound lovely.

My thinking woukd be to use BBC SO for the orchestral parts, and use the flagship libraries for exposed parts and solos, where BBC SO's limitations would stick out.

Or add percussion and brass libraries and continue to work with various libraries for the orchestra. Decisions, decisions.

Larry, sounds like Rhapsody percussion is exactly the kind of library I am looking for.

[Guy Rowland]

I think one way or another everyone is walking around that same conundrum. BBC is significantly flawed, but if used exclusively can produce some great results. If you try to swap things out to compensate for the flaws, you're losing what makes it worth buying in the first place... you may as well just use better piecemeal libraries imo.

[Linos]

You are probably right Guy. It's quite clear that it is too flawed for solistic work. But is it too flawed for the orchestral parts? I haven't heard any demos where BBC SO provides the orchestral parts, and the solos being done with other libraries. That's the use I can imagine for me. If that cancels the advantage that BBC SO has, i. e. all instruments recorded in one room with the same setup, then I'd better continue with the piecemeal approach.

[tack]

I suspect the reason the demos sound so much better than the various live walkthroughs has less to do with the cohesive all-in-one-roomness of BBCSO and more to do with skillfully writing to the limitations of the samples. This suggests to me you'll spend a lot of time tweaking and finessing and rewriting parts with BBCSO to make it sound good. (I can only say "suggests" because I don't own it.)