Spitfire APEX sale / 50% off

[Piet De Ridder]

Use the code APEX22 and you can buy most any Spitfire library at half the price. Until March 25th.

Some libraries are excluded: Eric Whitacre Choir (currently on sale for 50%) - Albion Solstice - Hammers - Aperture The Stack - Abbey Road Two: Iconic Strings - Abbey Road Two: Iconic Strings Professional - Appassionata - Heirloom

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[RobS]

wow thanks for the info Piet

[Guy Rowland]

Dammit, the recent Appasionata legatos are excluded.

[RobS]

I'm mildly attracted by the studio woodwinds...

[Piet De Ridder]

Mmm. I’m not going to try to dissuade you from getting it, Rob, but I want to issue a small word of caution nonetheless: in my opinion, the Studio Series doesn’t rank among Spitfire’s best work. Not saying these libraries are crap or totally useless, certainly not, but they’re not good either, I find. (And definitely not what I would consider ‘pro’.)
Within the first hours of exploring this threesome — I have the Pro versions of the strings, brass and woodwinds — I got stuck with the impression (which has never left me since) that these libraries were made by Spitfire’s B-team. All of Spitfire’s libraries have issues, as do all libraries from other developers, and I usually don’t mind and happily try to work around them, but some of the shortcomings in the Studio Series are, to my mind, very un-Spitfire-like and neigh impossible to work around.

(When I say ‘un-Spitfire-like’, I mean the Spitfire of old. Which, it seems to me, was a totally different company than what Spitfire is today.)

Anyway, the cold facts are: I have never used any of the woodwinds in a piece, except the bassoon. Of the brass I only used the tuba once. The strings have seen more use, but not much.

That being said however, what I consider bad (or even very bad) libraries have often turned into pretty impressive tools when in your magical hands, so perhaps you should buy the WW’s and show me how wrong I’ve been all this time. Or, put differently: if anyone can do something musically pleasing and convincing with these winds — I’ve never heard it done yet, I must say —, it’s you.

Impressive work on “La Mer” by the way. (I just noticed you use the Studio Strings in that one.)

_

[Muziksculp]

Mmm. I’m not going to try to dissuade you from getting it, Rob, but I want to issue a small word of caution nonetheless: in my opinion, the Studio Series doesn’t rank among Spitfire’s best work. Not saying these libraries are crap or totally useless, certainly not, but they’re not good either, I find. (And definitely not what I would consider ‘pro’.)
Within the first hours of exploring this threesome — I have the Pro versions of the strings, brass and woodwinds — I got stuck with the impression (which has never left me since) that these libraries were made by Spitfire’s B-team. All of Spitfire’s libraries have issues, as do all libraries from other developers, and I usually don’t mind and happily try to work around them, but some of the shortcomings in the Studio Series are, to my mind, very un-Spitfire-like and neigh impossible to work around.

(When I say ‘un-Spitfire-like’, I mean the Spitfire of old. Which, it seems to me, was a totally different company than what Spitfire is today.)

Anyway, the cold facts are: I have never used any of the woodwinds in a piece, except the bassoon. Of the brass I only used the tuba once. The strings have seen more use, but not much.

That being said however, what I consider bad (or even very bad) libraries have often turned into pretty impressive tools when in your magical hands, so perhaps you should buy the WW’s and show me how wrong I’ve been all this time. Or, put differently: if anyone can do something musically pleasing and convincing with these winds — I’ve never heard it done yet, I must say —, it’s you.

Impressive work on “La Mer” by the way. (I just noticed you use the Studio Strings in that one.)

_

I agree, I have their Studio Woodwinds Pro, but don't like them, hence don't use them. My advice, don't waste your money.

[Lawrence]

I thought about AR 2, but of course they’re not included in the sale.

[Geoff Grace]

My understanding is that Spitfire doesn’t discount libraries below their introductory prices until they’ve been out at least a year, so it makes sense that they’re excluded from this sale.

Best,

Geoff

[RobS]

Mmm. I’m not going to try to dissuade you from getting it, Rob, but I want to issue a small word of caution nonetheless: in my opinion, the Studio Series doesn’t rank among Spitfire’s best work. Not saying these libraries are crap or totally useless, certainly not, but they’re not good either, I find. (And definitely not what I would consider ‘pro’.)
Within the first hours of exploring this threesome — I have the Pro versions of the strings, brass and woodwinds — I got stuck with the impression (which has never left me since) that these libraries were made by Spitfire’s B-team. All of Spitfire’s libraries have issues, as do all libraries from other developers, and I usually don’t mind and happily try to work around them, but some of the shortcomings in the Studio Series are, to my mind, very un-Spitfire-like and neigh impossible to work around.

(When I say ‘un-Spitfire-like’, I mean the Spitfire of old. Which, it seems to me, was a totally different company than what Spitfire is today.)

Anyway, the cold facts are: I have never used any of the woodwinds in a piece, except the bassoon. Of the brass I only used the tuba once. The strings have seen more use, but not much.

That being said however, what I consider bad (or even very bad) libraries have often turned into pretty impressive tools when in your magical hands, so perhaps you should buy the WW’s and show me how wrong I’ve been all this time. Or, put differently: if anyone can do something musically pleasing and convincing with these winds — I’ve never heard it done yet, I must say —, it’s you.

Impressive work on “La Mer” by the way. (I just noticed you use the Studio Strings in that one.)

_

ok, very useful word of advice Piet... the strings pro have proved very useful to me though, and have a place in every mockup of mine. Will pass on the ww... thank you

[RobS]

oh only now I noticed you last sentence Piet, thank you! Yes, Studio strings and Vsl Appassionata...
and while we're here, do you consider BBC core a good general orchestral library? do you have it, and use it?

[Piet De Ridder]

I don't know how capable 'Core' is, Rob, I have 'Pro'. However, I tend to have different views than Spitfire and several other developers have on what the terms 'core' and 'pro' imply. I find the 'Pro' versions of most Spitfire libraries — the ones that make the distinction between core and pro, that is — 'Core' versions and what they call 'Core', I am inclined to call 'Teaser' or 'Appetizer' or 'Amuse-bouche' versions or something like that.

But BBC Pro is reasonably good. I suppose. Not grrreat, but goodish. How good it really is however, when stretched to its full potential, I couldn't tell you, I'm sorry to have to say, because I've been completely out of doing standard mock-orchestral work since many, many, many months, and the rare times I've reached for BBC Pro was always for an isolated section or instrument. So far, I haven't done anything with the full orchestra, let alone exploited the power (and spatial opulence) of its multiple mic perspectives and bleed options. My current computer, which is *very* old and never lets an opportunity pass by to let me know about that in one way or another, wouldn't be able to cope anyway. Which is, partly, why I'm sooooo looking forward to the arrival of the new Mac: I've meanwhile got tons of stuff which I can only use in a ridiculously limited way on my current machine.

So I don't know what to say, really. What I do know, from my limited experience with it, is that I'm not ready to recommend BBC Core/Pro wholeheartedly. Because, as I said, I'm fairly sure that my verdict will always be: good but not great. So, if I were you, I'd listen to as many demos and examples as I can with the sole aim of finding out whether I really like the sound, or not. If there's any doubt about that, even the merest whiff of a doubt, I wouldn't buy the library, but if you find that you really-really-really do like how the product ('Core' or 'Pro') sounds, then it seems clear what your next step should be.

Another argument against buying BBC Pro or Core however is that, to my ears, Spitfire has made audible progress in recent times in the way they sample orchestras. The Appassionatas and Abbey Road 2 samples are, in my opinion, of a higher quality than the ones in BBC Pro/Core. The expansions for Abbey Road One also sound better, I find (Which bodes well for the forthcoming Abbey Road Modular project, or whatever it will be called. When and in what shape this new library will materialize, I'm sure it'll be sonically, timbrally and functionally superior to the BBC library.)
And one final thing: despite what was announced when the library was introduced, I also don't see any signs that the Spitfire BBC Orchestra will see much further development or expansions. I might be wrong about that though.

Sorry I can't be more helpful on this one.

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[RobS]

Very kind and helpful, Piet, thank you. It's not that I really need the BBC library, or any other for that matter, I'm always interested to find out how I might work more efficiently when doing the mockups I'm asked to do. My setup tends to be a patchwork of different things, and I've never been able to be so organized like those that prepare "templates" of hundreds of tracks... I basically start from scratch every time, building the orchestra on the score I'm working on. The fact of having a complete orchestral library with every needed instrument and a cohesive sound is a dream, but I suspect I wouldn't be able to remain within the boundaries of the instrument, as I seem to have a certain degree of enthropy inside

[Piet De Ridder]

(...) I've never been able to be so organized like those that prepare "templates" of hundreds of tracks... I basically start from scratch every time, building the orchestra on the score I'm working on. (...)

That’s exactly like me. I much prefer to start from scratch as well everytime I begin something new. Not only do you end up with a document (and mock-orchestra) that is optimized for the music it needs to render (without the ballast that a template-fit-for-all-eventualities would bring to the proceedings), but, more importantly, having no template also greatly increases the chance of discovery and surprise, I find. That was always the biggest problem I’ve had with templates: it tends to make you accept what you’ve put in it and thus precludes the search for possibly more suitable alternatives you might have available as well.

The only times I’ve resorted to something resembling a template set-up was when I did music for tv-series. Projects like that, spanning months and sometimes even years, are impossible to do well without a template, for obvious reasons. Templates guarantee a consistency of sound throughout the entire series, and also greatly benefit the speed at which you can work.

For much the same reasons I dislike templates, I’ve also abandonded the idea of making (and relying on) custom patches. There was a time, long ago, when I thought: “Let’s see if I can make the best possible spiccato patch my libraries allow me to make” but then you realize that there is no such thing as the “best possible spiccato patch”, because what are satisfying spiccatos for one piece might well prove to be totally wrong spiccs for the next piece.

It's the same with drums (and most everything else, for that matter): there is no passe-partout 'great drum sound'. It's the track/song that determines whether a drum sound is good or not.

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[RobS]

Agree on everything, with the only exception that I still adjust patches as I go... like the violas spiccato in SStS that have a ridiculously long release time, easily fixed inside the patch.

[lofi]

For much the same reasons I dislike templates, I’ve also abandonded the idea of making (and relying on) custom patches. There was a time, long ago, when I thought: “Let’s see if I can make the best possible spiccato patch my libraries allow me to make” but then you realize that there is no such thing as the “best possible spiccato patch”, because what are satisfying spiccatos for one piece might well prove to be totally wrong spiccs for the next piece.

You do know the above is the reason you will never be 100% satisfied with just one library from one developer. And it’s the same reason we hire different musicians for different projects.
Best,
/Anders

[Linos]

Rob, in my opinion BBCSO is a very good library indeed. Just not for all purposes. I think it will be important to know what it does and doesn't do to inform your upgrading decision.

Piet's distinct assessment 'good, but not great' hits the nail on the head for the way he used the library. Single instruments or sections are exactly that, good but not great. Alas, that's not the best use for the library in my experience. The strength of BBCSO, to me, is the cohesiveness and beautifully recorded orchestral sound you get when you use several instruments together. No other library I have can provide the depth and 3d-ish concert hall sound quite like BBCSO. But you only get that once you blend several of its instruments and sections.

Using single instruments is always a bit underwhelming. When used in an exposed or solistic context, that's where the limits of the library will hold you back. That's when you would want more dynamic layers, more consistency, more articulations, more nuanced playability. But when used for the background elements of your orchestra, I haven't found a better library for that yet. Simply because the recordings capture the room very nicely and most instruments have a beautiful timbre.

Before BBCSO I used VSL Special Editions for the orchestral background tasks in my mockups. It was consistent and convenient to use. Switching to BBCSO from VSL SE gave my mockups a much nicer sound quality, both spatially and timbre-wise. A huge improvement really. And that's, in my opinion, the best use for the BBCSO. If that's what you intend to use BBCSO for, I can fully recommend it. For solistic purposes, other libraries are often superior.

Quite a coincidence that you two are discussing templates, just now when I have begun building a huge template myself for the first time. I worked ike Piet and you, always starting from scratch for each project. For me this has two disadvantages. Firstly, I am spending a lot of time doing all the routing anew with every project. And secondly, unlike Piet I find that with this approach I tend to use the same libraries all over, and disregarding some that I have forgotten about. Building a template with everything in in purged state, and all the routing already in place, makes it easier for me to try various solutions instead of simply the first one I have come up with. Say I loaded VSL Woodwinds in a new project and am not wholly convinced by how they sound in one phrase. I often didn't take the time to load up, say, Cinematic Woodwinds. Route them properly. Test them for the phrase. And then decide that they are not the ideal solution either, so unload them and test a third library. All a bit time consuming. With a template that has all these libraries loaded and routed, it will be as quick and easy as unpurging library, test it, and then use it or purge it again.

At least that's the theory behind me building a large template at the moment. Wish me luck...

[Ashermusic]

1. Rob, in my opinion BBCSO is a very good library indeed. Just not for all purposes.

2. No other library I have can provide the depth and 3d-ish concert hall sound quite like BBCSO. But you only get that once you blend several of its instruments and sections.

1.True of every single orchestral samples library in existence

2. I only have the Discover version, but if the is true more so than the EW Hollywood Orchestra, I admit I am surprised. The demos I have heard, while very good sounding, do not lead me to that conclusion, but I am willing to have my mind changed.

The only other thing I would add is that the Spitfire software instrument is, only my subjective opinion, vastly inferior to EW Opus, which is btw a massive step up from Play.

[Linos]

2. No other library I have can provide the depth and 3d-ish concert hall sound quite like BBCSO. But you only get that once you blend several of its instruments and sections.

1.True of every single orchestral samples library in existence

2. I only have the Discover version, but if the is true more so than the EW Hollywood Orchestra, I admit I am surprised. The demos I have heard, while very good sounding, do not lead me to that conclusion, but I am willing to have my mind changed.

1. Yes, and it gets disregarded so often. People buy Orchestral Tools Solo Woodwinds and expect it to blend perfectly when using it for orchestral section tasks. Or they buy BBCSO, trying to use the clarinet from it for a clarinet concerto or something. And then are disappointed that it can't do that.

2. To me it is, yes. The Hollywood Orchestra has a rather dry recording studio sound signature that takes very well to additional reverb. But it does not have, to my ears anyway, the spatial depth of BBCSO. But the Hollywood Orchestra has much more detailed content than BBCSO. I'd use the two libraries for totally different tasks. BBCSO for orchestral background tasks, for which the recordings will bring a very nice spatial depth. Especially if you are looking for a concert hall ambiance. The Hollywood Orchestra for a sweeping Hollywood sound, and for solistic tasks, because its comprehensiveness and recording setup is well suited to that.

[Ashermusic]

2. No other library I have can provide the depth and 3d-ish concert hall sound quite like BBCSO. But you only get that once you blend several of its instruments and sections.

1.True of every single orchestral samples library in existence

2. I only have the Discover version, but if the is true more so than the EW Hollywood Orchestra, I admit I am surprised. The demos I have heard, while very good sounding, do not lead me to that conclusion, but I am willing to have my mind changed.

1. Yes, and it gets disregarded so often. People buy Orchestral Tools Solo Woodwinds and expect it to blend perfectly when using it for orchestral section tasks. Or they buy BBCSO, trying to use the clarinet from it for a clarinet concerto or something. And then are disappointed that it can't do that.

2. To me it is, yes. The Hollywood Orchestra has a rather dry recording studio sound signature that takes very well to additional reverb. But it does not have, to my ears anyway, the spatial depth of BBCSO. But the Hollywood Orchestra has much more detailed content than BBCSO. I'd use the two libraries for totally different tasks. BBCSO for orchestral background tasks, for which the recordings will bring a very nice spatial depth. Especially if you are looking for a concert hall ambiance. The Hollywood Orchestra for a sweeping Hollywood sound, and for solistic tasks, because its comprehensiveness and recording setup is well suited to that.

Interesting, thanks. I would need to hear the same excerpt to see if I could hear that difference in spatial depth. I know that you have very good ears, so perhaps I would.

[Linos]

Thank you Jay. It would be an interesting exercise for sure.

It's not a comparison with the Hollywood Orchestra, but this video shows what I like about BBCSO pretty well, compared to the Cinematic Studio Series:



I really like the cohesive 3d sound of the BBCSO version. But as soon as solistic lines come up, CSS works better for that. Again all just my opinion of course.

[Ashermusic]

Thank you Jay. It would be an interesting exercise for sure.

It's not a comparison with the Hollywood Orchestra, but this video shows what I like about BBCSO pretty well, compared to the Cinematic Studio Series:



I really like the cohesive 3d sound of the BBCSO version. But as soon as solistic lines come up, CSS works better for that. Again all just my opinion of course.

Terrific job! I do of course as hear them as quite different from each other and different form H.O as well. Your observations are spot on, and of course the music is terrific.

What you describe as “3D” though, I don’t hear as 3D. I hear it as more restrained, or as you describe it homogenized, less in your face. In that way BBC is indeed more concert hall like than film score soundstage like. I do think that with messing with the mic choices and reverb choices the Cinematic Studio stuff could be as cohesive. But maybe not.

It would really depend on the project. It is less likely that I would choose BBC over the Cinematic Studio stuff, although these days I use even those less than H.O. and on more delicate things I use Afflatus Chapter One strings more than either of the other two.

[RobS]

thanks Linos, interesting observations... yes, I can hear the room in BBCO giving a wonderful sense of cohesive space. I wonder though if a similar sense of belonging in a room could be obtained by inserting something like Inspirata reverb, full wet, on the master bus

[Linos]

What you describe as “3D” though, I don’t hear as 3D. I hear it as more restrained, or as you describe it homogenized, less in your face. In that way BBC is indeed more concert hall like than film score soundstage like. I do think that with messing with the mic choices and reverb choices the Cinematic Studio stuff could be as cohesive. But maybe not.

Fair enough. It's difficult to describe sound characteristics with words. The concert hall sound that you mention is what I like, and that's probably a big factor in why I like to use BBCSO. With CSS and the Hollwood Orchestra you can certainly achieve a sound that will be different, but just as good. It much depends on the music you write, and what sound signature you are after.



Rob, unfortunately I can not try. I have bought the personal edition of Inspirata. But the download of the update is stuck for me. And not being much impressed with the earlier version I tested, I never bothered writing to support to resolve the issue.

For dry vs. wet samples, my personal preference has changed drastically. I used to use dry samples with artificial reverb extensively (Dimension Strings). Over the years I have reached the conclusion that I could never reach the concert hall sound I am after. I am no mixing wizard, and certainly no genius when it comes to setting up reverb. But I have tried a lot, and ultimately was never happy with the resulting sound. I switched to mainly using samples with at least some amount of natural ambience baked in. Setting up reverb has become easy since, and I much prefer the sound I can achieve this way. That's why I am skeptical about the notion that a reverb can give the same natural result as a real recorded room sound.

I started a thread on Vi-C about it, and two audio examples from there may be of relevance. First, my attempt at achieving a nice concert hall sound with Dimension Strings (with pitzicati only, because they are unforgiving in terms of reverb):

https://app.box.com/s/8zc2toq34f71pr17dob7p1hjtxiwyqqh

Compared to a stack of Berlin Strings First Chair, which have been recorded at Teldex:

https://app.box.com/s/727tc3u5uq8jo1s7yv55cltoqci4lw7c

Never mind that the mix on the Dim Strings version is clumsy and muddy. It's that natural bloom you get from rich transients in a real hall that makes a lot of difference. I could never recreate that with artificial reverb.

[Ashermusic]

That is a perfect explanation Linos. I rarely have occasion to need a concert hall sound but you make a persuasive musical argument in its favor.

It’s called talent

[wst3]

popping in late...

When I first started working with samples I was pretty excited. A long time ago, when I was first exposed to synthesizers, I dreamed up the idea of a synthesizer that could use recordings as oscillators. Not quite the way it worked out! GigaStudio was an absolute shift in thinking for me.

And then I noticed that I had to make a choice between that "cohesive" sound one gets in real life vs an approximation thereof. Of course sample libraries are an approximation to start, but that did not bother me as much. And reverb plugins were not quite up to the task.

It turns out they still have a ways to go. I won't discount, entirely, that someday someone will figure that out, not sure when though.

So I started buying libraries that recorded ensembles of players, not just 1st Vln, but 1st Vln with flutes or oboes or kazoos. Cinesamples "Orch" was the library that convinced me that I would need sections, and section combinations.

The same thing applies to dry vs recording the room. One of the things I like most about Cinesamples, Orchestral Tools, Project Sam, and even Spitfire is the rooms are there, and they all sound different. I don't think I can pick a favorite, I like them all. I also like VSL, which is kind of the antithesis.

Call it what you will, bloom, natural decay, detail - all qualities that make a performance "real". If a library captures even a hint it can be a real advantage.

"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture" - FZ