Spitfire Audio BBC SO Piano

[Linos]

Spitfire Audio has released 'BBC Symphony Orchestra Piano':

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/bbc-symph ... stra-piano


Key features

~35GB
15 signal options – including two bespoke mixes
4 Round Robins
6 dynamic layers
Reverb, tightness, hammers & pedal volume control
Velocity curves

The Core version only has one 'signal', the Mix 1. BBC SO Discover will be updated to include a slimmed down version of the piano.

What's included

Piano

A pristine Steinway Model D grand, recorded at the iconic home of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Maida Vale Studios by BBCSO concert pianist Elizabeth Burley.


Signals (15)

Mixes

Mix 1 — An all-purpose standard orchestral classical mix.
Mix 2 — A hyped, wider, more vibrant mix, perfect for cinematic purposes


Mics

Tree — Situated above the conductor's head, this gives a great representation of the sound.
Outriggers — A wide set of omnidirectional microphones, designed to be used in conjunction with the Tree to add width
Ambients — High above the orchestra near the back of the room, these microphones add the most reverberant sound of the room
Mono — Traditionally what the BBC used to record the orchestra, a single ribbon microphone above the conductor's head
Piano Hammers — A set of condenser mics placed directly above the piano hammers for a tight, percussive sound
Piano Ribbons — A set of ribbon mics positioned fairly closely to the strings.
Piano Mids — A stereo pair at a medium distance from the piano.
Piano Far — A stereo pair at a further distance from the piano.
Sides — Super wide omnidirectional microphones. Ideal for adding a unique level of width or for adding into an Atmos mix
Balcony — As far away from the instrument as possible, these are right at the back on the viewing balcony of the studio
Atmos Front — A stereo submix specifically for use within the front of a Dolby Atmos mix
Atmos Rear — A stereo submix specifically for use within the rear of a Dolby Atmos mix
Spill All — A combination of other section mics covering the rest of the orchestra, use to add an element of realism to the mix
Velocity Curves — Use a range of controls to fine tune the dynamic response of the Piano. Setting the Dynamics to Compress Velocity High/Low enables the Mod Wheel to alter the sensitivity, while several velocity curve shapes are available

Discover and Core are free for owners of BBC Symphony Orchestra Professional.

Full price is 179€ for Pro, and 89€ for Core. BBCSO Pro owners get a 30% discount until 20th July, Core owners get 25%.

[Guy Rowland]

No stereo pair in the coffee machine. A hard pass.

[Muziksculp]

Sorry, I don't need another PIANO. Regardless of where it was recorded.

A HUGE PASS for me on this.

[Geoff Grace]

Yeah, almost everything is a pass for me this year, even things I want; but I’m very happy with what I already have, so it’s fine. I’m especially satisfied with my piano libraries, but to play along…

They didn’t mic the kitchen sink, so a hard pass for me too!

Good to see you back online, Muziksculp!

Best,

Geoff

[Muziksculp]

Yeah, almost everything is a pass for me this year, even things I want; but I’m very happy with what I already have, so it’s fine. I’m especially satisfied with my piano libraries, but to play along…

They didn’t mic the kitchen sink, so a hard pass for me too!

Good to see you back online, Muziksculp!

Best,

Geoff

Hi Geoff,

Thanks.

[wst3]

I wish them lots of sales, but I don't get the point - which is entirely on me! Based on the demos there just isn't anything that gets me all excited!

[Linos]

Piet posted a nice write-up on Vi-C. My takeaway from it is that, if you don't expect this to be the definite sampled piano for each and all situations, it has a nice sound quality that can be useful sometimes. He writes that it can do more than the specs suggest.
I too like the sound of this piano in the demos. If the price falls substantially during a sale, maybe I'll buy it. Not that I really need it. But I could use it as an orchestral piano. For solos I have better options.

[Piet De Ridder]

My little post on VI-C was largely triggered by the illimitable imbecility with which the community over there — not counting a few exceptions — have greeted Spitfire’s latest. From the first second, they seemed to have decided, en masse, that this new library deserved only to be treated with stupid mockery and dismissive disdain. (Some of the comments in that thread are preposterously lacking in any suggestion of intelligence whatsoever.) So I felt that thread could do with some enthusiam — be it demi-enthusiasm, in my case — to balance things out a bit. Futile and fruitless effort, of course.

I don’t think it’s a great piano library. I don’t expect great piano libraries from a company whose previous piano libraries had their dynamics controlled by the modwheel — high on my list of most insane decisions *ever* in the world and the history of virtual instruments — and whose software playback engine is, in depressing fact, quite incapable to cope with the requirements of virtualizing as complex an instrument as a piano. Add to that a limited number of dynamic layers and Spitfire’s customary whole-tone-sampling, plus a near complete absence of all the sub- and supra-layers of sound, resonance and texture which are needed to portray a piano as a piano, and you’ve closed the door on any possibility of a great new virtual piano. As the library all too quickly reveals.

However, this BBC piano has a few redeeming qualities: (1) it’s got a pretty nice timbre — that timbre alone is sure to make me pick this Steinway over the much more deeply sampled, and on paper vastly superior, Synchron Steinway any day of the week — (2) with only 6 dynamic layers, you might expect frequent appearance of distracting timbral jumps when crossing from one dynamic layer into another, but it’s actually pretty smoothly done. Sure, there are a couple of points where it’s noticeable, but one the whole, it’s quite doable to play your way through a performance without ever encountering ugly, sudden timbral shifts. And (3): while the number of mic perspectives is again spitfirishly excessive — I would gladly trade three of these perspectives for three more dynamic layers, and another two for chromatic sampling —, I have to say that some of these mic’s do indeed expand the library's value, versatility and usefulness in ways that just can’t be accomplished in any other way.

Pity that the close mic’s aren’t engineered as well as they could have been: too much proximity bass in the lower octaves. But that’s fairly easy to address when sending these mic’s to a separate output. Which is how I’ve been exploring the library these past few days.

So on the whole, I quite like this one, yes. Mostly because of its tone and the space it sits in — I have a specific idea of how a Steinway should sound and this instrument in this hall certainly goes in that direction — and also because, despite its humble specifications and its many limitations, it actually plays a whole lot better than I expected.

__

[Guy Rowland]

Piet, your ability to keep going with Spitfire after all your experiences is genuinely affecting.

Although they are maligned, I do think this is one area where Sine and Musio (maybe others?) have a major advantage over Kontakt or indeed Spitfire’s own player - you can choose what mic positions to install. For anyone who ever works with a MacBook of any kind, storage is still at a premium. Didn’t think it would be in 2023 I’ll be honest, but here we are. I’m happier with Musio - even in it’s embryonic single-mic stage - to have those CinePerc articulations that I lack (I only own 2/4 of the library) than install 100gb of stuff I don’t need 95% of.

What Spitfire should do in this case is to allow for Core installs if you have a full license - 2gb vs 35gb - so you can have the full version on a main rig and a slimmer one on the laptop. It’s not ideal as I believe it has less velocity layers, but still.

[Piet De Ridder]

Spitfire is like an old girlfriend. You’ve completely grown apart, you see her walking down the street married to someone you can’t imagine in a million years being worthy of her smile and her affections, she’s changed into someone you barely recognize, and yet … some of those old feelings-warmer-than-friendship still linger. And will always linger, I suppose.
I have that with (a tiny handful of) developers who once released product which I really liked and/or strongly appealed to me in some other way. (Spitfire did both, a long time ago.) It’s a sort of sentimental loyalty I suffer from, I guess.

It also means however that I will be unpleasantly disappointed, often out of all proportion, and be even more unpleasantly vocal about it, when they release product which I consider of inferior quality. That’s love for you, isn’t it?

Anyway.

I can see how the option for a customized installation would be welcomed by many people, but I also have the feeling that Spitfire regards every single one of their gazillion mic perspectives as essential and integral to their product. (For certain libraries, I can agree with that, although I also do think that there are always at least three or four mic perspectives too many and that a chromatically and more deeply-sampled version of the library would, in every single case, be a much stronger and attractive product.)

I can’t think of a single Spitfire library that I would enjoy working with in its Core version. I find the so-called ‘Pro’ versions often already more Core than is good for them (and for me).

__

[tack]

It does sound nice. But I fell into this trap with HZP, which is perhaps one of the biggest wastes of money I've spent on sampling yet. (The honeymoon phase was rather significant as I recall, but very short lived.) So I kind of do understand how one could fall into an initial starting point of negative sentiment.

I haven't watched Paul's walkthrough yet -- about to -- but I'll eat Jay's hat if it has catch-pedaling, and would donate the entirety of my retirement portfolio to charity if it supported half pedaling.

But I also think I've turned this particular corner with Spitfire: their goals are just very different than mine, at least when it comes to pianos. And that's ok.

No stereo pair in the coffee machine. A hard pass.

And speaking of coffee, I quite uncomfortably snorted mine while reading that.

[Piet De Ridder]

(...) if it has catch-pedaling and (...) half pedaling. (...)

There’s none of that, Jason. There are no sympathetic resonances either. There’s just six velocity layers of pedal-up and pedal-down samples, plus an additional layer of hammer-release noises, as well as the ubiquitous pedal noise, the lot captured through 13 microphone-setups (12 stereo, one mono) and also available in two pre-set mixes.

And yes, it sounds nice. That’s the only thing to marvel at in this library. Quite an important quality in a sample library though, I would say, no? And perhaps that was all that Spitfire were aiming for to begin with: a nice-sounding little library of an instrument that has just enough circumstantial prestige and allure to allow it to be marketed with all the blasé hyperbole that Spitfire is addicted to.

(It could have sounded nicer still, by the way, if the recordings had been engineered just a bit more carefully. Then we wouldn’t have to deal with the pronounced, boomy proximity bass in several of the channels.)

Meanwhile found another use for this library: use the distant mic’s — Spill, Balcony, Atmos, Ambient, etc. … there’s loads to choose from — behind the VintageD or the Ivory American D, which are both ultra-dry Steinway-libraries. It requires a very precise balance and it doesn’t work so well for the upper octaves (where the difference between the combined libraries seems to be more marked) but, when set just right, it does produce good results for the mid and low octaves of both these pianos, adding a rather nice, subtle suggestion of expansive space and depth.
(I tried the same trick before, using the distant samples of the Simple Sam Signature Grand, but that didn’t turn out so well.)

__

[Guy Rowland]

That’s love for you, isn’t it?

Alas…

I can see how the option for a customized installation would be welcomed by many people, but I also have the feeling that Spitfire regards every single one of their gazillion mic perspectives as essential and integral to their product. (For certain libraries, I can agree with that, although I also do think that there are always at least three or four mic perspectives too many and that a chromatically and more deeply-sampled version of the library would, in every single case, be a much stronger and attractive product.)

I can’t think of a single Spitfire library that I would enjoy working with in its Core version. I find the so-called ‘Pro’ versions often already more Core than is good for them (and for me).

Whatever Spitfire may or may not think, what is essential to the user and essential to Spitfire are two different things. The Musio / Sine model does mean though that you can try the lot, and then simply discard any you don’t find useful. And you can always revisit any time you use the product in future. I doubt it is a feature that can be easily added to the Spitfire player though, it needs to be integrated from the ground up.

I guess I just have zero desire to indulge their own whims on what is essential for the user.

I don’t think Spitfire and I were ever truly in love you know.

[Lawrence]

As immune as I am to Spitfire’s marketing, I take a flyer now and again. Strangely enough after all the ones I’ve bought, I’ve not found the piano of my dreams. The most expensive one I’ve bought recently was the 300 Grand, which I find to be largely disappointing. I doubt I’ll consider the new Spitfire, though their original (and free) Felt Piano is still a fave for the one thing it does.

I bought SCS and Albion legacy on deep sale, and I’ve gotten my money’s worth. On the other hand, British Drama Toolkit is a one trick pony (not a bad one) and BBCSO Core was a total disappointment to me, so for me it’s been a mixed bag.

Despite its strengths, the careless editing in SCS made me decide never to spend big money on a Spitfire purchase. I simply don’t trust their quality control and I don’t want to run screaming around the house when I try to create what should be a simple part, because the clunkers are drastic.

Many folks don’t share my opinion. Horses for courses.

[mickeyl]

It does sound nice. But I fell into this trap with HZP, which is perhaps one of the biggest wastes of money I've spent on sampling yet. (The honeymoon phase was rather significant as I recall, but very short lived.)

What‘s your problem with HZP?

[Piet De Ridder]

(...) The most expensive one I’ve bought recently was the 300 Grand, which I find to be largely disappointing. (...)

I’m a little surprised that you went for that one, Larry. The 300 is among the last pianos I would ever think you’d enjoy to any degree. Me, I like it (for certain types of piano parts anyway) but all the reasons why I do are exactly those that also make me believe you wouldn’t be interested in this instrument at all.

__

[Lawrence]

Caught up in the hype, Piet. No excuses.

The Holy Grail continues to elude. I have my standard (VGP2), my few specialties like OBG, Piano in Blue, Spitfire Felt, the Abbey Road uprights, the clanky old Braunschweig (I know how you love that one!) but the Grail.... no.

On the other hand, I have quite a collection of pianos that I find almost totally unsatisfying!

[Guy Rowland]

FWIW my list is all the NI stuff (Noire and Una Corda are real favourites but I also use most of the others from time to time), Emotional Piano still gets love, CinePerc is lovely but has to be used with care as the lowest to 2nd lowest dynamic can be brutal, Piano in Blue, Keyscape’s pianos (love the new felt), Granny Piano, Spitfire Felt, Fluffy’s My Piano, lots in things I barely touch like Symphonic Orchestra / Goliath, Sampletank, Arturia, Orchestral Essentials etc etc. I even use Nexus 4 for pop stuff sometimes, or for late 80s / early 90s period accuracy the M1.

For someone who is a lousy keyboard player anyway, I really am well covered. Lucky me.

[Ashermusic]

I own a bunch of sampled pianos I like. I don’t expect a $500 sampled or modeled piano played from a weighted keyboard controller to sound and feel when playing it like the really good pianos I have played in my lifetime.

All of the ones I use sound better and are more satisfying to play than the Gulbransen spinet I learned to play piano with and the Wurlitzer spinets I I practiced on for hours on at Boston Conservatory. Of Music.

So unlike Larry, I am not on a quest for a Holy Grail any more than I am looking for a religion so this is an easy pass for me.

[Linos]

As a pianist I seem to be oddly tolerant regarding piano samples. Much more so than with solo strings. I bought the Garritan CFX, and have been happy with it since. I own Noire too, but mostly prefer the Garritan. Somehow it just works for my playing style and for the music I produce.

I would be interested in an orchestral piano that is recorded in situ in a nice hall. In situ meaning to the left behind the violins, not front center of the stage. I think it would have made sense for Spitfire in the context of the BBCSO. But of course you can't really use such a piano for solos, which would limit its appeal. Anyway, Garritan is doing fine in those situations for me.

[tack]

What‘s your problem with HZP?

It's ultimately the same as my criticism of 90% of other piano libraries I've tried: it feels all wrong, like I'm hitting a mechanical switch that triggers samples. Which is of course fundamentally all a sample-based piano library ever is, except some libraries do a much better job at simulating the player/piano connection than others, and HZP -- indeed all Spitfire pianos -- don't even make an attempt at it. No catch-pedaling (table stakes to even have a chance at being playable for me) or half pedaling (which I used to consider optional, but nowadays I find mandatory, in particular the ability to transition a full pedal down note to half pedal for blending purposes).

I was initially very enamored by the sound of the piano and the hall -- the honeymoon period I referred to -- and felt that the main mics were brilliantly sampled. I overlooked the playability problems as a result, because I loved how it sounded. But after that wore off, about two years passed before I realized I hadn't touched it the interim.

It was then that I realized that, for me, feel was at least as important as sound, maybe even more so. So I'm not saying HZP is a bad product per se, just that it ended up being a complete waste of money for my own needs. YMMV as always.

I'm always bemused when I see concert pianists and other professionals -- or even amateurs who are clearly far more skilled than I am -- gush over a piano library I consider to be utterly unplayable. Case in point is Linos' post just above. I remain uncertain if the importance I assign pedal behavior is just a way to compensate for my own lack of skill, or if those people simply have different needs (maybe because, unlike me, they have easy access to a real acoustic piano), but in any case it took me a decade and several thousand dollars to realize what my own needs are.