Spitfire BBC Symphony Orchestra

[Lawrence]

I like to participate in those threads with helpful posts like "Page 31." "Page 43." "We're going to 100, folks."
It's just my little contribution to the enthusiasm.

Btw, I have a very hard time believing their minimum Mac spec-6 core i5, 16 gig RAM. Really? I hope it's true, but if not it reminds me of the bad old days at EW.

[NoamL]

Someone on VIC had the interesting thought that they should record and release Maida Vale IRs. After all, there can't be much objection if they're tearing the place down... and it would help with Guy's conundrum of "should I use only BBCSO or lose the advantages of the room"

[Piet De Ridder]

I experienced the beginnings of a raised eyebrow when I read Guy's comment that "this library only makes sense if you use it pretty much exclusively". Why would that be so? Surely, with the right tools (and the knowledge how to use them), it's fairly straighforward to make any decent dry or semi-dry library appear to be 99,9% compatible with the sound and space of this orchestra? Any decent reverb or spatialization plugin, and it certainly doesn't have to be a convolution-based one, should get you where musical ears wish you to be.

Besides, with the library being recorded as it is (with the spill-channels and such), Spitfire would have to release a rather cumbersome-to-manage set of IR's captured by almost every single microphone pair they used to record the orchestra with, in order to provide users with the *real* option of simulating a reasonably accurate replica of the library's multi-layered spatial character. And if they do that, it would also mean that, should you be so intrepid as to attempt to re-create all the spatial sophistication of this library with IR's, you'll have to instantiate not just one or two convolution reverbs, but at the very least five of them, on top of the main reverb, just for the spill channels alone. Doable, I guess, but not something I see much point or value in (let alone fun and enjoyment), especially given the fact that the degree of performance-realism this library is capable of — beyond what you get when writing strictly to its strenghts —, will be far more hampered by the limitations of the content than by any trivial (and to my mind even non-existent) spatial issues.
(Musically brilliant though Andy Blaney's demo is, it's worryingly uninformative on what the library can deliver besides dynamically and expressively static articulations.)

While there's still a very serious dent in my affection and enthusiasm for all things Spitfire after the insult that was the Studio Series Pro triptych, a set which I keep considering to be an unacceptably sub-standard and criminally deceitful release (not to mention: already neglected), it can't be denied that this new orchestral library sounds pretty phenomenal. Recalling the Spitfire of old. And if there's any truth in the statement that this is only the beginning of what will steadily grow into something much bigger — which would imply, I suppose, that Spitfire have already recorded countless terabytes worth of stuff which, in due time, will materialize as add-ons or expansions — I think there is reason for excitement. Even if that StudioSeries-wound keeps throbbing, I am interested. Not quite ready to buy, but interested.

_

[FriFlo]

I really wonder why so many people seem to consider the 999€ deal on that library to be such an incredible deal already. Steinbergs new orchestra library recorded by OT is also a complete one and so far, I think it is more complete regarding articulations and instruments. It’s default place is 700-800€, if I remember correctly. This library is 1.5tb uncompressed and it has 12 microphone positions. Berlin Brass without any expansions is the same size and only has half the microphone positions ...
To me, it seems impossible that this library could be anywhere near complete.

[Linos]

So, the Beebs Symphony Orchestra huh? The plan seems to be to create a bit of a standard library for a symphony orchestra. Something that so many people are using that it is easy to collaborate on projects. A universal standard if you will.
For that to happen it needs to cover all the basics in a convincing fashion. It needs to have a workflow that is universally appealing, or be so flexible as to be useable in a wide variety of working styles. In addition, it has to have good quality control.
Sounds promising, but the proof is in the pudding.

Early signs are promising in my opinion. I. e. Andy Blaneys demo sounds great. All the sections are nice sounding, as is the blend of them playing together. The timp and the harp sound especially lovely in Paul’s short patch demonstration, despite the flawed audio capture in their YouTube vid. Without a walkthrough or even a list of articulations ‘tis much too soon for a conclusion though.

It looks like this library is all about consolidation. Nothing new or revolutionary about it. As such, to call it ‘a massive chapter marker in the history of sampling’ seems out of line and rather vain. Marketing is what it is I guess.

I am rather curious to see what future products/services their collaboration with the BBC will bring. They dropped enough hints that the collaboration is to be continued. Looking forward to that.

For me it is a weird one. I find it cool that they sampled the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and I like that it is a symphonic sampling project. However, there are developers who produced libraries that are closer to what I would like an orchestral sample library to be conceptually. That goes for the choice of articulations, a3 patches I have no use for but no second players for the winds. Stuff like that. While I like what I have heard so far, I already know that it will not be everything I would want it to be. That’s true for just about every orchestral sample library out there of course.
As for Piet, it is not a done deal for me, but they have my interest.

As an aside: It’s funny how their marketing got them in a bit of a predicament here. They seem to want to advertise the fact that they sampled a group of players who always play together. That it is an advantage over an ad hoc group of session players. If they don’t the only thing that they have left is the BBC brand. However, if they do, they are saying that they got it wrong in all of their previous libraries, which they recorded with session players.

[Lawrence]

GPO, EWQLSO, Vienna Cube and SE. It’s not like the concept is original, but for the price they may indeed create a new film standard.

I have such trepidations about their QC. I hope they are taking the necessary time to get it right. As to further collaborations, I don’t believe in buying vaporware.

[Tanuj Tiku]

If they truly want to future proof for the pro market, then I hope there is some innovation in sampling, more articulations and a way to ‘connect’ those articulations.

I have said this before as well. There needs to be serious R&D. So far, it seems most developers are thinking about it from a ‘sound’ and ‘collaboration’ POV - Junkie XL brass, BBC Orchestra, Alan Meyerson percussion.

Pro’s actually need much less of that and far more in terms of musical performance.

If I had a company that was doing reasonably well, I would set up a new R&D division which explores physical modelling or something like Samplemodeling.

There is a ton of research out there and fresh talent.

If the BBC Orchestra is just another Orchestra in the long term - I don’t know. It’s nice to have and sounds great and it may be a new chapter for Spirfire but is it truly a new chapter for the pro market?

[chrisr]

Absolutely agree with that Tanuj. I filled in the Spitfire questionaire a couple of weeks back and said exactly the same. In terms of innovation I've long viewed Spitfire as amongst the best of the 2nd tier, because of their highly traditional approach. Sample modeling, embertone, audiobro and chris hein seem to be innovating far more in their approaches and offerings, for example.

[Piet De Ridder]

(...) but is it truly a new chapter for the pro market?

There's a thing at play here which seems to be of humongous emotional importance to both Paul and Christian — but much less so to everyone else — and that is the Britishness of it all. Things being through-and-through British is something that's always been strongly underlined by Spitfire, from day one of their operation. You only have to look at the name of the company for starters. And the official name of their maiden project, the bespoke series, also had the word 'British' in it. And what do we think the 'B' in the BML-series stood for? Things have in fact always been so pronounced chauvinistically Albionine at Spitfire HQ that one shouldn't be surprised if Michael 'Great British Railways' Portillo was a secret partner in their venture.

And now ... they've collaborated with the nec-plus-ultra in Britishness: the British Broadcasting Corporation. The holiest of holiest. (To them anyway.) Hence the Keynote (when a regular product announcement on VI-C and various social media would have done just as well), hence the reverently drooling reminiscences of what the BBC has meant for both of them, hence the elevation of the BBC Orchestra as if it were an orchestral outfit that stands alone (which is not true of course), hence the somewhat awkward moment when Christian held that old microphone to his chest as if it were the Holy Grail ...

All a bit silly of course. But not without charm. (And I will confess: the anglophile in me is not immune to some of it.) I'm waiting for the day they both start grow whiskers and walrus moustaches, to look a bit more like W.S. Gilbert and A. Sullivan. And I'm sure that especially Christian could not be made more happy than by, one day, seeing is name included on the Queen's Honours List. Henson, Member Of The British Empire ...

Like I said, silly but charming. And as long as it remains that, no problem. It does become a bit of an annoyance though (and potentially misleading) when it's used to bestow qualities on a product which common sense, plain logic and experience inform us, beyond all doubt, it just can't have.

__

[Tanuj Tiku]

(...) but is it truly a new chapter for the pro market?

There's a thing at play here which seems to be of humongous emotional importance to both Paul and Christian — but much less so to everyone else — and that is the Britishness of it all. Things being through-and-through British is something that's always been strongly underlined by Spitfire, from day one of their operation. You only have to look at the name of the company for starters. And the official name of their maiden project, the bespoke series, also had the word 'British' in it. And what do we think the 'B' in the BML-series stood for? Things have in fact always been so pronounced chauvinistically Albionine at Spitfire HQ that one shouldn't be surprised if Michael 'Great British Railways' Portillo was a secret partner in their venture.

And now ... they've collaborated with the nec-plus-ultra in Britishness: the British Broadcasting Corporation. The holiest of holiest. (To them anyway.) Hence the Keynote (when a regular product announcement on VI-C and various social media would have done just as well), hence the reverently drooling reminiscences of what the BBC has meant for both of them, hence the elevation of the BBC Orchestra as if it were an orchestral outfit that stands alone (which is simply not true of course), hence the somewhat awkward moment when Christian held that old microphone to his chest as if it were the Holy Grail ...

All a bit silly of course. But not without charm. (And I will confess: the anglophile in me is not immune to some of it.) I'm waiting for the day they both start grow whiskers and walrus moustaches, to look a bit more like Gilbert and Sullivan. And I'm sure that especially Christian could not be made more happy than by, one day, seeing is name included on the Queen's Honours List. Henson, Member Of The British Empire ...

Like I said, silly but charming. And as long as it remains that, no problem. It does become a bit of an annoyance though (and potentially misleading) when it's used to bestow qualities on a product which common sense, plain logic and experience inform us, beyond all doubt, it just can't have.

__

Piet, besides it being factual, I found this post of yours to be very charming itself!

Yes, it is all very British. It is a huge step for them personally and I can understand that as well. There is something nice about the whole operation being very local and grounded. Does it then translate on a global level? Aesthetically, yes. Innovation in sampling, in terms of performance? I am not sure yet.

I also have a theory of my own and I say this with utmost respect. It seems to me that Spitfire have it in their DNA to make samples that serve Paul, Christian and their composer friends at large. That is their circle. In their circle, most everything gets replaced with a live orchestra. They needed samples which were very different 'sounding' from VSL but similar to what they will end up recording. This helps with the directors as well. But, perhaps and I am speculating here, this is the reason their samples always had the sound for me but lacked the performance edge.

This is very clear from their demos as well. Once again, absolutely love Andy Blaney's work and he truly is a master but as I have risen in the ranks to obtain better programming and production skills, one thing is clear to me. It is easier to program a complicated piece of music (where realism is the objective) with lots of short articulations or brief moments of wizardry with marcatos etc. because we know that short samples sound better. This is the reason, percussion has always done well in sampled form.

It is when you need to program in a really emotive and lyrical piece of music, most samples fall absolutely flat. These types of successful demos are extremely rare. In the current crop, Spitfire lags behind with this quality and because of the DNA code which stems from everything getting either replaced or at least layered with a few players, there might be a missing desire to go further.

I did try their performance patches in the BML ensemble series which fall flat on their face in comparison to a newer company like Performance Samples.

Unless they depart from their old ways, they may end up where VSL has. The weight of their own philosophy might be their undoing. A friend of mine showed me some of Chris Hein solo strings and there is a performance quality to it - very smooth sounding legatos. Never mind the sound.

So, it seems that there is a way to get somewhere in terms of performance but this quality seems to be missing somewhat in Spitfire. I have never been able to successfully use their legatos, until I got Chamber Strings which can still be problematic. No wonder, they mentioned Chamber Strings in their Keynote of all the products that they have released, which were not collaborations. But, there are others like Cinematic Studio Strings or Berlin Strings which are ahead in this department.

And I am not picking on the 'legato' aspect alone. What I mean is the way the notes connect. It is musical and smooth. This is missing currently in most samples. Orchestral Tools has tried to address this somewhat with Capsule. Everyone is trying to attack this problem in different ways but I am not seeing much from Spitfire in this department.

So, if the BBC Orchestra is again more of the same, I would be a bit disappointed. I hope they are listening very closely to what others are doing as well.

I am not saying that Spitfire is stupid or does not know what is going around. They certainly are one of the best but the world is moving ahead in different directions and from a future point of view, I hope they will bring something new in scripting and music technology that is more musical performance and less microphone positions or GUI's.

[Ashermusic]

Here's what I already know.
1. The sound and workflow will please some users and not others.
2. No matter which articulations are and are not included a bunch of people on forums will say " they should have......"
3. It will have some bugs and anomalies.
4. It will not become a universal standard among pros because no pro wants to sound exactly like all other pros.
5. Some fanboys will was rhapsodic about it in ridiculous hyperbolic prose while some detractors will go to what I deem to be hyperbolic comments that are silly, as if it were an affront to mankind.

And it still at the end of the he day be just a collection of samples, not a cure for cancer. That said, this so far looks like the first affordable entry into the market that may replace the Hollywood Orchestra as my primary tool. I am definitely curious.

[Guy Rowland]

I experienced the beginnings of a raised eyebrow when I read Guy's comment that "this library only makes sense if you use it pretty much exclusively". Why would that be so? Surely, with the right tools (and the knowledge how to use them), it's fairly straighforward to make any decent dry or semi-dry library appear to be 99,9% compatible with the sound and space of this orchestra? Any decent reverb or spatialization plugin, and it certainly doesn't have to be a convolution-based one, should get you where musical ears wish you to be.

Yes of course, I didn't phrase especially well. What I meant is that the compelling reason to buy is when the library is treated as a cohesive whole. Everything slots together very well, great depth with a sound that is unlike any other on the market that I know of. So the moment you mix and match others with the BBC you start to run the risk of the law of diminishing returns. Using BBC with anything else should be less problematic, but my expectations there are that the brass is unlikely to be as broad, versatile and of as high a standard as MSB, for example. I'm not expecting any element on its own to be best-in-class, but could of course be proven wrong. But it might have some specific tonal uses I guess.

So I agree with those that say this is unlikely to have anything in it that will warrant the game-changing tag (surprise!), save in that one area of a unique and cohesive particular sound. But that itself is not to be sniffed at of course.

The more I think about that presentation video, the more it irks though I have to say. IMO its quite indicative of the Spitfire brand - all fanfare and bluster, great claims and dazzling specs, but they neglected the bleedin' obvious (can any Anglophile spot that quote, btw?) I can live with the interlaced video, but for goodness sake make sure the sound is good. They might use 512k D/A converters and a rack of a bazillion preamps developed on the International Space Station, but when I hear cannon-fire and emergency services passing in the samples of their products loud and proud, this feels quite the house style though.

And as to that Anglo-centric nature... quite. I know for the fact this reaaaalllly irritates some non-Brits, kind of a relief when it comes over more as charming. I think its a very fine line personally, especially in todays political climate, but I best move away from that... you know how I get...

[Lawrence]

“That said, this so far looks like the first affordable entry into the market that may replace the Hollywood Orchestra as my primary tool. I am definitely curious.”


I think “primary” would be the key word there, Jay. Unless a project is collaborative and requires sample matching, I imagine people will still use a hybrid approach because they still like this other company’s winds or the a2 horns from that company, etc.

[Ashermusic]

“That said, this so far looks like the first affordable entry into the market that may replace the Hollywood Orchestra as my primary tool. I am definitely curious.”


I think “primary” would be the key word there, Jay. Unless a project is collaborative and requires sample matching, I imagine people will still use a hybrid approach because they still like this other company’s winds or the a2 horns from that company, etc.

It would indeed. As HO is now for me.

[NoamL]

There are A LOT of signs pointing to this being an EWQLSO style library, as opposed to Spitfire Symphonic or Hollywood Orchestra, if you read the tea leaves....

Not that this would make it a bad product, just one that most pro composers wouldn't be interested in buying even at this price. Massive credit to Andy Blaney that with his single demo he can get people talking about how "advanced" this library is and whether it will "replace" known deep-sampled libraries like Hollywood, Cinematic series or Spitfire Symphonic. When we don't really know that it's "advanced" at all. I continue to think it's uncharitable to render judgement until we have actual details, which is why I've shut up about it on VI-C, but it would also be annoying if SFA has put this much effort & marketing into grabbing everyone's attention for something that's not REALLY a successor or peer to their flagship orchestral library SSO.

So at this point I'm excited & interested, but definitely will not pre order, I'll wait to see what other people's experiences are with the product.

The tea leaves for me so far are -

1. My back of the envelope calc's show BBCSO as smaller than SSO (or comparable deep sampled products from other developers) on a per mic per instrument basis although there's some wiggle room in the math for me to be wrong or have failed to take into account some factor.

2. It is a recording of an existing orchestra organization. This has advantages but I suspect it also created limitations because the orchestra had to fit sampling into their schedule.

3. The entire orchestra was RELEASED as one product. I'm surprised people aren't talking about this more, it just doesn't happen, nobody was expecting this. Everybody was expecting "BBCSO Chapter 1: Strings" the way other developers would do it. So you have to decide for yourself whether Spitfire Audio have just reached a level of size/manpower/experience where they can power out a release that other developers would have had to space out over 2 or 4 years, or whether this is a red flag.

4. Andy's demo APPEARED to be playing back on 6gb of RAM using 2 mic positions (albeit possibly with lots of unused articulations purged, because Spitfire's sampler has very good capabilities for purging/loading specific articulations). This is a huge red flag to me, possibly the biggest in the list, it reminds me of Berlin Orchestra Inspire's marketing where they said they managed to fit the orchestra into an 8gb laptop. They did... with 2 dynamic layers for all instruments... no pro composer is using BOI for their demos.

5. The demos use some sample-fakery, for example if you listen to the beginning of Andy's demo I don't believe those are actually fast-legato runs but probably short note articulations used to simulate a run.

[Lawrence]

5. If it CAN be faked well, ok with me.

[GR Baumann]

And as to that Anglo-centric nature... quite. I know for the fact this reaaaalllly irritates some non-Brits

hmm...

That would be me, but .... and this is important to me to point ouf, all things labeled patriotic indeed, hence not exclusively your neck of the woods.

As for the product, while I may state the obvious, "Product available October 24th", it does in deed make me wonder whether this is a coincidence or not, being precisely one week before No-Deal Brexit day.

Apart from that, and from experience, I deeply distrust Spitfireaudio and do not put a penny on their marketing announcements anymore, I am not even listening to the polished and admittedly skilled demos. I rather wait until real life experience of users is available. Pre ordering anything at SA is out of the question for me personally.

As for the mixs offered, they state Atmos (2 — front & rear) I am curious to learn how that goes with people who have atmos installed in their studio, and as I understand it, all three, Mix 1 +2 and Atmos to be "baked in" mixes, would that be right?

As for their own Plugin, which they say is NKS compatible, and as I am not following SA's regular sales pitch anymore since long, can someone bring me up to date whether this is their first product using their own plugin effort, or is that plugin already well established and accepeted in the market?

Thanks
G

[FriFlo]

As for their own Plugin, which they say is NKS compatible, and as I am not following SA's regular sales pitch anymore since long, can someone bring me up to date whether this is their first product using their own plugin effort, or is that plugin already well established and accepeted in the market?

They introduced that player with the legendary (for whatever reason) Hans Zimmer Strings and at the same time they moved their free stuff to that player. It was a smart move IMO as most people who would feel the urge to buy HZ Strings would eat any new player ... :-)
Until now, there were a few more releases with the player, if I remember correctly. But I didn't buy anything with it, so far. I remember, that it was missing some stuff I like from Kontakt and it doesn't have any advantage over Kontakt, either.
This is a crucial point to me: if you want to" force" a new playback engine on your customers, please consider offering a unique selling point! Some features not possible with Kontakt. Also, everything possible with Kontakt, should still be possible with that player. Orchestral Tools did that rather well - at least with the announcement so far! They offer unique features and also state, that they will continue to publish in Kontakt format.

[FriFlo]

Hallelujah! I am happy to finally hear that I am not the only person to be annoyed by that constant patriotism of Spitfire ads ... I actually think it is way past "charming" by the way. But obviously, it seems to have worked on the marketing side for the majority. Customers seem to be drawn to a certain patina on those products and the particular Britishness seems to fit well with all the other attributes, like e.g. the design copied from Deutsche Grammophon.
@Tanuj: I see it exactly the same way as you said it. I would rather look forward to the major players like spitfire, OT and maybe still VSL to push towards new technology that makes things more playable. Instead, smaller businesses, like Sample Modeling and Performance samples seem to push the boundaries! The bigger companies rather focus on branding and marketing. I am kind of afraid of that to be financially more successful ... at least, it is a good reason for myself to vote with my wallet and do the next purchases with smaller companies while not buying the BBC orchestra, even if it turns out decent. After all, I already have enough variations of decent sounding orchestra ...

[Guy Rowland]

...the particular Britishness seems to fit well with all the other attributes, like e.g. the design copied from Deutsche Grammophon.

Ha!!

[Geoff Grace]

Wait. Spitfire are British?!?





Best,

Geoff

[FriFlo]

...the particular Britishness seems to fit well with all the other attributes, like e.g. the design copied from Deutsche Grammophon.

Ha!!

I noticed that funny second meaning, as well. ;-) But it was rather intended as an example of patina ... a tech company trying to brand themselves like a traditional family business in craftsmanship, founded in 1852 ...

[Piet De Ridder]

(...) the design copied from Deutsche Grammophon. (...)

Fri, maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but I can't find any design similarities between Spitfire and Deutsche Grammophon. Can you post an example of what you mean? Thanks!

_

[Ashermusic]

As far as the player goes, the more the merrier. While there is a lot to like about Kontakt there's a lot to dislike about it and Native Instruments? And the lesson of Gigastudio is that it is not good for one sample engine to be too dominant.

[Guy Rowland]

(...) the design copied from Deutsche Grammophon. (...)

Fri, maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but I can't find any design similarities between Spitfire and Deutsche Grammophon. Can you post an example of what you mean? Thanks!

_

That was the original BML design, right? Sure they’re on record as saying it was the “inspiration”.