The Sound Board

Ólafur Arnalds Chamber Evolutions was released today. Sounds lovely, but I'm a sucker for this textural stuff.

Here, the 4,3,3,3,3 ensemble of British players (Violin I + II, Viola, Cello, Double Bass) led by long-term collaborator Viktor Orri Árnason perform a range of fragile yet warm beautifully evolving phrases, recorded at the world-famous Hall in Air Studios (London).

Regular $299 USD, but currently available for the introductory price of $219 USD (£189).

If you like using SCS then I'd say it is a good purchase, if you mostly use other things, then need is relative.

need...well, no. my bank account said yes, one of the positive sides of living in a low cost country.

downloading now at 0,1 Mbps...thank you, indonesian internet provider

Downloading at 175Mbps. Is it a first world problem if I complain that's not as fast as I should be able to go?

thats around 1750 times faster? somehow i feel that at this speed this evo is going to be my christmas present 2018...lol.
usually we have around 10 Mbps, pretty fast here.
but its rainy season and everything is slower then usual...

ok_tan wrote: ↑Jan 18, 2018 10:06 pm ) somehow i feel that at this speed this evo is going to be my christmas present 2018...

finished downloading this morning. beautiful sound...the waves are VERY nice. maybe i am a bit tired of evos, but i missed the instant inspiration i had with some of the earlier evos. or maybe because it rains all the time (2 m snow in europe - very tempting)

I still have a major gripe with this series... they can't do sections for some reason... It's like their whole "we hate actual music, and pretend every instrument is just a keyboard patch" mindset is single handedly what slowly makes me hate spitfire.

They can record things well, have visually pleasing gui - but scripting/behaviors/volumes can be so hit or miss - and some things like this just show that at the end of the day they want keyboard patches - irregardless of feasibility of the arrangement being played in real life...

Still some nice sounds in there. I do wish there was a manual speed knob on the waves though. They have the TM pro patches, but I'd prefer manual speed sliders.

KyleJudkins wrote: ↑Feb 01, 2018 7:02 pmIt's like their whole "we hate actual music, and pretend every instrument is just a keyboard patch" mindset is single handedly what slowly makes me hate spitfire.

Seems a bit harsh. I imagine if they did this kind of thing with individual sections the price point would be substantially higher, and I'm honestly not sure how much a library like that would really benefit from it.

KyleJudkins wrote: ↑Feb 01, 2018 7:02 pmThey have the TM pro patches, but I'd prefer manual speed sliders.

It's possible to customize the patch to use a CC to toggle through the various speeds. Control-click on the articulation and you can configure activation by CC range. You can put normale in group 1, tremolo in group 2, and vibrato in group 3.

Of course a resolution of 4 wave speeds isn't as nice as a resolution of 127, but again, if they offered more options on the lengths it would translate to increased cost.

You could make the argument that they would have to record 4 times as many things, but if you figure that you're paying musicians per hour if you paid the musicians to perform a 10-hour session, it would cost you the same as bringing each ensemble in separately for 5:10 hour sessions, however the only real increase in cost would be the extra recording technicians and whoever has to chop in script we'll have a little bit more work on their plate, but maybe someone can chime in on their primary cost when creating something like this...

It might seem a bit harsh, but that's the gist I get from Christian especially... he doesn't seem to care at all how an instrument Works, simply whether or not the sounds that makes can be turned into a keyboard patch

It's a perfectly acceptable perspective to have, but sometimes taking a little bit more work to make sure that everything makes more sense on a natural implementation before you create creative impossible in real life patches

An example would be audio Imperia despite not being a huge company or having seemingly much experience at all managed to sample in Orchestra while leaving not only the original patches with less than perfect tuning for brass and strings, but also left every single articulation at the original recorded volume

Something in theory half of their libraries are supposed to be already

KyleJudkins wrote: ↑Feb 02, 2018 7:04 pmif you figure that you're paying musicians per hour if you paid the musicians to perform a 10-hour session, it would cost you the same as bringing each ensemble in separately for 5:10 hour sessions

I think you're missing the cost of Air Studios itself (which includes its own staff), which is no small amount, and would then be 5x higher in that case.

well since each note is recorded, it would cost 0 time to limit key ranges to sections.

one. when you record A4 make it only violin 2s
.

that would be an alternative, not sure if thay would be the popular opinion for the evo libraries though

Anders Wall wrote: ↑Feb 03, 2018 2:42 am

KyleJudkins wrote: ↑Feb 02, 2018 8:03 pm well since each note is recorded, it would cost 0 time to limit key ranges to sections.

one. when you record A4 make it only violin 2s
.

that would be an alternative, not sure if thay would be the popular opinion for the evo libraries though

You should send them a message asking for this.
Not sure if Spitfire reads this forum.
They are on most (major) social media platforms.

Best of luck.
/Anders

Maybe I'm just being picky - and still like divisi writing in spite of the vast majority of this industry.

That said, I think it's insanely odd that they'd try to market SSS evo/olafur as if they can blend with SSS/SCS - because this isnt the case, unless you just play like 5 note chords spanning the keyboard - completely seperately from using the actual SCS/SSS patches. But you can't just have the cellos and basses play an Evo while you do something more deliberate with the V1/V2/VA legatos over it. The only way would be limiting yourself below the range of the viola. Or else you've got the Evo coming from the viola's blended with your cello, and you've got bass blended in with the cello.

With Olafur's evo atleast they seperated the basses, but if you want to simulate section writing with these - you'd have to narrow the stereofield, then manually pan them to make them sound more like they are coming from a specific section, or use these completely seperately from more traditional string sections.

I smiled at SA marketing their new libs (LCO or Arnalds Chamber EVOs or Orch Swarm) as added layers of details and realism to Sable/Chamber strings. Because, well, Sable was demoed succesfully by Paul for an efficient way to add realism and detail to Albion.
So what's next ? Libs to add details and realism and life to both LCO and Chamber Evos and whatever small ensemble Spitfire libs ? :-)
So much layers we will have these massive english cakes with cherry at the top, probably.
:-D

Indeed. Not to mention Christian's youtube video entitled (as only he / SA would):
"How to add Swagger to your Silky Symphonic Pieces with the Bernard Hermann library".

to be fair, marketing for just about any library over 200$ makes insane statements. the finest _____ ever recorded, the last _____ you'll ever need. Everything you need to make the next ______.