The Sound Board

Full details tomorrow, but Andy Blaney has once again made a demo which will sell many thousands of copies to far less talented people (ie 99.9% of the music-making population).

This sounds quite spectacular to me - everything is cohesive, nothing leaps out as fake. Of particular note, the fast runs and figures sound excellent.



I believe there is brand new brass here among other things.

Everything on sale for Black Friday at 50% off, an additional 20% on top for newsletter subscribers.

EDIT - by my maths, that'll be £200 for the lot. And it's an awful lot. We're into EastWest bargain territory here now.

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/blogs/spi ... yers-guide

Great Andy Blaney demo, as always.

They’re calling the new additions “Motif Brass.” Here’s the brief description:

Spitfire Audio wrote:Featuring Horns a4, Trumpets a3 and Trombones a5, these new brass ensembles come with improved intelligent legato programming for writing rhythmic, soaring, heroic brass parts.

Best,

Geoff

First time I’ve ever been tempted, though I expect the size and the various gotchas would be daunting.

Andy Blaney is an alien, and not an illegal one either.

FYI, the sale has morphed into "up to" 50% off. SSO is £299, with a newsletter discount that makes it £250.

I'm tempted, despite vowing I won't buy another orch library - I use what I have so little. But however excellent a deal £250 is, it's still just above my impulse level. I think.

Those brass lines sound reallly good in the demo, don’t they?

Lawrence wrote: ↑Nov 27, 2025 1:27 pm Those brass lines sound reallly good in the demo, don’t they?

They really do.

That and the fast string lines are very impressive.

At £240 I jumped. I absolutely don't need another orchestra but it was the fast strings that lured me in.

First impressions (after an essential 20 min batch resave) - an overwhelming amount of material. I never jumped on the Mural range back in the day so it's all new to me, familiar territory articulation-wise to Sable / SCS. It's gargantuan, and something of a headache to work out what I actually want / need in the template. (And yet at 342gb, it's only a third of the size of EW's Hollywood Strings alone).

The strings are the main draw for me personally. 3 levels of vibrato, and in the main the switching between works well (always tougher with the solos, as to be expected). These new performance patches do an awful lot of heavy lifting and I am all for it - for many parts it's all you'd need (if writing monophonically). I did find it lumpy sometimes, but pretty sure that is because I wasn't consistent on play velocity so I'd be accidentally jumping from one type of attack to another. Legato options are great, really nice portamento when required.

As for the fast strings that drew me in - yes, very nicely done. The bluriness feels natural, nothing really draws attention to itself overly, and it avoids the dreaded keyboard effect in the main.

The new brass will also be very welcome, the first port of call I think for trumpets. Horns in the lower register are really meaty, higher up they mellow out which will suit some parts more than others.

I've only had a cursory flick through the rest, which seems all present and correct. There's some specially made ensemble patches of various kinds and the solo instruments.

In terms of bang for buck, it's hard for anyone to compete here (except perhaps East West). Hard to say if I really needed to get it when I have so much else, but I think the specifics that drew me in and a few unusual gems make it worthwhile to add to the arsenal.

Guy,

The Motif brass melody lines seemed “insta-epic” to me in the walkthrough (and in Blaney’s demo.) Do they feel that way to you?

Lawrence wrote: ↑Nov 29, 2025 10:57 am Guy,

The Motif brass melody lines seemed “insta-epic” to me in the walkthrough (and in Blaney’s demo.) Do they feel that way to you?

Yes, especially for the trumpets and also horns in the lower register on full dynamics.

Well, this update convinced me to pull SSO back out of the drawer and actually make a template with it in Logic. It really is a fantastic sounding orchestra, it's always been my favorite (sound-wise) and I was excited to spring for it earlier in the year when the price plummeted. I just haven't had much reason to use it yet! I'm itching to do some writing and I should really spend some quality time with this remarkable beast over the winter.

Caved and bought it. Had a problem with the Motif Trombones download missing samples but it wasn’t hard to fix. Love the epic brass-iness of the Motif set, still mucking about with the rest, not sure exactly how I feel.

My final price with tax included was $328. Not quite as low as I wished but hard to complain about.

I've been fighting with Cubase and VE Pro to get the strings into the template and finally emerged blinking as if from the belly of the slain beast. Cubase has so many little things that piss me off - somewhere along the line they dropped the ability to rename Quick Controls. It loads all the pre-existing preset names okay but can't change any new ones. I had to edit an XML file to do it FFS.

ANYWAY, none of that has anything to do with the SSO which is mostly wonderful. Those flautandos and sul tastos are absolutely gorgeous. I have noticed the odd programming jar - cello performance patch doesn't seem as good as the higher strings, I hear legato to sustain crossfades - but overall there's so much to enjoy here.

Some beautiful stuff along with the usual collection of head scratchers.

I’ve started trying out strings. They certainly have a nice tone, and I may have found my new fave large ensemble pizz patch.

Messing with the “all techniques” patch in Vlns1-there are some wildly different volume levels in the various techniques.
Also, do I have it right that “all techniques” doesn’t include legato? You apparently have to add the Performance patch on a different MIDI Channel to get legato? Seems odd. Maybe I’m missing something?

The Performance patch is fine, however. I’m not sure, but the legato on Appassionata (which I have) might be a bit better.

The vibrato slider on the solo strings is deceptive. If it’s not simply an on/off switch, I’m definitely missing something.

Lawrence wrote: ↑Dec 01, 2025 1:15 amMessing with the “all techniques” patch in Vlns1-there are some wildly different volume levels in the various techniques.
Also, do I have it right that “all techniques” doesn’t include legato? You apparently have to add the Performance patch on a different MIDI Channel to get legato? Seems odd. Maybe I’m missing something?

The Performance patch is fine, however. I’m not sure, but the legato on Appassionata (which I have) might be a bit better.

The vibrato slider on the solo strings is deceptive. If it’s not simply an on/off switch, I’m definitely missing something.

Yes, the level jumps are a bit annoying. Apparently the only way round it is to have all the very quiet ones in their own patch and boost that. At least the all articulations patch you can switch off all those you are not using to keep the footprint down, but I expect the nki is still pretty thirsty.

And yup, the performance patch is separate. I ended up with 3 nkis per instrument, with my own config of core patches that match my standardised keyswitches for all libraries and the other stuff on the third.

I haven't noticed the vib doing anything else on solo - what do you hear?

As you bring the slider towards “less” , there’s just some break point where it goes from molto to none. At least that’s how I perceived it.

Lawrence wrote: ↑Dec 01, 2025 2:46 am As you bring the slider towards “less” , there’s just some break point where it goes from molto to none. At least that’s how I perceived it.

Oh I got you yes, they are break points - I find this with most solo strings libraries cos of the phasing issue.

Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Dec 01, 2025 2:48 am

Lawrence wrote: ↑Dec 01, 2025 2:46 am As you bring the slider towards “less” , there’s just some break point where it goes from molto to none. At least that’s how I perceived it.

Oh I got you yes, they are break points - I find this with most solo strings libraries cos of the phasing issue.

Yes. The slider, however, deceived me for a brief and shining moment.

Question for those with SSO - aside from the strings and the new brass, are there any gems in the rest of the library you often / occasionally reach for?

Off the top of my head, the piccolo, solo flute and bassoon are standouts for me.

Broadly speaking the woods and brass have a lovely tone but are kinda unwieldy to work with, so I usually end up using some of my other options instead. The strings are the main attraction for me, by some margin. Underrated library IMO - the legato programming is much better and more consistent than its online reputation would suggest.

I think I deleted the percussion. Way too soupy for my tastes. Felt less like a percussion library and more of an Air impulse response library. But some people really like it.

(disclaimer: I haven't updated yet)

Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Nov 30, 2025 5:03 am Cubase has so many little things that piss me off - somewhere along the line they dropped the ability to rename Quick Controls. It loads all the pre-existing preset names okay but can't change any new ones. I had to edit an XML file to do it FFS.

Yeah, this was an infuriating change on their part, and I barely even use QuickControls. Like... why? What was the problem!? Nonsense like this is why I'm perpetually bi-curious about Reaper.

Good to know there's an XML workaround though. I hadn't thought of that!

Thanks, a helpful steer!

scherzo wrote: ↑Dec 02, 2025 11:22 am Good to know there's an XML workaround though. I hadn't thought of that!

I should do a quick tutorial on this before I forget how I did it myself (EDIT - https://thesoundboard.net/viewtopic.php?t=6794 )

Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Dec 01, 2025 11:47 am Question for those with SSO - aside from the strings and the new brass, are there any gems in the rest of the library you often / occasionally reach for?

For me the english horn is remarkable. There is something in there that makes it very suitable for elegic, noble (can you say this?) melodies IMO.

Thanks Scherzo and Markus - the woods are very good all round, aren't they? And since they are often the weak spot in so many of my full-orchestra libraries I've taken the time to put them all in the template today. And yes Markus - the English Horn / Cor Anglais has a lovely un-duck-like tone doesn't it?

I was particularly impressed with the crossfading from vib to non-vib with the solo instruments here, pretty much as good as I've heard. It's a switch of course, but a very smooth one.