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CineSamples vs. Spitfire

Sami

Sami

The Undisclosing
Hello to everyone!
Hoping you can help me with the little conundrum I'm in.
I'm a classically trained composer, used to working with live orchestras and I'm trained in "conventional" orchestration, i.e. using Violins I, II divisi, detailed part writing etc.. As I'm starting out with using a DAW for composing I am looking for a complete symphonic orchestra with a suitable sound for my needs. Having listened into both Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra and CineSamples (Strings/Winds/Brass/Perc) products, I believe that Spitfire is the more appropriate for standard orchestral music while CS seems more grand, maybe to the detriment of realism.
What entices me about CS is the perceived "ease of use" for someone who is just starting out with using a DAW (they themselves advertise their libraries as being "composer friendly"). Also, the price for the complete bundle (with EDU discount) is unbeatable at around 1500 including solo strings and percussion and even with Hollywoodwinds thrown in, whereas one gets painfully close to 2000 with Spitfire including Sacconi and Percussion.
Now my questions for you guys:
(1) Is CS suitable for writing orchestral music in the conventional sense or is it impossible to get the "film cue" feeling out of the samples (obviously this is down to the choice of samples, but bear with me here)
(2) Is CS as "composer-friendly" as advertised?
(3) What are the weaknesses of Spitfire? Everyone seems to love them, but does anyone actually really prefer CS for something over Spitfire? Does Spitfire have some particularly nasty samples?
(4) How bad is the lack of ensembles (a2 etc.) in CS? Can it be remedied by triggering the same sample twice with some adjustment between them to create a feeling of having two instruments?

Hardware requirements are not an issue, sufficient PCIe storage and RAM is available and slaves can be procured if need be. This discussion shall only be about the samples :D

What would you recommend to someone who is very experienced writing scores but not at all using DAWs and virtual instruments/ "MIDI massaging (whatever that means)". I own Albion ONE (which I quite like) and Berlin Orchestra Inspire.
Thanks in advance,

Sami
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wcreed51 said:
Why haven't you looked at VSL?
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Cause I was looking for something wetter, not sure I have the skills in mixing/reverb etc. to make it sound good. Also Kontakt, I guess. Which package were you suggesting and what is your opinion on it vs. the others?
Cheers.
 
Cinesamples has good brass libraries where as spitfire also has a good brass library except for its quite inconsistent to the point you would probably be annoyed of it.

Spitfire to my knowledge hired some of the best players with the best instruments (rarified) in the best (subjective) sounding hall. And their sound reflect exactly that.
 
Most composers I know use different libraries, capitalizing on their strengths. For instance, I know a lot of composers that use Spitfire strings, CineSamples Brass, and Berlin Woodwinds. I know it's not a "this is the best" answer but I hope it helps.
 
kmaster said:
If you want divisi strings, though... there is only one right answer.
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That is a very valid insight, but neither Spitfire nor CineSamples offer div. I'd have to go EWQL or LASS or VSL, which are either too dry, too hard to configure or too bulky, don't forget I am looking for something that is good out of the box. I'd rather buy a chamber string library down the road if I run into unsurmountable difficulties.
Or do you have any other insights?
Cheers!
 
Tekkera said:
css, or spitfire chamber(or symphonic) strings which sound great out of the box. also spitfire products are getting "performance legato" which is basically all legato styles, and spiccatos without keyswitching, very responsive. css is kind of a pain to program if your daw doesn't support midi offset. cinestrings sounds pretty good as well with a touch of reverb, but straight out the box my ears like css the most, the sound is very lush. again, warning on the css midi programming, it has some pretty crazy delay and attack times to enhance realism
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Heard about that being an issue, that and the lack of essential articulations (Sul Pont. (!)) drove me away from CSS, although the sound is admirable. I listened to the Daniel James Demo of CS, and I found the slow section admirable.
I ended up buying the CineSamples complete package, I like Spitfire a bit more in some things, but the usability and coherence across the products made it a sell for me (besides, 50% EDU vs. 30% EDU discount). I'll probably supplement it with Tundra and -apparently- I'm gonna end up buying the whole Spitfire library at some point anyway (see above).
 
Starting out? Well check out East West's Hollywood orchestra / Subscribe to their composer cloud for a month and give them a test.
 
Tatu said:
Starting out? Well check out East West's Hollywood orchestra / Subscribe to their composer cloud for a month and give them a test.
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Is EWQL worth it for anything but for Spaces and very specific patches?
 
Hi Sami,

I was probably in a similar situ' to you not so long back. I started with Albion 1 and needed to make the choice as to which way to head as I knew a 'full set' was going to be expensive.

I can't talk for other libraries other than listening to demos but I went with Spitfire and couldn't be happier. The leap up from Albion is pretty big, particularly in the strings - I won't hear word against them. I love the woods, speaking as a wind player, and if your piano playing is strong the lack of runs is no issue.

Brass tuning and dynamics is a bit frustrating here and there but workable.

Overall, the sound is second to none (for me) but only if your looking at 'traditional' classical. I'm actually now on the hunt for something more hyped for trailer type music, probably Ark 1.

The samples are wet, something I like as I'm no expert on faking the room with reverbs and it doesn't anywhere near as good to my ears. Air sounds incredible, and in some regard this is what your paying for. You will still need to add reverb on everything to 'pull it together' though.

I like Spitfire as a company, they seem to be driving things forward and I'm sure their will be more to come from them - Eric Whitacre choir, in Air, should be stunning.

End of the day you won't be disappointed whichever route you take as the quality and usability with most companies nowadays is awesome but as people mention and as I've found, enough is never enough with sample libraries ;)

P.s. If you can wait you'll get big discounts at Christmas, at least for Spitfire. Look out for promos with all companies, it seems buying at 'normal' prices should be the exception rather than rule.
 
Hi Sami, I was in a similar situation as you and really wanted to invest in one library ( at least first of all ) and ended up going to cinesamples because it was apparently easy to use. A year and a half later on on my journey of becoming a composer and just today I have purchased their solo strings, brass and winds pro as well as voxos, piano in blue and tina guo ( the cheaper one) all with my education discount as I teach in schools. I know some of these are older libraries but I have my reasons and it's mainly for speed, continuity and because I want to get to know one library at a time.

I must say that after having used them for a while now and constantly listening to other libraries to invest in this year I have realised they do have a sort of 'hollywood' sound. They seem quite clear and detailed perhaps at the very slight loss of something (I'm not quite sure what) that perhaps you would find with spitfire - actually I think I know what it is , it's the sound of AIR studios....

I myself chose to invest in cinesamples again as I have decided that I would like to specialise in writing music for advertising which does include some orchestral writing however I am at this moment putting together a template to do a midi mockup of Holst's - Uranus so I could get back to you again about what I thought of it's realism against the recording afterwards?

If however I may give you my real opinion about your situation if you don't mind....

If you are new to writing with samples in a DAW....you're just not going to know what you prefer yet until you've worked with something, a lot (most days), for at least a few months..End of. I know you don't want to hear that mate but it's true. I wondered how all these guys on here were saying 'oh this string library and this brass patch and these oboes are the the best chamber combo out there' or ' this clarinet library has too much noise' or ' their guitars lack a strumming realism that such and such library has' until I had spent a good while working with libraries to get to know their particular sound. If you're starting out on a DAW with composing after having been a pen-n-paper composer working with real instrumentalists, in my opinion you need a year just to get used to the whole format and sound of it all. Everything will sound amazing at first and once you start learning how to use cc 2, 11, 7 and the modwheel your mockups will get more and more realistic sounding every time. Whether you use spitfire or cinesamples won't make a blind bit of difference to you for at least a year mate and by then I guarantee you'll be looking for more libraries to invest in. CSS, LASS and PISS!

In saying this, despite the price difference it sounds like the right choice for you would be spitfire though...definitely...haha!
 
DervishCapkiner said:
Hi Sami, I was in a similar situation as you and really wanted to invest in one library ( at least first of all ) and ended up going to cinesamples because it was apparently easy to use. A year and a half later on on my journey of becoming a composer and just today I have purchased their solo strings, brass and winds pro as well as voxos, piano in blue and tina guo ( the cheaper one) all with my education discount as I teach in schools. I know some of these are older libraries but I have my reasons and it's mainly for speed, continuity and because I want to get to know one library at a time.

I must say that after having used them for a while now and constantly listening to other libraries to invest in this year I have realised they do have a sort of 'hollywood' sound. They seem quite clear and detailed perhaps at the very slight loss of something (I'm not quite sure what) that perhaps you would find with spitfire - actually I think I know what it is , it's the sound of AIR studios....

I myself chose to invest in cinesamples again as I have decided that I would like to specialise in writing music for advertising which does include some orchestral writing however I am at this moment putting together a template to do a midi mockup of Holst's - Uranus so I could get back to you again about what I thought of it's realism against the recording afterwards?

If however I may give you my real opinion about your situation if you don't mind....

If you are new to writing with samples in a DAW....you're just not going to know what you prefer yet until you've worked with something, a lot (most days), for at least a few months..End of. I know you don't want to hear that mate but it's true. I wondered how all these guys on here were saying 'oh this string library and this brass patch and these oboes are the the best chamber combo out there' or ' this clarinet library has too much noise' or ' their guitars lack a strumming realism that such and such library has' until I had spent a good while working with libraries to get to know their particular sound. If you're starting out on a DAW with composing after having been a pen-n-paper composer working with real instrumentalists, in my opinion you need a year just to get used to the whole format and sound of it all. Everything will sound amazing at first and once you start learning how to use cc 2, 11, 7 and the modwheel your mockups will get more and more realistic sounding every time. Whether you use spitfire or cinesamples won't make a blind bit of difference to you for at least a year mate and by then I guarantee you'll be looking for more libraries to invest in. CSS, LASS and PISS!

In saying this, despite the price difference it sounds like the right choice for you would be spitfire though...definitely...haha!
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What a great reply! Thank you very much
 
Tekkera said:
you could always just get ewql composer cloud for $30 a month
play engine sucks

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS MANY OPINIONS.
1) Yes, but it takes a bit more effort.
2) Yes, they're libraries are without a doubt the most composer friendly libraries had
3) On the contrary, actually. Cinesamples has some pretttttyy bad noise issues, but it might be desirable for that extra realism??? more on this down below
4) Lack of a(n) samples isn't a big deal unless you REALLY need it.

tl;dr
cinesamples: reverb friendly, easy to use, noise issues, barebones, boomy, sometimes sounds odd, has a few niche but very used patches (monster low brass, brass chords, FX, 12 horn ensemble, solos), expensive for what it offers but the full selection is cheaper with discount, has better string ensemble control (for when youre feeling lazy and don't want to divisi write each section), larger playable ranges

spitfire: R O O M Y, large selection of articulations, i dislike the solo horn/trumpet/trumpet ens./velocity curve, is spitfire audio, air lyndhurst, oboes a2, new woodwinds library without runs, more control over brass sections, strings and percussion aren't as aggressive, 6x the hdd space needed, mic distances on brass seem inconsistent due to combining of multiple library packages

i don't think i could live without cinebrass or symphonic brass, i had no idea what i was missing until i got the other half of the heart


Issues with Cinesamples:
Noise prominent in like half of their libraries, most notably in Cinewinds (god theres so much noise) and Cinestrings. There could be more articulations, and it could also not be in some stupid seperate "pro" pack. Spitfire did them a one-up by combining their libraries together. Cinesamples stuff feels dated, although Cinebrass is the most popular library pretty much ever. The articulations are pretty barebones, don't expect anything much more than Marcatos, Staccatos, and Legatos.

Issues with Spitfire:
I've had intonation issues on I think it was the contrabass trombone, either contrabass or bass trombone, none of the marcatos of a certain were hitting the mark on the specific note, like, it was bad. Not sure if it's the player or the instrument. Also special mention of the oboes a2 in woodwinds, yikes the intonation is bad. They sampled multitongue on about half the selection within woodwinds, but the FLUTES of all things don't have multitongue with tempo sync, what the hell? And how can you sample woodwinds this generation without RUNS. N O R U N S. I don't like how spitfire lays out their velocity layers compared to cinesamples.

https://instaud.io/private/e6cd89407b08f6f113f24c71450fd24910d50a2f rotating from spitfire horns to cinebrass horns
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With regards to the noise on the Woodwinds are you still talking after the 1.3 update they released which got de-noised a whole bunch more? As it says they removed a huge amount of noise with that.

Personally, would be waiting for Berlin Woodwinds as well...but the price :/
 
Essentially for me right now I'm looking for the perfect balance in playability, sound and price. I went with CineSamples because I believe that with the EDU discount this is what I'm getting, especially with CS Pro and CineHarps coming soon. I would have definitely bought Spitfire, but the price for everything I need (Full Symphony Orchestra with Harps, Percussion, Solo Strings and Runs/ Effects) is not justifiable for me at the moment. That said, it's probably the next thing I'm buying once I get acquainted with composing with VIs.
Any tips for a beginner on processing CineSamples?
 
There is no one specific library for creating the "film cue" feeling. Working with samples is like learning to play an instrument. It takes time and practice to get the sound you want, and if you practice enough, you can get that sound with any sample library. For as good as they sound, neither the Cinesamples or Spitfire libraries are going to instantly make your work sound fantastic. My suggestion is that you mix and match, buy more than one library for each orchestral section, and learn to layer and tweak and work with them as if you're learning to play the violin. I have been working with samples for quite some time now and am still well off the mark.
 
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