Spitfire Audio : Abbey Road 1 Modular Orchestra - Speculation Thread.

[Michael Antrum]

Whilst this sample library is supposed to be the most deeply sampled ever, etc, I well remember the paralysis of choice that I suffered from with the original Hollywood Strings, and to a lesser extent Synchron Strings.

I remember having to learn all the abbreviations in Hollywood strings and was never completely confident in the choices I made. When OPUS came out and simplified the choices, it made me way more productive.

Having umpteen Bartok Pizz patches, for me at least, could be more of a hindrance when writing.

The proof of the pudding will be if you can find a significant improvement over existing libraries. I suspect, for most of us at least, we will run out of talent long before the limitations of a good library are exposed.

BTW, have Spitfire announce the price yet ?

 

[Aitcpiano]

I’m expecting incremental improvement over the Appassionata legato and hopefully several different variants optimized for different situations. (It could be in the same patch, it could be divided over several patches.) I’m not expecting fundamentally new tech beyond the Appassionata innovations. But we’ll see.

Yeah I'm thinking similar to this. An AS style legato with maybe more vibrato controls. I expect there is definitely going to also be a performance legato option so it will be interesting to see if these performance legatos are much of a step up from the performance legatos you already get in things like SCS/SSS.

 

[muziksculp]

I obviously cannot be too specific, but as the developer of Appassionata I can say that for me, the AR Violins are a big big step up. But that was always the goal right? The purpose of the modular is to quite literally push the boundaries. That should be no secret at this point and we're holding ourselves to the highest possible standard.

Did you read this ^

 

[Alan.Veucasovic]

BTW, have Spitfire announce the price yet ?

You know, when I was a kid I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in theaters and literally hid behind the seat when things went south opening the Ark of the Covenant. I'm doing the same thing now anticipating the price.

 

[chrisav]

I have it, and I never reach for it. So many other libraries have "better" legato (IMO). What was the big breakthrough on this one? Did we ever find out what Impulse legato ever meant? Is this an attempt at Jasper-legato?

The big breakthrough was them finding another marketing buzzword

 

[Alex Fraser]

Folks, we’ve already heard the legatos, or at least the meat of them. Unless my grey memory is getting worse, Paul referred to them as *the* legatos. I think that whatever the library is capable of in this department, (some of) the cards are already on the table.

FWIW, seems like a nicely playable patch. Lots of different speeds, portamento etc. Noticeably no shorts though.

 

[jbuhler]

Did you read this ^

Folks who aren’t convinced that the SAS legato is nothing more than a new marketing buzz word won’t be convinced by Karma’s statement here. It won’t matter that he’s not known for engaging in sales talk hyperbole but has very much been as much of a straight shooter as someone who worked on a library can be.

That said I don’t read the statement as saying that the violin 1 library will be a vast leap over SAS into a different technological paradigm. Only that we will see a noticeable and very real improvement pretty much across the board as ideas that were tentatively worked out in SAS’s proof of concept now see something closer to their full potential realized in the modular library.

 

[Francisco Relaño Peña]

You know, when I was a kid I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in theaters and literally hid behind the seat when things went south opening the Ark of the Covenant. I'm doing the same thing now anticipating the price.

S.A. :We have top men working on the High Strings Legato.
VI-Control: Who?
S.A. :Top men.



It's just a joke without any ill-intent on Spitfire Audio or its people.

 

[Laurin Lenschow]

Folks, we’ve already heard the legatos, or at least the meat of them. Unless my grey memory is getting worse, Paul referred to them as *the* legatos. I think that whatever the library is capable of in this department, (some of) the cards are already on the table.

It's worth mentioning though that we've heard a performance legato patch played live and with two hands, so I assume programmed pieces will sound better than that initial demo.

 

[Trash Panda]

Did you read this ^

I did. I also watched PT's video. Outside of having The Sound (tm) of Abbey Road One, it didn't leap out of the speakers as anything special compared to any decent string library with true legato.

Appassionata was above average, but certainly no paradigm shift that will. change. everything.

 

[Alex Fraser]

It's worth mentioning though that we've heard a performance legato patch played live and with two hands, so I assume programmed pieces will sound better than that initial demo.

Was just about to add this, and yes.

 

[antoniopandrade]

I'm not sure what kind of crazy new tech people are expecting. It's a crossfade. The big difference comes in how you record the performances in order to get the smoothest possible crossfade between the two sustains.

Correct me if I'm being too simplistic over here, but if we're talking about traditional sampling, I'm not sure there's any mystical new tech available to make legatos sound better.

 

[Alan.Veucasovic]

S.A. :We have top men working on the High Strings Legato.
VI-Control: Who?
S.A. :Top men.



It's just a joke without any ill-intent on Spitfire Audio or its people.

Paul chose to play Marion's theme! Why? Because it's one of the best movies and SCORES of all time written by the most beloved composer of the 20th century that records at Abbey Road. Definitely caught my attention.

 

[Michael Antrum]

Correct me if I'm being too simplistic over here, but if we're talking about traditional sampling, I'm not sure there's any mystical new tech available to make legatos sound better.

Have you not heard of POWER LEGATO ?

 

[antoniopandrade]

Have you not heard of POWER LEGATO ?

I'm legitimately afraid to ask.

 

[Trash Panda]

I'm legitimately afraid to ask.

Metropolis Ark 4 marketing buzzwords.

 

[Michael Antrum]

I'm legitimately afraid to ask.

IIRC I think it was something Orchestral Tools came up with back in the day...and it quite rightly got a severe Mickey taking on these very forums.

 

[jbuhler]

Appassionata was above average, but certainly no paradigm shift that will. change. everything.

The legato of Appassionata is very distinctive but also for that reason somewhat niche. It might offer a paradigm shift of sorts if it can be effectively generalized to more legato situations. But I agree that the example Paul played didn’t stand out as appreciably above existing legatos on that passage. The question the example doesn’t really answer is: how wide is the expressive range of the legato (or sets of legatos)?

 

[Alan.Veucasovic]

Am I the only one that hears the word "Legato" in Troels' voice every time they hear it?

 

[FireGS]

I'm not sure what kind of crazy new tech people are expecting. It's a crossfade. The big difference comes in how you record the performances in order to get the smoothest possible crossfade between the two sustains.

Correct me if I'm being too simplistic over here, but if we're talking about traditional sampling, I'm not sure there's any mystical new tech available to make legatos sound better.

Thank you for saying and articulating exactly what I wanted to say.