# Better Late Than Never - Spitfire Studio Strings (Standard)



## robgb

A quick look & review.


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## robgb

Apparently I've already upset someone with this review....


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## jbuhler

I mean, personally, I like wet libraries, and find them easier to work with than dry ones, but I didn't find anything you said in the first minute especially controversial. And certainly the most common complaints about SCS and SSS do center on the difficulty of working with the wet room.


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## robgb

jbuhler said:


> I mean, personally, I like wet libraries, and find them easier to work with than dry ones, but I didn't find anything you said in the first minute especially controversial. And certainly the most common complaints about SCS and SSS do center on the difficulty of working with the wet room.


well I've always said I prefer dry libraries. I'm pretty sure I've said that multiple times on this forum. To each his own. I've been doing this for 40-something years and have developed a lot of opinions.


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## Stringtree

I don't think that's the only thing that's dry. 

A good perspective. And some real stuff with impulse responses that made me reconsider some recently formed opinions. The cheaper library didn't sound half bad with some good environment added. 

I used to get annoyed at Paul for going on about the different mic mixes. For keerissake, just play the sounds! Then I saw the value in having these different recordings. I suppose I'd rather engage the mic mixes than mess with post processing to make the hall sound right. It's for reeeeal and without delay.

Different parts of brain. 

Reaper's Reaverb is great. I've plugged in a lot of free IR's. The Speakers and Telephones guy. A lot of the IR's are in SD2 format, and I haven't been able to figure out how to deal. 

Churches and Lexicon historic stuff sounds great, but only for playback. Too much latency on RT playing. 

TL/DR: Good job on the video. 

And oh so dry. Keep dry, brother. Something is working for you.


Greg


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## Gerbil

It's a real chameleon. Fits in well in so many situations and with so many different libraries. The mic choices in the pro version are more flexible than I first thought.

In fact, the whole Studio Orchestra has grown on me over time. I know a fair few people don't seem to like the brass but I think there are a lot of really useful instruments and patches in there. If they'd just work a bit on some decent performance legatos...


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## Mornats

Thanks for the review Rob. I have this (and the rest of the 'core' studio orchestra) and really like it, partly for the dry sound. I really like how it doesn't sound like a large orchestra in a great hall with lots of room ambience. It suits what I want to use it for brilliantly and I'm finding it blends with the other libraries I want to mix it with (Heavyocity's Intimate Textures, Orchestral Swarm etc.)


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## Mornats

By the way, what's the hall reverb you use in the video?


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## robgb

Mornats said:


> By the way, what's the hall reverb you use in the video?


It's the Bricasti M7 - Rear of Chapel IR available with the free Halls of Fame convolution reverb from Best Service. I've played with the settings a bit.


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## Zero&One

robgb said:


> Apparently I've already upset someone with this review....



YouTube comment section is my favourite place. Always find comedy gold there!
Great video, agree with everything.

btw, didn’t you previously have Kontakt tweaking videos? They were great


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## robgb

Zero&One said:


> btw, didn’t you previously have Kontakt tweaking videos? They were great


I did, and will be uploading better versions in the future. Thanks.


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## jbuhler

robgb said:


> I did, and will be uploading better versions in the future. Thanks.


I find a real lack of videos that address how to make simple tweaks and scripts and multiscripts for Kontakt that help you modify commercial libraries. There's more content on how to build your own instrument but a lot of that doesn't apply in the same ways to modifications (especially what you can do under the hood that won't mess with the basic functionality of the instrument).


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## Geomir

robgb said:


> well I've always said I prefer dry libraries. I'm pretty sure I've said that multiple times on this forum. To each his own. I've been doing this for 40-something years and have developed a lot of opinions.


Hey I can totally confirm that! Really now, when I see your profile photo or nickname I immediately think: "that's the guy who adores bone-dry libraries"!  

Nice review by the way, straight to the point! I had never realized how many articulation this library offers (even the "core" version)! Excellent value-for-money!


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## Bluemount Score

Thank you for the walkthrough, Rob!


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## re-peat

Zero&One said:


> (...) Always find comedy gold there! (...)



Actually, that ‘comedy guy’ on YouTube is much more right than wrong with most of what he says. The Studio Strings, particularly the core version, isn’t a dry library. It is in fact pretty wet. It’s not because the room it was recorded in doesn’t generate a lush 3 sec. reverb, that it is a dry library. Dry or wet has got nothing to do with the kind of reverb or its length, it refers to the balance between the direct source sound and the presence of the room’s response. The more that balance favours the room (even if that room generates only a 0,5 sec. response), the wetter a library, and the Tree recordings with which the core version of the Studio Strings is assembled, definitely have plenty of room in them. Wet, alors.

You can hear the consequences of that baked-in wetness quite well in Rob’s video: even if you add a longish reverb to these samples, they still have that characteristic confined sound of samples recorded in a smaller space. That is what the comedy guy heard as well, and why he’s also right when he says: there’s no getting rid of that. There isn't.

In my opinion/experience, the Studio Strings (and the two other libraries that make up the Studio Series) are at their singular best either without any additional reverb or, if you really must, with a tasteful bit of nice chamber reverb. But as soon as you cross into ‘hall’-territory with the core versions of these libraries, the mismatch between the small baked-in space of the samples, on the one hand, and the suggestion of largeness from the added reverb, on the other, becomes rather off-putting, I find.
It’s perhaps not that insurmountable a problem with the long samples, but the shorts certainly don’t provide the ideal source material if you want to suggest a string ensemble in a large space. (Which is something I don’t understand anyone would want to do anyway. Why not buy a string library that has no such strong suggestion of ‘small space’ instead? I bought the Studio Series Pro specifically for chamber- and studio-type work, so it’s not a thing I have to worry about.)

_


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## Zero&One

re-peat said:


> Actually, that ‘comedy guy’ on YouTube...



People would think you wanted to inject some sort of drama into your reply.


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## robgb

re-peat said:


> The Studio Strings, particularly the core version, isn’t a dry library.


I believe in the video I say it's a "drier" library than the usual Spitfire offering and allows you more control. I hope no one thinks I'm suggesting it's bone dry or even close to it. That said, my feeling is that anyone trying to replicate the sound of a live (or even recorded) orchestra has a lot more problems to deal with than room reflections and added reverb.


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## ism

re-peat said:


> In my opinion/experience, the Studio Strings (and the two other libraries that make up the Studio Series) are at their singular best either without any additional reverb or, if you really must, with a tasteful bit of nice chamber reverb. But as soon as you cross into ‘hall’-territory with the core versions of these libraries, the mismatch between the small baked-in space of the samples, on the one hand, and the suggestion of largeness from the added reverb, on the other, becomes rather off-putting, I find.



Interesting. How would you critique this mix:






@robgb - curious to know how this would sit with your sense of the library's strengths also.


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## Mornats

Once I use SStO core more and more I'll most likely look at the upgrades, particularly with the strings.


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## Alex Fraser

I like it, use it daily. I agree with the comments above, having spent some time fitting the library into a template I found I preferred just a smidge of reverb. Unless you’re blatantly going for the 80’s swamped in ‘verb thing. 

I use the library as a string section for R&B and Neo-Soul stuff and for this, the sound “out of the box” works great.


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## Morning Coffee

I really enjoyed that video Rob. Well balanced sound production too, between your voiceover and the sound examples. The basses at the beginning of the video almost blew my ears off though, as I had had my headphone volume up way too load, having earlier watched youtube videos with inconsistent audio quality!


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## robgb

Morning Coffee said:


> The basses at the beginning of the video almost blew my ears off though,


Sorry about that! Unfortunately, that happens to me all the time, too. Thanks for the kind words.


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## robgb

Alex Fraser said:


> I use the library as a string section for R&B and Neo-Soul stuff and for this, the sound “out of the box” works great.


I'm finding that I prefer the closer studio space sound, even for orchestral stuff. Tired of everything being awash in reverb.


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## markleake

Great video Rob.

Like re-peat said, it does seem to imply it's a dry library, when actually that tree mic they use seems to capture a lot of the small hall's sound, and in a not-so-nice way. I think the pro version would be essential to resolve that, as the other mics sound better in their walkthroughs. This has always been my reservation about this lib, and why I haven't bought... ironic that the hall tone issue is what has kept me _away _from the library.

But still, you have a very clear and concise way of explaining and demonstrating the library. This does get my interest up again in this library.


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## robgb

markleake said:


> Like re-peat said, it does seem to imply it's a dry library, when actually that tree mic they use seems to capture a lot of the small hall's sound, and in a not-so-nice way


"While you do get the room sound of Air Studios, it's much smaller, drier, and more controllable in the mix."

This is what I say in the video, so I'm not sure why anyone thinks anything else. I believe even Spitfire calls it a "dry" library on the product page.

That aside, the way I see it is that with an actual bone dry library, the first thing I'm going to add is a small studio IR, followed by my favorite algorithmic hall reverb. So, in effect, Spitfire has eliminated that first step.

That tree mic adds nothing I (and composers like Guy Michelmore - watch his video in reverb) wouldn't add myself in that first step. While I do prefer even more control, I find nothing unpleasant about the room sound in this library.

I would like to check out the pro version, however, and hope to do that sometime soon.


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## markleake

With that one mic, I'm not too much into the sound. I think Spitfire said this tree mic captures back wall reflections, whereas the 2nd tree doesn't. So its more an observation with that particular mic having some reflection issues, or at least some people disliking the reflections in that hall captured by that mic. I don't have the library though, these were just my initial impressions when the studio libs came out. Others have commented on the same issue... its not a new observation.


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## ProfoundSilence

not saying rob suggested that, bit it DOES drive me nuts when people call clearly not dry things dry because of the tail. 

many of those libraries are actually wet(even soaking wet) but have the tail truncated with ASDR


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