# [Spitfire Audio] BBC Symphony Orchestra (Review)



## Jack McKenzie

Still wondering whether you should pick up the BBC Symphony Orchestra from Spitfire Audio? Check out my 6 Months On overview:


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## yiph2

Great review! Just curious about how much memory is used in say 10 tracks. THanks!


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## Jack McKenzie

Thank you! At the moment they are still working out the details either the memory. It also depends on what patches you load up! For instance legato patches and extended legato patches will require much more memory than sustains or shorts. For 10 tracks on average you’re looking at 2-3GB


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## yiph2

Thanks! I'm a bit iffy on this, as I only have 8GB RAM... Did you buy with the SSD they sell>


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## Jack McKenzie

No, I run my samples off an NVME M.2 drive. It’s a PCIe based ssd designed to fit into the PCIe lanes on a motherboard. They are extremely fast. However I use it with a USBC enclosure (the bottleneck of USBC is around 900MB/s) so it’s still much faster than a SATA based drive.

Regarding the RAM I’d say you’re looking upwards of 16GB nowadays to be able to handle everything


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## yiph2

Yea, looking to upgrade to MBP with 32 or 64 RAM this year


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## Jack McKenzie

I have an i7, 32gb RAM 2018 MBP that works as my portable rig. It unfortunately was the era of MBP that had the heating issue so it gets very warm. I think that issue is fixed. My main rig I work form a i9 72gb iMac which handles everything I throw at it!


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## Jeremy Spencer

If I load the entire BBCSO orchestra on my MB Pro it’s 10.5 GB. For each instance, I purge every articulation except for the single one I am using. The stupid thing is, when you create a new instance (ie: violins 1), it automatically loads every articulation for violins 1. This is why having that purge feature is a lifesaver, and saves you a TON of resources.


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## yiph2

Thanks! A couple of questions: Did you buy BBCSO with the SSD? And was 10.5 GB shown on the plugin, or the overall memory (like with your DAW)

Also, how do you purge BBCSO? I don't think it shows that on the manual
Thanks!


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## Jeremy Spencer

No, the SSD was a rip off, I bought another 1Tb Samsung T5. That 10.5 GB is what shows in my Mac’s resource utility, and if I load up Christian’s “light” template from the SF website, it’s the same. 

Purging is easy. Inside the player, there’s a little edit button down by the articulations (a little pencil?). If you click on that, another screen opens and you can remove or add whatever you want. I usually just hit the little trash can icon and clear it out, then select the articulation from the list on the left hand side.


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## yiph2

Thanks! About the SSD, rip off? I just searched the model they used, on amazon its about $80 less, but Spitfire's one has free shipping (to my country it's quite expensive), and it's optimized. What do you think it's a ripoff?


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## Jeremy Spencer

Well, I guess it all depends on your situation. In my case, I paid $99 for a 1tb Samsung T5, so it made sense. Plus, my download speed is excellent so downloading was not a concern.


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## yiph2

Oh, strange, I checked on amazon and it was like $200...


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## Jeremy Spencer

yiph2 said:


> Oh, strange, I checked on amazon and it was like $200...



I got mine six months ago from a local store, they often have sales.


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## brenneisen

10:40, spiccato... flute?


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## yiph2

Wolfie2112 said:


> If I load the entire BBCSO orchestra on my MB Pro it’s 10.5 GB. For each instance, I purge every articulation except for the single one I am using. The stupid thing is, when you create a new instance (ie: violins 1), it automatically loads every articulation for violins 1. This is why having that purge feature is a lifesaver, and saves you a TON of resources.


I remember there was a way to make nothing load when you first open it. Not sure how tho


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## Jack McKenzie

brenneisen said:


> 10:40, spiccato... flute?


*Staccatissimo! Although spiccato flute might be an interesting sound!


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## RogiervG

ouch those brass instruments still sound horrible in higher dynamics.. time for a fix spitfire! asap...


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## Jett Hitt

Thanks for a great review! I think to comfortably run this library, you need 32 GB of RAM. It takes roughly 24 GB to load the whole library in Logic. I also think that it is a misnomer to say that it has a purge function because too many people are going to confuse it with the purge in Kontakt, which purges all of the samples and not just the ones that you are not using. It is semantics, but confusing nonetheless. With Kontakt, you could purge all of the samples and probably get by with a much smaller amount of RAM. I am hoping that Spitfire eventually adds the ability to completely purge the samples. In general, though, I find the Spitfire player to be great.

There are obvious shortcomings with this library, but it is a whole lot of bang for your buck. One can only hope that Spitfire will address some of the problems. The solo horn patch is just terrible, as Jack ably demonstrated. I find myself using 4 horns or reaching for a different library every time I need a solo horn. 

Supposedly there is a big update coming, or I hear those rumors anyway. Perhaps some of the issues will be addressed. At the end of the day, this would be my desert island library, even as is. Nothing else in my arsenal comes close to producing such an authentic sound. I recommend it to all of my students who have the horsepower to run it.


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## Alex Fraser

Wolfie2112 said:


> If I load the entire BBCSO orchestra on my MB Pro it’s 10.5 GB. For each instance, I purge every articulation except for the single one I am using.


I assume that 10.5 GB is after you've purged the articulations, and only one mix/mic?
Thanks - A


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## Jeremy Spencer

Alex Fraser said:


> I assume that 10.5 GB is after you've purged the articulations, and only one mix/mic?
> Thanks - A



Correct. I found that I really only use the main default mic mix anyways.


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## Kwamena

Jack McKenzie said:


> No, I run my samples off an NVME M.2 drive. It’s a PCIe based ssd designed to fit into the PCIe lanes on a motherboard. They are extremely fast. However I use it with a USBC enclosure (the bottleneck of USBC is around 900MB/s) so it’s still much faster than a SATA based drive.
> 
> Regarding the RAM I’d say you’re looking upwards of 16GB nowadays to be able to handle everything



Same setup that I have as well. There are thunderbolt enclosures for NMVE drives but they are still VERY expensive. TB would give you 10Gbps so hoping that the technology becomes a bit more available/cheaper! 

I run BBCSO with 16gb and its fine even in a little bit bigger cues in Logic. Smaller cues are a breeze.


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## Jack McKenzie

Kwamena said:


> Same setup that I have as well. There are thunderbolt enclosures for NMVE drives but they are still VERY expensive. TB would give you 10Gbps so hoping that the technology becomes a bit more available/cheaper!
> 
> I run BBCSO with 16gb and its fine even in a little bit bigger cues in Logic. Smaller cues are a breeze.


The thunderbolt enclosures are SUPER expensive! It would be great to get those speeds! But I mainly went for NVME in case I was looking to go down the pc slave route I could wire them directly into the PCIe lanes of my motherboard


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## Jack McKenzie

Jett Hitt said:


> Thanks for a great review! I think to comfortably run this library, you need 32 GB of RAM. It takes roughly 24 GB to load the whole library in Logic. I also think that it is a misnomer to say that it has a purge function because too many people are going to confuse it with the purge in Kontakt, which purges all of the samples and not just the ones that you are not using. It is semantics, but confusing nonetheless. With Kontakt, you could purge all of the samples and probably get by with a much smaller amount of RAM. I am hoping that Spitfire eventually adds the ability to completely purge the samples. In general, though, I find the Spitfire player to be great.
> 
> There are obvious shortcomings with this library, but it is a whole lot of bang for your buck. One can only hope that Spitfire will address some of the problems. The solo horn patch is just terrible, as Jack ably demonstrated. I find myself using 4 horns or reaching for a different library every time I need a solo horn.
> 
> Supposedly there is a big update coming, or I hear those rumors anyway. Perhaps some of the issues will be addressed. At the end of the day, this would be my desert island library, even as is. Nothing else in my arsenal comes close to producing such an authentic sound. I recommend it to all of my students who have the horsepower to run it.


The purge option in the kontakt player is a life saver. This uses Spitfire’s own plugin. It would be great to see a function similar to the purge function in kontakt maybe down the line. It would definitely save a lot of people some memory!


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## Jett Hitt

Jack McKenzie said:


> The purge option in the kontakt player is a life saver. This uses Spitfire’s own plugin. It would be great to see a function similar to the purge function in kontakt maybe down the line. It would definitely save a lot of people some memory!


Surely this function is in the works. It would make the library so much more useful to a lot of people.


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