# A request for a bit more objectivity regarding Spitfire



## muk (Jan 13, 2017)

Without wanting to be rude or to pick a fight, I have to say that the threads about Spitifire Audio, completely devoid of any information other than how great they are, are getting a bit overbearing at the moment in my opinion. I am sure Spitfire is a great company, run by nice people, producing great sample libraries. But they are not the only ones, even though you might get that impression scanning through vi-c at the moment.

I am all for sharing your enthusiasm for a certain product. And I understand completely that one can get excited about upcoming products. But frankly, in my opinion the amount of empty hype on this forum has crossed the border to sillyness and trolling in the past few weeks. No hard feelings towards anybody, but I can't help but feeling a bit alienated from both the forum and the developer.

If I want to get balanced information about sample libraries, and a multitude of opinions, I feel I can find them here. Except for anything Spitfire. There's just one big wave of teaser threads, fanboyism that doesn't allow for anything critical being said, and cheering at repackagings.
I know I can simply ignore these threads - and I'll certainly try to. But I can't help to think that the community is heading in a direction that I find questionable in this particular case. And I wonder why that may be so.

So, please leave some room for other developers, other products. By all means be enthusiastic about the products you love, and don't be afraid to share that enthusiasm. But please try to keep things in perspective. And most of all, leave some room for actually discussing the products at hand.

Sorry for the rant, but I had to get it off my chest.


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## Arbee (Jan 14, 2017)

Rant accepted and endorsed, I had to go to another forum for a while to escape it. Must say though that others seem to "have their turn" at this, not just Spitfire - although "Masse" hysteria  seems to have taken over this forum for now. When what I read and what I hear are so bizarrely and totally unrelated, I really don't know what to say.


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## muk (Jan 14, 2017)

The hysteria about repackagings is a bit off-putting to me. It's not even any new samples. Is this some sort of common internet phenomenon? Lately I've been starting to wonder what happened that Spitfire is so copiously represented and unanimously endorsed here.


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## Ashermusic (Jan 14, 2017)

Here is my view. Whether it is pro or anti any specific developer, one chowderhead writes something, another chowderhead reads it and paraphrases it, and before you know, a whole bunch of chowderheads have and it is then the conventional wisdom. It is just like High School.

I have always made up my own mind and not run with the crowd, something that ironically I was forced to learn to do in High School


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## Quasar (Jan 14, 2017)

I dunno. I think for the most part (when you read for a cumulative, aggregate result) one can get good info here about the various library developers, including Spitfire, and to an extent this is just a case of the cream rising to the top.

But there's also the group-think aspect, which is probably impossible to get around as long as human beings band together in groups. There is a snowball effect in which certain opinions become popular and are parroted to the point where they become unquestioned truisms. You just have to recognize and read past this if you want more objective info.

And you do get valid criticism here. For instance, someone just pointed out that Masse sounds synthy on the longs. (My own view is that of course it does, because if you have a massive ensemble of voices that can be triggered by hitting a single G note on a keyboard, it's going to render in a precise and unnatural way, but OT).

What bothers me most about the popular, high-end developers is not something I can really blame them for, because they're simply utilizing the dominant economic system of the time and place in which they live: Socially Darwinistic capitalism in which demand is exploited for the purpose of maximizing monetary profit however they can. So, in the case of Spitfire, you can't resell the libraries, and any perks or special offers tend to be olive branches offered as rewards to the high-dollar spenders, not invitations to expand the user base to people of limited means. But why would you bother to try and market to the poor? The poor don't have any money. Plus, by making your company attractive to everyone, your product loses the sheen of exclusivity that appeals to peoples' arrogance and sense of self-importance, essentially devaluing your product.

I'm not suggesting that rich people are more arrogant than poor people. People in general are vain. It's just that those with money can express their vanity by spending it, while poor people need to find alternative means to achieve the same ends, and those means are generally of little interest to people who market expensive stuff.

If I were a philanthropic billionaire like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, I would commission the very best library developers, hire the best orchestras, instrumentalists and audio engineers, pay them LOTS of money and have ultra-high quality VIs & sample libraries created to cover the gamut of the various musical genres and make them all available for free. If any billionaires happen upon this thread, please consider doing this...


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## Ashermusic (Jan 14, 2017)

Tug, arguably health care should be a right for all, regardless of income. I don 't think you can make the same argument for high end sample libraries

And there are now inexpensive but terrific sounding choices that if one cannot make good sounding music with them, one probably cannot make good sounding music with any of them.


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## erica-grace (Jan 14, 2017)

muk said:


> Without wanting to be rude or to pick a fight, I have to say that the threads about Spitifire Audio, completely devoid of any information other than how great they are, are getting a bit overbearing at the moment in my opinion. I am sure Spitfire is a great company, run by nice people, producing great sample libraries. But they are not the only ones, even though you might get that impression scanning through vi-c at the moment.
> 
> I am all for sharing your enthusiasm for a certain product. And I understand completely that one can get excited about upcoming products. But frankly, in my opinion the amount of empty hype on this forum has crossed the border to sillyness and trolling in the past few weeks. No hard feelings towards anybody, but I can't help but feeling a bit alienated from both the forum and the developer.
> 
> ...



So, you want some people to say they like the product and are excited about it, but not that many people? Because I cant imagine you want everyone to stay silent. So, some would be ok, but only some, right? Well, how do we determine when the amount of empty hype is too excessive? And who gets to make that determination?


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## muk (Jan 14, 2017)

Your commons sense, Erica. If the majority of people on the forum are ok with the way things are now, don't mind my rant. For me personally, it has become embarassing in the past weeks to the point of questioning exactly that commonsense of the userbase here. I also started wondering if Spitfire is the biggest contributor towards the running costs of the forum, and therefor gets to get the most exposure. For the sake of transparency I would like to know that.

In any case, things look out of proportion to me at the moment. There are other developers than Spitfire making fine libraries, giving out discounts, and so on. And I find they are unjustly underrepresented on this forum right now. So I wanted to know if it's just me, or if others feel the same way.


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## Ashermusic (Jan 14, 2017)

erica-grace said:


> So, you want some people to say they like the product and are excited about it, but not that many people? Because I cant imagine you want everyone to stay silent. So, some would be ok, but only some, right? Well, how do we determine when the amount of empty hype is too excessive? And who gets to make that determination?




I think the point is that there is a big difference between saying, "I like the way Library X handles legatos and all their instruments seem to do this well" or "I really like the sound of the venue they use" and saying drivel like "These guys rock! They are awesome! Take my money please" etc.

One is thoughtful, the other is just noise.


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## erica-grace (Jan 14, 2017)

muk said:


> Your commons sense, Erica. If the majority of people on the forum are ok with the way things are now, don't mind my rant. For me personally, it has become embarassing in the past weeks to the point of questioning exactly that commonsense of the userbase here. I also started wondering if Spitfire is the biggest contributor towards the running costs of the forum, and therefor gets to get the most exposure. For the sake of transparency I would like to know that.
> 
> In any case, things look out of proportion to me at the moment. There are other developers than Spitfire making fine libraries, giving out discounts, and so on. And I find they are unjustly underrepresented on this forum right now. So I wanted to know if it's just me, or if others feel the same way.



look - I don't disagree with your viewpoint. This forum should probably change it's name to V.I.FanboyWorld.

So while I do think things are going a little too far, I am just not sure how you police it, without censorship. Which I think woul be a really bad idea.


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## Quasar (Jan 14, 2017)

Ashermusic said:


> Tug, arguably health care should be a right for all, regardless of income. I don 't think you can make the same argument for high end sample libraries
> 
> And there are now inexpensive but terrific sounding choices that if one cannot make good sounding music with them, one probably cannot make good sounding music with any of them.



Jay, I completely concur about health care, and agree that sample libraries don't quite fall under the same umbrella, at least not in terms of prioritization. You are also quite right that if one can afford a bit of computer/musical hardware, there are currently zero economic barriers to being able to use a DAW to create great music if one has the chops to do so. If you have talent, you can go 100% freeware on the software side. But two points:

1) I didn't _demand_ that the billionaire class make high-end sample libraries available for free. I just think it would be nice if they did. (On the other hand, I can and do spout off about universal, single-payer health care as a human right.)

2) Why should _anything_ be stratified on the basis of money? Why is money (they don't call it "the bottom line" for nothing) the god of the developed world? Under Jim Crow, people couldn't eat at the same restaurants or stay in the same hotels based on ethnicity, but people seldom question the legitimacy of discrimination based on wealth, even as the capitalist paradigm - with it's invariable laser-like focus on the maximization of individual short-term monetary profit at the expense of everything else - is quite literally destroying the habitable ecosystems of the earth. As the late Paul Kantner once sang: _Sign me up as a diplomat. My only office is the park._ We need a new paradigm...


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## Ashermusic (Jan 14, 2017)

If we are going to discuss Capitalism vs Socialism vs Communism, that should be a separate thread.


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## chimuelo (Jan 14, 2017)

As an Independent source of truth & justice I hear by offer my services to make an independent evalualtion of thier entire range of instruments and set the record straight.

Spitfire I can be reached via pm.
I will perform a 30 day evaluation period free of charge.

We shall seek to see if this chowderness exists and set the record straight.

Chimuelo

Star of Stage & Screen


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## muk (Jan 14, 2017)

We agree that censorship would be a terrible idea. But I don't think that it is the only thing that can be done about it. I thought bringing it out in the open to discuss it, and asking for a little objectivity and commonsense from the users could be a good start.


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## tack (Jan 14, 2017)

Yes, moderation or censorship is not the way. I suspect that if the more egregious gushing fanboys knew the rest of us were watching with raised eyebrows and folded arms that might well be enough to temper a lot of the noise.

I can say that being witness to the past few weeks here has had a _self_-censoring effect on me.


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## Baron Greuner (Jan 14, 2017)

I get censored here all the time because of my fucking language.


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## robgb (Jan 14, 2017)

muk said:


> No hard feelings towards anybody, but I can't help but feeling a bit alienated from both the forum and the developer.


 Took the words right out of my mouth. I have a Spitfire library that I love. But many of the posts about them on this forum remind of the fan boys who felt Apple could do no wrong.


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## robgb (Jan 14, 2017)

Arbee said:


> I had to go to another forum for a while to escape it. Must say though that others seem to "have their turn" at this, not just Spitfire - although "Masse" hysteria  seems to have taken over this forum for now.


I, frankly, don't get the hysteria over Masse. My impression of the walkthrough was "meh." And I like Spitfire's libraries.


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## Arbee (Jan 14, 2017)

muk said:


> We agree that censorship would be a terrible idea. But I don't think that it is the only thing that can be done about it. I thought bringing it out in the open to discuss it, and asking for a little objectivity and commonsense from the users could be a good start.


Adding to this, I have a concern that newcomers to this forum can be swept away immediately by such group-think and assume that everyone here believes Spitfire (or whoever is the flavour at the time) is the only developer any self-respecting professional should aspire to buy from. This of course delights the developer as successful social media marketing, but it's simply not true.

Thus I too feel very alienated by this current wave. I purchased a Spitfire library (percussion) once, and despite my respect for it, it doesn't suit my taste and nor do any other Spitfire libraries for the same sonic reasons (like listening through a sock to my ears, and don't get me started on legato). I prefer libraries with more presence and more flexibility (e.g. I wish ProjectSAM would sprinkle some of their sonic magic on a dedicated string library).

In regard to Masse itself, the euphoria seems mainly around it being a free add on. What I've heard of it has me rushing to Omnishere (or any other great pad synth) to make sure I haven't lost my mind after reading the raves here.

Anyway, and again with no disrespect to Spitfire or any other hard working developer, this is what a forum should be about and I'm glad there is a voice for those not on the fanboy bus.


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## muk (Jan 15, 2017)

Thanks Arbee, I completely agree with this.


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## Baron Greuner (Jan 15, 2017)

The amount of times I've mentioned here, do not buy anything you won't use or make any money from is inumarable but it's a waste of time, because coming from a successfully strong sales background, I know people don't buy anything more or less on that basis. From food, to cars, to beds to sample libraries.
Anyone in sales knows this and that's how you make money. The psychology of sales is with us every second of the day. This is why you get people that are known as poachers turned gamekeepers.


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## G.R. Baumann (Jan 15, 2017)

muk said:


> But frankly, in my opinion the amount of empty hype on this forum has crossed the border to sillyness and trolling in the past few weeks.



I expressed that in various ways over time. It this self aggrandizing attitude, over the top "britishness", hyperbole and excessive praise exercised to the point of being utterly risible that caused me to ignore most of the spitfire threads.

How often do they think I am going to read all that redundant blah about the greatness of their process, superhuman efforts and the resulting a-first-time-on-the-planet products?

Again, this is not about their products, but the way the forum is bombarded with Spitfire "News & Teasers." The question whether their re-packaging and slice and dice salami tactics is worth the price they are asking, well, this is up to each individual to decide upon.

A little humble pie goes a long way if you ask me.


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## mc_deli (Jan 15, 2017)

I agree with this too.
I wrote a choir post with "sheep" in the title specifically about this phenomenon - it sank without trace to be replaced by other wild celebratory choir threads. Love SA and they are rocking the marketing very well - actually they are slaughtering it, really - but it would be nice if this forum had some more balance.

The other factor here is that the other giants (NI, EW, VSL, others?) are very very quiet on this forum - basically non-existent. Output are super slick, and there are plenty of others that are doing great things and communicate well (OT of course) ... but there's not a company really competing with SA - at least, on this forum, is there...?


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## markleake (Jan 17, 2017)

I get the feeling that people misinterpret some of the threads on this forum. If you look at the Masse thread, it is mostly full of jokes, often lighthearted stabs at Spitfire. If you aren't a fan, sure I guess that could be annoying, but it was only one thread that you don't have to read.

In hindsight, when I go through the Masse threads (including the Sample Talk one) after Masse was made available, there wasn't really much hype about it. People were straight away saying it can sometimes sound synthy, including me. There were also multiple bugs and issues that a few of us posted about the library. I don't think anyone was disingenuous about the library, and I don't think anyone with contrary opinions was shouted down. My personal opinion is it is a very good library for what it sets out to do, although I may have some specific uses for it that many others wouldn't.

Also, it's a bit unrealistic to think a free library wouldn't be welcomed by Spitfire fans... to expect otherwise I think is odd.


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## NoamL (Jan 19, 2017)

muk said:


> The hysteria about repackagings is a bit off-putting to me. It's not even new samples.



Finally someone said it!

SF obviously is one of the best sample library providers out there, I use them every single day at work, but SSS/SSB/SSO whatever *is* BML. Sometimes on this forum it feels like people are acting like it's a totally new thing!

There is definitely groupthink on this forum to a huge extent. For example someone recently asked what library to use for a cinematic chamber strings sound and I/others recommended LASS divisi, Berlin Strings, and Sable, but only person mentioned Light & Sound CS.

It's the same thing with brass where people talk endlessly about HWB/SF/SM/BBr but less so about Bravura, Chris Hein, and other options.

Also people have a tendency to confidently recommend libraries they own and like with superlatives like Best Library Ever even if they haven't tried the alternatives.


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## markleake (Jan 19, 2017)

NoamL said:


> SF obviously is one of the best sample library providers out there, I use them every single day at work, but SSS/SSB/SSO whatever *is* BML. Sometimes on this forum it feels like people are acting like it's a totally new thing!


I think most of the excitement is due to it now being an easy package to consider purchasing, and the cost being less. But you are right, there do seem to be a number of people around who aren't aware that these libs are re-packaged BML (although to be clear Spitfire did add significant new content beyond BML).

I've seen recent conversations around chamber strings where I've thrown the Light & Sound CS option into the ring. These do tend to get a bit overlooked, along with good libraries like Bravura. :(


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## desert (Jan 19, 2017)

erica-grace said:


> look - I don't disagree with your viewpoint. This forum should probably change it's name to V.I.FanboyWorld.
> 
> So while I do think things are going a little too far, I am just not sure how you police it, without censorship. Which I think woul be a really bad idea.


Agree with no censorship, however, some light moderation could help:

Example:
The new SA NAMM 2017 thread. Can't we have a mega NAMM thread stickied and allow other developers to be mentioned in that thread?

_(I also mean no disrespect to Spitfire but was only using it as an example)_


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## NYC Composer (Jan 19, 2017)

I mean this with total sincerity. I'm not being ironic here:

Wtf is wrong with "disrespecting" Spitfire Audio? Maybe I missed something-were they declared a religion by the United Nations? Are they a previously undiscovered ethnic group?

Please enlighten me. I thought they were a vendor, a purveyor of products, subject to the slings and arrows and general opinions of consumers.


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## desert (Jan 19, 2017)

NYC Composer said:


> I mean this with total sincerity. I'm not being ironic here:
> 
> Wtf is wrong with "disrespecting" Spitfire Audio? Maybe I missed something-were they declared a religion by the United Nations? Are they a previously undiscovered ethnic group?
> 
> Please enlighten me. I thought they were a vendor, a purveyor of products, subject to the slings and arrows and general opinions of consumers.


Haha it's true but I haven't had a problem with their business so I don't want to come across as a dick


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## Jaap (Jan 20, 2017)

Dunno, never liked the spitfire sound (and yeah you can sable me down for that one  ), but on the other hand I like the enthousiasm some have here about the products. I think there is nothing wrong with a bit of fanboy behaviour now and then as long as there is room for constructive critism as well and when it gets too much you can simply skip the rest of the thread and move on. There is wide variety of users here and when someone asks a question about which library to pick more then often you get a lot options and not just the spitfire ones.

I think it gets troublesome (and where slight moderation should get in) if you are not allowed to critic anything Spitfire related and so far (unless I missed something) that has not been the case I thought.


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## markleake (Jan 20, 2017)

Jaap said:


> Dunno, never liked the spitfire sound (and yeah you can sable me down for that one  ), but on the other hand I like the enthousiasm some have here about the products. I think there is nothing wrong with a bit of fanboy behaviour now and then as long as there is room for constructive critism as well and when it gets too much you can simply skip the rest of the thread and move on. There is wide variety of users here and when someone asks a question about which library to pick more then often you get a lot options and not just the spitfire ones.
> 
> I think it gets troublesome (and where slight moderation should get in) if you are not allowed to critic anything Spitfire related and so far (unless I missed something) that has not been the case I thought.


+1 to this. Very sensible comment.


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## tonaliszt (Jan 20, 2017)

It has always been offputting to me that Spitfire's marketing (as well as those videos with that Oliver guy, I forget what they are called) makes it seem that film music = soft piano + flautando pad. 

It is especially irritating, as Andy Blaney can clearly write his socks off, but creating that kind of traditional, real orchestra sound seems to be an afterthought with the libraries/marketing/walkthroughs.


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## muk (Jan 21, 2017)

Glad to read that others too noticed a Spitfire-centrism on this forum. There's yet another thread from a newcomer asking if he should buy Spitfire or OT. Apparently no other developers are of interest. How comes no newcomer ever inquires about VSL SE? In my opinion that's a smart package to start out, and high value for the price. But yeah, I guess there's not much more that can be done about it. Still, it's good to read that I am not alone with this opinion.


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## markleake (Jan 21, 2017)

muk said:


> How comes no newcomer ever inquires about VSL SE?


I think there are some pretty easy explanations for that, rather than conspiracy theories. VSL is seen as expensive and hard to understand how their products fit together. Trust me, that was one of the first places I started when I was new to this... I walked away both baffled and looking for something cheaper.


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## JohnG (Jan 21, 2017)

markleake said:


> these libs are re-packaged BML



Not to derail the thread but this statement -- that the new versions are the same as BML -- is not strictly correct. There are tons of fixes and there is new content. In some cases, there are more mic positions in the BML versions, though some of the new libraries have the full set. Also, there are new articulations in some cases in the consolidated section libraries.

FWIW, I'm relieved that Spitfire's orchestral library families (winds, strings, brass) are being consolidated to reduce the number of different individual libraries that need to be updated.

As far as the rest of the thread, have at it, if you feel like it. Personally, I am very happy with Spitfire libraries. And my other libraries from other developers; I like virtual instruments. Sometimes I have objected to what I consider unfair or petty criticism of developers, Spitfire included, but by no means restricted to Spitfire. I think that's part of the function of a forum: debate.

I think it's bonkers to argue that people need to be "protected" from enthusiastic customers' opinions.


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## NYC Composer (Jan 21, 2017)

JohnG said:


> Not to derail the thread but this statement -- that the new versions are the same as BML -- is not strictly correct. There are tons of fixes and there is new content. In some cases, there are more mic positions in the BML versions, though some of the new libraries have the full set. Also, there are new articulations in some cases in the consolidated section libraries.
> 
> FWIW, I'm relieved that Spitfire's orchestral library families (winds, strings, brass) are being consolidated to reduce the number of different individual libraries that need to be updated.
> 
> ...


Probably also bonkers that consumers need to be protected from seeded threads, predatory lending practices or any general disinformation. Caveat Emptor, eh?

So in the spirit of forum debate, this:

1. If you have the money and want to buy good but costly products despite what your needs are, please have at it and enjoy yourselves.

2. If you're on a limited budget and just starting out, don't assume you need costly products to learn your craft, or even to make good music. I'm here to tell you that you don't, and there's plenty of good advice here to suggest otherwise. I have early examples, if anyone would like to PM. Cheers.


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## markleake (Jan 21, 2017)

JohnG said:


> Not to derail the thread but this statement -- that the new versions are the same as BML -- is not strictly correct. There are tons of fixes and there is new content. In some cases, there are more mic positions in the BML versions, though some of the new libraries have the full set. Also, there are new articulations in some cases in the consolidated section libraries.
> 
> FWIW, I'm relieved that Spitfire's orchestral library families (winds, strings, brass) are being consolidated to reduce the number of different individual libraries that need to be updated.
> 
> ...


I think maybe you didn't read my post fully...


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## tonaliszt (Feb 10, 2017)

Looks like there is some real pushback against spitfire in their current commercial thread. Nearly all the posts are negative/sarcastic.


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## markleake (Feb 10, 2017)

That's like most of their teaser threads. It's just people having a bit of fun. Spitfire enjoy it I think.


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## desert (Feb 10, 2017)

markleake said:


> That's like most of their teaser threads. It's just people having a bit of fun. Spitfire enjoy it I think.


Of course. Look at the impressions they are making. Over 4k views


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## Deleted member 422019 (Feb 12, 2017)

muk said:


> Without wanting to be rude or to pick a fight, I have to say that the threads about Spitifire Audio, completely devoid of any information other than how great they are, are getting a bit overbearing at the moment in my opinion. I am sure Spitfire is a great company, run by nice people, producing great sample libraries. But they are not the only ones, even though you might get that impression scanning through vi-c at the moment.
> 
> I am all for sharing your enthusiasm for a certain product. And I understand completely that one can get excited about upcoming products. But frankly, in my opinion the amount of empty hype on this forum has crossed the border to sillyness and trolling in the past few weeks. No hard feelings towards anybody, but I can't help but feeling a bit alienated from both the forum and the developer.
> 
> ...



It's human nature, the herd instinct specifically, that causes people to identify with a particular product. In 3 years the next fad will hit the market and people will claim it's the greatest library. Two components come to mind, 1) conformity and 2) insecurity. Same thing happened with Pro Tools, if you didn't use it you were not "professional". Never mind that other DAWs, including Sonar, Digital Performer, and now even Reaper, have features that are equal to or better than Pro Tools. Insecurity, which in the music business is kind of built into the game, also causes people to believe that if they have the latest and greatest tool, that somehow legitimizes whatever talent they may, or may not, have. I am sure Spitfire is a fine library, and a talented musician can make it sound really good. But a talented musician could also make much older libraries sound good too, so what does that imply? No doubt, some libraries are much better than others, particularly if we compare libraries on the market today versus libraries made 15 years ago. But often, new doesn't mean better. A Stradivarius violin is ample proof of that.


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## Quasar (Feb 12, 2017)

jsg said:


> It's human nature, the herd instinct specifically, that causes people to identify with a particular product. In 3 years the next fad will hit the market and people will claim it's the greatest library. Two components come to mind, 1) conformity and 2) insecurity. Same thing happened with Pro Tools, if you didn't use it you were not "professional". Never mind that other DAWs, including Sonar, Digital Performer, and now even Reaper, have features that are equal to or better than Pro Tools. Insecurity, which in the music business is kind of built into the game, also causes people to believe that if they have the latest and greatest tool, that somehow legitimizes whatever talent they may, or may not, have. I am sure Spitfire is a fine library, and a talented musician can make it sound really good. But a talented musician could also make much older libraries sound good too, so what does that imply? No doubt, some libraries are much better than others, particularly if we compare libraries on the market today versus libraries made 15 years ago. But often, new doesn't mean better. A Stradivarius violin is ample proof of that.



I'm tentatively inclined to agree with your comments about the herd instinct and its psychosocial underpinnings of conformity (with group-conferred & confirmed pride as a sub-category) and insecurity, but feel as though I should wait until I see how others here think about this before committing to an opinion. If enough other forum members "like" your comment, I will hit the "like" button, too.


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## Deleted member 422019 (Feb 12, 2017)

Tugboat said:


> I'm tentatively inclined to agree with your comments about the herd instinct and its psychosocial underpinnings of conformity (with group-conferred & confirmed pride as a sub-category) and insecurity, but feel as though I should wait until I see how others here think about this before committing to an opinion. If enough other forum members "like" your comment, I will hit the "like" button, too.



haha ;>)


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## Jaap (Feb 12, 2017)

Tugboat said:


> I'm tentatively inclined to agree with your comments about the herd instinct and its psychosocial underpinnings of conformity (with group-conferred & confirmed pride as a sub-category) and insecurity, but feel as though I should wait until I see how others here think about this before committing to an opinion. If enough other forum members "like" your comment, I will hit the "like" button, too.



I hitted like! Though I don't always agree with Jerry I agree here


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## Parsifal666 (Feb 13, 2017)

muk said:


> The hysteria about repackagings is a bit off-putting to me. It's not even any new samples. Is this some sort of common internet phenomenon? Lately I've been starting to wonder what happened that Spitfire is so copiously represented and unanimously endorsed here.



Spitfire puts out great stuff. But no more than East West imo, and it does seem that the former's guilty of overdoing the recycles, getting (all respect to) folks kind of over the top riled up at times. Most of the time I see the premature enthusiasm as more entertaining than irritating.

I use the two every day, and I'd rather not do without either.


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## muk (Feb 17, 2017)

And here we go again. Two multipage-threads over the announcement of an announcement. I know there is an 'ignore user' function. Is there an 'ignore keyword' as well?


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## airflamesred (Feb 19, 2017)

muk said:


> And here we go again. Two multipage-threads over the announcement of an announcement. I know there is an 'ignore user' function. Is there an 'ignore keyword' as well?


I'm going to be pedantic here: It's an announcement of an announcement of the pre-order. I presume there are people who have 'paid already' but I can't think of anything I would purchase without a walkthru.


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## Jaap (Feb 19, 2017)

What I start to dislike about this way of advertising (and that's of course my personal opinion) is that I feel more and more threated like a consumer instead of a working professional who is here to read upon new and excisting tools of trade and I understand that there are a lot of hobbyists here and I can only applaude and welcome the wide variety of people here, but for me personally I don't like this marketing strategy and it backfired on me (as I also pointed out in the announcement thread).
I was wondering for myself why it backfired and guess this is the reason. I am not saying that Spitfire does it all wrong or should change strategies. Seems to work very well 
I didn't get an answer from one member in that topic though that seemed to imply that the ones have some sort of critique where "motivated" by other devs. Curious what the poster of that comment has to say about that.


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## Karsten Vogt (Feb 21, 2017)

This video describes the situation pretty well with Spitfire playing the trombone:


An announcement and 2 mins later the horde is singing in unison. And yes, it's massively exaggerated. Take it as a big act of sarcasm with a tiny little bit of truth. 



JohnG said:


> I think it's bonkers to argue that people need to be "protected" from enthusiastic customers' opinions.


Being pretty new to world I'll take this statement with a little grain of salt. When I joined here I noticed Spitfire-here-Spitfire-there pretty quickly. And with all the praise I really believed that hype. Listening to their demos, the walkthroughs, the video reviews. Everything really seemed to be perfect. I really have to give it so Spitfire: the guys are nice chaps, their libraries are very good and they even have a better marketing with a perfect platform (this forum).

I was one of the lucky guys winning the Chamber Strings (forum donation lottery). It was my first library from Spitfire and after a couple of days using it, I was astonished about the bugs, clicks and pops of that library. If I had paid that much money (700? Euro is a lot for me as a hobbyist) I'd been a bit disappointed. And once bought there is no going back (which goes for the majority of sample library developers): no demo version, no money back when unsatisfied with the product, no reselling possible. Potential costumers have to rely on honesty and integrity of both sellers and reviewers. The selling party will hardly admit any negative selling points and reviewer's won't bite the hand that feeds. In the end: it's all business.

Nevertheless I bought Albion One later which I really, really like. Perfect beginner library for a good price (on sale).


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## NYC Composer (Feb 21, 2017)

Have to say, SCS has been pretty bug free for me. I wonder if your system struggles with it performance-wise.


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## Karsten Vogt (Feb 21, 2017)

I don't think it's my system, the quirks are also within the rendered audio. Check the f-Ensembles patch, long articulation, notes A2, A#2, C#3, D3, D#3, E3 at high velocity. Maybe you notice the clicks at sample start. Or try some of the lowest keys there: the lowest G# key, the 2nd round robin is broken. Or try the Pizzicato-Bartok: B5 and C6 seem to play wrong notes. Or Tremolo: D#2 and E2 have a click noise on low velocity at sample start.


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## NYC Composer (Feb 21, 2017)

Nah. I'll take your word for it, but I don't care much. Over ten or so projects that I've used SCS in, I've yet to run into a show stopping bug. Perhaps it's just the patches I use, but either way, my experience would dictate that your concerns have not affected me, and that at the price I bought SCS (closer to 450 Euros on sale) I think it's an excellent sounding and generally well programmed product. 

I've been hard on Spitfire's marketing, but fair is fair.


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## ism (Feb 28, 2017)

But is objectivity really the *only* thing we want here? For instance, I absolutely *love* the spitfire, contra bassoon (to choose a not completely, but more or less random example). And now I suppose if I were making a bassoon-driven purchasing decision there's an argument for objective value in more objective discourse about whether this really, truly, objectively, measurably is the most amazing contrabassoon ever sampled. Though even then what is the precise quality that makes me love this bassoon so much, is hard to grasp objectively, much less articulate.

So let me propose that it is also valid to think about vi-control as a place where people can also say 'gosh, I *love* this bassoon? I had no idea that I could love the bassoons so much until I bought this basoon'. Noting in particular that there are rather few places in the world where people will listen to you effusing about how much you love, for instance, one contrabassoon or another.

Of course there's an further argument that it might be worth investigating why people like myself love certain instruments so much just to make sure that we're not completely duped by marketing. But I really don't think it's going to make me love the spitfire contrabassoon any less, or the become even a tiny bit apologetic for any related effusiveness.

Perhaps this misses the point of the original post, but it strikes me as an interesting theoretical point.


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