# New Spitfire Strings incoming.



## Alex Fraser

I'm sure the good SF folk will be along shortly, but heads up...
https://www.soundonsound.com/news/spitfire-audio-introduce-limited-edition-aperture-library





Spitfire Audio — Originals - Essential Cinematic Ingredients


A series of instant writing tools for £29 $29 €29



www.spitfireaudio.com





Wow. Those guys are serious.

Edit: Changed the thread title to stop confusion, including my own.


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## porrasm

Bought BBCSO last month so no Aperture for me then :/


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## borisb2

it does never stop, doesn't it?


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## ridgero

Got an E-Mail von SA, but I think it's something different:


_We are excited to inform you that as an owner of the legacy Albion ONE, you will receive our new library Original — Epic Strings for free, which is being released today. You will receive an email informing you when your download is ready.

Epic Strings features content from the legacy Albion ONE which we have updated. The new library is simplified and presented in our free, easy-to-use plugin. Featuring 11 articulations and 3 signals (Close, Room and Stretch).

Can I keep using the Kontakt libraries? — Yes, you don't have to download the new versions and even if you do, you can keep the old and new versions of the product if you like. If you have any other questions please look at our http://mailout.www.spitfireaudio.com/t/52326401773167/004216015880459/ (FAQ here).

Thank you again for your continued support, and speak soon!_


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## Michael Antrum

Just got that email. Rather nice of them don't you think.

Thank you very much to all the boys and girls at Spitfire.


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## Alex Fraser

"Legacy Albion ONE" - is that old original Albion or the newer "ONE"?
Is the new now the old and the old the older?


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## ridgero

Sadly I can’t answer that question, because I bought both.


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## jbuhler

The email makes me think they ported legacy Albion One Strings to the new player. Aperture is something else entirely.


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## Patrick.K

Alex Fraser said:


> I'm sure the good SF folk will be along shortly, but heads up...
> https://www.soundonsound.com/news/spitfire-audio-introduce-limited-edition-aperture-libraryWow. Those guys are serious.



I did not find anything on the site of SF no demo or video ?
Maybe I need glasses?
Who has info?


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## Loïc D

Patrick9152 said:


> I did not find anything on the site of SF no demo or video ?
> Maybe I need glasses?
> Who has info?


So far, only published on Sound On Sound website as exclusive news.
Mail from Spitfire will follow.


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## Alex Fraser

Patrick9152 said:


> I did not find anything on the site of SF no demo or video ?
> Maybe I need glasses?
> Who has info?





jbuhler said:


> The email makes me think they ported legacy Albion One Strings to the new player. Aperture is something else entirely.


Agreed, two separate things. Nothing yet on the SF site.
I can hear the machinery of the Spitfire Marketing Machine rumbling to life..


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## jbuhler

Alex Fraser said:


> Agreed, two separate things. Nothing yet on the SF site.
> I can hear the machinery of the Spitfire Marketing Machine rumbling to life..


Encouraging buying on BF rather than waiting for mostly better prices on Wishlist sale.


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## jbuhler

Interesting that they ported the legacy Albion One Strings to the new player rather than moving the Albion One first. I also wonder what the pricing for Epic Strings will be.


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## Patrick.K

Alex Fraser said:


> Agreed, two separate things. Nothing yet on the SF site.
> I can hear the machinery of the Spitfire Marketing Machine rumbling to life..



Thank you for your feedback, and Paul and Christian will start by saying: "We are really excited to present you etc ..."


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## Patrick.K

It would be a good idea for SF, to offer us parts of their best libraries, at interesting prices, it would meet the needs of many of us, I'm wrong maybe.


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## jbuhler

Patrick9152 said:


> Thank you for your feedback, and Paul and Christian will start by saying: "We are really excited to present you etc ..."


And if I download them I’ll then have these strings in three places on my SSDs. (Original, legacy in new A1, and here, though I’m not clear if the legacy library set includes everything in this library.)


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## Alex Fraser

jbuhler said:


> And if I download them I’ll then have these strings in three places on my SSDs. (Original, legacy in new A1, and here, though I’m not clear if the legacy library set includes everything in this library.)


I'm slightly confused though - the email lists the source as being Albion ONE - but that's the specific branding given to the second version of the library, not the original "Albion I"


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## jbuhler

The email specifically said “legacy Albion One” which I took to mean the legacy Albion I Strings that also come with Albion One. But I admit the email isn’t clear. It also says the library has been “simplified.” Since it was never especially complicated except with respect to the legatos being divided over several registers and some effects I’m not sure what that might mean except fewer samples.


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## SpitfireSupport

Hi everyone! All the information you need about Aperture Strings is available in the Sound On Sound article linked above but I have created a quick article on our support site to reiterate a few of the points.









What is Aperture Strings?


Aperture Strings is only available during The Black Weekend 2019 from the 28th November to the 3rd December and it is free to anyone that spends more than $349, €349 or £299 including VAT in our st...




spitfireaudio.zendesk.com





Originals - Epic Strings is a different product which draws on content from the original, now retired Albion Volume 1, so owners of that product will get it for free. Ben


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## Alex Fraser

jbuhler said:


> The email specifically said “legacy Albion One” which I took to mean the legacy Albion I Strings that also come with Albion One. But I admit the email isn’t clear. It also says the library has been “simplified.” Since it was never especially complicated except with respect to the legatos being divided over several registers and some effects I’m not sure what that might mean except fewer samples.


Cool. I was always sniffy about missing out on the original A1 so this is good news. Hopefully the brass and woods follow..


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## D Halgren

So then, Aperture is like the Bunker Strings idea?


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## AllanH

I'm really looking forward to the Epic Strings. The stings in Albion I sounded less processed to me than the newer Albion One, especially for the long articulations. I hope spitfire continues with at least the brass from Albion I.


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## Patrick.K

SpitfireSupport said:


> Hi everyone! All the information you need about Aperture Strings is available in the Sound On Sound article linked above but I have created a quick article on our support site to reiterate a few of the points.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What is Aperture Strings?
> 
> 
> Aperture Strings is only available during The Black Weekend 2019 from the 28th November to the 3rd December and it is free to anyone that spends more than $349, €349 or £299 including VAT in our st...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> spitfireaudio.zendesk.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Originals - Epic Strings is a different product which draws on content from the original, now retired Albion Volume 1, so owners of that product will get it for free. Ben



Ok, but the Sound on Sound info is only general, so it would still be nice to publish a demo.
I can't buy without having an idea of the sounds. It's a minimum for me.


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## redlester

Alex Fraser said:


> Cool. I was always sniffy about missing out on the original A1 so this is good news. Hopefully the brass and woods follow..



But if, like me, you don't have the original Albion 1, then this reads as if you won't be able to have Epic Strings as its a free update for owners of Albion 1? Unless they also put it on sale for the rest of us.


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## jbuhler

Patrick9152 said:


> Ok, but the Sound on Sound info is only general, so it would still be nice to publish a demo.
> I can't buy without having an idea of the sounds. It's a minimum for me.


As I understand it, there's no buying Aperture. It comes as a no cost extra to anyone who purchases libraries that total more than $349.


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## redlester

Patrick9152 said:


> Ok, but the Sound on Sound info is only general, so it would still be nice to publish a demo.
> I can't buy without having an idea of the sounds. It's a minimum for me.



I don't think you can buy it anyway. It comes free if you buy other things.


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## jbuhler

redlester said:


> But if, like me, you don't have the original Albion 1, then this reads as if you won't be able to have Epic Strings as its a free update for owners of Albion 1? Unless they also put it on sale for the rest of us.


The email makes it sound like SF will be selling Epic Strings as well.


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## redlester

jbuhler said:


> The email makes it sound like SF will be selling Epic Strings as well.



Ah, fair enough.


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## CT

These were playable at the NYC event yesterday. Aperture sounded really cool, from what I could make out!


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## Sears Poncho

I've spent $1,500+ with Spitfire this year, including 300+gigs worth of String samples. If I spend $350 more, I get 5 more gigs? WOOHOO!


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## Alex Fraser

My understanding:

Aperture Strings = given away free with qualifying purchases over the Black Friday weekend. Not available any other way or any other time.

Epic Strings = start of a new product line presumably reworking older Spitfire libraries for the budget conscious. Available to purchase soon _and free _for anyone who owns the original A1 library as features the same samples/recordings.


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## John R Wilson

So will people who have only just purchased BBCSO and who were early adopters of this get the Aperture strings for free?


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## Alex Fraser

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> So will people who have only just purchased BBCSO and who were early adopters of this get the Aperture strings for free?


Doesn't look like it. It's a library given away free with qualifying purchases during the upcoming Black Weekend sale extravaganza.


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## Jeremy Spencer

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> So will people who have only just purchased BBCSO and who were early adopters of this get the Aperture strings for free?



I think that would be only fair, especially since we were the Guinea pigs.


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## John R Wilson

Alex Fraser said:


> Doesn't look like it. It's a library given away free with qualifying purchases during the upcoming Black Weekend sale extravaganza.



I personally think that is wrong of them. I would have waited until the black Friday sale to buy the BBCSO if it wasn't for the student discount only being available then. Furthermore, many early adopters who have just paid over £600 for the BBCSO have had to put up with all the initial issues with compatibility with windows and Cubase. This does seem quite unfair to early adopters of the BBCSO who have only just paid out for the BBCSO only a few weeks ago. They should be getting offered this for free as well.


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## jbuhler

Sears Poncho said:


> I've spent $1,500+ with Spitfire this year, including 300+gigs worth of String samples. If I spend $350 more, I get 5 more gigs? WOOHOO!


If only every new GB we added to our SSD collection yielded a paid gig!


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## Sears Poncho

jbuhler said:


> If only every new GB we added to our SSD collection yielded a paid gig!


There's a Christmas chart I'm writing. I MUST have Aperture Strings!


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## John R Wilson

Wolfie2112 said:


> I think that would be only fair, especially since we were the Guinea pigs.



Completely agree.


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## Benjamin Duk

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> So will people who have only just purchased BBCSO and who were early adopters of this get the Aperture strings for free?



This should definitely be the case. I mean it would just be wrong of them to not give it to people that just purchased BBCSO.


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## CT

What's the cutoff, then? The release of BBCSO? Then anyone who bought something right before *that* will want it extended to them. It's a Black Weekend promotion... so it applies to Black Weekend purchases. Makes sense to me.


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## Benjamin Duk

miket said:


> What's the cutoff, then? The release of BBCSO? Then anyone who bought something right before *that* will want it extended to them. It's a Black Weekend promotion... so it applies to Black Weekend purchases. Makes sense to me.



Well it's also a case of BBCSO being so broken on release. It's the least they can do.


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## dzilizzi

Well, I have solo strings, chamber strings and symphonic strings. I should get it since I have all the content already! 

Yeah, I'm good. Though the dial in of the loudness sounds pretty cool.


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## John R Wilson

I personally think after all the issues with the BBCSO that people have had and taking into account it was only released a few weeks ago with a lot of people paying out over £600 for it that this offer should be extended to the early adopters of the BBCSO.


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## TomislavEP

After the initial excitement caused by this offer from Spitfire, I'm a bit puzzled. Is the content of this "new" Epic Strings library audibly identical to the Albion Legacy or there is some new stuff included here? Also, what about Hi and Lo patches... it seems these are all full ensembles but in the video, the playable range seems rather narrow. If things are what they seem, this is not a much gift to me. :(

BTW, when I've seen this e-mail, at first I've thought they've decided to give Albion One for free to us Legacy owners! I know that this won't happen, but I'm still quite bitter after finally purchasing Albion Legacy by paying the old price in GBP + 25% of VAT, only a few months before its retirement which I've never suspected to happen. The same goes for Loegria, though I'm glad that I own both of these classic libraries in addition to Tundra.


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## dzilizzi

TomislavEP said:


> After the initial excitement caused by this offer from Spitfire, I'm a bit puzzled. Is the content of this "new" Epic Strings library audibly identical to the Albion Legacy or there is some new stuff included here? Also, what about Hi and Lo patches... it seems these are all full ensembles but in the video, the playable range seems rather narrow. If things are what they seem, this is not a much gift to me.
> 
> BTW, when I've seen this e-mail, at first I've thought they've decided to give Albion One for free to us Legacy owners! I know that this won't happen, but I'm still quite bitter after finally purchasing Albion Legacy by paying the old price in GBP + 25% of VAT, only a few months before its retirement which I've never suspected to happen. The same goes for Loegria, though I'm glad that I own both of these classic libraries in addition to Tundra.


i was sad that I just missed getting Legacy. When I really started looking at orchestral instruments was right before it was discontinued. I didn't know enough to grab it then. I didn't buy Albion One for a long time because everyone said the legacy one was better.


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## TomislavEP

dzilizzi said:


> i was sad that I just missed getting Legacy. When I really started looking at orchestral instruments was right before it was discontinued. I didn't know enough to grab it then. I didn't buy Albion One for a long time because everyone said the legacy one was better.



I agree. Personally, I like the orchestral sounds in Legacy much better, and in conjunction with Loegria and Tundra, they are an excellent orchestral toolkit for me. The only thing that really intrigues me in Albion One is the more extensive Stephenson Steam Band section. However, the price of the upgrade is too high after my experience with the purchase of the Legacy library.


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## AndyP

_Aperture will be exclusively available to anyone who spends over £299 at the Spitfire website over the Black Friday weekend._

Fine, then I won't get any Aperture Atrings. After the acquisition of the BBCSO, this will be the last thing I purchased from SA for a long long time.


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## Hadrondrift

A meaningful life without Aperture is possible. And it is the "Black Edition" of Aperture Strings, as the artwork at Sound On Sound indicates. Maybe we will see a green edition in a summer sale?


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## Alex Fraser

Spitfire Audio — Originals - Essential Cinematic Ingredients


A series of instant writing tools for £29 $29 €29



www.spitfireaudio.com





So, £29 quid for 2.5gb of Air strings? With 3 signals? That's quite the acceptable bargain. Looks like a re-package/remix of the original Albion I is incoming. This makes me _very happy._

Also, what is the "live" articulation? Some sort of legato?


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## NoamL

Albion 1 Legacy is good, so this is a very nice present from the Spitfire guys. Thank you!

Looking forward to your Black Friday sales as well.


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## TomislavEP

So, they send Albion I to the scrapyard, release Albion One a few months later, then the Anniversary version and now they're resurrecting the Legacy version in small bargain-priced packages while keeping the upgrade price for Kontakt version owners at more than 200€? I can understand the excitement of those who've always wished to have Albion Legacy but couldn't due to its "unavoidable" demise, but what about those users who've purchased the library in the past paying the full price in GBP? Other than this shiny new plugin...


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## Virtuoso

So the message from SA was 'No reason to wait - there won't be a better deal on BBCSO over Black Friday or Christmas!'... and then they offer Aperture strings to those who didn't rush in to order it?


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## Alex Fraser

TomislavEP said:


> So, they send Albion I to the scrapyard, release Albion One a few months later, then the Anniversary version and now they're resurrecting the Legacy version in small bargain-priced packages while keeping the upgrade price for Kontakt version owners at more than 200€? I can understand the excitement of those who've always wished to have Albion Legacy but couldn't due to its "unavoidable" demise, but what about those users who've purchased the library in the past paying the full price in GBP? Other than this shiny new plugin...


Quick guess - the new "remixed" versions don't have all the features/sounds of the original. Less signals for starters..


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## Sears Poncho

We're all brainwashed and in need of serious medical attention.  We've got SSDs so crammed with libraries that we have to delete, and now it's "Wait! Someone's getting a repackaged ensemble patch for free-ish and it ain't me? I need this!"


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## TomislavEP

Alex Fraser said:


> Quick guess - the new "remixed" versions don't have all the features/sounds of the original. Less signals for starters..



In that and any case, I will happily keep my Kontakt version of Albion Legacy. If you ask me, they've shouldn't bother with sending this "Epic Strings" offer to the Legacy owners.


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## Hadrondrift

So Spitfire selling the same sample content twice? Okay. Still a long way to beat the world champion multiple-seller: Vienna Symphonic Library, selling us the same basic sample content meanwhile already four times (Gigastudio, Kontakt, Vienna Instruments Player, Synchron Player).


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## Mornats

I've got Albion ONE which has some legacy strings stuff included. I wonder if there's any crossover between what I have and the new library.

Regardless, for £29 it's looking like a good starter strings library for beginners!


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## Mornats

Hadrondrift said:


> So Spitfire selling the same sample content twice? Okay. Still a long way to beat the world champion multiple-seller: Vienna Symphonic Library, selling us the same basic sample content meanwhile already four times (Gigastudio, Kontakt, Vienna Instruments Player, Synchron Player).



Not really, you get it for free if you already bought legacy I believe.


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## Hadrondrift

Mornats said:


> Not really, you get it for free if you already bought legacy I believe.


Oh, okay then.


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## Alex Fraser

Mornats said:


> I've got Albion ONE which has some legacy strings stuff included. I wonder if there's any crossover between what I have and the new library.
> 
> Regardless, for £29 it's looking like a good starter strings library for beginners!


Sure, I think the shorts are in Albion ONE.
I reckon more than a beginner library. This could be used in a whole range of projects, just like the Albions. Fun times.


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## Patrick de Caumette

Hopefully, the Epic Strings will include the tremolo articulation that was missing in Albion 1...


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## turnerofwheels

Patrick de Caumette said:


> Hopefully, the Epic Strings will include the tremolo articulation that was missing in Albion 1...



It doesn't look like it, going by the FAQ anyway.

So, what's the verdict? Is this worth it for those of us with Albion One (not legacy)? I already have a ton of string libraries, though this might be the kind of thing I'd instantly recommend to people who were just starting out.


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## idematoa

No Tremolo...


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## JeffvR

Wow a present with content I already have and is eating more space on my disk. Thanks!


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## AndyP

Since Epic Brass and Woodwind, drums and loops are announced, I suspect there will be a bundle at a reduced price. Not bad at all as a supplement or to start with.
Does live strings stand for legato?


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## Patrick de Caumette

Shame about the tremolo art....


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## sostenuto

SFA _ $29 _ I'm in. No tremolo .... 

Bundle will likely deduct earlier purchases.


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## AndyP

The shorts sound very good! I think I'm in for the price, too.


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## idematoa

they are 11 presets of high quality so it is not exhaustive
No legato felt in the "Live"


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## Sarah Mancuso

The original Albion strings had legato patches, right? I'm surprised those still haven't resurfaced anywhere, not in the Albion One legacy folder or in this rerelease.


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## filipjonathan

idematoa said:


> they are 11 presets of high quality so it is not exhaustive
> No legato felt in the "Live"


More than enough for a €29 library 😃


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## idematoa

trajev said:


> More than enough for a €29 library 😃



Absolutely


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## filipjonathan

idematoa said:


> Absolutely


Plus, if you can get an edu discount, they're even cheaper 😃


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## Patrick.K

redlester said:


> I don't think you can buy it anyway. It comes free if you buy other things.


They are smart! Always the business ... I thought it was a new product !
They take us for milk cows !...
Their marketting policy is seriously beginning to displease me! ...


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## jneebz

Sarah Mancuso said:


> The original Albion strings had legato patches, right? I'm surprised those still haven't resurfaced anywhere, not in the Albion One legacy folder or in this rerelease.


Because the legato patches were not very good....


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## josephspirits

*Thing 1: Aperture *seems like a fun concept, good for writing quickly, but perhaps limited in its practical uses, and maybe a bit unnecessary for people who already have a lot of Spitfire strings. Which in a way makes it the perfect Black Friday bonus. They have the ability to experiment with a new sampling concept (the name is perfect) and want to give it away for spending a certain amount, why not? I think it would be much more frustrating if they were selling something for one weekend only and put a high price on it.

Personally, I always get excited by new Spitfire releases and experiments. If I can't afford it or don't need it, I still enjoy the innovation they bring and the thought they put into making each thing feel special. 

*Thing 2: The Originals* idea looks like a great concept as well, but doesn't it seem like a strange time to put out such an affordable library? I wonder how many people will just go the cheaper route of picking up some of these rather than splurging on more expensive libraries this season. Or maybe the idea is to get people loving the sound and ready to invest deeper over Christmas, but I imagine Labs already does a lot of that work already. I guess it's still too early to see what the whole line will look like when it's released and put into use.

I remember when Albion ONE was coming out I read a lot about the differences between the new product and the legacy content, but I guess I thought that a lot of it was included in the ONE version. The "ALBION LEGACY" section of the articulation list on the product page (and sample folder) shows all of the content that is included, but I guess there is still some content that never carried over?


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## ArtTurnerMusic

Own both versions of Albion 1/One. Got the Epic Strings free. It sounds great and is a joy to play. Thanks Spitfire!


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## Guy Rowland

I know this is a question from a 5-year old - I have this new originals strings thing, downloaded and installed it via the app... but how do I play it? Where's the player? No docs seem to come with the thing, or a player?


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## Wunderhorn

I get the feeling that this "affordable" library is there to attract more guinea pigs for the new sample player.
Fair enough for the price.


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## Bansi

ArtTurnerMusic said:


> Own both versions of Albion 1/One. Got the Epic Strings free. It sounds great and is a joy to play. Thanks Spitfire!


Hi, could you kindly explain what is live art? in the demo I hear a kind of pumping effect in the melody line, it seems like the sound comes with a very slow attack which is not ideal for a melody I understand there is no legato. could you comment on this?


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## Norhernlys

I find mine here in Logic so I guess it should be the same place as your other instruments in your DAW..... I think


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## Greg

"Aperture will be exclusively available to anyone who spends over $349 at the Spitfire website over the Black Friday weekend"

And if you own everything Spitfire has ever sold, you don't even get the opportunity to pay for this? Weird


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## Guy Rowland

Norhernlys said:


> I find mine here in Logic so I guess it should be the same place as your other instruments in your DAW..... I think



Ah yes, thank you, I was looking and searching for Spitfire, I thought it was one player that all of their libraries appeared under.


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## jbuhler

I received the email saying I’d receive another email saying my download was ready but instead received an email saying I could buy it for $29. Not at my rig so can’t check to see if it’s waiting for me to download and I’m sure SF support will remedy the situation if it’s not. But really.


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## HardyP

jbuhler said:


> I received the email saying I’d receive another email saying my download was ready but instead received an email saying I could buy it for $29.


Maybe check again (spam folder?), bcs I got that mentioned „download mail“, but also this „you can buy...“. Last one being a general advertising for their whole mailing list, for shure.
Did you check your SF download app for new entries?


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## jbuhler

HardyP said:


> Maybe check again (spam folder?), bcs I got that mentioned „download mail“, but also this „you can buy...“. Last one being a general advertising for their whole mailing list, for shure.
> Did you check your SF download app for new entries?


No, I’m not at my rig so can’t see if it’s waiting for me but I did check spam.


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## HardyP

But in general, I‘d think is a good occasion to write my new favorite quote from ye olde Paul T.:

What a BLUR of excitement...!


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## Zero&One

Bansi said:


> Hi, could you kindly explain what is live art?



Live — incorporates longs and shorts into a single playable patch


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## Syneast

jbuhler said:


> I received the email saying I’d receive another email saying my download was ready but instead received an email saying I could buy it for $29.


Same for me. No download e-mail yet. Nothing in spam.


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## Zero&One

Virtuoso said:


> So the message from SA was 'No reason to wait - there won't be a better deal on BBCSO over Black Friday or Christmas!'... and then they offer Aperture strings to those who didn't rush in to order it?



I'd wait out for Christmas... be offering BBC SO, Aperture 'Xmas Edition', 4 turkey legs, and a sleepover at Paul's for the same price.


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## Zero&One

I do like the idea of these. Basically getting a small library for £116 when all released.
Fit nicely into my BBC template


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## Alex Fraser

James H said:


> I do like the idea of these. Basically getting a small library for £116 when all released.
> Fit nicely into my BBC template


Nice, right? Struggling to see where the complaints are coming from.


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## dzilizzi

Alex Fraser said:


> Nice, right? Struggling to see where the complaints are coming from.


Some people probably think they shouldn't have to pay for stuff they already own. Which is valid. However, i think this isn't for people who already own the instruments? 

And then will come the complaints about lack of RR's (for a $29 library) and proper legato. Oh, an dynamic layers. One is not enough! 

Just offer them some chocolate (the cheap stuff is sufficient, don't waste the good stuff on the complainers) Which reminds me - it is getting cold out, I can order chocolate from Amazon!


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## Michael Antrum

Just for clarity, if you own Albion legacy (for clarity, this means the original version), which is the library the samples are from, the Epic Strings is a free product. So they are not charging you twice.

As regards the Aperture Library, I don't have BBCSO, so I've no skin in the game. 

But if the Spitfire marketing department thought this would go down well with people who had been previously told the BBCSO was on the best deal they'd get if they order it at launch - well, all I can say is that a glittering career in mainstream British politics beckons. 

However, so far the only announcement is from Sound on Sound, which may have been released earlier than Spitfire intended, so give them the opportunity to announce it themselves before everyone beats them up.....


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## AndyP

SA will not have changed its marketing strategy, will it? Normally this is announced months in advance.


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## Michael Antrum

AndyP said:


> SA will not have changed its marketing strategy, will it? Normally this is announced months in advance.



I don't think any vendor announces their Black Friday offers months in advance, but perhaps I misunderstand the point you're making...


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## AndyP

Michael Antrum said:


> I don't think any vendor announces their Black Friday offers months in advance, but perhaps I misunderstand the point you're making...


Just kidding. I'm still exhausted from the BBCSO orgy.


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## dzilizzi

Michael Antrum said:


> I don't think any vendor announces their Black Friday offers months in advance, but perhaps I misunderstand the point you're making...


SA makes announcements of announcement of a potential product that they will be excited to announce later.... did I get enough announcements in there? 

Sometimes it is annoying. Most of the time I figure it is because they are afraid they will let the cat out of the bag too soon in one of their videos, so it is better to make an announcement that something is coming and let you guess from the hints they don't mean to give.


----------



## Michael Antrum

dzilizzi said:


> SA makes announcements of announcement of a potential product that they will be excited to announce later.... did I get enough announcements in there?



Ah, I seen what you mean. They do have form on anouncing forthcoming announcements. In fact didn't some wag suggest the make a British Announcement Toolkit library... ?

I find it both rather endearing and a little frustrating. Like a bunch of youngsters trying, and failing, to contain their excitement before Christmas Day. But in a good way.


----------



## Patrick.K

dzilizzi said:


> SA makes announcements of announcement of a potential product that they will be excited to announce later.... did I get enough announcements in there?
> 
> Sometimes it is annoying. Most of the time I figure it is because they are afraid they will let the cat out of the bag too soon in one of their videos, so it is better to make an announcement that something is coming and let you guess from the hints they don't mean to give.



They want to avoid spending our money elsewhere, it's a strategy ... Announce a product in advance ... in case we go elsewhere.


----------



## staypuft

Virtuoso said:


> So the message from SA was 'No reason to wait - there won't be a better deal on BBCSO over Black Friday or Christmas!'... and then they offer Aperture strings to those who didn't rush in to order it?



Wait, Spitfire is bringing the intro price back? What was the point of being an early adopter?? Free migraine?


----------



## turnerofwheels

Greg said:


> "Aperture will be exclusively available to anyone who spends over $349 at the Spitfire website over the Black Friday weekend"
> 
> And if you own everything Spitfire has ever sold, you don't even get the opportunity to pay for this? Weird



Well, the Spitfire blog linked says "Aperture Strings is only available during The Black Weekend 2019 from the 28th November to the 3rd December and it is free to anyone that spends more than $349"

So the official SF page doesn't say it's _only_ available as a free bonus. Okay, it's a tad confusing guessing what means what.. at any rate I guess we'll find out next weekend


----------



## Michael Antrum

staypuft said:


> Wait, Spitfire is bringing the intro price back? What was the point of being an early adopter?? Free migraine?



You made me LOL.....

(Edit: Sorry - that was rather insensitive...)


----------



## jbuhler

staypuft said:


> Wait, Spitfire is bringing the intro price back? What was the point of being an early adopter?? Free migraine?


They did state this early perhaps even before it was available for preorder.


----------



## jbuhler

Syneast said:


> Same for me. No download e-mail yet. Nothing in spam.


The second email finally showed up about an hour ago. I guess maybe they knew this was going to take awhile, longer than they had before the announcement, and so sent out the preliminary email to prevent much gnashing of teeth here.


----------



## ArtTurnerMusic

Bansi said:


> Hi, could you kindly explain what is live art? in the demo I hear a kind of pumping effect in the melody line, it seems like the sound comes with a very slow attack which is not ideal for a melody I understand there is no legato. could you comment on this?



It's not really legato, it's more like a somewhat slow attack/release, and it seems really responsive (maybe even a little twitchy) to velocity. Played gingerly you can get a nice ensemble sound out of it, I enjoy it, but I don't know if it would pass muster with those who are looking for the kind of realism you get from playing individual parts and tweaking automation parameters. I think the live denotes that if you wanted to play a fairly lush string ensemble part on stage, you could use it. But that's only a guess on my part.


----------



## John R Wilson

staypuft said:


> Wait, Spitfire is bringing the intro price back? What was the point of being an early adopter?? Free migraine?



Bringing it back at intro price with a free library which early adopters of BBCSO dont seem to get unless you spend another £299 on black friday.


----------



## staypuft

jbuhler said:


> They did state this early perhaps even before it was available for preorder.


Where? There was no mention to any of this on the product page, next to the pre-order button, where it should have been.


----------



## Alex Fraser

staypuft said:


> Where? There was no mention to any of this on the product page, next to the pre-order button, where it should have been.


Product page FAQ, plus mentioned on the thread a fair few times.


----------



## CT

Yeah but they didn't call us and warn us, did they?


----------



## jbuhler

Maybe a FAQ? I don't recall exactly. But it basically said that BBCSO would not be included in the BF or Wishlist discounts but would instead be sold again at the introductory discount during those periods. It was also raised numerous times in the megathread amongst all the references to chocolate, but no one wants to go looking for it there.


----------



## staypuft

Alex Fraser said:


> Product page FAQ, plus mentioned on the thread a fair few times.


Thanks. I didn't know VI-Control was an official channel, still it's not fair to expect potential buyers to go through thousands of random posts to get sensitive information. But if it was on the product page FAQ, I should have paid more attention and have no right to complain.


----------



## Alex Fraser

staypuft said:


> Thanks. I didn't know VI-Control was an official channel, still it's not fair to expect potential buyers to go through thousands of random posts to get sensitive information. But if it was on the product page FAQ, I should have paid more attention and have no right to complain.


Fair point about the thread. I think SF were trying to make it clear the library wasn’t suddenly going to be discounted at a silly rate for the holiday season.


----------



## staypuft

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> Bringing it back at intro price with a free library which early adopters of BBCSO dont seem to get unless you spend another £299 on black friday.


Honestly I don't care about free libraries. I do care about getting a fully functional product or being compensated for the issues. Christian said //The reason we always release v1.0 with a promo is with the understanding that early adopters are rewarded with a substantial discount in order to mitigate against any v1.0 bugs\\

See why I'm confused?


----------



## dzilizzi

staypuft said:


> Honestly I don't care about free libraries. I do care about getting a fully functional product or being compensated for the issues. Christian said //The reason we always release v1.0 with a promo is with the understanding that early adopters are rewarded with a substantial discount in order to mitigate against any v1.0 bugs\\
> 
> See why I'm confused?


And this is why I'm waiting to buy. Well, that and I had to buy a refrigerator because ours died.... That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! It has nothing to do with the fact I'm cheap and don't mind waiting a year for it to be $600 in a wishlist sale....


----------



## Alex Fraser

dzilizzi said:


> And this is why I'm waiting to buy. Well, that and I had to buy a refrigerator because ours died.... That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! It has nothing to do with the fact I'm cheap and don't mind waiting a year for it to be $600 in a wishlist sale....


(Eyes ancient washing machine suspiciously.)
Same here.


----------



## jbuhler

staypuft said:


> Honestly I don't care about free libraries. I do care about getting a fully functional product or being compensated for the issues. Christian said //The reason we always release v1.0 with a promo is with the understanding that early adopters are rewarded with a substantial discount in order to mitigate against any v1.0 bugs\\
> 
> See why I'm confused?


SF also regularly put products on sale during Black Friday, the two wishlist sales, the special spring "where in the world is Christian" Apex sale and the EDU sale. It's true that in the past fall releases have sometimes not been available for BF or wishlist. I think that's one reason they announced the pricing in the FAQ. But they also had a longer than usual introductory pricing, all of which gave few real incentives to being early adopters or at least preordering. (The price reduction on the SSD, which I'm not sure will be included in either the BF or the wishlist sale, and the extension of EDU pricing to include BBCSO were the only actual incentives I saw, and the latter only applied to those with EDU discounts.)


----------



## Denkii

miket said:


> Yeah but they didn't call us and warn us, did they?


Fine gentlemen deserve that service though.


----------



## PeterJCroissant

So are we saying if I’d waited a few more days to buy BBCSO we would of got Aperture Strings free?


----------



## Denkii

PeterJCroissant said:


> So are we saying if I’d waited a few more days to buy BBCSO we would of got Aperture Strings free?


The reason I actively choose not to spend money on SA for at least this year's BF and Christmas if they don't release a notice that early adopters get aperture strings as well.
Fool me once...blablabla


----------



## anp27

Sears Poncho said:


> We're all brainwashed and in need of serious medical attention.  We've got SSDs so crammed with libraries that we have to delete, and now it's "Wait! Someone's getting a repackaged ensemble patch for free-ish and it ain't me? I need this!"



Seriously... I have yet to purchase a _single_ Spitfire Audio library. I'm watching you guys like "wow"


----------



## John R Wilson

Did they mention that it would come with a free library if you buy it on the black friday?


Denkii said:


> The reason I actively choose not to spend money on SA for at least this year's BF and Christmas if they don't release a notice that early adopters get aperture strings as well.
> Fool me once...blablabla



I don't believe they have fully announced the plan for aperture strings yet and I would be shocked if they don't give early adopters of the BBCSO it for free as well considering all the initial issues with BBCSO and the fact it was only a few weeks ago it was released.


----------



## josephspirits

I get the frustration of missing out on something for free, after spending a good amount of money, but I'd be curious to know in what situation someone would actually need to pull up Aperture Strings when they already have BBCSO at their disposal. Maybe it's not worth getting upset over until all of the information is released.


----------



## robgb

SpitfireSupport said:


> Hi everyone! All the information you need about Aperture Strings is available in the Sound On Sound article linked above but I have created a quick article on our support site to reiterate a few of the points.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What is Aperture Strings?
> 
> 
> Aperture Strings is only available during The Black Weekend 2019 from the 28th November to the 3rd December and it is free to anyone that spends more than $349, €349 or £299 including VAT in our st...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> spitfireaudio.zendesk.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Originals - Epic Strings is a different product which draws on content from the original, now retired Albion Volume 1, so owners of that product will get it for free. Ben


So nothing for owners of Albion One?


----------



## JJHLH

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> I personally think that is wrong of them. I would have waited until the black Friday sale to buy the BBCSO if it wasn't for the student discount only being available then. Furthermore, many early adopters who have just paid over £600 for the BBCSO have had to put up with all the initial issues with compatibility with windows and Cubase. This does seem quite unfair to early adopters of the BBCSO who have only just paid out for the BBCSO only a few weeks ago. They should be getting offered this for free as well.



I agree completely.


----------



## anp27

josephspirits said:


> I get the frustration of missing out on something for free, after spending a good amount of money, but I'd be curious to know in what situation someone would actually need to pull up Aperture Strings when they already have BBCSO at their disposal. Maybe it's not worth getting upset over until all of the information is released.



From what I read from the SOS link it sounds to me like Aperture Strings is merely curated content from Spitfire Solo Strings, Spitfire Chamber Strings and Spitfire Symphonic Strings... unless I'm totally getting this wrong... So anyone who already has all 3 of these libraries essentially already has what's in Aperture Strings.


----------



## josephspirits

anp27 said:


> From what I read from the SOS link it sounds to me like Aperture Strings is merely curated content from Spitfire Solo Strings, Spitfire Chamber Strings and Spitfire Symphonic Strings... unless I'm totally getting this wrong... So anyone who already has all 3 of these libraries essentially already has what's in Aperture Strings.



Right, if you read the product description it sounds basically like a string patch where the dynamic layers go from a solo instrument to a full orchestra. When would anyone ever need that, except for fun and inspiration? It sounds like a sampling experiment they are doing because it can be done, not because anybody is dying for it.


----------



## anp27

josephspirits said:


> When would anyone ever need that



There seems to be a lot of Spitfire Audio fanbois in this very thread that absolutely must have it


----------



## Bollen

josephspirits said:


> Right, if you read the product description it sounds basically like a string patch where the dynamic layers go from a solo instrument to a full orchestra. When would anyone ever need that, except for fun and inspiration? It sounds like a sampling experiment they are doing because it can be done, not because anybody is dying for it.


Well... If I'm reading YOU right, then I would think the versatility for divisi would be enormous!!!


----------



## josephspirits

Bollen said:


> Well... If I'm reading YOU right, then I would think the versatility for divisi would be enormous!!!



More versatility than with BBSCO?


----------



## sostenuto

SFA Marketing is impressive ...... No ?? 

NOT !


----------



## josephspirits

anp27 said:


> There seems to be a lot of Spitfire Audio fanbois in this very thread that absolutely must have it



I'd probably consider myself a Spitifre fannyboy to be honest, which is why I can appreciate them having different sales for different people. I'm sure lots of people who couldn't afford BBSCO will be pumped for this Black Friday promo helping to fill out their arsenal.


----------



## mralmostpopular

josephspirits said:


> Right, if you read the product description it sounds basically like a string patch where the dynamic layers go from a solo instrument to a full orchestra. When would anyone ever need that, except for fun and inspiration? It sounds like a sampling experiment they are doing because it can be done, not because anybody is dying for it.



I got a chance to try it out. That’s exactly what it is. It goes from small to large with the mod wheel instead of dynamics. It’s really just them experimenting to see what’s possible.

It’s a bit of a bummer that they’re making in available on such a limited basis. I wanted to wait for the Black Friday sale, but Spitfire told me that they couldn’t confirm if the SSD would be on sale for Black Friday. I’m a bit surprised they went in this direction with it. It doesn’t seem to mesh with the community vibe they’ve been trying to establish the last few months.

But it’s really nothing to get crazy excited about. Maybe they’ll release it sometime in the future as a LABS instrument. It‘s definitely a neat idea, but not something you’re likely to get a lot of use from. I wouldn’t worry about it.

Epic Strings is the original recordings from the discontinued Albion Volume 1, which is not the same as Albion One. They’ve gone ahead and completely re-scripted it. It does big sounding strings and sounds good, but it’s a very limited library. Not bad at $29. If you own the original Albion, you get it for free, which basically gives you an upgrade for free.


----------



## Daniel James

This and the 'Epic Strings' release, puts Spitfire at 26 different string libraries (if you include libraries that include strings), At this rate they will saturate themselves out of the market!

I wonder what they are going to do when people are like, yeah i'm good I already have 30 different Spitfire string libraries installed, I am good for now.

There are only so many ways to skin a cat.

-DJ


----------



## josephspirits

sostenuto said:


> SFA Marketing is impressive ...... No ??
> 
> NOT !



Is it not Komplete enough?


----------



## Bollen

josephspirits said:


> More versatility than with BBSCO?


Well it depends how it works... I'm not familiarised with BBSO, but as far as I know they don't have any divisi, just a soloist.


----------



## josephspirits

Daniel James said:


> This and the 'Epic Strings' release, puts Spitfire at 26 different string libraries (if you include libraries that include strings), At this rate they will saturate themselves out of the market!
> 
> I wonder what they are going to do when people are like, yeah i'm good I already have 30 different Spitfire string libraries installed, I am good for now.
> 
> There are only so many ways to skin a cat.
> 
> -DJ



Cat Skin Strings, featuring Feline Flautando.


----------



## Daniel James

josephspirits said:


> Cat Skin Strings, featuring Feline Flautando.


Only 800gigs.


----------



## JT

For those that have downloaded Epic Strings, does it sound markedly different from Albion Legacy?


----------



## sostenuto

Good question, but Albion ONE here ( NO Albion Legacy ) so Epic Strings is interesting to evaluate for $29. I doubt SFA places their credibility out there for such small coins.


----------



## josephspirits

Daniel James said:


> Only 800gigs.



Hey well if you get bored with Spitfire strings, it's good to see that 8dio is still cranking them out. Rumor has it they may even have some one sale soon....


----------



## John R Wilson

Daniel James said:


> This and the 'Epic Strings' release, puts Spitfire at 26 different string libraries (if you include libraries that include strings), At this rate they will saturate themselves out of the market!
> 
> I wonder what they are going to do when people are like, yeah i'm good I already have 30 different Spitfire string libraries installed, I am good for now.
> 
> There are only so many ways to skin a cat.
> 
> -DJ



I agree, East West probably realized that years ago and thus ended up taking a different direction by
establishing a subscription model rather than continuing to release endless string libraries. Although they would have probably been better off to have continued to improve the GUI of EWHO and its management of articulations in play rather than not updating this at all over all these years.

With that in mind, wouldn't it be better if Spitfire just stuck to their current line of products and started to improve them and update them. There is lots they could do to improve BBCSO to make it better.


----------



## Daniel James

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> I agree, East West probably realized that years ago and thus ended up taking a different direction by
> establishing a subscription model rather than continuing to release endless string libraries. Although they would have probably been better off to have continued to improve the GUI of EWHO and its management of articulations in play rather than not updating this at all over all these years.
> 
> With that in mind, wouldn't it be better if Spitfire just stuck to their current line of products and started to improve them and update them. There is lots they could do to improve BBCSO to make it better.



Exactly, I would rather they fixed the shit they already released, rather than start promoting two new string libraries. But hey there is no money in that. And when you have office buildings and, what was it, 70+ staff, I imagine keeping that afloat takes priority over some disappointed customers.

-DJ


----------



## mralmostpopular

josephspirits said:


> Hey well if you get bored with Spitfire strings, it's good to see that 8dio is still cranking them out. Rumor has it they may even have some one sale soon....



What? 8dio having a sale? Never. 😉




Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> I agree, East West probably realized that years ago and thus ended up taking a different direction by
> establishing a subscription model rather than continuing to release endless string libraries. Although they would have probably been better off to have continued to improve the GUI of EWHO and its management of articulations in play rather than not updating this at all over all these years.
> 
> With that in mind, wouldn't it be better if Spitfire just stuck to their current line of products and started to improve them and update them. There is lots they could do to improve BBCSO to make it better.



This is really more of a rebranding of a product than a new release. I think they’re realizing how many young people without a lot of money are using their LABS instruments, and wanted to create a cheap product that they could afford. The page even offers it as a way to take the next step from LABS. Personally, I think this is a great move.


----------



## Daniel James

mralmostpopular said:


> What? 8dio having a sale? Never. 😉
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is really more of a rebranding of a product than a new release. I think they’re realizing how many young people without a lot of money are using their LABS instruments, and wanted to create a cheap product that they could afford. The page even offers it as a way to take the next step from LABS. Personally, I think this is a great move.



Pfft thats nothing. I hear Waves are having a sale this Black Friday!!! Can you imagine...waves, on sale!

-DJ


----------



## cqd

Definitely agree on the whole too many string libraries thing..


----------



## Sarah Mancuso

So many string libraries, and yet only one of them is SCS.


----------



## sIR dORT

Can I be honest? I wasn't/am not very impressed with the sound. Even for $29. Sounds like LABS strings had a facelift, but it still doesn't sound more useful than most other string libraries (in my case HWS). Am I the only one who thinks this?

I'll add that I am curious though to see what the next 3 sound like (hopefully better). Man I sound like that guy everyone hates because he comes in on a product that everyone likes and says "I think it's overrated."


----------



## mralmostpopular

sIR dORT said:


> Can I be honest? I wasn't/am not very impressed with the sound. Even for $29. Sounds like LABS strings had a facelift, but it still doesn't sound more useful than most other string libraries (in my case HWS). Am I the only one who thinks this?
> 
> I'll add that I am curious though to see what the next 3 sound like (hopefully better). Man I sound like that guy everyone hates because he comes in on a product that everyone likes and says "I think it's overrated."



It seems strange to compare this to HWS. It’s clearly designed to be a step up from LABS in the way they’re marketing it. Albion One is a great starter library, but still very much out of reach for many people. Calling a $29 overrated is really odd. I don’t have any intention of picking this up because I have more advanced libraries, but I can see how it would be a great starter string library. That’s how you should think about it.


----------



## Wunderhorn

Maybe it is not such nice thing that people who just did spent a bunch of money are not being offered this freebee. But after all you guys are debating over a _freebee_ which if it had not been mentioned nobody would care about. How much can anybody lose out by not having it?
Small potatoes.

The other question I think is way more valid. 26 string libraries (according to Daniel) - where do we go from here? How much longer does this make sense to pump out one library after another? When is this tactic going to turn against itself and may cause the strategy to implode?

Seriously, yes, it is good to have some variation in sound for different projects. But I think SF would do well examining their palette and pair it down to a manageable number of sonic characters. The remaining ones then should stay in active development and receive updates regularly. Bigger updates could be optional paid updates or expansion packs - I like btw how they re-vamped the solo strings library (now looking forward to the performance patch of the viola and bass...).

I cannot imagine that it is particularly fun for a sample library foundry to keep up with 100+ libraries. Neither it is for the customers. I'd rather like to have fewer libraries but some that are consisting of just concentrated excellence.

Taking into account that SF is not the only one by whom we may own numerous products I think thanks to the ever expanding market we will only see more and more variety to the point of losing overview and not being able to get a grip on even what's already on our hard drives.

SF has excellent material. To make it even better in my opinion is not focussing on throwing more variety into the mix but in distilling the quality that is already there and make it accessible, usable, navigable with unprecedented ease and efficiency.


----------



## cqd

It’s clearly designed to take another $29 off people..It's only $29, so no one will mind too much..


----------



## Daniel James

Wunderhorn said:


> The other question I think is way more valid. 26 string libraries (according to Daniel)



*According to their website store, then adding Aperture and Epic strings.

-DJ


----------



## josephspirits

cqd said:


> It’s clearly designed to take another $29 off people..It's only $29, so no one will mind too much..



Funny, my first thought was that it was clearly designed to offer people starting out a cheap way in, $29 instead of a couple hundred on an Albion just to get a certain sound. I imagine for a lot of people, and a lot of projects and mixes, the included articulations may be enough to get the job done. 

Seems the people who mind the most about this idea are the ones who don't even need to be paying attention to it.


----------



## AllanH

The "new" Epic Strings is actually quite nice.


----------



## John R Wilson

Wunderhorn said:


> Maybe it is not such nice thing that people who just did spent a bunch of money are not being offered this freebee. But after all you guys are debating over a _freebee_ which if it had not been mentioned nobody would care about. How much can anybody lose out by not having it?
> Small potatoes.
> 
> The other question I think is way more valid. 26 string libraries (according to Daniel) - where do we go from here? How much longer does this make sense to pump out one library after another? When is this tactic going to turn against itself and may cause the strategy to implode?
> 
> Seriously, yes, it is good to have some variation in sound for different projects. But I think SF would do well examining their palette and pair it down to a manageable number of sonic characters. The remaining ones then should stay in active development and receive updates regularly. Bigger updates could be optional paid updates or expansion packs - I like btw how they re-vamped the solo strings library (now looking forward to the performance patch of the viola and bass...).
> 
> I cannot imagine that it is particularly fun for a sample library foundry to keep up with 100+ libraries. Neither it is for the customers. I'd rather like to have fewer libraries but some that are consisting of just concentrated excellence.
> 
> Taking into account that SF is not the only one by whom we may own numerous products I think thanks to the ever expanding market we will only see more and more variety to the point of losing overview and not being able to get a grip on even what's already on our hard drives.
> 
> SF has excellent material. To make it even better in my opinion is not focussing on throwing more variety into the mix but in distilling the quality that is already there and make it accessible, usable, navigable with unprecedented ease and efficiency.



I completely agree with you.


----------



## mralmostpopular

josephspirits said:


> Funny, my first thought was that it was clearly designed to offer people starting out a cheap way in, $29 instead of a couple hundred on an Albion just to get a certain sound. I imagine for a lot of people, and a lot of projects and mixes, the included articulations may be enough to get the job done.
> 
> Seems the people who mind the most about this idea are the ones who don't even need to be paying attention to it.



Yes, I really think this is the intention. I don’t think it’s intended to be just another library in the collection, but a small step up for those coming from LABS.


----------



## CT

Spitfire is not only having the usual Black Friday sale, but also offering a little freebie when a certain amount is spent? My reaction on seeing this earlier today was: that's nice. They're cool. 

Meanwhile, hours later at VI-Control:


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

miket said:


> Spitfire is not only having the usual Black Friday sale, but also offering a little freebie when a certain amount is spent? My reaction on seeing this earlier today was: that's nice. They're cool.
> 
> Meanwhile, hours later at VI-Control:



THIS totally made my day!!!


----------



## Drundfunk

With ever library nowadays I ask myself one simple question: Does it change the way I compose music? Is it better than what I have or does it offer something new. I'm really not concerned about this at all and I also really don't care. It's 30 bucks. In case it is a game changer I can buy it, but I doubt it. Would I be more mad if it was a $1000 library and everyone except for me gets it for free? Yeah probably, but this is not the case here and it doesn't change anything for me. Take a deep breath guys and girls and relax. You managed to compose music before this thing came out. You'll be fine.

Edit: I'm dumb. Didn't even realize it's two different libraries. Point still stands tho.


----------



## mralmostpopular

Drundfunk said:


> With ever library nowadays I ask myself one simple question: Does it change the way I compose music? Is it better than what I have or does it offer something new. I'm really not concerned about this at all and I also really don't care. It's 30 bucks. In case it is a game changer I can buy it, but I doubt it. Would I be more mad if it was a $1000 library and everyone except for me gets it for free? Yeah probably, but this is not the case here and it doesn't change anything for me. Take a deep breath guys and girls and relax. You managed to compose music before this thing came out. You'll be fine.



You’re confusing Epic Strings ($30) and Aperture Strings (Black Friday exclusive), but your point still stands. It’s a neat little library (3 patches), but I probably wouldn’t buy it if it were for sale. I’m really no worse off.


----------



## Sears Poncho

cqd said:


> Definitely agree on the whole too many string libraries thing..


I own 3 of their string libraries- Studio Strings Pro, Solo Strings, LCO. I think there's room to make one more: Spitfire Rock/Pop Strings. It's a genre that has its own sound, Studio might be capable but something like Motown has a distinct sound, mainly because the sections were small etc. Cinesamples has the new Taylor Davis library, it seems a bit flawed but I think its a step in the right direction. The vibrato is decidedly nonclassical, much more relaxed. The famous Green Day song with violin (Time of your Life or something) is a good example. 

I know that Spitfire tends to focus on film/media etc, but there's a market out there that is untapped. Session Strings Pro tried it... but they ain't Spitfire. The cello solo in "Live in Let Die" does not sound like they are playing Dvorak Concerto, it's relaxed and fits the mood. Dust in the Wind- not a classical sound, the Spitfire solo strings would sound silly. Baba O'Riley, John Mellencamp songs, the violin in Sunday Bloody Sunday. 

A lot of classical players can't do it, they can't "turn it off". Dust in the Wind sounds just like a Brahms Sonata. Hiring the right players and confirming in advance that it's a Billy Joel-ish sound and not a Xenakis sound they're after, this would give SA a new and somewhat fresh product.


----------



## Yury Tikhomirov

I like how Originals: Epic Strings’ shorts sound layered with LCOS vivid spiccatos. Also pizzicatos are delightful. Since I don’t have any string ensemble patches - I jumped in.
And it was actually a very good pre-BF treat too that helped me to resist to some other sales offers for some more time.


----------



## dzilizzi

Drundfunk said:


> With ever library nowadays I ask myself one simple question: Does it change the way I compose music? Is it better than what I have or does it offer something new. I'm really not concerned about this at all and I also really don't care. It's 30 bucks. In case it is a game changer I can buy it, but I doubt it. Would I be more mad if it was a $1000 library and everyone except for me gets it for free? Yeah probably, but this is not the case here and it doesn't change anything for me. Take a deep breath guys and girls and relax. You managed to compose music before this thing came out. You'll be fine.


Wait, wait wait a sec... Who says I could compose music before this freebie? I know I have to have it or I never will be able to compose music. 

LOL! Maybe I should spend my money on some more classes....


----------



## jbuhler

Wunderhorn said:


> I like btw how they re-vamped the solo strings library (now looking forward to the performance patch of the viola and bass...).


There won’t be a viola patch like the violin and cello. The samples aren’t there to do it so they’d have to go back to Air and do more. The bass has samples for legato so presumably they will deliver that at some point.


----------



## AndyP

Denkii said:


> The reason I actively choose not to spend money on SA for at least this year's BF and Christmas if they don't release a notice that early adopters get aperture strings as well.
> Fool me once...blablabla


This!


----------



## NoamL

People will complain about anything, huh? Prove me wrong by not complaining about this post! See, harder than it looks.


----------



## TomislavEP

I've dreamed of having Albion in my toolkit ever since I've heard of it back in 2011. But at its original price charged in GBP + 25% of VAT, it was simply too expensive for me. However, I've finally decided to purchase it in May 2015 and paid the said price. Little did I know that Spitfire will introduce Albion One only a few months later and send the famed Albion I to the scrapyard. Witnessing the farewell sale was bad enough as well as the humble priced upgrade option for the Legacy owners. But I've never imagined that Spitfire would make a move like this almost five years later. If I've understood correctly and the new "Epic" series is actually based on the original Albion I material, then this is an ultimate humiliation for everyone who had purchased the original library back in the old days. They've could at least have the decency to make an affordable library based on the current version (Albion One). But no, they've resurrected an old product, threw it in a new "shining" package and now they're selling it at a bargain price to those who can't afford Albion One. Plus, they have the nerve to ask more than 200€ of the Legacy owners for an upgrade... 

But why do I complain? I've gotten the elegant dark grey version of the LABS plugin for free, didn't I?

P.S. I suspect they'll do a similar thing with Loegria in the future, but at least I've purchased this with a discount.


----------



## tav.one

The Live articulation in Epic Strings seems to be velocity sensitive instead of relying on modulation for changing dynamics. And includes both Shorts & longs as mentioned in the info tip.


----------



## Alex Fraser

It's interesting that the Originals Strings library is being described as a "beginner" or "starter" library - simply because of the low price point. Expectations and all that.

If I'm understanding correctly, the originals series is the meat and potatoes of Albion 1. Which sounds like this:




Also worth remembering that this track is mostly LABS:




So "toys" they are not. Almost a gift at this price point. I could score a *lot* of stuff with just the Originals and Labs.


----------



## Mornats

Spitfire could cure cancer and VI control would complain about it.


----------



## Michael Antrum

NoamL said:


> People will complain about anything, huh? Prove me wrong by not complaining about this post! See, harder than it looks.



I'm not complaining, but I am offended.....


----------



## NYC Composer

If the market is so saturated, why were there 10 bajillion posts and uncontrolled joy about BBCSO?

I don’t think this has been about “that elusive sound I don’t have” for a long time. I think it’s much more about “new toy, must have” and “but mommy, everyone else has BBCSO!!”

I realize BBCSO is a “complete, integrated solution.” I just figure there are a lot of people who already had their strings and everything else covered.


----------



## Hadrondrift

josephspirits said:


> Funny, my first thought was that it was clearly designed to offer people starting out a cheap way in, $29 instead of a couple hundred on an Albion just to get a certain sound.


Offers like this have a certain reason. In German, there is the word "anfixen", meaning to sell someone something for little money, sometimes for free, just to get him sort of "addicted", to create the need for more, for the bigger things.

You think you get something for 30 bucks and that's all. The truth is, you additionally get a feeling of emptiness and lack. Soon you want more, because you start to realize, you are missing something, you didn't get all.

They don't sell you satisfaction, they sell you desire.

Note: I don't blame SA here, that's a common marketing strategy, mainly to win new customers.


----------



## noises on

Daniel James said:


> This and the 'Epic Strings' release, puts Spitfire at 26 different string libraries (if you include libraries that include strings), At this rate they will saturate themselves out of the market!
> 
> I wonder what they are going to do when people are like, yeah i'm good I already have 30 different Spitfire string libraries installed, I am good for now.
> 
> There are only so many ways to skin a cat.
> 
> -DJ


All thirty libraries will be superseded by new groundbreaking sampling techniques, deeper sampling, ....perhaps midi will be replaced by new technology, libraries will comprise of a blend of modelled/sampled hybrid libraries featuring a basket full "ground breaking" technology. Hit delete on all yesterdays libraries, and begin collecting thirty "new generation" products. You gotta keep up, and spend spend spend.


----------



## thov72

I´d actually love to see HZ Piano being moved to the new player and split up in several cheaper versions. 
Of course, someone who had bought it xx days earlier at the normal price would complain but I could deal with t(h/w)at


----------



## jbuhler

Hadrondrift said:


> Offers like this have a certain reason. In German, there is the word "anfixen", meaning to sell someone something for little money, sometimes for free, just to get him sort of "addicted", to create the need for more, for the bigger things.
> 
> You think you get something for 30 bucks and that's all. The truth is, you additionally get a feeling of emptiness and lack. Soon you want more, because you start to realize, you are missing something, you didn't get all.
> 
> They don't sell you satisfaction, they sell you desire.
> 
> Note: I don't blame SA here, that's a common marketing strategy, mainly to win new customers.


Yes, selling desire is kind of the definition of advertising.


----------



## 5Lives

Nice sketching tool - and a way to test out Spitfire’s player before jumping into BBCSO. Works great so far.


----------



## Chance Boudreaux

Has anyone managed to get Epic Strings to work on a Windows machine? I get an error when I load up the instrument. Log files say it can't open the patch files, even though the files seem to be there at the exact location mentioned in the log.


----------



## SpitfireSupport

Chance Boudreaux said:


> Has anyone managed to get Epic Strings to work on a Windows machine? I get an error when I load up the instrument. Log files say it can't open the patch files, even though the files seem to be there at the exact location mentioned in the log.


I suspect your suffering from a known issue which we'll have an update for very shortly. Our support department can get you up and running at spitfireaudio.com/support


----------



## cqd

It's like deja Vu all over again..


----------



## Banquet

For me this is great because I am on limited HD space on my mobile rig and had to choose between Tundra and Albion 1... I chose Tundra. I also got Spitifre Studio Orchestra Core for it's low HD footprint but have missed having some of the larger symphonic strings. Being able to get them for so little HD and £ is marvellous for me and I personally think they sound really good! If Spitifire release little packages like this that let us pick and choose the specific instruments and articulations we want to use to build up more personalised and individual libraries for our needs then I'd be all for that.


----------



## Mars

That's just a way to adress every profile of customers...
I'm now waiting for a 29€ flautando ensemble patch, cause I can't afford SCS  If spitfire read my post...


----------



## KallumS

Does this strike anyone as being similar to Orchestal Tool's idea about allowing people to buy individual patches from a library?


----------



## jbuhler

christianhenson said:


> Heya all, I see that this this thread is more about Epic strings now.... I just wanted to address our first "Black Edition" release: APERTURE. PLEASE NOTE that the information here has been garnered from a third party (our friends at SOS) we have not officially announced yet. So PLEASE wait and see how this is going to work!!!!
> 
> H O L D Y O U R H O R S E S ! ! ! !


Does anyone ever stable their horses on VI-Control?


----------



## AllanH

Epic strings is very nice. I have Albion I and as such got it as a "freebie". The only real oddity is that the ensemble patch only goes does to C1. Generally, I'm used to the double bass playing all the way down to C0, i.e. the lowest C on a 88-key keyboard.

Epic strings are definitely a big upgrade over the old Kontakt version purely from a playability perspective. They also sound great.


----------



## harmaes

Epic strings - I noticed something in Short Octave that’s not occurring in the Short patch: the transition from F#3 to G3 is too obvious and seems to move to a totally different sound which is brighter and has a slower attack.


----------



## sIR dORT

mralmostpopular said:


> It seems strange to compare this to HWS. It’s clearly designed to be a step up from LABS in the way they’re marketing it. Albion One is a great starter library, but still very much out of reach for many people. Calling a $29 overrated is really odd. I don’t have any intention of picking this up because I have more advanced libraries, but I can see how it would be a great starter string library. That’s how you should think about it.


I wasn't trying to, my point was more so that if you have a better string lib like HWS, there would be no point in getting this unless you wanted to layer it or something. But you're right about the beginner part. Libraries like these are great for serving that purpose, I was just looking at it from another point of view.


----------



## AdrianLeverkühn

I own Albion ONE (it was my first SFA library, bought it during last BF) and I like it. Do you think that this might be a nice addition? I thought that the Albion legacy stuff was comprised into Albion ONE.


----------



## Alex Fraser

AdrianLeverkühn said:


> I own Albion ONE (it was my first SFA library, bought it during last BF) and I like it. Do you think that this might be a nice addition? I thought that the Albion legacy stuff was comprised into Albion ONE.


Yes, a very nice addition and a no brainer at the price. The legacy stuff in Albion ONE is only a slice of the older product. I'm not even sure it contains the long articulations.


----------



## thesteelydane

D Halgren said:


> So then, Aperture is like the Bunker Strings idea?


It appears to be the exact same idea, yes. It will be interesting to hear what can be done with it when Spitfire throws all their resources at it - I'm sure it will sound fantastic.


----------



## AdrianLeverkühn

Alex Fraser said:


> Yes, a very nice addition and a no brainer at the price. The legacy stuff in Albion ONE is only a slice of the older product. I'm not even sure it contains the long articulations.



Thank you for your reply. Yes the legacy in ONE has the long articulations, together with the brush, spicc, shorts, fx1 and 2.


----------



## thesteelydane

josephspirits said:


> They have the ability to experiment with a new sampling concept


It’s Actually not new, it’s pretty much exactly the concept I developed with Bunker Strings. I’ll take it as a validation of my idea, after all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.


----------



## paoling

And before by Strezov with Cornucopia strings..
(Sorry I was thinking about this new 29 euro lib)


----------



## Sarah Mancuso

If this included the legato patch(es?) from legacy, I would consider picking it up. As-is, I don't think this offers me much that I don't already have in One, which does indeed include the legacy longs.


----------



## josephspirits

Hadrondrift said:


> Offers like this have a certain reason. In German, there is the word "anfixen", meaning to sell someone something for little money, sometimes for free, just to get him sort of "addicted", to create the need for more, for the bigger things.
> 
> You think you get something for 30 bucks and that's all. The truth is, you additionally get a feeling of emptiness and lack. Soon you want more, because you start to realize, you are missing something, you didn't get all.
> 
> They don't sell you satisfaction, they sell you desire.
> 
> Note: I don't blame SA here, that's a common marketing strategy, mainly to win new customers.



Sure, a company needs customers to be a successful company, but it's not like this is "the first one's free" from a drug dealer. It's not morally wrong for them to offer an affordable product. At least now people can have a choice about how much they want to spend to get started upgrading from their DAW samples. Feelings of emptiness and lack will always be there until you know what you really want and need personally. You could argue that offering a range of economical options like this could be just as effective toward pushing someone toward discovering that for themselves, at their own chosen course, rather than having to go beyond a $400 pay wall just to get a feel for composing.


----------



## Land of Missing Parts

thesteelydane said:


> It’s Actually not new, it’s pretty much exactly the concept I developed with Bunker Strings. I’ll take it as a validation of my idea, after all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.


Time Micro also uses this concept brilliantly.

In the case of Spitfire Aperture, it strikes me more as a novelty patch though. I'm not sure how often I'd want to change string section sizes--though I haven't actually heard Aperture in action yet so maybe hearing it would convince me.

The Epic Strings sound cool, but not so "epic" to my ears. Strange naming I think. But maybe "Bargain Strings" doesn't have quite the same appeal.


----------



## Alex Fraser

All of the longs? I only see low strings and two octave patches for the high strings. Maybe I need an update..


----------



## Sarah Mancuso

Having affordable options is great. My first Spitfire purchases were some of the old Kontakt-based Spitfire Labs for a few dollars each, and they were a godsend. Yes, they served their marketing purpose of getting me interested in Spitfire's other products, but they also were just a huge help with the projects I was composing for at the time, filling out my instrument collection with some unique and extremely useful orchestral sounds on a tight budget.



Alex Fraser said:


> All of the longs? I only see three. Maybe I need an update..


I have no idea what was originally included in Albion versus what's in Albion One's legacy folder versus what's in this new release. I just know that neither this nor Albion One seems to include a truly complete set.


----------



## thesteelydane

Land of Missing Parts said:


> Time Micro also uses this concept brilliantly.
> 
> In the case of Spitfire Aperture, it strikes me more as a novelty patch though. I'm not sure how often I'd want to change string section sizes--though I haven't actually heard Aperture in action yet so maybe hearing it would convince me.


Or you could give Bunker Strings a go - much cheaper, although you might want to wait a few days


----------



## IvanP

jbuhler said:


> Does anyone ever stable their horses on VI-Control?



[/QUOTE]

So...BBCSO early adopters might get Aperture as well after all


----------



## Alex Fraser

Sarah Mancuso said:


> I have no idea what was originally included in Albion versus what's in Albion One's legacy folder versus what's in this new release. I just know that neither this nor Albion One seems to include a truly complete set.


Well, if helps anyone, I'm using them for a project right this moment. Here's the list.
(I should clarify, this is the contents of Albion ONE legacy's individual patches folder. I'm not sure if the multi-artic versions have any additional arctics. I'd compare but I've got work to do y'all!)


----------



## Land of Missing Parts

thesteelydane said:


> Or you could give Bunker Strings a go - much cheaper, although you might want to wait a few days


Much cheaper than $29?! Dang.


----------



## thesteelydane

Land of Missing Parts said:


> Much cheaper than $29?! Dang.


No, much cheaper than 299 € - I’m talking about the Aperture Strings.


----------



## HardyP

TomislavEP said:


> If I've understood correctly and the new "Epic" series is actually based on the original Albion I material, then this is an ultimate humiliation for everyone who had purchased the original library back in the old days. They've could at least have the decency to make an affordable library based on the current version (Albion One). But no, they've resurrected an old product, threw it in a new "shining" package and now they're selling it at a bargain price to those who can't afford Albion One. Plus, they have the nerve to ask more than 200€ of the Legacy owners for an upgrade...


Sorry, but for my (arguably irrelevant) feelings it´s easier to accept a new (more limited) version of my buyings, than see the prices drop down to a fracture of what I paid for it... 
And additionally: I think it´s impossible (for accounting) to refund you from sales many years behind (if prices drop), but to award you with some new "presets" (as I would like to call it), why not...?! 
--> I really don´t get all the freaking out over here...


----------



## Drundfunk

mralmostpopular said:


> You’re confusing Epic Strings ($30) and Aperture Strings (Black Friday exclusive), but your point still stands. It’s a neat little library (3 patches), but I probably wouldn’t buy it if it were for sale. I’m really no worse off.


Damn, you're so right. Who releases 2 string libraries at once? xD


----------



## TomislavEP

HardyP said:


> Sorry, but for my (arguably irrelevant) feelings it´s easier to accept a new (more limited) version of my buyings, than see the prices drop down to a fracture of what I paid for it...



Well, not for me. From my standpoint, Albion Legacy is (was) quality and in many ways groundbreaking product worthy of its original price. As a loyal Spitfire user who can't afford much of their portfolio without financial difficulty, it makes me sad to see once quite expensive product now being offered at a significantly lower price. And this would be the case with the Epic library series when all the parts get released, even if they won't include all the content from the original library.



> And additionally: I think it´s impossible (for accounting) to refund you from sales many years behind (if prices drop), but to award you with some new "presets" (as I would like to call it), why not...?!
> --> I really don´t get all the freaking out over here...



I never dreamed of asking the refund as I'm a happy owner and user of both the Legacy and Loegria (as well as Tundra) and I actually find them more suited to my needs than Albion One would likely be. But simply out of principle, I think that the upgrade to Albion One should be much more moderately priced for the Legacy owners who've paid the original price. Instead, they're giving us a piece of what we already have in a different package.


----------



## rocking.xmas.man

TomislavEP said:


> Instead, they're giving us a piece of what we already have in a different package.


but isn't that very understandable? If we would have to pay for that it would seem quite strange. The upgrade from Albion legacy to Albion ONE has been offered for 99€/$ quite often actually.


----------



## Hadrondrift

josephspirits said:


> It's not morally wrong for them to offer an affordable product.


No, not at all. And just to clarify: By no means I want to place SF in the vicinity of drug dealers ("Anfixen" has those connotation, I know, sorry, my fault).

Still, offers of this kind are always somewhat "dangerous". You think: »Okay, I just buy this one snack«, only to find out after a while that you have nevertheless bought the whole cake, spending more money than you really intended to. Three more snacks are coming soon...


----------



## TomislavEP

rocking.xmas.man said:


> but isn't that very understandable? If we would have to pay for that it would seem quite strange. The upgrade from Albion legacy to Albion ONE has been offered for 99€/$ quite often actually.



If we had to pay for this and years after the official demise of Albion Legacy, that would indeed be bizarre. It's only logical for this to be free. I just don't see much point in installing this library when I already have and use my Kontakt version.

BTW, I wasn't aware that Albion One was offered to the Legacy owners at a lower price. According to what I see in my Spitfire account, the upgrade price is 249€. And this is a bit too much for me after paying the original price in GBP (which is one of the most expensive currencies in Croatia) + 25% of the VAT for the Legacy version.


----------



## josephspirits

Hadrondrift said:


> No, not at all. And just to clarify: By no means I want to place SF in the vicinity of drug dealers ("Anfixen" has those connotation, I know, sorry, my fault).
> 
> Still, offers of this kind are always somewhat "dangerous". You think: »Okay, I just buy this one snack«, only to find out after a while that you have nevertheless bought the whole cake, spending more money than you really intended to. Three more snacks are coming soon...



haha, I know what you mean, but I also think investing in musical cake that you can eat for the rest of your life is also not a bad thing, especially if you're serious about your cake career.

I suppose abstinence would be the only real safe way to avoid making sample purchases you're not ready for, but where's the fun in that?


----------



## Jimmy Hellfire

How do you assign keyswitches in this Spitfire Player?


----------



## rocking.xmas.man

TomislavEP said:


> BTW, I wasn't aware that Albion One was offered to the Legacy owners at a lower price.


I think there were numerous sales in which this upgrade was reduced to 99€. I think this was the case when they first introduced Albion one and since then almost inevery Black Friday I think. I upgraded the same year the new solo strings came out, 2017 I think.


----------



## TomislavEP

rocking.xmas.man said:


> I think there were numerous sales in which this upgrade was reduced to 99€. I think this was the case when they first introduced Albion one and since then almost inevery Black Friday I think. I upgraded the same year the new solo strings came out, 2017 I think.



Well, that is certainly interesting, but I usually find even better offers at BF sales, including from the Spitfire with their "The Ton" collection. I must admit that I'm potentially interested in Albion One only due to the more extensive Stephenson section, so it's not that high on my wishlist. But as an owner of the Legacy version bought at the former price, it would be nice to have this affordable upgrade option available all the time.


----------



## Mornats

thesteelydane said:


> Or you could give Bunker Strings a go - much cheaper, although you might want to wait a few days


Ooh I have these and haven't used them in a track yet. I don't feel bad* about missing out on Aperture now 

* I'm only looking to complete my studio strings with the brass and woods so won't hit the £299.


----------



## NekujaK

thesteelydane said:


> Or you could give Bunker Strings a go - much cheaper, although you might want to wait a few days


Or you can wait until OT Layers is released - and given away free to everyone!


----------



## turnerofwheels

NekujaK said:


> Or you can wait until OT Layers is released - and given away free to everyone!




That's very cool, but not quite the same idea as controlling density/number of players. Having multiple layers of different instruments to xfade through with the mod wheel is a component of Albion One (anniversary edition) though! This looks like a great way to introduce people to OT..


----------



## NekujaK

SHANE TURNER said:


> That's very cool, but not quite the same idea as controlling density/number of players. Having multiple layers of different instruments to xfade through with the mod wheel is a component of Albion One (anniversary edition) though! This looks like a great way to introduce people to OT..


Thanks for the clarification. I jumped to some conclusions after only peripherally reading about Aperture and clearly didn't grasp all the nuances. Looking forward to playing with Layers!


----------



## Kadirally

Walkthrough is up:






And full info-page is up too.


----------



## thesteelydane

I gotta say it sounds absolutely gorgeous. When I did this with Bunker Strings I was limited to 9 players, so it's great to hear what can be done with this idea when Spitfire throws all their resources and samples at it. To me personally, this is where sampling is most interesting - when used to create something that can only exist in the virtual world, and thus becomes an instrument in its own right.


----------



## davidson

Is this just the single mic position? For anyone who owns it, how would you say the mic mix compares to other spitfire mic positions?


----------



## Banquet

Is this only available to those who spend £300 or will it also be offered for sale over the weekend?


----------



## prodigalson

The idea this will only ever be available to certain users over Black Friday...I would take with a grain of salt.

It’s possible but remember Spitfire Symphonic Evolutions that was only available to those who bought Mural?..

And wasn’t Masse only available to those who bought Albion ONE or something like that?


----------



## redlester

prodigalson said:


> The idea this will only ever be available to certain users over Black Friday...I would take with a grain of salt.
> 
> It’s possible but remember Spitfire Symphonic Evolutions that was only available to those who bought Mural?..
> 
> And wasn’t Masse only available to those who bought Albion ONE or something like that?



Masse is not for sale. It’s only available to those who have the SSO collection.


----------



## thereus

I am beginning to suspect that Spitfire pays anti-shills to moan about their products before they release them.

Can everyone please confirm that they have not had any consideration from Spitfire in exchange for whinging about them on VI-Control in a tedious manner?

I want to know if SA are really untrustworthy obnoxious scumbags or if they just want to be portrayed that way so that people buy their stuff.


----------



## Technostica

prodigalson said:


> The idea this will only ever be available to certain users over Black Friday...I would take with a grain of salt.


I'm not sure that Paul was _very excited_ to announce that it will only ever be available over the Black Weekend as he put it. 
It's not very environmentally friendly to spend all those resources to produce something and then not make it available for more than a long weekend! 
I'm looking forward to the Extinction Rebellion re-release with added mung bean samples.


----------



## Michael Antrum

thereus said:


> I am beginning to suspect that Spitfire pays anti-shills to moan about their products before they release them.
> 
> Can everyone please confirm that they have not had any consideration from Spitfire in exchange for whinging about them on VI-Control in a tedious manner?
> 
> I want to know if SA are really untrustworthy obnoxious scumbags or if they just want to be portrayed that way so that people buy their stuff.




​


----------



## robgb

thereus said:


> Can everyone please confirm that they have not had any consideration from Spitfire in exchange for whinging about them on VI-Control in a tedious manner?


I'm expecting my check any day now.  (And yes, I'm kidding, in case someone gets upset)


----------



## Jaybee

Chance Boudreaux said:


> Has anyone managed to get Epic Strings to work on a Windows machine? I get an error when I load up the instrument. Log files say it can't open the patch files, even though the files seem to be there at the exact location mentioned in the log.



Any joy? 

Same here (Win 7 x64). I have no issues with any of the LABS instruments but this one with the new player isn't playing ball. Seems to be a path issue from the log but the paths are all correct (i.e. the samples are where they should be). Anyone fixed this? I've tried reinstalling twice and hitting 'Repair' but no joy. 

I have Albion 1 (Legacy) already so merely interested to see if this adds anything different I can use in the template.


----------



## rrichard63

thereus said:


> I am beginning to suspect that Spitfire pays anti-shills to moan about their products before they release them. [...]


Thank you for the best laugh of the weekend!


Technostica said:


> [...] I'm looking forward to the Extinction Rebellion re-release with added mung bean samples.


... and the second best laugh of the weekend!


----------



## Daniel James

Kadirally said:


> Walkthrough is up:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And full info-page is up too.




That actually sounds awesome, cool concept too. XD

-DJ


----------



## Scamper

Sarah Mancuso said:


> I have no idea what was originally included in Albion versus what's in Albion One's legacy folder versus what's in this new release. I just know that neither this nor Albion One seems to include a truly complete set.



Yeah, unfortunately the legatos are missing in Epic Strings, the old low strings octave legatos were fantastic. But apart from FX, it pretty much got all the articulations. Although having just one ensemble patch instead of high and low strings isn't as great.

Since the woodwinds and brass in Albion legacy are great and just available in shorts for Albion ONE, getting those should be really worth it. I just hope they won't be put together in a single ensemble patch.

Here is an excerpt of the legacy Albion patches:


----------



## Peaky Blinder

Booo to Spitfire's posh and millennial driven marketing and only allowing Aperture to be had at the time of the year when money for most people is the tightest.

Made me clear out my wish list as well.


----------



## JJHLH

Daniel James said:


> That actually sounds awesome, cool concept too. XD
> 
> -DJ



That really does sound awesome. The dynamic range is very impressive. New concepts like this are exciting.


----------



## John R Wilson

So people who have recently purchased the BBCSO wont get the aperture strings for free?


----------



## mralmostpopular

davidson said:


> Is this just the single mic position? For anyone who owns it, how would you say the mic mix compares to other spitfire mic positions?



Assuming you’re talking about Aperture Strings, nobody owns it yet.



Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> So people who have recently purchased the BBCSO wont get the aperture strings for free?



Doesn’t look like it.


----------



## Daniel James

JJHLH said:


> That really does sound awesome. The dynamic range is very impressive. New concepts like this are exciting.



Yup! I am 100% behind new ideas and innovation, and the idea feels fresh. I’m in!

-DJ


----------



## harmaes

Jaybee said:


> Any joy?
> 
> Same here (Win 7 x64). I have no issues with any of the LABS instruments but this one with the new player isn't playing ball. Seems to be a path issue from the log but the paths are all correct (i.e. the samples are where they should be). Anyone fixed this? I've tried reinstalling twice and hitting 'Repair' but no joy.
> 
> I have Albion 1 (Legacy) already so merely interested to see if this adds anything different I can use in the template.



Try to change the default installation path where the spitfire audio application installs the samples. I had no issues loading the plugin and the samples after that.
I’ve always found their installer quite unclear about this and the labs samples libraries at first always had issues showing up in the user interface. I also misused the HDD install option a few times to make it work.
With a Kontakt library you know how to back it up but with the Spitfire labs and now their own custom formatted libraries it’s unclear because they use multiple folders.


----------



## Drundfunk

Daniel James said:


> Yup! I am 100% behind new ideas and innovation, and the idea feels fresh. I’m in!
> 
> -DJ


At this point I'm only waiting for "Spitfire Audio LENSE". The whole orchestra with this concept. Who knows, if this is well received it might happen. And even better they don't have to break their promise and can sell crossgrades from Aperture to Lense Orchestra.


----------



## jononotbono

I’m confused. So “Epic Strings” are the Strings from Albion 1 (Legacy)?

I have Albion 1 and One so why Would I need this? I must be missing something.


----------



## thesteelydane

Daniel James said:


> Yup! I am 100% behind new ideas and innovation, and the idea feels fresh. I’m in!
> 
> -DJ



It does sound fantastic, and it’s great to see what spitfire can do with this idea, but I hope I can humbly point out that it’s not exactly new, without stepping on Spitfire’s glory - its the same idea that I based Bunker Strings on a year ago.


----------



## Chance Boudreaux

Jaybee said:


> Any joy?
> 
> Same here (Win 7 x64). I have no issues with any of the LABS instruments but this one with the new player isn't playing ball. Seems to be a path issue from the log but the paths are all correct (i.e. the samples are where they should be). Anyone fixed this? I've tried reinstalling twice and hitting 'Repair' but no joy.
> 
> I have Albion 1 (Legacy) already so merely interested to see if this adds anything different I can use in the template.


Not yet. Support unlocked a new version of the plugin for me, but it still has the same issue. I'll keep you posted.


----------



## rocking.xmas.man

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> So people who have recently purchased the BBCSO wont get the aperture strings for free?


Why should they? They bought bbcso while the introductory price or even preorder. Has nothing to do with Black Friday. That Black Friday would be coming have been clear before.


----------



## Michael Antrum

rocking.xmas.man said:


> Why should they? They bought bbcso while the introductory price or even preorder. Has nothing to do with Black Friday. That Black Friday would be coming have been clear before.



Probably because people were promised that if they ordered BBCSO during the pre-order period, there wouldn't be a better deal on it during BF or the Christmas Sales. However you slice it, a free additional library on Black Friday is a better deal.

However, I'm have a sneaking suspicion that Spitfire will do the decent thing here. People just need to have a little patience - something that is not found in abundance round these parts.....

(However, I'm a bystander here, as I'm waiting for the upgrade to the Symphonic library.)


----------



## TomislavEP

I just watched the playthrough for Aperture Strings. An interesting concept and a gorgeous sound for sure, but unfortunately I can't afford myself to spend nearly enough in order to qualify.


----------



## AndyP

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> So people who have recently purchased the BBCSO wont get the aperture strings for free?


Seems to be. I'm done with SA for now. There are also other good manufacturers whose business model I like much better.
No matter what SA brings to the market, they have lost me as a customer.


----------



## Francis Bourre

Kadirally said:


> Walkthrough is up:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And full info-page is up too.




The sound is gorgeous, and this concept is opening new territories in orchestral libraries. I hope we will see more of this kind of innovations in the future. In another scope, Kepler approach is really interesting as well.


----------



## Alex Fraser

jononotbono said:


> I’m confused. So “Epic Strings” are the Strings from Albion 1 (Legacy)?
> 
> I have Albion 1 and One so why Would I need this? I must be missing something.


Yes, from Albion I "Old School" and also free if you own that version.
As for needing it? Well, it's shiny. Also the samples have been reworked, rejigged and what not, old bean.


----------



## Zero&One

Both Aperture Strings and Epic Strings are excellent additions to the sample world.

But... I do find the approach a bit unlike Spitfire.
One is £29 for a classic library.
One is fluttering around a £299 purchase.
Then there's Labs for free.

As many users have several (if not all) SA libraries, getting Aperture Strings is impossible?
BBCSO early adopters owners do seem to have been left out on this. The BF sale is truly the best time to get BBCSO.
I'd hope Spitfire at least offer them the chance to buy Aperture for an extended period.

I'd find it difficult to accrue a £300 cart price, hence I'll get no "Aperture Action". Shame as it looks lovely.


----------



## AndyP

James H said:


> I'd find it difficult to accrue a £300 cart price, hence I'll get no "Aperture Action". Shame as it looks lovely.


Their marketing and sales model is extremely annoying to me. But nobody forces me to jump on the train, so I'm out to buy more.
Other mothers have beautiful daughters, too.


----------



## Alex Fraser

I can sort of understand the annoyance of BBCSO early adopters missing out on Aperture strings. Unfortunately, there's always "another deal" down the road. All we can do is jump on the train when the offering and our budget are in alignment. 🤷‍♂️ At least SF were clear the library would never be offered at a cheaper rate over the holiday season.

It's also interesting to read people's responses to the Epic Strings library. Here the library has been greeted with a spot of indifference and the usual VIC grumpiness. On the other hand, reading the SF YouTube comments for the launch video, people can't thank Spitfire enough for a £30 string library.

Maybe this forum is made up of older folks who've "seen it, done it" but I find the contrast remarkable.


----------



## AndyP

Alex Fraser said:


> At least SF were clear the library would never be offered at a cheaper rate over the holiday season.


Then so be it. I don't care about the price. 
And Spitfire doesn't matter to me as a customer as long as I don't buy anything new that costs at least 300 bills, so it balances out.


----------



## AndyP

Wouldn't it be better for existing customers to deliver the pending updates instead of releasing a new string library every week? I mean, there were some comments from owners of the SSts and the SSO.
This gives me to consider how sustainable the acquisition at SA is.


----------



## cqd

I'd be in agreement with Mr. P on this really.. I quite like the look of aperture strings.. I could conceivably justify getting the Olafur stuff, but their marketing strategy just depresses the life out of me..


----------



## Bansi

AndyP said:


> Seems to be. I'm done with SA for now. There are also other good manufacturers whose business model I like much better.
> No matter what SA brings to the market, they have lost me as a customer.


I


AndyP said:


> Their marketing and sales model is extremely annoying to me. But nobody forces me to jump on the train, so I'm out to buy more.
> Other mothers have beautiful daughters, too.





AndyP said:


> Their marketing and sales model is extremely annoying to me. But nobody forces me to jump on the train, so I'm out to buy more.
> Other mothers have beautiful daughters, too.





Alex Fraser said:


> I can sort of understand the annoyance of BBCSO early adopters missing out on Aperture strings. Unfortunately, there's always "another deal" down the road. All we can do is jump on the train when the offering and our budget are in alignment. 🤷‍♂️ At least SF were clear the library would never be offered at a cheaper rate over the holiday season.
> 
> It's also interesting to read people's responses to the Epic Strings library. Here the library has been greeted with a spot of indifference and the usual VIC grumpiness. On the other hand, reading the SF YouTube comments for the launch video, people can't thank Spitfire enough for a £30 string library.
> 
> Maybe this forum is made up of older folks who've "seen it, done it" but I find the contrast remarkable.


I don't object to their prices and discount policy but not to be able to buy Aperture if that is the only library you want or need does not seem to be professional. Like telling a child
" You want ice cream? then do your home work first" We are not children.


----------



## Alex Fraser

cqd said:


> I'd be in agreement with Mr. P on this really.. I quite like the look of aperture strings.. I could conceivably justify getting the Olafur stuff, but their marketing strategy just depresses the life out of me..


I don't find the marketing particularly obnoxious. Spitfire do have the right approach - in my experience selling music online, time limited sales and special edition releases *do* work. Some folk might not like it but them's the breaks.

I also think there's a slight tension between Spitfire and it's older userbase. The company have gone from supplying expensive "boutique" libraries to £30 offerings as they move towards the lower end of the market. That's gonna put a few noses out of joint, rightly or wrongly.

Aside, maybe Spitfire will capitulate and offer Aperture over Black Friday as a purchase option. Maybe it's all part of the masterplan: Drive up the demand for the library (_"why can't I have it!"_) before eventually offering it up for sale. I genuinely don't think they're that cynical though..


----------



## Mornats

I see the $/£29 libraries as Spitfire supporting their aim of helping more people get into composing. They're supporting this profession (and for folks like me, hobby) which is only good news in terms of the sustainability of sample library companies.


----------



## Loïc D

Drundfunk said:


> At this point I'm only waiting for "Spitfire Audio LENSE". The whole orchestra with this concept. Who knows, if this is well received it might happen. And even better they don't have to break their promise and can sell crossgrades from Aperture to Lense Orchestra.


This will be offered when you order more that 500 GBP at the Christmas WishList 

Remember you read it first here 

I love SA but I think they’re abusing a tad these days...
I don’t really get this exclusivity on a product. They’re really going to fashionista marketing...


----------



## 5Lives

I think they're just trying to sweeten the pot for their Black Friday customers. Why is that so bad? They want to boost sales, like any normal business would be inclined to do. The fact that they are sweetening it THIS much with a brand new library is pretty incredible for customers - don't see how that is treating customers poorly. Should they give it to previous owners of BBCSO? Maybe. But why stop there? Why not percussion swarm? Why not the library that come out before BBCSO? Where does it stop?

People wouldn't be complaining about their marketing tactics if their products weren't compelling. You may feel slighted or annoyed by them...but only because you want their products on YOUR terms.


----------



## AndyP

5Lives said:


> People wouldn't be complaining about their marketing tactics if their products weren't compelling. You may feel slighted or annoyed by them...but only because you want their products on YOUR terms.


Those who believe that SA is sacred and only want the best of their customers should think again. What is the best we can offer?


----------



## John R Wilson

I have just had a reply from spitfire. They will not be giving the aperture strings free to people who have only just paid out over £600 for the bbcso. You have to pay out another £300 this black friday to get it. 

I personally think it is very wrong of them and a terrible way to treat their customers. Many early adopter have had to put up with weeks of issues with the bbcso only to then be told this!!


----------



## rocking.xmas.man

it‘s not spitfire treating their customers badly. It’s spitfire making Black Friday thermonuclear again. And that is great.

in all honesty - getting bbcso on introductory offer (or even more so after that) simply was quite a unlucky (is there a word like dumb but less rude?) decision. That there are issues with their player has been known since hz strings. That bbcso will return to its intro pricing for be was stated pretty early. I don‘t understand why anyone hopped on that wagon


----------



## Wunderhorn

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> Many early adopter have had to put up with weeks of issues with the bbcso only to then be told this!!



I learned it the hard way wit PLAY years ago. Never ever be an early adopter of a new sample player unless you love the game of circumnavigating bugs. No matter how shiny that new linrary is...


----------



## John R Wilson

Wunderhorn said:


> I learned it the hard way wit PLAY years ago. Never ever be an early adopter of a new sample player unless you love the game of circumnavigating bugs. No matter how shiny that new linrary is...



I agree but I got the edu discount which they only made available then or j would have waited until black friday. I personally feel it is only fair for the earlier adopters who have paid a lot of money only a few weeks ago to be given it for free. It would be a fair thing for spitfire to do considering the issues people have had.


----------



## cqd

Yeah, but this way you spend e350 more..

I really want aperture strings after watching that walkthrough though..


----------



## 5Lives

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> I agree but I got the edu discount which they only made available then or j would have waited until black friday. I personally feel it is only fair for the earlier adopters who have paid a lot of money only a few weeks ago to be given it for free. It would be a fair thing for spitfire to do considering the issues people have had.



Why is this the fair thing to do? Did you not have the library before anybody else and were able to use it for weeks? Not everybody had issues - a small % of users did. So, by your logic, only they should get this for free right?


----------



## AndyP

cqd said:


> Yeah, but this way you spend e350 more..
> 
> I really want aperture strings after watching that walkthrough though..


For those of you who want to leave $350 with SA at BF, that's great. Stupid if someone would have to pay only 349$ for his purchase and has to put some more in the shopping cart to get the free lib (GAS, GAS, GAS ....).

I work in advertising and marketing (top 5 agency in Germany), I know these tricks. I would usually advise clients against such deals because it annoys customers and makes them look dubious.

SA does not care, but they are not well advised when it comes to customer satisfaction. SA gets too loud for me.

Edit: My opinion is independent of BBCSO buyers, whether early buyers or not. This is about questionable marketing tricks.


----------



## sostenuto

Have not jumped at BCCSO so far, believing that it will be at Intro price again via WL, or BF, or some other 'holiday' promo. If so ..... I get Aperture freeeee !! 
Procrastination pays !! MUAHAHAHAHA


----------



## Hadrondrift

Aperture really looks like an excellent library.

I don't think a company produces a new library with new technology and new GUI, even with new samples, and then put in on sale for only less than a week. I personally think there's a certain reason why this Aperture library is subtitled "The Black Edition". Maybe it is just a special version of an upcoming bigger Aperture library or something similar.

The current offer is clearly designed to generate FOMO. For those who can resist, there might be a different Aperture library for maybe even less than 349€ sometime in the future. Of course, can't predict it, just saying, people seem so unhappy and angry. Well, maybe understandable in the case of the BBCSO early buyers.



sostenuto said:


> MUAHAHAHAHA


Making friends and being liked is different. But resisting sometimes can pay of, grant you that.


----------



## 5Lives

AndyP said:


> I work in advertising and marketing (top 5 agency in Germany), I know these tricks. I would usually advise clients against such deals because it annoys customers and makes them look dubious.
> 
> SA does not care, but they are not well advised when it comes to customer satisfaction. SA gets too loud for me.



You know - there's a company that recently did this. Buy one of their new products and get an annual subscription from them for free! However, only new purchases qualified - didn't apply if you bought something in the summer. And it is a limited time offer - the audacity. A marketing tactic (not a trick as you like to call it) to drive sales and adoption. Do you know what that company is? Hint - the most successful and innovative advertising and marketing company in the last 20 years. Apple.


----------



## rocking.xmas.man

AndyP said:


> For those of you who want to leave $350 with SA at BF, that's great. Stupid if someone would have to pay only 349$ for his purchase and has to put some more in the shopping cart to get the free lib (GAS, GAS, GAS ....).


Actually the lower limit to get Aperture strings is 349, which looks like a reduced price for one of the albions


----------



## Simon Ravn

cqd said:


> Yeah, but this way you spend e350 more..
> 
> I really want aperture strings after watching that walkthrough though..



Do you have SF Chamber Strings? And SF Symphonic Strings?

OK, then you can have Aperture Strings by doing this:

1) Load the ensemble sustains of chamber strings.
2) Load the ensemble sustains of symphonic strings.
3) In Logic, Cubase or whatever, find a way to x-fade between the two patches in a good way, so maybe when you get to around MIDI step 60-80 of the chamber patch, you start fading into the symphonic patch.

I know this is just roughly what is going on, and if you really want this to work well, you actually need to build a new patch by combining selected groups from the chamber patch with selected groups from the symphonic patch, so you get more and better control of it... 

I really think "Aperture strings" is a silly idea. X-fading between string sections like that sounds totally unnatural. If you like that, fine, but you really don't need a separate patch to do this. You can just record chamber + symphonic patches doing something and x-fade between them.


----------



## AndyP

5Lives said:


> Hint - the most successful and innovative advertising and marketing company in the last 20 years. Apple.


No question, SA is not the only company that uses these strategies. I can live with that and I don't condemn anyone who jumps on this train. After all, that's what the company wants to achieve with it. That's great for new customers.

The offer of SA is great, exclusive, I am happy for every new customer, or customers who have already planned to buy something at the BF. 

Apple has always been different. I've been working with Apple for almost 30 years, and it's like fire and ice. A love-hate relationship that only lasts because I don't like the alternatives. 
That's the way it is and it probably won't change anymore. I remain therefore nevertheless critical.


----------



## Zero&One

rocking.xmas.man said:


> That bbcso will return to its intro pricing for be was stated pretty early. I don‘t understand why anyone hopped on that wagon



On the launch Aug 28th, they said it was an intro offer not to be repeated.
Sept 5th they changed the FAQ to include the BF and Wish list.

So in that week many of us weighed up the pros & cons. Pulled the trigger.
I'd agree if it changed within a day, but the promo was in full swing and there seemed no better time... until a week later.
I almost cancelled, but thought "would it really matter?". We now know it would, as I/us would have gained another library. So it's not as simple/petty as it first looks.


----------



## Daniel James

Have they made any comment about the Aperture Strings and early adopters of BBCSO getting a copy? I know its a stretch but if its going I actually want those more than the BBC XD

-DJ


----------



## Daniel James

thesteelydane said:


> It does sound fantastic, and it’s great to see what spitfire can do with this idea, but I hope I can humbly point out that it’s not exactly new, without stepping on Spitfire’s glory - its the same idea that I based Bunker Strings on a year ago.




Did you do sustains in this concept? Because thats what I liked the look of. 

Cool sounding library btw, thanks for keeping it fresh.

-DJ


----------



## cqd

Daniel James said:


> Have they made any comment about the Aperture Strings and early adopters of BBCSO getting a copy? I know its a stretch but if its going I actually want those more than the BBC XD
> 
> -DJ



You got BBC for nothing anyway..don't be pushing your luck..


----------



## ridgero

Daniel James said:


> Have they made any comment about the Aperture Strings and early adopters of BBCSO getting a copy? I know its a stretch but if its going I actually want those more than the BBC XD
> 
> -DJ




If enough is not enough for you, nothing is enough


----------



## 5Lives

Daniel James said:


> Have they made any comment about the Aperture Strings and early adopters of BBCSO getting a copy? I know its a stretch but if its going I actually want those more than the BBC XD
> 
> -DJ



I believe somebody emailed them and they confirmed it would only be for BF sales, not prior ones.


----------



## noises on

A nimble competing developer would do well to release a mimicked product for a couple of bob a few hours before black friday. Should not be to tricky if you already have a bunker full of relevant samples at our disposal.


----------



## fish_hoof

I really like the sound but concerned about controlling dynamics. I assume we'd be using CC expression to control dynamics and fades vs mod-wheel as that controls the string section size.


----------



## Daniel James

cqd said:


> You got BBC for nothing anyway..don't be pushing your luck..



8 hours of live streaming it disagrees with that statement. 

-DJ


----------



## Daniel James

ridgero said:


> If enough is not enough for you, nothing is enough


What?


----------



## erica-grace

5Lives said:


> Did you not have the library before anybody else and were able to use it for weeks?



Wait a minute - he had the library before anyone else? How did that happen?


----------



## cqd

Daniel James said:


> 8 hours of live streaming it disagrees with that statement.
> 
> -DJ



Yeah, actually, fair enough..


----------



## Daniel James

5Lives said:


> I believe somebody emailed them and they confirmed it would only be for BF sales, not prior ones.


Ahhh fuck. I'm not sure what else of theirs I don't already have that I would want to buy just to get the actual library I want haha. Ah well. Maybe i'll pick up something in the hope I use it down the road... but unfortunately probably not.

-DJ


----------



## brenneisen

any info if SSoS+SCS+SSS owners will get Aperture for free?

they should (or for a little fee, since there's some (little) new content)


----------



## John R Wilson

It's a great way for spitfire to anger its existing and recently new customers who purchased BBCSO. I understand that giving a free library this black friday is a good marketing strategy and a great way to get new customers, but the timing they have chosen to do this after only a matter of weeks since releasing BBCSO with problems is quite frankly ridiculous. I was planning on buying some more spitfire libraries this black friday. However, I wont be now, 'll be going elsewhere. There is plenty of other sample library developers that are not doing things like this.


----------



## dzilizzi

5Lives said:


> You know - there's a company that recently did this. Buy one of their new products and get an annual subscription from them for free! However, only new purchases qualified - didn't apply if you bought something in the summer. And it is a limited time offer - the audacity. A marketing tactic (not a trick as you like to call it) to drive sales and adoption. Do you know what that company is? Hint - the most successful and innovative advertising and marketing company in the last 20 years. Apple.


I hate Apple's marketing. But at least Spitfire has offered a lot of value outside of their bad marketing. I learn a lot from their videos.


----------



## 5Lives

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> The timing they have chosen to do this after only a matter of weeks since releasing BBCSO with problems is quite frankly ridiculous.



The timing of Black Friday? As if they just made that up? It happens the same time every year! It didn't catch anybody by surprise. You'd rather they gave nothing out as a bonus for buying their products on Black Friday?

People's entitlement knob is ramped way up these days.


----------



## 5Lives

dzilizzi said:


> I hate Apple's marketing. But at least Spitfire has offered a lot of value outside of their bad marketing. I learn a lot from their videos.



You may hate Apple's marketing, but you'd be alone if you claimed it wasn't effective and hadn't defined marketing strategy (for every consumer company) in the last 10-20 years.

And agree on Spitfire's educational videos. They're awesome.


----------



## dozicusmaximus

I'm a potential new customer that was already looking at a few lower end products. So score for me!

Luckily I'm not in the predicament of feeling like I should be given something that wasn't promised to me. Unless it was, then that's screwed up.

Anyhow I'm sure this give away library will become a full fledged one. Then we can participate in threads about how the Aperture Strings library sounded better....  Or better yet..."They said this was a limited edition!"


----------



## John R Wilson

5Lives said:


> The timing of Black Friday? As if they just made that up? It happens the same time every year! It didn't catch anybody by surprise. You'd rather they gave nothing out as a bonus for buying their products on Black Friday?
> 
> People's entitlement knob is ramped way up these days.



The timing that they released BBCSO. I'd rather they didn't release expensive products weeks before black friday and then only a matter of weeks later offer that same library with a free one after many early adopter experienced lots of issues with the bbcso on release. I cant see why it is so hard for spitfire to offer this library free to many who have only just paid out over 600 pounds for the BBCSO, especially considering the early issues with windows. Regardless of my views, I'm sure that this will anger and annoy a lot of recent early adopter of the BBCSO.


----------



## dzilizzi

5Lives said:


> You may hate Apple's marketing, but you'd be alone if you claimed it wasn't effective and hadn't defined marketing strategy (for every consumer company) in the last 10-20 years.
> 
> And agree on Spitfire's educational videos. They're awesome.


I don't like that they made it seem like their computers are perfect. Yes, the used to make a good product. But they also have made overpriced unfixable crap. And a lot of trips 2 hours each way to the Apple store only for them to do nothing. Sorry, don't get me started. I will sound worse than the BBCSO early adapters with problems.


----------



## AndyP

With computers, it's easier to make a choice. There's a lot more sample libraries than that. and the risk of making a bad purchase is more likely.
Service, as you know it from the past, is a luxury today. At least with computers. The providers of sample libraries are better positioned in most cases.

If you are either on the Windows or Mac trip, a change is much more difficult than with a string library.

I think it would be fair of SA if they would at least make the Windows users happy, or at least those who obviously have problems. I'm a Mac user and wouldn't participate in it, but I don't have much trouble with BBCSO either.

It is as it is and there is no reason for malice or too much anger. As a customer, I have a free choice and can decide for myself how far I want to go. It's ok for me. I have a library, and SA my money.
For the BF in this case both sides go out without a deal.


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> It's a great way for spitfire to anger its existing and recently new customers who purchased BBCSO. I understand that giving a free library this black friday is a good marketing strategy and a great way to get new customers, but the timing they have chosen to do this after only a matter of weeks since releasing BBCSO with problems is quite frankly ridiculous. I was planning on buying some more spitfire libraries this black friday. However, I wont be now, 'll be going elsewhere. There is plenty of other sample library developers that are not doing things like this.



It would be nice if we got the free library. However, I could have waited until BF to buy BBCSO, they fully disclaimed it would be available for the intro price then (we didn't really gain anything by pre-purchasing). Aperture would be cool, but it's most likely a "gimmicky" library that you'd fart around with a few times and then let it disappear into oblivion with all of our other gimmicky libraries.


----------



## AndyP

Not having Aperture is a nice challenge to build something similar yourself from existing libraries. It's already been mentioned here. Not having Aperture is not the end of the world.


----------



## Zero&One

Wolfie2112 said:


> a "gimmicky" library that you'd fart around with a few times and then let it disappear into oblivion with all of our other gimmicky libraries.



Some people on here would say you are talking about BBC SO 

Yeah, would have been nice. It ain't happening, so I moved on. Bought percX, Josh's violin and I feel happy again.


----------



## AndyP

James H said:


> Bought percX,... and I feel happy again.


I'm curious about that, too! Looks promising.


----------



## Denkii

Honestly BBCSO turned out to be a really good purchase for me.
I use it when I am too lazy to struggle with mixing and leveling and it offers everything you need 95% of the time. Admittedly: I substitute the brass. So...65% of the time XD


----------



## CT

This place is weird.


----------



## MauroPantin

Loved the Epic Strings. I came late to the party and never had access to the original Albion. These sound quite cool for sketching and even the occasional layer. It's too bad there are no legatos... but for 29 bucks it's a great deal.

Don't really care for aperture strings. I understand the concept, it is cool. But I'm just not interested. Like most of you, I've spent hours and hours and hours balancing and tweaking my template. I don't want a set of strings that completely disrupts that. I have the big ensemble set up, and I have the detailed ensemble set up, and never the two shall meet.


----------



## Zero&One

Denkii said:


> Honestly BBCSO turned out to be a really good purchase for me.



Me too, I enjoy using it and I can't see that changing for a long time. My colleague brought his laptop across last night with several other libs installed (I'll not mention them for drama sake) We played, compared various things, midi etc etc. I'm still 100% happy with the purchase let's just say... and he'll probably get a free gift this BF 

@AndyP it's fantastic. Really impressed so far.


----------



## Denkii

James H said:


> (I'll not mention them for drama sake)


we both know you want to.


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

James H said:


> Some people on here would say you are talking about BBC SO



Probably lol! Personally, I'm loving it. It has brought a ton of new inspiration, and I love the whole package.


----------



## Gerbil

I like the way the CC1 opens and closes in the GUI. Reminds me of the bar door in the first episode of The Mandalorian.


----------



## sostenuto

Much between individuals' ears ? Can easily rationalize that BBCSO now cost me $400. cuz Aperture is essentially free.  
Reality is ...... is BBCSO true value @ $749. when 4TB SSD (QVO) is already on order to deal with its girth ??


----------



## anp27

5Lives said:


> Do you know what that company is? Hint - the most successful and innovative advertising and marketing company in the last 20 years. Apple.



Here's the difference though: Apple sells hardware, computers, phones, tablets. SA sells software. With Apple products you always have the option to re-sell the products you bought. With SA once you buy these libraries, you can't resell them and you're stuck with them for life.


----------



## ag75

I’m a little confused, the BBC orchestra is no longer at the introductory price and the SSD is also $50 more expensive than the introductory price. I’m trying to follow along with all these threads and I thought I read that people were complaining that the BBC was still at its introductory price. We got the library at its cheapest correct? Why would be be entitled to a free BF library?


----------



## sostenuto

Maybe re-check after SFA _ WL & BlkFri promo(s) ? Expecting to see $BBCSO at $749. but will wait and see.


----------



## jononotbono

ag75 said:


> We got the library at its cheapest correct? Why would be be entitled to a free BF library?



Yes. I’ve also been wondering why people feel that they should be getting free BF library because they bought a library that has absolutely nothing to do with BF.


----------



## dzilizzi

ag75 said:


> I’m a little confused, the BBC orchestra is no longer at the introductory price and the SSD is also $50 more expensive than the introductory price. I’m trying to follow along with all these threads and I thought I read that people were complaining that the BBC was still at its introductory price. We got the library at its cheapest correct? Why would be be entitled to a free BF library?


The don't do Black Friday until Black Friday and then it is usually a short sale. Then the Christmas wishlist starts Christmas day and usually goes to the first of the year. A little longer sometimes for those who didn't get their emails. 

From what I understand, BBCSO will not be lower than the intro price during these two sales. However, they also didn't say it would be as low as the intro price. So, who knows?


----------



## mralmostpopular

dzilizzi said:


> The don't do Black Friday until Black Friday and then it is usually a short sale. Then the Christmas wishlist starts Christmas day and usually goes to the first of the year. A little longer sometimes for those who didn't get their emails.
> 
> From what I understand, BBCSO will not be lower than the intro price during these two sales. However, they also didn't say it would be as low as the intro price. So, who knows?



It says on the website that it will be offered at the intro price.

I’m a little back and forth on this, and can see both sides. On one hand, we don’t have anything less than we had before. Had they never introduced this library, no one would have felt cheated. On the other hand, it’s incredibly odd to offer a better deal than pre-order only weeks later. It will likely boost sales for BF, but possibly at the expense of some possibly long-time customers. The Apple analogy falls apart because they didn’t offer anything exclusive (you can’t get this library outside of the sale), and that they’re the only game in town if you’re Mac-based (e.g. Logic user).

For me, it just seems like such a bizzare business decision to make it exclusive. If they put it out there for $30 like Epic Strings and gave it away for free with a $349+ purchase, I think there would be a lot less grumbling. However, essentially saying “you can’t have it” to a group that just spent a good deal of money on one of your biggest releases in the last couple of years doesn’t build good will. I don’t think most people are really upset about a sample library equivalent of a toy. It’s more the way Spitfire is going about it.

My thought when I tried the library was that I probably wouldn’t get much use out of it. That still stands.


----------



## Zedcars

Bollen said:


> Well it depends how it works... I'm not familiarised with BBSO, but as far as I know they don't have any divisi, just a soloist.


You can get close to divisi in BBCSO by combining Violin Leader 1 and/or 2 with their legato, sul tasto, con sord, and flauntando articulations. I posted an example in the mega-thread. Works pretty well. I would guess divisi in the violas and cellos might work the same way.


----------



## Daniel James

jononotbono said:


> Yes. I’ve also been wondering why people feel that they should be getting free BF library because they bought a library that has absolutely nothing to do with BF.



I don't recall where it started but I remember someone musing that it was implied there wouldn't be a better deal for BBCSO on black friday than if one was to pre-purchase. It now transpires that had you waited for Black Friday it wouldn't be 'cheaper' per se but there will be added value because you get the Aperture Strings free over a certain amount spent, meaning there _*was*_ a better deal had you waited.

I think thats where it comes from at least.

-DJ


----------



## Soundhound

Exactly this (DJ's point and the exclusivity issue mralmostpopular discussed). Christian and Paul make terrific product evangelists, they're great at what they do and they provide a fantastic amount of helpful info to the community. This is just bad strategy/messaging. I'm a lifelong ad guy as well, and to me great marketing isn't just marketing that works—monopolies work but there are no monopoly fanboys—it also builds good will. With the amount of product intros and experiential efforts Spitfire undertakes, it's easy to see how this could have slipped through the cracks.

It happens to the best of them. Apple has pissed plenty of people off over the years, but they rule the world because their product is one of a kind and their advertising (for the first few decades) was often brilliant. But that was always an odd case. Jobs was obsessed with design and knew how to let the agency do great work.

It doesn't feel like a big deal really, but it also just doesn't feel like Spitfire, or rather like the Spitfire many of us like so much.





mralmostpopular said:


> It says on the website that it will be offered at the intro price.
> 
> I’m a little back and forth on this, and can see both sides. On one hand, we don’t have anything less than we had before. Had they never introduced this library, no one would have felt cheated. On the other hand, it’s incredibly odd to offer a better deal than pre-order only weeks later. It will likely boost sales for BF, but possibly at the expense of some possibly long-time customers. The Apple analogy falls apart because they didn’t offer anything exclusive (you can’t get this library outside of the sale), and that they’re the only game in town if you’re Mac-based (e.g. Logic user).
> 
> For me, it just seems like such a bizzare business decision to make it exclusive. If they put it out there for $30 like Epic Strings and gave it away for free with a $349+ purchase, I think there would be a lot less grumbling. However, essentially saying “you can’t have it” to a group that just spent a good deal of money on one of your biggest releases in the last couple of years doesn’t build good will. I don’t think most people are really upset about a sample library equivalent of a toy. It’s more the way Spitfire is going about it.
> 
> My thought when I tried the library was that I probably wouldn’t get much use out of it. That still stands.


----------



## Chance Boudreaux

Jaybee said:


> Any joy?


After a repair it works now with version 1.0.8 of the plugin. I believe it will be released very soon, but you could also contact support and ask them to unlock this version for you too.


----------



## dzilizzi

mralmostpopular said:


> It says on the website that it will be offered at the intro price.
> 
> I’m a little back and forth on this, and can see both sides. On one hand, we don’t have anything less than we had before. Had they never introduced this library, no one would have felt cheated. On the other hand, it’s incredibly odd to offer a better deal than pre-order only weeks later. It will likely boost sales for BF, but possibly at the expense of some possibly long-time customers. The Apple analogy falls apart because they didn’t offer anything exclusive (you can’t get this library outside of the sale), and that they’re the only game in town if you’re Mac-based (e.g. Logic user).
> 
> For me, it just seems like such a bizzare business decision to make it exclusive. If they put it out there for $30 like Epic Strings and gave it away for free with a $349+ purchase, I think there would be a lot less grumbling. However, essentially saying “you can’t have it” to a group that just spent a good deal of money on one of your biggest releases in the last couple of years doesn’t build good will. I don’t think most people are really upset about a sample library equivalent of a toy. It’s more the way Spitfire is going about it.
> 
> My thought when I tried the library was that I probably wouldn’t get much use out of it. That still stands.


Sorry, going by what was said prior to release as I was going to wait for the wishlist sale for this. I am not in a hurry. And, at this point, it is very unlikely I will spend enough at Spitfire to get this new library.


----------



## Alex Fraser

Spitfire promised the BBCSO would be available at the same *price* as the intro offer, not that there wouldn’t be any other holiday sale benefits. Important to make that distinction. 

Nit picking maybe, but seeing as we’re knee deep in the mud..


----------



## thesteelydane

Daniel James said:


> Did you do sustains in this concept? Because thats what I liked the look of.
> 
> Cool sounding library btw, thanks for keeping it fresh.
> 
> -DJ


Not in Vol. 1, no, only textures and shorts that you control the volume and density of by changing the number of players, so the exact same concept. I take this whole thing as a validation of my idea, really. Vol. 2 will be out soon, and contains more sustain like textures, all bowed, but no straight up longs, everything has some textural life in it. I personally find sampling the most interesting when used to do things that can't be done in real life (hence this idea), and I'm also trying to only record articulations that hasn't been done to death already.

I actually did offer you a free review copy of Vol. 1, but never heard back from you 

Cheers,
Nico


----------



## jononotbono

Daniel James said:


> I don't recall where it started but I remember someone musing that it was implied there wouldn't be a better deal for BBCSO on black friday than if one was to pre-purchase. It now transpires that had you waited for Black Friday it wouldn't be 'cheaper' per se but there will be added value because you get the Aperture Strings free over a certain amount spent, meaning there _*was*_ a better deal had you waited.
> 
> I think thats where it comes from at least.
> 
> -DJ



Interesting because I remember SA saying that the price of BBCSO would be the same as the intro price for BF which is why I didn’t rush to buy the BBCSO. It was also another moment of confusion for me because I was literally saying to myself “WTF are people rushing to buy this if the price will return soon?!”

The sample library world is like no other is it! 😂


----------



## John R Wilson

jononotbono said:


> Interesting because I remember SA saying that the price of BBCSO would be the same as the intro price for BF which is why I didn’t rush to buy the BBCSO. It was also another moment of confusion for me because I was literally saying to myself “WTF are people rushing to buy this if the price will return soon?!”
> 
> The sample library world is like no other is it! 😂



I rushed out and got it cause i got the education pricing on it. If it wasnt for this then I would have probably waited and recieved this free library.


----------



## Jaybee

Chance Boudreaux said:


> After a repair it works now with version 1.0.8 of the plugin. I believe it will be released very soon, but you could also contact support and ask them to unlock this version for you too.



Good to hear. Thanks for the update. I'll wait for the fixed version to be rolled out, they must be really busy this time of year!


----------



## redlester

jononotbono said:


> Interesting because I remember SA saying that the price of BBCSO would be the same as the intro price for BF which is why I didn’t rush to buy the BBCSO. It was also another moment of confusion for me because I was literally saying to myself “WTF are people rushing to buy this if the price will return soon?!”
> 
> The sample library world is like no other is it! 😂



Unless I dreamt it I'm sure they said at time of the Keynote announcement that BBC would NOT be included in Black Friday or Christmas promo's. Within a few days of that though, they announced they had changed policy and that it would be available BF at the intro price.


----------



## redlester

Chance Boudreaux said:


> After a repair it works now with version 1.0.8 of the plugin. I believe it will be released very soon, but you could also contact support and ask them to unlock this version for you too.



1.0.8? I'm still on 1.0.5 and no updates shown as available!?


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

Johnrwilsonmusic said:


> I rushed out and got it cause i got the education pricing on it. If it wasnt for this then I would have probably waited and recieved this free library.



Same here, it was a great deal.


----------



## Zero&One

redlester said:


> Unless I dreamt it I'm sure they said at time of the Keynote announcement that BBC would NOT be included in Black Friday or Christmas promo's. Within a few days of that though, they announced they had changed policy and that it would be available BF at the intro price.



They did yes, it was even on the official FAQ. The reason many of us bought it early (many people here seem to miss this point). They changed it 1 week later on the 5th Sept to include BF and Christmas.


----------



## Zedcars

redlester said:


> Unless I dreamt it I'm sure they said at time of the Keynote announcement that BBC would NOT be included in Black Friday or Christmas promo's. Within a few days of that though, they announced they had changed policy and that it would be available BF at the intro price.



You didn't dream it:

Your post from 28th August (in the Mega-Thread):



redlester said:


> From the FAQ;
> 
> 
> 
> 
> BBC Symphony Orchestra will not be included in our upcoming Black Friday and Christmas sales.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So looks like next spring's wish list sale will be the first opportunity to get 40% off.
Click to expand...



SA Support post from 5th September (also in the MT):



SpitfireSupport said:


> Sorry for the barrage - just one more thing. People have discussed Black Friday and Christmas wishlist earlier in the thread and I wanted to let you know that we’ve reworded one of the FAQs because it wasn’t quite accurate. BBC SO will return to its promo price during Black Friday and Christmas wishlist but will not be discounted to the same extent as older libraries. Ben


----------



## jononotbono

Zedcars said:


> You didn't dream it:
> 
> Your post from 28th August (in the Mega-Thread):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> SA Support post from 5th September (also in the MT):



Well that clears that up. Thanks.


----------



## Zedcars

jononotbono said:


> Well that clears that up. Thanks.


It was hard work re-reading that entire thread again...


----------



## angeruroth

The combination between sound and functionality in Aperture looks awesome. I do something like that every other day layering BDT and Tundra longs (and other libs from different devs, of course), but the idea of doing that directly with just the keyboard or maybe one slider (and with instruments sharing the same ambience) is really appealing, so if they release something like that at the Originals price or so I think I won't be able to resist.

I also like the idea behind Bunker strings, but the sound is too textural/percussive for my purposes. If it had a more soft-ish character (maybe something like BDT, where you have eternal longs, with emotion and texture, but still easy to blend within the composition) it would also be hard to resist, 'cause the sound is not bad at all, and the functionality is already there.

Anyway, interesting times.


----------



## thesteelydane

angeruroth said:


> The combination between sound and functionality in Aperture looks awesome. I do something like that every other day layering BDT and Tundra longs (and other libs from different devs, of course), but the idea of doing that directly with just the keyboard or maybe one slider (and with instruments sharing the same ambience) is really appealing, so if they release something like that at the Originals price or so I think I won't be able to resist.
> 
> I also like the idea behind Bunker strings, but the sound is too textural/percussive for my purposes. If it had a more soft-ish character (maybe something like BDT, where you have eternal longs, with emotion and texture, but still easy to blend within the composition) it would also be hard to resist, 'cause the sound is not bad at all, and the functionality is already there.
> 
> Anyway, interesting times.


Something like that is coming in Vol. 2 - until then the soft pizz trem with a bit of delay and reverb, is a very calm texture. I personally like to blend that in with normal longs from other libs, when I'm not concerned with realism, just want an interesting that could be real.


----------



## angeruroth

thesteelydane said:


> Something like that is coming in Vol. 2 - until then the soft pizz trem with a bit of delay and reverb, is a very calm texture. I personally like to blend that in with normal longs from other libs, when I'm not concerned with realism, just want an interesting that could be real.


Interesting... I'll keep my ears open about Vol. 2


----------



## Zero&One

From FB
“Paul takes us through The Black Edition 2019: Aperture Strings library”

What’s with Black Edition? BFriday edition I presume? So there’s more Editions to come...


----------



## emasters

This has changed my view of Spitfire. Clearly, Aperature Strings is only one product. But undermining the prior value of sales during October and November, by offering an exclusive give-away with no prior consideration, feels a bit like being extorted for more money. It's the first time I've felt buyer's remorse for a Spitfire purchase, wishing I had waited. If Aperature Strings was given away with $349 BF purchased, and available for sale at $xx.xx, then no big deal -- just a customer choice at that point. I understand Spitfire's business interest with this. Not sure it's the best approach for long-term customer/brand loyalty, though.


----------



## Pier

ridgero said:


> Got an E-Mail von SA, but I think it's something different:
> 
> 
> _We are excited to inform you that as an owner of the legacy Albion ONE, you will receive our new library Original — Epic Strings for free, which is being released today. You will receive an email informing you when your download is ready.
> 
> Epic Strings features content from the legacy Albion ONE which we have updated. The new library is simplified and presented in our free, easy-to-use plugin. Featuring 11 articulations and 3 signals (Close, Room and Stretch).
> 
> Can I keep using the Kontakt libraries? — Yes, you don't have to download the new versions and even if you do, you can keep the old and new versions of the product if you like. If you have any other questions please look at our http://mailout.www.spitfireaudio.com/t/52326401773167/004216015880459/ (FAQ here).
> 
> Thank you again for your continued support, and speak soon!_



Hmmm I own Albion ONE but I didn't receive that email.


----------



## harmaes

It seems like there’s no discount for BBCSO for BF?


----------



## Bluemount Score

Pier Bover said:


> Hmmm I own Albion ONE but I didn't receive that email.


*Legacy* Albion ONE. You probably own the updated version, same do I. No email here either.


----------



## neblix

The issue is they seem to have forgotten their naming scheme. Legacy Albion is "Albion I" not "Albion One". The new Albion is "Albion ONE".


----------



## John R Wilson

emasters said:


> This has changed my view of Spitfire. Clearly, Aperature Strings is only one product. But undermining the prior value of sales during October and November, by offering an exclusive give-away with no prior consideration, feels a bit like being extorted for more money. It's the first time I've felt buyer's remorse for a Spitfire purchase, wishing I had waited. If Aperature Strings was given away with $349 BF purchased, and available for sale at $xx.xx, then no big deal -- just a customer choice at that point. I understand Spitfire's business interest with this. Not sure it's the best approach for long-term customer/brand loyalty, though.



Completely agree with you and I'm sure this will have upset many people.


----------



## stevedeath

emasters said:


> This has changed my view of Spitfire. Clearly, Aperature Strings is only one product. But undermining the prior value of sales during October and November, by offering an exclusive give-away with no prior consideration, feels a bit like being extorted for more money. It's the first time I've felt buyer's remorse for a Spitfire purchase, wishing I had waited. If Aperature Strings was given away with $349 BF purchased, and available for sale at $xx.xx, then no big deal -- just a customer choice at that point. I understand Spitfire's business interest with this. Not sure it's the best approach for long-term customer/brand loyalty, though.


Agreed. I feel that the way Spitfire market things with all the sales periods, leads to quite a stressful purchasing relationship with them. You are always wondering if it is/was the right time to buy something, rather than just buying the damn thing and enjoying it!


----------



## Alex Fraser

harmaes said:


> It seems like there’s no discount for BBCSO for BF?


I don’t think BF are live yet.


----------



## harmaes

Alex Fraser said:


> I don’t think BF are live yet.



Agreed, AFAIKT the percentages off are already mentioned though. Maybe some last minute changes are made.


----------



## Zero&One

I think I found 179 BBC SO owners on the Aperture YouTube video 

... or 130 potential BBC SO owners. Depends how you look at your glass


----------



## Jeremy Spencer

harmaes said:


> It seems like there’s no discount for BBCSO for BF?



That's because it's not BF yet. They already officially posted on their website, during the presale, that it would be available again on BF for the same intro price.


----------



## John R Wilson

James H said:


> I think I found 179 BBC SO owners on the Aperture YouTube video
> 
> ... or 130 potential BBC SO owners. Depends how you look at your glass



That says it all about how many are probably upset about what they have done with the aperture strings and recent bbcso buyers. Like I said before, a great way for spitfire to upset recent buyers of the BBCSO.


----------



## Pier

Bluemount Score said:


> *Legacy* Albion ONE. You probably own the updated version, same do I. No email here either.



Thanks for pointing that out. I'm not on my music machine, but doesn't Albion ONE include the legacy content too?


----------



## Bluemount Score

Pier Bover said:


> Thanks for pointing that out. I'm not on my music machine, but doesn't Albion ONE include the legacy content too?


Parts of it, not everything, which is a shame as some really good content got "lost" that way.


----------



## Michael Antrum

I have both Albion I and Albion ONE, (but not Albion Juan).

If I could only keep one, it would be I. (Sorry Juan....)


----------



## Pier

Michael Antrum said:


> I have both Albion I and Albion ONE, (but not Albion Juan).
> 
> If I could only keep one, it would be I. (Sorry Juan....)








(Sorry I couldn't resist)


----------



## Daniel James

thesteelydane said:


> Not in Vol. 1, no, only textures and shorts that you control the volume and density of by changing the number of players, so the exact same concept. I take this whole thing as a validation of my idea, really. Vol. 2 will be out soon, and contains more sustain like textures, all bowed, but no straight up longs, everything has some textural life in it. I personally find sampling the most interesting when used to do things that can't be done in real life (hence this idea), and I'm also trying to only record articulations that hasn't been done to death already.
> 
> I actually did offer you a free review copy of Vol. 1, but never heard back from you
> 
> Cheers,
> Nico



You did? send me a DM here.

-DJ


----------



## Daniel James

James H said:


> I think I found 179 BBC SO owners on the Aperture YouTube video
> 
> ... or 130 potential BBC SO owners. Depends how you look at your glass



Ouch.


----------



## JJHLH

mralmostpopular said:


> For me, it just seems like such a bizzare business decision to make it exclusive. If they put it out there for $30 like Epic Strings and gave it away for free with a $349+ purchase, I think there would be a lot less grumbling. However, essentially saying “you can’t have it” to a group that just spent a good deal of money on one of your biggest releases in the last couple of years doesn’t build good will. I don’t think most people are really upset about a sample library equivalent of a toy. It’s more the way Spitfire is going about it.



I agree completely. 

This sales tactic seems to be counter to the sense of community they are otherwise doing an excellent job of creating.


----------



## cqd

JJHLH said:


> This sales tactic seems to be counter to the sense of community they are otherwise doing an excellent job of creating.



Maybe the sense of community is just a sales tactic too..


----------



## Fleer

Would love to get that Aperture juanita to complement my BBCSO juans.


----------



## tomosane

I don't really see the issue though, the "problem" is that BBSCO, BF and the supposed Christmas wishlist sale are so close to each other that Spitfire's BF offers wouldn't be exactly tempting without something like this.

You got BBCSO on launch? You got it for relatively cheap, and it's not like Aperture is even designed to play especially nice with BBCSO. You were holding off for the wishlist sale? Well, now you can choose between -40% off, or -25% off with the new string library thrown in the mix.

I'm on the latter camp, was considering picking up SCS on the wishlist sale, but at -25% it would be 100€-ish more expensive so it's a question of deciding if Aperture is worth that for me :v


----------



## John R Wilson

mralmostpopular said:


> It says on the website that it will be offered at the intro price.
> 
> I’m a little back and forth on this, and can see both sides. On one hand, we don’t have anything less than we had before. Had they never introduced this library, no one would have felt cheated. On the other hand, it’s incredibly odd to offer a better deal than pre-order only weeks later. It will likely boost sales for BF, but possibly at the expense of some possibly long-time customers. The Apple analogy falls apart because they didn’t offer anything exclusive (you can’t get this library outside of the sale), and that they’re the only game in town if you’re Mac-based (e.g. Logic user).
> 
> For me, it just seems like such a bizzare business decision to make it exclusive. If they put it out there for $30 like Epic Strings and gave it away for free with a $349+ purchase, I think there would be a lot less grumbling. However, essentially saying “you can’t have it” to a group that just spent a good deal of money on one of your biggest releases in the last couple of years doesn’t build good will. I don’t think most people are really upset about a sample library equivalent of a toy. It’s more the way Spitfire is going about it.
> 
> My thought when I tried the library was that I probably wouldn’t get much use out of it. That still stands.



I completely agree with this as well.


----------



## JJHLH

cqd said:


> Maybe the sense of community is just a sales tactic too..



Haha. 

Perhaps, but I genuinely didn’t get that impression before the Aperture announcement. I love their YouTube videos and tutorials, and The Page. But you are correct, ultimately it’s about business and this is a reminder of that.


----------



## Alex Fraser

I think the issue is the "buy in" price - the £299 spend required.
It puts the library out of reach of budget conscious buyers - but also Spitfire's best customers, who probably already owning what they want, have to fill a shopping cart just to get the library.

Despite not really needing or wanting the library, some folk don't like being told they "can't" have something, especially when a collector culture is so prevalent in our little world.

I'm sure Spitfire have looked at the figures and worked things out intelligently but perhaps another way would be to give it away with *any* purchase over Black Friday. Everyone would rush in on the new Epic Strings and (most) folk wouldn't have cause for complain. I dunno. Maybe the development time spent means SF want a solid return on the product.

FWIW, I take the view it's just life. There's always a better deal. But I was certain that it would only be Grumpy Old VIC that would have an issue with the offer, but discontent seems to be spreading across Spitfire's social channels.

It's a bit of a pickle. <Random musings end.>


----------



## dozicusmaximus

This is how this thread reads to me.  


You see your present with your name on it. It doesn't even fit under the tree. It's huge! You only had one thing on your list. This will be the most epic Christmas ever. You open the giant box. Your overcome with tears of joy.

"Oh wow! Power Wheels! Thanks Santa! I can't wait to drive this all over the neighborhood!"

Two minutes later your brother Timmy opens small gift of a He-Man action figure.

"Hey! I wanted one of those... I hate Christmas. The Mattel marketing team that ran all those commercials on red Corvette Power Wheels undermined me. I didn't know Mattel was releasing a new He-Man action figure. I should have got one of those too, just because I got the Power Wheels."


----------



## Daniel James

dozicusmaximus said:


> This is how this thread reads to me.
> 
> 
> You see your present with your name on it. It doesn't even fit under the tree. It's huge! You only had one thing on your list. This will be the most epic Christmas ever. You open the giant box. Your overcome with tears of joy.
> 
> "Oh wow! Power Wheels! Thanks Santa! I can't wait to drive this all over the neighborhood!"
> 
> Two minutes later your brother Timmy opens small gift of a He-Man action figure.
> 
> "Hey! I wanted one of those... I hate Christmas. The Mattel marketing team that ran all those commercials on red Corvette Power Wheels undermined me. I didn't know Mattel was releasing a new He-Man action figure. I should have got one of those too, just because I got the Power Wheels."



More like you got a big present and your brother got the same big present and something extra, just because the day the present was bought on is different.

-DJ


----------



## dozicusmaximus

Daniel James said:


> More like you got a big present and your brother got the same big present and something extra, just because the day the present was bought on is different.
> 
> -DJ



Now all of this of makes a bit more sense to me. haha. Thanks! I wasn't putting it all together. 
I still think people should always be prepared to be disappointed.


----------



## Denkii

dozicusmaximus said:


> I still think people should always be prepared to be disappointed.


This is the spirit I was looking for.
You know how to build me up.


----------



## Blake Ewing

James H said:


> From FB
> “Paul takes us through The Black Edition 2019: Aperture Strings library”
> 
> What’s with Black Edition? BFriday edition I presume? So there’s more Editions to come...


THIS. 

There's no way they won't monetize this concept at some future point with a variant on this package. Perhaps with brass, etc, or more thorough articulation sets, or both. 

If there's one thing the concurrent Originals / Epic Strings release might show, it's that nothing digital is ever truly dead or unable to be repackaged in new ways.


----------



## staypuft

Zedcars said:


> You didn't dream it:
> 
> Your post from 28th August (in the Mega-Thread):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> SA Support post from 5th September (also in the MT):



I knew it! Many of us pre-ordered after the keynote and the knowledge that BBCSO wouldn't be discounted in the foreseeable future. I haven't received any e-mail notification about the sudden change in their policy. Spitfire can reach out to me with guerrilla marketing tactics but can't communicate sensitive information?

@Alex Fraser see, I wasn't imagining things. The FAQ did state that //*BBC Symphony Orchestra will not be included in our upcoming Black Friday and Christmas sales*\\

@christianhenson @paulthomson what was the point of pre-ordering? Your product page stated that the *BBC Orchestra wouldn't be included in your upcoming Black Friday and Christmas sales*.

Next, you *silently change policy without directly notifying impacted users*.

Then you say *the reason for releasing v1.0 with a promo is with the understanding that early adopters are rewarded with a substantial discount in order to mitigate against any v1.0 bugs*.

And now not only *you are including BBCSO in your Black Friday and Christmas sales* but you are *also rewarding new costumers with a better deal*. What's up with that?

Please explain. Thank you.


----------



## angeruroth

My 2c...
If you buy a lib for x$, you do it because you like it, you think the price is fair and your wallet can take it. So the purchase is good.
If a month later the same lib costs x*0.5, your purchase is still as good as it was before.
The problem is that some focus not on the good lib they purchased but on the new [maybe better] deal, and so the regrets come to life and say _pretty_ things.

To avoid that feeling one should understand this: there's always a better deal coming. Maybe not next month, and maybe not next year, but It'll come. Could be tomorrow. That's how the VI business (and others too) works.
So it's important to remember why you purchase something. Does it do what it should? Then focus on using that marvelous thing you have. And, if it doesn't, complain about it's defects, not about the new shiny deal, 'cause there will always be another deal, and then another... And you can't know when and where.

Like everyone else I've had my fair share of good and bad purchases, but I prefer to squeeze what I have than to complain about things I can't control, because I know why I made a purchase: to use it.
If I can't use it, or if the defects are too heavy, that's other matter. But a new deal would not make me angry at all.

In other words: I paid good money for EWQLSOG, and I have Albion One, but soon anyone would be able to get the Originals collection and make awesome orchestral music for a really nice price. I'm I sad or angry? No, I'm happy! 'cause that's a good thing, and I'm happy for those who will take that path.

But, ok, maybe I'm too weird


----------



## 5Lives

Daniel James said:


> More like you got a big present and your brother got the same big present and something extra, just because the day the present was bought on is different.
> 
> -DJ



Except you got your present 2 months earlier than your brother while he had to watch you with envy (or relief as they fixed some of the initial issues).


----------



## 5Lives

For those saying Spitfire doesn't update libraries...they're about to release a nearly 70GB update to Hans Zimmer Strings. Not seeing some of the other big developers to do that.


----------



## Denkii

5Lives said:


> Except you got your present 2 months earlier than your brother while he had to watch you with envy (or relief as they fixed some of the initial issues).


Except you couldn't use it for almost the entirety of that time because it needed fixing right from the start.

Edit: To be fair: 1.0.5 fixed it pretty much. Looking forward to getting access to 1.0.8 which is apparently on it's way, according to a post in another thread I read earlier.


----------



## 5Lives

Denkii said:


> Except you couldn't use it for almost the entirety of that time because it needed fixing right from the start.



Except that is not true for the majority of the purchasers...


----------



## Fleer

Denkii said:


> Except you couldn't use it for almost the entirety of that time because it needed fixing right from the start.


I’m pretty sure they’ll do the right thing for those involved. SA have great support.


----------



## John R Wilson

5Lives said:


> Except that is not true for the majority of the purchasers...



It was the case for many windows and cubase users. I personally had quite a few issues in the first weeks using BBCSO. It is only now that it has started to improve with these latest updates.


----------



## Daniel James

5Lives said:


> Except you got your present 2 months earlier than your brother while he had to watch you with envy (or relief as they fixed some of the initial issues).



Yeah but you were told there wouldnt be a better present down the line...at least thats how the compaison would go.

But anyway mate you can defend it however you want, just read the comments on this thread and the Youtube comment. You will see this isn't a minority view. And I think you can see why people are upset, even if you disagree. I don't think you will be changing minds so I am happy to not argue about it xD

-DJ


----------



## Patrick.K

5Lives said:


> For those saying Spitfire doesn't update libraries...they're about to release a nearly 70GB update to Hans Zimmer Strings. Not seeing some of the other big developers to do that.



For a library they sell £ 799 which is more than $ 1000, they can do it anyway!


----------



## Alex Fraser

staypuft said:


> @Alex Fraser see, I wasn't imagining things. The FAQ did state that //*BBC Symphony Orchestra will not be included in our upcoming Black Friday and Christmas sales*\\


<shrugs>
Pretty sure I didn't accuse you of imagining things, but cool. Take it up with the Spitfire brass. I've no skin in the game.


----------



## Denkii

5Lives said:


> Except that is not true for the majority of the purchasers...


Except you were told to


dozicusmaximus said:


> I still think people should always be prepared to be disappointed.


and it turned out to be just too real.


----------



## Denkii

Fleer said:


> I’m pretty sure they’ll do the right thing for those involved. SA have great support.


Actually I don't really care about apperture too much. I just highly dislike that move in general and the way they communicated about buying the product early would not lead to any disadvantages.
Hence I will vote with my wallet this year. I am just bitter tonight and want to brawl a bit, that's all 

Makes it a bit easier to jump on the dominus train


----------



## Patrick.K

I'm still a little annoyed by Spitfire Audio (see my thread above), and their policy a bit too aggressive, and especially not very generous during this period of November, compared to other high-end product developers, but this will not stop me from enjoying some of their products and staying a customer, as they have brought a breath of fresh air and even kicked into the world of orchestral libraries.


----------



## 5Lives

Daniel James said:


> Yeah but you were told there wouldnt be a better present down the line...at least thats how the compaison would go.
> 
> But anyway mate you can defend it however you want, just read the comments on this thread and the Youtube comment. You will see this isn't a minority view. And I think you can see why people are upset, even if you disagree. I don't think you will be changing minds so I am happy to not argue about it xD
> 
> -DJ



I don't care whether I am changing minds or not - and it's not my job to defend a company. I've merely been pointing out the fallacy of logic and entitlement some folks have around here.

Spitfire quickly mentioned the pre-order price would be the same at BF and Xmas - that's all they said and that's all that was promised. For folks that wanted to jump in the pool early, they knew the info and could've waited (you could've cancelled your pre-order for example). And Aperture Strings is not solely reserved for new BBCSO purchases. Want to buy Spitfire Percussion? Great - now's a good time to do so. Want to buy Chamber Strings - same thing applies. Should Spitfire give it for free to all BBCSO buyers thus far? Maybe - but then why not for Percussion Swarm? And then what about the library that came before BBCSO? What about that one?

People want something on their terms when it suits them. This is no righteous crusade to point out some sort of unfriendly marketing strategy or anything of the sort, despite some of the comments. It's a selfish quest to get something they believe they deserve when in fact they received exactly what they paid for. Nothing more, nothing less. Folks that purchase now will receive exactly what they paid for, as it has been advertised. Folks that purchase 12 months from now will received exactly what they paid for - and it may be different than what has been advertised right now. That should be expected.


----------



## Denkii

5Lives said:


> For folks that wanted to jump in the pool early, they knew the info and could've waited (you could've cancelled your pre-order for example).


Actually, folks that wanted to jump in the pool early partly did so because they were told they can't jump in this pool as cheap as back then for quite some time.

Edit: Posts 342 - 380 to the drama zone incoming?
Edit2: I just now read some more of that post so here we go...



5Lives said:


> (you could've cancelled your pre-order for example)


So when you order a flight from London to Dublin - you check your flight every day just in case they didn't reroute it via Berlin instead? No? Well that is totally your fault of course.




5Lives said:


> that's all they said and that's all that was promised.


That is the point a lot of people are making. Which has nothing to do with feeling entitled. Most would've spend the money anyway - only later. I believe it has more to do with a wish for more respectable practices and decency about how you communicate additional benefit to your customers. As you can see, this move lead to a comparably high backlash. Not necessarily due to "entitled rich kids" but quite the opposite who would have still spend that money, only a little later. No loss for spitfire with respect to those customers who only wanted (and only could afford) BBCSO, regardless of the date of purchase.

I'll just quote the rest for good measure:


5Lives said:


> People want something on their terms when it suits them. This is no righteous crusade to point out some sort of unfriendly marketing strategy or anything of the sort, despite some of the comments. It's a selfish quest to get something they believe they deserve when in fact they received exactly what they paid for. Nothing more, nothing less. Folks that purchase now will receive exactly what they paid for, as it has been advertised. Folks that purchase 12 months from now will received exactly what they paid for - and it may be different than what has been advertised right now. That should be expected.


For someone who is talking about entitlement, about "people want something on their terms when it suits them", about selfish quests... you sure do seem like someone who defends a lot despite


5Lives said:


> and it's not my job to defend a company. I've merely been pointing out the fallacy of logic and entitlement some folks have around here.


Oh and there it was again..."fallacy of logic and entitlement".

I understand your point of view and you are free to have it - our opinions do not have to match of course. But you realize that your text sounds like you try to convey how righteous you are and how wrong everyone else is, right? That doesn't convey a lot of decency in of itself...just saying.


----------



## Daniel James

5Lives said:


> I don't care whether I am changing minds or not - and it's not my job to defend a company. I've merely been pointing out the fallacy of logic and entitlement some folks have around here.
> 
> Spitfire quickly mentioned the pre-order price would be the same at BF and Xmas - that's all they said and that's all that was promised. For folks that wanted to jump in the pool early, they knew the info and could've waited (you could've cancelled your pre-order for example). And Aperture Strings is not solely reserved for new BBCSO purchases. Want to buy Spitfire Percussion? Great - now's a good time to do so. Want to buy Chamber Strings - same thing applies. Should Spitfire give it for free to all BBCSO buyers thus far? Maybe - but then why not for Percussion Swarm? And then what about the library that came before BBCSO? What about that one?
> 
> People want something on their terms when it suits them. This is no righteous crusade to point out some sort of unfriendly marketing strategy or anything of the sort, despite some of the comments. It's a selfish quest to get something they believe they deserve when in fact they received exactly what they paid for. Nothing more, nothing less. Folks that purchase now will receive exactly what they paid for, as it has been advertised. Folks that purchase 12 months from now will received exactly what they paid for - and it may be different than what has been advertised right now. That should be expected.


----------



## Alex Fraser

What an insane thread.


----------



## Zero&One

Or maybe just sell the thing! Like every other product they have. 
Throw it away for free for £299 purchases also. How difficult would that have been?
Charging a "buy in" exclusive of £299 is what people are mostly astonished by. 

It's ridiculous and I hope this doesn't become a common theme of theirs. However, if get a free "Revolving Anvil" at the Christmas wishlist for one purchase I'll deny saying this (I'll delete this post).


----------



## Denkii

James H said:


> Or maybe just sell the thing! Like every other product they have.
> Throw it away for free for £299 purchases also. How difficult would that have been?
> Charging a "buy in" exclusive of £299 is what people are mostly astonished by.
> 
> It's ridiculous and I hope this doesn't become a common theme of theirs. However, if get a free "Revolving Anvil" at the Christmas wishlist for one purchase I'll deny saying this (I'll delete this post).


Looks like Spitfire picked up Game dev strategies lately and start remaking and "remastering" their own products. Expect apperture to return in some way or another. Maybe bigger. Maybe different sections. Eventually a full apperture orchestra? Whatever.

Albion I: The Ocarina of time for composers


----------



## erica-grace

I am not the biggest Spitfire fan. I have a few of their libraries which I really like, but there are some issues that are not addressed (will not get into that here), and I am not a fan of their marketing ploys.

However, I must say, I take no issue at all with what they are doing here with A.Strings. In fact, from a business standpoint, it's brilliant. And I don't understand at all what's so crummy about this deal.

I understand some people might not be too happy, but this is a business after all. Either buy something to get A.Strings, or move on. But realize that no matter what a company does, they are not going to please everyone.


----------



## Daniel James

erica-grace said:


> But realize that no matter what a company does, they are not going to please everyone.



Seems that way.






-DJ


----------



## Technostica

But think of the children!


----------



## CT

As I try to take stock of what I have, and what I might benefit from adding as sales start to roll in, I'm realizing how useful this new Originals thing is. $29 per group of quality scoring tools. As someone who doesn't have every library under the sun, and mostly lacks anything geared towards the general big cinematic sound, I can't turn my nose up at that. If I'm in that position, there are *probably* others. So it seems like a good move, almost as generous as LABS. 

Call me a fanboy if it makes your life easier, but I absolutely love Spitfire. It's great to have almost every need that comes to mind fulfilled under one developer's roof.


----------



## El Buhdai

I have to respect that they're giving the product to owners of Albion One, but I'm also baffled that they're releasing a library that can only be obtained for a few days. One of those is pro-consumer, the other is anti-consumer. I can't really afford to give them the money to get it right now, so if I really wanted this library (I am actually somewhat intrigued by the concept because of how unique it is) I would never be able to get it. This just makes me dislike Spitfire and makes me only want to continue purchasing from other sellers. They're not really giving me any reasons to want to support them with a move like this. If video game companies have taught me anything, this will happen again and again if Spitfire sees an increase in sales from pulling a stunt like this. Not cool.

Sincerely,
a student who can't just throw you $300 whenever you want it.


----------



## Daniel James

miket said:


> As I try to take stock of what I have, and what I might benefit from adding as sales start to roll in, I'm realizing how useful this new Originals thing is. $29 per group of quality scoring tools. As someone who doesn't have every library under the sun, and mostly lacks anything geared towards the general big cinematic sound, I can't turn my nose up at that. If I'm in that position, there are *probably* others. So it seems like a good move, almost as generous as LABS.
> 
> Call me a fanboy if it makes your life easier, but I absolutely love Spitfire. It's great to have almost every need that comes to mind fulfilled under one developer's roof.



Mate if something is of value to you and makes it so you can do your job better and you have more fun doing it ABSOLUTELY do it. You don't owe anyone here an explanation for liking what you like. We all have our own views on this and that, but at the end of the day its up to you and I will never fault a person for doing shit the way they want to do it.

At the end of the day its just fucking sample libraries, it really doesn't matter all too much. Just have fun man and get stuck in 

-DJ


----------



## mralmostpopular

Daniel James said:


> Mate if something is of value to you and makes it so you can do your job better and you have more fun doing it ABSOLUTELY do it. You don't owe anyone here an explanation for liking what you like. We all have our own views on this and that, but at the end of the day its up to you and I will never fault a person for doing shit the way they want to do it.
> 
> At the end of the day its just fucking sample libraries, it really doesn't matter all too much. Just have fun man and get stuck in
> 
> -DJ



I agree with you. A few people early on in the thread were bashing Epic Strings. Personally, I think it’s a good deal, although I won’t buy it because I don’t need it.

There are libraries out there that I really don’t like, but if someone else loves them, that’s great. Nobody should feel like they have to justify what they like and what they use.


----------



## Daniel James

mralmostpopular said:


> I agree with you. A few people early on in the thread were bashing Epic Strings. Personally, I think it’s a good deal, although I won’t buy it because I don’t need it.
> 
> There are libraries out there that I really don’t like, but if someone else loves them, that’s great. Nobody should feel like they have to justify what they like and what they use.



Haha so what if other people bash it. They are not living your life. For someone like me who has Albion 1 (twice lol) and seeing bits of it REpackaged and REreleased AGAIN in a new way is going to make me feel a little negative towards it. To me that time could have been better spent creating something new and exciting or innovative. BUT if you have none of the Albions, you are just getting started and you need some strings, its a great opportunity to get started. Both viewpoints, even though they are at odds with one another, are equally valid to feel, and if you like the look of it and want it, 100% get it. It doesnt matter is miserable cunts like me don't like it.... I know damn well I make up my own mind on where my money goes xD

-DJ


----------



## Michael Antrum

Daniel James said:


> ... I know damn well I make up my own mind on where my money goes xD
> 
> -DJ



I’d wish I could say that, but I‘ve been married for 29 years....


----------



## Daniel James

Michael Antrum said:


> I’d wish I could say that, but I‘ve been married for 29 years....


****after I ask my wife. (Good point)


----------



## redlester

Alex Fraser said:


> What an insane thread.



I wonder which crazy fool started it!?
🤣


----------



## AndyP

So here's what I see:

WE'RE RETIRING SOME OF OUR COLLECTIONS. THE BELOW ARE ONLY AVAILABLE UNTIL 3RD DECEMBER 2019.

Among them are the SSO, SStO, SSOC.

So I guess Aperture in the BF form is something that will be new, bigger and more complete in another form. Maybe!

Not that anyone who now spends 349$ extra on BF just to get Aperture in a quarter gets a whole new library that makes Aperture superfluous.

But that's how it is with gifts, you shouldn't complain about them.

Again a lot of room to speculate, but somehow I don't feel like it anymore. I buy either because I need something or because I want something.

But not because I get a gift that makes something more expensive in the end than buying according to my needs!
If it fits together by chance, great. If not, then not. Anyone who likes these marketing games is in good hands with Spitfire.

We are all old enough not to have endless discussions about why someone likes something or not.


----------



## ridgero

AndyP said:


> So here's what I see:
> 
> WE'RE RETIRING SOME OF OUR COLLECTIONS. THE BELOW ARE ONLY AVAILABLE UNTIL 3RD DECEMBER 2019.
> 
> Among them are the SSO, SStO, SSOC.



???


----------



## AndyP

ridgero said:


> ???







__





Collections Page







www.spitfireaudio.com


----------



## tomosane

^ I don't think that means they're retiring everything that's on the page, just the ones above "Orchestras"


----------



## ridgero

AndyP said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Collections Page
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.spitfireaudio.com



Wow, I didn‘t see that coming.


----------



## redlester

tomosane said:


> ^ I don't think that means they're retiring everything that's on the page, just the ones above "Orchestras"



Indeed, the ones under "Last Chance To Buy". Which are all just various products grouped into different combinations at a discount for buying them all together. It doesn't mean they are retiring the actual products contained within them.


----------



## Alex Fraser

I think like @tomosane said, just the top nine on the page. Brown bags down..


----------



## AndyP

Alex Fraser said:


> I think like @tomosane said, just the top nine on the page. Brown bags down..



That's not confirmed! So far all speculation!


----------



## Michael Antrum

Actually, there is a new version of SSO coming next year. Anyone who has the SSO library with the expansions will be getting it FOC. (Or so they said last year).

I am wondering if it is going to come with the new Spitfire Player, and if so, for people who want the Kontakt version it might be one of the last chances to pick it up at a discount.....


----------



## tokatila

So, it's confirmed. Exclusivity flames GAS to uncontrollable proportions which mere mortals are unable to resist; thus it's better that no-one shall have anything.

"WE WANT NO GIFTS! JUST OUR GOODS WE ARE PAYING FOR!"

Now; who is with me? To the Barricades!


----------



## redlester

AndyP said:


> That's not confirmed! So far all speculation!



It is confirmed. Unless you choose to read it wrongly. There is a “Last chance to buy” section, followed by all the other sections. 

If they are getting rid of everything on that page then that would include their Everything Collection, i.e. all of their products!

In fact the “we are retiring some of our collections” text has now been removed. It just says last last chance to buy as a heading above those 9 collections.


----------



## Alex Fraser

redlester said:


> It is confirmed. Unless you choose to read it wrongly. There is a “Last chance to buy” section, followed by all the other sections.
> 
> If they are getting rid of everything on that page then that would include their Everything Collection, i.e. all of their products!
> 
> In fact the “we are retiring some of our collections” text has now been removed. It just says last last chance to buy as a heading above those 9 collections.


Ooo, someone from Spitfire is reading the thread then. Can I just say to whoever it is, that you look lovely today and your hair (if you have it) is on point. And can I have an extra tombola ticket?


----------



## josephspirits

El Buhdai said:


> I have to respect that they're giving the product to owners of Albion One, but I'm also baffled that they're releasing a library that can only be obtained for a few days. One of those is pro-consumer, the other is anti-consumer. I can't really afford to give them the money to get it right now, so if I really wanted this library (I am actually somewhat intrigued by the concept because of how unique it is) I would never be able to get it. This just makes me dislike Spitfire and makes me only want to continue purchasing from other sellers. They're not really giving me any reasons to want to support them with a move like this. If video game companies have taught me anything, this will happen again and again if Spitfire sees an increase in sales from pulling a stunt like this. Not cool.
> 
> Sincerely,
> a student who can't just throw you $300 whenever you want it.



I think you may be confusing the two products. You can get the repackaged Albion 1 strings/ Epic strings whenever, it’s only aperture stings you need to spend the money to get.

If you were on a budget and saving up to buy an Albion library on Black Friday, for example, that would be a pretty great bonus.


----------



## redlester

Alex Fraser said:


> Ooo, someone from Spitfire is reading the thread then. Can I just say to whoever it is, that you look lovely today and your hair (if you have it) is on point. And can I have an extra tombola ticket?



An extreme cynic might hypothesise that there are people from Spitfire on here all the time, and that they are some of the ones who voice the most criticisms. On the basis that it keeps us constantly talking about them!

I’m reminded of Oscar Wilde... (there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about).


----------



## josephspirits

I’m just waiting to see what this years “The Ton” bundle will be.  Anyone else?


----------



## Alex Fraser

redlester said:


> An extreme cynic might hypothesise that there are people from Spitfire on here all the time, and that they are some of the ones who voice the most criticisms. On the basis that it keeps us constantly talking about them!
> 
> I’m reminded of Oscar Wilde... (there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about).


That's some devious thinking. Maybe you're the mole. Maybe I am..


----------



## Alex Fraser

josephspirits said:


> I’m just waiting to see what this years “The Ton” bundle will be.  Anyone else?


I've set my email alerts to raise the roof to catch those tombola tickets, which will be my only chance to nab SF stuff this holiday season. (My ££ is reluctantly going to NI for a long overdue Kontakt "full" purchase.)


----------



## jononotbono

Michael Antrum said:


> Actually, there is a new version of SSO coming next year. Anyone who has the SSO library with the expansions will be getting it FOC. (Or so they said last year).
> 
> I am wondering if it is going to come with the new Spitfire Player, and if so, for people who want the Kontakt version it might be one of the last chances to pick it up at a discount.....



The Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra is being discontinued? Where can I read that on the SA site?


----------



## Michael Antrum

In August last year, the additional mics and expansions for Symphonic Woodwinds/Brass & Strings went on sale for £ 99.00 - which was a huge saving. After this they were withdrawn from sale.

At the time we were told that a updated version of the SSO would be coming, and that anyone who had the original libraries and the expansions would get this updated version for free.

In fact when BBCSO was launched, I had thought that this was going to be the bug announcement - not the BBCSO.

(edit: 'bug announcement'.... how very Freudian....)

They then said that this new version would be coming out next year 2020 instead.

From there it's speculation on my part, but going by their previous form, I think it likely they will discontinue SSO in its current form, and replace it with the new version. (Much as they did with Sable going to SCS).

There has been much speculation about whether this new version of SSO will be based on the new player.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you make 2 and 2 add up to eleventy-seven.


----------



## KallumS

josephspirits said:


> I’m just waiting to see what this years “The Ton” bundle will be.  Anyone else?



I wouldn't have thought they'd do a Ton bundle if they're offering Aperture Strings.


----------



## jbuhler

Michael Antrum said:


> In August last year, the additional mics and expansions for Symphonic Woodwinds/Brass & Strings went on sale for £ 99.00 - which was a huge saving. After this they were withdrawn from sale.
> 
> At the time we were told that a updated version of the SSO would be coming, and that anyone who had the original libraries and the expansions would get this updated version for free.
> 
> In fact when BBCSO was launched, I had thought that this was going to be the bug announcement - not the BBCSO.
> 
> (edit: 'bug announcement'.... how very Freudian....)
> 
> They then said that this new version would be coming out next year 2020 instead.
> 
> From there it's speculation on my part, but going by their previous form, I think it likely they will discontinue SSO in its current form, and replace it with the new version. (Much as they did with Sable going to SCS).
> 
> There has been much speculation about whether this new version of SSO will be based on the new player.
> 
> So that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you make 2 and 2 add up to eleventy-seven.


Isn't SF moving SSO to the new player for this 2020 release? And didn't the withdrawal of the expansions have something to do with some change at NI and restricting add-ons to Kontakt player libraries? I really can't see SF changing the name, since it's a really good name. 

With BBCSO in the picture now and SF needing to make sure SSO remains the flagship, I could see them finally completing SSO with the missing articulations that would make all the instruments consistent within family (especially brass and woodwind). If we are talking flagship here, I would love to see them bring out an additional set of solo players modulated for orchestral playing for both the woodwinds (flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon) and the brass (trumpet and horn). I would love to see a full set of mutes (including legato and shorts) for brass. I would love to see more of the long articulations in the strings having the option of legato (like SCS). BBCSO should raise the bar considerably for SSO, so I'll be most interested to see how SF responds to this challenge that they have set for themselves.


----------



## Michael Antrum

jbuhler said:


> Isn't SF moving SSO to the new player for this 2020 release?



That's my guess, though I don't think I've seen it confirmed by SF themselves. Personally, I think it's a pretty good bet that this will be the case...



jbuhler said:


> And didn't the withdrawal of the expansions have something to do with some change at NI and restricting add-ons to Kontakt player libraries?



I hadn't heard that, but when I purchased the expansions, you just dropped the files into the normal folder for the library. There were no serials or anything for them - so I would be surprised if that were the case.



jbuhler said:


> I really can't see SF changing the name, since it's a really good name.



It is a good name - but they may just call it SSO 2, or perhaps Keith if they are feeling a bit weird.



jbuhler said:


> With BBCSO in the picture now and SF needing to make sure SSO remains the flagship, I could see them finally completing SSO with the missing articulations that would make all the instruments consistent within family (especially brass and woodwind). If we are talking flagship here, I would love to see them bring out an additional set of solo players modulated for orchestral playing for both the woodwinds (flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon) and the brass (trumpet and horn). I would love to see a full set of mutes (including legato and shorts) for brass. I would love to see more of the long articulations in the strings having the option of legato (like SCS). BBCSO should raise the bar considerably for SSO, so I'll be most interested to see how SF responds to this challenge that they have set for themselves.



One can dream.....


----------



## jbuhler

Michael Antrum said:


> I hadn't heard that, but when I purchased the expansions, you just dropped the files into the normal folder for the library. There were no serials or anything for them - so I would be surprised if that were the case.


My understanding is that companies are not allowed to do this any more with Kontakt Player libraries. That's why SF withdrew them. I don't know if that is why SF withdrew them, but I read somewhere on here about a change to how add-ons worked with Kontakt Player libraries and SF stopped offering the expansion packs about the same time.


----------



## Alex Fraser

Seeing as the tech is already in place (BBCSO) for a multi-mic extravaganza, I'd be really surprised if SSO wasn't ported over to the new player.


----------



## mralmostpopular

I feel like they’re going a little nuts with the hype for BF. Aperture, Tombola, Discontinued Libraries, etc.


----------



## SpitfireSupport

tomosane said:


> ^ I don't think that means they're retiring everything that's on the page, just the ones above "Orchestras"



Correct, we are retiring some collections, not all and not the Orchestras. We are also not retiring the products within those collections, just the collections themselves. Ben


----------



## Loïc D

SpitfireSupport said:


> Correct, we are retiring some collections, not all and not the Orchestras. We are also not retiring the products within those collections, just the collections themselves. Ben



Thanks for clarifying the obvious 

Cancel the ambulance, paranoia is over.


----------



## cqd

Platinum now too.. nearly 8 grand..

I'd imagine the plan is to knock another year or two out of perpetual licenses and then *Boom* Subscription..


----------



## Michael Antrum

LowweeK said:


> Cancel the ambulance, paranoia is over.






cqd said:


> ...the plan is to knock another year or two out of perpetual licenses and then *Boom* Subscription..



Ya think..... ?


----------



## paulthomson

Just to clarify (again) we have no plans for a subscription service. I know that support have clarified this here several times in recent months.


----------



## D Halgren

Subscription confirmed


----------



## Michael Antrum

Do forgive, I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere in Italy, armed only with an internet connection and a warped sense of humour, just waiting around for certain stuff to happen, and I am getting a little restless....

Looking forward to getting back to Blighty on Friday.....


----------



## mobiuscog

I'm waiting for the 'Aluminium Collection'. However, I think I already have it - it's also known as Albion One


----------



## Michael Antrum

paulthomson said:


> Just to clarify (again) we have no plans for a subscription service. I know that support have clarified this here several times in recent months.



And here's a live feed from the webcam in Paul's office in London....


----------



## jbuhler

Really, at this point, I see SF following OT in offering individual mics and instruments before I see them going the subscription route.


----------



## Alex Fraser

Huh..
Just went to spring for Epic Strings (would be useful for a track I'm working on) assuming it wouldn't be discounted for BF. But it seems the "add to cart" button is locked with a timer, as are all the other products..

Looks like I'll have to wait and make a saving of £7.50 then..


----------



## CT

Alex Fraser said:


> Huh..
> Just went to spring for Epic Strings (would be useful for a track I'm working on) assuming it wouldn't be discounted for BF. But it seems the "add to cart" button is locked with a timer, as are all the other products..
> 
> Looks like I'll have to wait and make a saving of £7.50 then..



Wow. Spitfire strikes again, the bastards!


----------



## josephspirits

KallumS said:


> I wouldn't have thought they'd do a Ton bundle if they're offering Aperture Strings.



Maybe, but they are still doing the Tombola and other bundle discounts, and up to 73% off some collection, as mentioned in the email, could be it, who knows. We shall see soon enough.


----------



## josephspirits

josephspirits said:


> Maybe, but they are still doing the Tombola and other bundle discounts, and up to 73% off some collection, as mentioned in the email, could be it, who knows. We shall see soon enough.



psyche. 

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/the-ton/


----------



## dzilizzi

josephspirits said:


> psyche.
> 
> https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/the-ton/


$37.53 for Edna Earth. I'm in!


----------



## AndyP

dzilizzi said:


> $37.53 for Edna Earth. I'm in!


The only package I'm gonna buy because I wanted the British Drama Toolkit. The best deal they offer. Aperture is not included, but I don't care about that. BDT costs individually more than the whole sound package. 
I don't need any more from the SA portfolio. With Ton deal I am at least a little reconciled. 
But I still find their marketing questionable, that doesn't change my opinion and just to get Aperture I won't buy more stuff.


----------



## Eptesicus

I have to admit Aperture strings sounds cool. The demo sounds fantastic. 

Shame because im not sure im going to be spending £300 with them....


----------



## AndyP

Eptesicus said:


> I have to admit Aperture strings sounds cool. The demo sounds fantastic.
> 
> Shame because im not sure im going to be spending £300 with them....


I suppose, of course, I cannot be sure that there will be something similar in the future. 
I also don't say that I don't find Aperture attractive, but it's not enough to spend more money than necessary now.


----------



## Eptesicus

AndyP said:


> I suppose, of course, I cannot be sure that there will be something similar in the future.
> I also don't say that I don't find Aperture attractive, but it's not enough to spend more money than necessary now.




Yeh, dont mind that they are bundling it with £300+ spends but it is a shame it isn't available separately.


----------



## AndyP

Eptesicus said:


> Yeh, dont mind that they are bundling it with £300+ spends but it is a shame it isn't available separately.


I'm trying to bear with it.


----------



## robgb

paulthomson said:


> Just to clarify (again) we have no plans for a subscription service. I know that support have clarified this here several times in recent months.


Cool! When can we sign up!!!


----------



## paulthomson

robgb said:


> Cool! When can we sign up!!!



goes live on Wednesday morning.













(public service announcement: this is a joke)


----------



## TomislavEP

So "The Ton" is back again.. And with the most expensive item currently on my wishlist - British Drama Toolkit! As I already have both "Earth" (I love it) and "Orchestral Grand" libraries, this is really a no brainer deal, even for my tight budget.  Plus, I'm intrigued by this library for a long time now.


----------



## redlester

jbuhler said:


> My understanding is that companies are not allowed to do this any more with Kontakt Player libraries. That's why SF withdrew them. I don't know if that is why SF withdrew them, but I read somewhere on here about a change to how add-ons worked with Kontakt Player libraries and SF stopped offering the expansion packs about the same time.



Didn’t they just recently add extra stuff to Solo Strings for the new virtuoso violin and cello or whatever they were? Or are we talking about a different kind of expansion?


----------



## jbuhler

redlester said:


> Didn’t they just recently add extra stuff to Solo Strings for the new virtuoso violin and cello or whatever they were? Or are we talking about a different kind of expansion?


I think it is paid expansions that aren't part of a Player library that are no longer allowed. So the new solo string thing is still part of the Player library, whereas the expansions for SSO are not part of the Player library but paid extensions of it. Or something like that. I'm not sure why NI would care. But the Studio libraries all have two versions of the Player library (core and pro), as does SCS. I think SF would have to do the same to offer SSO Expansions, and they opted to discontinue it rather than license a SSO Pro Player library.


----------



## tomosane

I'll have to hand it to Spitfire for building some substantial BF hype, when for me the endless stream of BF deals from most other companies basically just amounts to "yeah whatever, it's that time of the year again". I'm now seriously considering pulling the trigger on SCS this weekend (was holding off for Christmas wishlist) just to get the Pinhole Ensemble patch on Aperture strings. I fully realize it's predatory marketing, but that patch in particular seems like the exact kind of stuff that I love from Spitfire, so... Also, the Tombola thing I accidentally stumbled upon on this forum now has me checking my smartphone more frequently than I'd like to admit.


----------



## Fleer

The Ton looks good, although I don’t need another grand piano. 

So how does one get a Tombola ticket?


----------



## dzilizzi

Fleer said:


> The Ton looks good, although I don’t need another grand piano.
> 
> So how does one get a Tombola ticket?


Since I don't really do social media, I'm going to check their site in 2 hours and 5 minutes to see if there is a link.


----------



## ridgero

tomosane said:


> I'll have to hand it to Spitfire for building some substantial BF hype, when for me the endless stream of BF deals from most other companies basically just amounts to "yeah whatever, it's that time of the year again". I'm now seriously considering pulling the trigger on SCS this weekend (was holding off for Christmas wishlist) just to get the Pinhole Ensemble patch on Aperture strings. I fully realize it's predatory marketing, but that patch in particular seems like the exact kind of stuff that I love from Spitfire, so... Also, the Tombola thing I accidentally stumbled upon on this forum now has me checking my smartphone more frequently than I'd like to admit.



The SCS was € 419 last Christmas and is € 524 now.


----------



## redlester

jbuhler said:


> I think SF would have to do the same to offer SSO Expansions, and they opted to discontinue it rather than license a SSO Pro Player library.



I see, I did wonder why the expansion for Symphonic Strings went on sale for a while and then disappeared.

Given the amount of angst people have had with their non-Kontakt interface I think it would be a very risky thing for them to move what is probably their flagship product from Kontakt to their new plugin. Even though personally I have no issues at all with it, and can use it as equally ineptly as I can Kontakt


----------



## jbuhler

Risky, yes, but likely inevitable, and sooner rather than later since they initially announced this would take place in 2019. I'm guessing (and this is completely a guess) they have SSO SF Player Edition set for release in the first quarter or early second quarter of 2020. Christian has been hinting that SF has been recording new stuff in Air, which might be Albion 2 redux, but also might be pick ups/add-ons for SSO SF Player. It would make sense to offer the enticement of some new content to encourage migration and/or upgrade (if they charge for an upgrade). Again, this is all just speculation.


----------



## Fleer

dzilizzi said:


> Since I don't really do social media, I'm going to check their site in 2 hours and 5 minutes to see if there is a link.


Same here


----------



## tomosane

ridgero said:


> The SCS was € 419 last Christmas and is € 524 now.


Yeah, and I'm semi-seriously considering paying the extra 100€-ish for Aperture Strings. Sounds crazy, I know


----------



## redlester

jbuhler said:


> Risky, yes, but likely inevitable, and sooner rather than later since they initially announced this would take place in 2019. I'm guessing (and this is completely a guess) they have SSO SF Player Edition set for release in the first quarter or early second quarter of 2020. Christian has been hinting that SF has been recording new stuff in Air, which might be Albion 2 redux, but also might be pick ups/add-ons for SSO SF Player. It would make sense to offer the enticement of some new content to encourage migration and/or upgrade (if they charge for an upgrade). Again, this is all just speculation.



Indeed, interesting though. 

I’ve been intrigued why they took down Albion 2 so long before releasing a new version, was it this long between Albion’s I and ONE? What will the new one be dubbed? LowEggria?


----------



## jbuhler

redlester said:


> Indeed, interesting though.
> 
> I’ve been intrigued why they took down Albion 2 so long before releasing a new version, was it this long between Albion’s I and ONE? What will the new one be dubbed? LowEggria?


My thought was that it had to do with running out of licenses for Albion 2 and deciding it wasn't worth buying a new set from NI since they planned to replace Albion 2 soon and release it on the SF Player. Albion 2 was also always something of an odd duck among the Albions, except for the strings. I also suspect Albion 2 redux will be reconceived more like a soft Albion 1. After that I'm expecting Albion 3 to be redone as the Totally Epic Albion, finally satisfying @Daniel James with a SF library that goes well past 11 across the whole orchestra. So Albion 1: Albion 2 as Albion 3: Albion 5. But that's just my rationalization. SF is not really consistent in this fashion, so who knows where they end up, except I'm pretty sure Albion 2 will have a dreamy soft piano recorded in Air.


----------



## Denkii

Let the games begin


----------



## holywilly

Bought over $1000 of SF product and not seeing Aperture Strings in my Spitfire Audio App, I guess Aperture Strings is not an instant thing.


----------



## anp27

holywilly said:


> Bought over $1000 of SF product and not seeing Aperture Strings in my Spitfire Audio App, I guess Aperture Strings is not an instant thing.



"*YOU HAVE QUALIFIED TO RECEIVE APERTURE STRINGS FOR FREE*
*YOU WILL RECEIVE IT WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS*

Separate to your order confirmation, *we will email you within the next 24 hours* explaining how you can download your FREE copy of Aperture Strings."


----------



## holywilly

ah, didn't catch that, my bad.


----------



## harmaes

Anyone wanting to share their experience with Aperture?


----------



## MDMullins

harmaes said:


> Anyone wanting to share their experience with Aperture?



Haven't received the email yet. I would very much like to try this library.


----------



## Zero&One

harmaes said:


> Anyone wanting to share their experience with Aperture?



Sure... "Lacking"

Sorry, couldn't resist  . But it would be nice to hear some demo pieces with other libs. Does look really nice.


----------



## Stevie

Has anyone already got the Aperture strings?


----------



## noah90210

I got them today along with studio woods and Kepler.
Because it’s Black Thursday I could only do a quick fiddle about with it but it’s usefulness for swells was readily apparent. A good swell is worth at least, what...15 minutes saved while you’re working?


----------



## crossrootsdoc

holywilly said:


> Bought over $1000 of SF product and not seeing Aperture Strings in my Spitfire Audio App, I guess Aperture Strings is not an instant thing.


Congrats on your purchase bro


----------



## holywilly

Finally downloaded and installed Aperture Strings.

My first impression is, damn, this string library is beautifully crafted, seamless transition between dynamics, the sonic character of this library is crisp and warm. And finally, the vibrato control is not the on/off switch of vibrato, it provides smooth transition from non-vib to vib across all dynamics.

Very happy to receive this wonderful library during Black Friday, and I'm super excited to receive BBC.


----------



## MisteR

holywilly said:


> Finally downloaded and installed Aperture Strings.
> 
> My first impression is, damn, this string library is beautifully crafted, seamless transition between dynamics, the sonic character of this library is crisp and warm. And finally, the vibrato control is not the on/off switch of vibrato, it provides smooth transition from non-vib to vib across all dynamics.
> 
> Very happy to receive this wonderful library during Black Friday, and I'm super excited to receive BBC.


How big is Aperture on the hard drive?


----------



## MaxOctane

MisteR said:


> How big is Aperture on the hard drive?



4.5 GB


----------



## Jaybee

redlester said:


> 1.0.8? I'm still on 1.0.5 and no updates shown as available!?



1.0.8. is now live and working fine in Win 7 x64


----------



## ridgero

I have to admit, the Apeture Strings are fantastic, I really like the "Refractions"


----------



## iMovieShout

Not liking Spitfire's new interface at all. Why oh why don't they provide for separate Microphone routing in their GUI ? It would make things so much simpler than having to load up a new instance for each Mic. HZ Strings is the worst I've seen for Mic routing. 26 separately loaded instances for each articulation!! Phew.


----------



## redlester

jpb007.uk said:


> Not liking Spitfire's new interface at all. Why oh why don't they provide for separate Microphone routing in their GUI ? It would make things so much simpler than having to load up a new instance for each Mic. HZ Strings is the worst I've seen for Mic routing. 26 separately loaded instances for each articulation!! Phew.



I assume you mean sending each mic to a seperate DAW channel? This can be done with BBC SO and Paul Thompson has said the upcoming HZS update will incorporate the improvements from BBC so I assume will be possible with both.

I've confirmed this works in Logic, not sure about other DAWs.


----------



## iMovieShout

redlester said:


> I assume you mean sending each mic to a seperate DAW channel? This can be done with BBC SO and Paul Thompson has said the upcoming HZS update will incorporate the improvements from BBC so I assume will be possible with both.
> 
> I've confirmed this works in Logic, not sure about other DAWs.


Thats really encouraging news - thanks. My fingers and toes and VSTs are firmly crossed and hoping this really does happen


----------



## redlester

jpb007.uk said:


> Thats really encouraging news - thanks. My fingers and toes and VSTs are firmly crossed and hoping this really does happen



Just FYI, this is a link to my post in the feature request thread about this, in BBC SO with Logic.






Feature Request thread for the Spitfire Audio sample player


Hey all, I've been using BBC SO for some days now and I really like the sample player. However, feature wise it is still not on par with SA's Kontakt libraries. Therefore I decided to create this FR thread. Because: who could give Spitfire better feedback than the people who use it? This...




vi-control.net


----------



## paulthomson

Its definitely in there!!


----------



## iMovieShout

Ok, I'm going to check this out. Can't wait


----------



## PeterJCroissant

I do have to say Aperture does sound splendid. its intended for much more I'm sure but as a writing patch I have found it very inspirational to have all the sections spread across the keyboard in a single patch, and then the single dynamic control to give you a few players to many is just marvellous! 

top work SA


----------



## dzilizzi

I ended up getting Aperture, it only cost me $111 that I wasn't going to spend. And now I don't think I need anything at wishlist time. 

And now maybe I am done for a while. I spent more than I planned.


----------



## anp27

dzilizzi said:


> And now maybe I am done for a while.



Famous last words 😂


----------



## Mike Fox

How are the spiccatos in Aperture? Can they do fast ostinatos for action or horror ques?


----------



## Mike Fox

Just watched this video. I'm not gonna lie, i like these strings much more than the strings in BBCO.


----------



## Zero&One

Mike Fox said:


> Just watched this video. I'm not gonna lie, i like these strings much more than the strings in BBCO.



I agree 100%. Maybe that's why they... no..... stop thinking like that James.


----------



## iMovieShout

paulthomson said:


> Its definitely in there!!


Ok so I have just checked out HZ Strings and made sure it is up to date. BUT no sign of any Multi-Output options (Attached). So I'm wondering if have you got yourself a special edition of HZ Strings ?


----------



## iMovieShout

jpb007.uk said:


> Ok so I have just checked out HZ Strings and made sure it is up to date. BUT no sign of any Multi-Output options (Attached). So I'm wondering if have you got yourself a special edition of HZ Strings ?


An update following a chat with the Spitfire support team this morning (thank you Jack and Harry). It seems the multi-output options are NOT currently available, but will be made available in an update which is due out in the coming days. 
So we mere mortals will have to be patient   

This will definitely make HZ Strings more useful to our core studio template and projects going forward, and, if multi-outputs are made available to the BBCSO then that could also be a purchase in the future (if / when its on sale).


----------



## harmaes

Mike Fox said:


> Just watched this video. I'm not gonna lie, i like these strings much more than the strings in BBCO.



My assumption is that there's going to be a larger or different version of this current Aperture strings version "The Black Edition"


----------



## tomosane

harmaes said:


> My assumption is that there's going to be a larger version of this current Aperture strings version "The Black Edition"


Note that the full name of library is not "Aperture Strings: Black Edition", but rather "The Black Edition 2019 — Aperture Strings". I may be wrong, but I understood this to mean simply that they're planning to do a similar BF-exclusive "freebie" thing in the future as well.

EDIT: Actually, Christian seems to more or less confirm this on the new AS video (around 1:40):


----------



## Sleeper Hold

Hi guys! I noticed the "variation" modulation option in the Refractions-Patch of the aperture strings. I'm new to spitfire library's, does anybody know which MIDI CC is controlling the variation?


----------



## tomosane

^ I don't have this library, but usually with Spitfire's Kontakt libraries you can just hover your mouse over to the controller and the small info box on the lower end of Kontakt should tell you which CC (if any) the controller is assigned to


----------



## Sleeper Hold

tomosane said:


> ^ I don't have this library, but usually with Spitfire's Kontakt libraries you can just hover your mouse over to the controller and the small info box on the lower end of Kontakt should tell you which CC (if any) the controller is assigned to



Thank you tomosane!  I appear to be a little blind.


----------



## harmaes

tomosane said:


> Note that the full name of library is not "Aperture Strings: Black Edition", but rather "The Black Edition 2019 — Aperture Strings".



Makes room for a White Edition around Christmas. :D


----------



## devonmyles

harmaes said:


> Makes room for a White Edition around Christmas. :D



Good news for people having a White Christmas living in Norway etc, but for those living in sunnier Mediterranean climates, we may never see that Library...😀


----------



## styledelk

Mike Fox said:


> Just watched this video. I'm not gonna lie, i like these strings much more than the strings in BBCO.




You may have just convinced me to spend $350...

now to agonize over completing collections to get Chamber Strings, or go to Studio Professional. Or worse. Wish there was a nice Hauschka LCO Textures bundle for under $400.


----------



## styledelk

At times the sound feels like listening to a string orchestra played through a church organ. But that doesn't seem like a bad thing.


----------



## dzilizzi

devonmyles said:


> Good news for people having a White Christmas living in Norway etc, but for those living in sunnier Mediterranean climates, we may never see that Library...😀


I live in Southern California and it snowed all day on Thanksgiving. I think the last time it snowed for us was 10 years ago in January. So it does happen.


----------



## Mike Fox

styledelk said:


> You may have just convinced me to spend $350...
> 
> now to agonize over completing collections to get Chamber Strings, or go to Studio Professional. Or worse. Wish there was a nice Hauschka LCO Textures bundle for under $400.


I ended up going with the BH Toolkit. It was something I've been wanting for a while, and the price was just over the required $349.


----------



## Mike Fox

harmaes said:


> My assumption is that there's going to be a larger or different version of this current Aperture strings version "The Black Edition"


I thought the exact same thing. Doesn't make any financial sense for them to make a library like this only to scrap it. I think it will be recycled somehow later down the road.


----------



## styledelk

Mike Fox said:


> I ended up going with the BH Toolkit. It was something I've been wanting for a while, and the price was just over the required $349.



That was the first sample library I bought, I think at Christmas 2017. Love its little quirks, but it's often hard for me to fit it in to my music. [That is to say, it's aspirational: I wish I made the kind of music it was suited for, but I tend to be too much of an improviser.]

Great choice


----------



## PeterJCroissant

I did a quick 20 min sketch...admittedly the high strings get on your nerves so don't judge this on compositional merit, just listen to the dynamics...crazy...


----------



## Zero&One

Mike Fox said:


> I ended up going with the BH Toolkit. It was something I've been wanting for a while, and the price was just over the required $349.



Let us know how you find it. I love it, one of their best in my opinion.



styledelk said:


> now to agonize over completing collections to get Chamber Strings, or go to Studio Professional.



fwiw I have just been clearing out projects. Opened an old idea using Studio Strings Pro... damn that thing sounds nice. No idea why I don't use it as much. I don't have the Brass or Woods though.


----------



## styledelk

James H said:


> fwiw I have just been clearing out projects. Opened an old idea using Studio Strings Pro... damn that thing sounds nice. No idea why I don't use it as much. I don't have the Brass or Woods though.



I know! I took out BDT again today and effortlessly broke my heart.


----------



## Zero&One

PeterJCroissant said:


> I did a quick 20 min sketch...admittedly the high strings get on your nerves so don't judge this on compositional merit, just listen to the dynamics...crazy...




Nice man!
Is it easy to play?


----------



## Mike Fox

James H said:


> Let us know how you find it. I love it, one of their best in my opinion.



Will do! I'm happy to hear that's its been received well. Its been on my radar ever since it was released, so I'm happy to finally have it scratched off my bucket list!

Also, I'm a huge Elfman fan, who is a huge Herrmann fan, so i had even more reason to buy it.


----------



## Zero&One

One day someone will be writing on a forum:

Them: Yeah I just bought it, I'm a huge Mike Fox fan, he's an Elfman fan, who was a huge Herrmann fan you know?
Me: yeah yeah I know.


----------



## PeterJCroissant

James H said:


> Nice man!
> Is it easy to play?



yes! the easiest thing I've played....just came out...I know its a bit controversial, they way they released it, I was one of the ones who paid full price only a week ago for BBSO, then I bought HZS to get this..omg I'm such a string addict...which is why their marketing works...sorry..its all my fault!


----------



## jbuhler

Mike Fox said:


> I thought the exact same thing. Doesn't make any financial sense for them to make a library like this only to scrap it. I think it will be recycled somehow later down the road.


Isn't the current library limited to one microphone position? And no breakdown of sections. A library just adding those two things seems like an obvious thing to do and enough different to not step on the Black edition ensemble.


----------



## Fever Phoenix

Bluemount Score said:


> Parts of it, not everything, which is a shame as some really good content got "lost" that way.



love the sound of the old Albion..

anyone else missing high brass legato patch in the Albion ONE version?


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## Zero&One

PeterJCroissant said:


> I know its a bit controversial, they way they released it



Considering how quietly they released this VS how good it is... 
Enjoy 😊 
Genuinely happy for everyone who has picked this little gem up


----------



## Mike Fox

jbuhler said:


> Isn't the current library limited to one microphone position? And no breakdown of sections. A library just adding those two things seems like an obvious thing to do and enough different to not step on the Black edition ensemble.


Except, i think only having one mic position is part of the "aperture" concept.

The breakdown of sections could be a part of a main Aperture library, for sure.


----------



## jbuhler

Mike Fox said:


> Except, i think only having one mic position is part of the "aperture" concept.
> 
> The breakdown of sections could be a part of a main Aperture library, for sure.


True, but I think have some control over mics and exactly how the "aperture" opens would be helpful.


----------



## axb312

Alex Fraser said:


> Huh..
> Just went to spring for Epic Strings (would be useful for a track I'm working on) assuming it wouldn't be discounted for BF. But it seems the "add to cart" button is locked with a timer, as are all the other products..
> 
> Looks like I'll have to wait and make a saving of £7.50 then..



Were you able to unlock the discount on epic strings?


----------



## josephspirits

styledelk said:


> You may have just convinced me to spend $350...
> 
> now to agonize over completing collections to get Chamber Strings, or go to Studio Professional. Or worse. Wish there was a nice Hauschka LCO Textures bundle for under $400.



yeah I was hoping for a 2019 bundle like they did for 2018.


----------



## dozicusmaximus

Well I bought my first libraries. The Ton bundle and Albion V. 
Not at all the stuff I thought I'd be buying. But the demos are great. I was looking for massive, dark, scary... etc. But I'll wait until Metropolis Ark goes on sale.


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## Patrick.K

James H said:


> Or maybe just sell the thing! Like every other product they have.
> Throw it away for free for £299 purchases also. How difficult would that have been?
> Charging a "buy in" exclusive of £299 is what people are mostly astonished by.
> 
> It's ridiculous and I hope this doesn't become a common theme of theirs. However, if get a free "Revolving Anvil" at the Christmas wishlist for one purchase I'll deny saying this (I'll delete this post).



Here's one who has family in Scotland ...


----------



## jbuhler

dozicusmaximus said:


> I was looking for massive, dark, scary... etc.


EDNA Earth may fit the bill. Bought Ton of EDNA because price was good, I enjoy the Steamband stuff in the Albions, and I liked what I heard on the EDNA walkthroughs. Playing around with it a bit yesterday, I found the dark side of EDNA especially nice.


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## Mike Fox

jbuhler said:


> True, but I think have some control over mics and exactly how the "aperture" opens would be helpful.


You bet! 

Funny enough, I've just spent about 30 minutes with Aperture, and honestly? I feel the mic placement is PERFECT! They managed to capture the best distance with the mic and strings. Not sure how they could be so precise, but it really is perfectly blended. That said, I'm not sure if i would have any interest in other mic positions at this point. Then again, i haven't tried mixing it with anything yet, so we'll see!


----------



## dozicusmaximus

jbuhler said:


> EDNA Earth may fit the bill. Bought Ton of EDNA because price was good, I enjoy the Steamband stuff in the Albions, and I liked what I heard on the EDNA walkthroughs. Playing around with it a bit yesterday, I found the dark side of EDNA especially nice.



I'll find out soon enough.  I got the expansion too.


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## Alex Fraser

axb312 said:


> Were you able to unlock the discount on epic strings?


I don’t think there was a discount to be had? Probably fair enough for a £30 library. I think the timer was probably something to do with the web dev.


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## Eptesicus

Yeh it would seem odd that they would just throw aperture strings in the bin.

I see no reason why they couldn't just release it after black friday as a priced release.

Will be difficult for them to do now though as they would then have been lying about it only being available this Black Friday...


----------



## jbuhler

Mike Fox said:


> You bet!
> 
> Funny enough, I've just spent about 30 minutes with Aperture, and honestly? I feel the mic placement is PERFECT! They managed to capture the best distance with the mic and strings. Not sure how they could be so precise, but it really is perfectly blended. That said, I'm not sure if i would have any interest in other mic positions at this point. Then again, i haven't tried mixing it with anything yet, so we'll see!


Still waiting for SF to deliver my copy so I can't yet comment other than from having watched the various walkthroughs. And I wonder how mics would work with sections as opposed to the ensemble. Very much looking forward to being able to mess around with it though.


----------



## transverb

Alex Fraser said:


> I don’t think there was a discount to be had? Probably fair enough for a £30 library. I think the timer was probably something to do with the web dev.



100% correct. Just checked with SF chat support. Epic Strings and OPW don't qualify for BF discount or Wishlist discount.


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## Hadrondrift

Eptesicus said:


> they would then have been lying about it only being available this Black Friday...


The "The Black Edition Aperture Strings" is only available at Black Friday. Easy to make a "The White Edition" or simply an (maybe bigger) "Aperture Strings" library later on. Then you can only accuse them of marketing babble, if you want, but not of lying.


----------



## Mike Fox

Hadrondrift said:


> The "The Black Edition Aperture Strings" is only available at Black Friday. Easy to make a "The White Edition" or simply an (maybe bigger) "Aperture Strings" library later on. Then you can only accuse them of marketing babble, if you want, but not of lying.


It really does come down to technicalities.


----------



## thomasjdev

Hadrondrift said:


> The "The Black Edition Aperture Strings" is only available at Black Friday. Easy to make a "The White Edition" or simply an (maybe bigger) "Aperture Strings" library later on. Then you can only accuse them of marketing babble, if you want, but not of lying.


In Kontakt and your spitfire account it shows as just “Aperture Strings” 

Doesn’t mean they cant come up with a new name to create a larger version... Aperture Strings Professional?


----------



## Hadrondrift

thomasjdev said:


> Aperture Strings Professional?


Maybe, at least they will likely offer something you can upgrade your Black Edition to.


----------



## Mike Fox

James H said:


> Let us know how you find it. I love it, one of their best in my opinion



I was able to spend some time with the BH Toolkit today. My first impression is that everything sounds very good. I love how vast the library is. There are so many patches/articulations, and some of the combos are quite charming. It also has some of the best string fx I've ever come across. I'll be using the living sh$! out of those! The chords patch is awesome as well. I'm hoping SF has a chord chart floating around somewhere for it, because they are right up my alley! 

Overall, i can see this library being used for multiple projects and genres. Not just orchestral, but also pop/rock/indie projects. 

I'm quite happy with the purchase!


----------



## anp27

Mike Fox said:


> Except, i think only having one mic position is part of the "aperture" concept.
> 
> The breakdown of sections could be a part of a main Aperture library, for sure.



But I thought it was already clear that the bigger sections in Aperture Strings were derived from pre-existing Spitfire libraries: Studio Solo Strings, Chamber Strings and Symphonic Strings.

The Pinhole Ensemble is a brand new recording however.


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## Zero&One

@Mike Fox 

Page 13 of the manual has all the chords charts


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## Mike Fox

James H said:


> @Mike Fox
> 
> Page 13 of the manual has all the chords charts


YES!!!


----------



## Mike Fox

anp27 said:


> But I thought it was already clear that the bigger sections in Aperture Strings were derived from pre-existing Spitfire libraries: Studio Strings, Chamber Strings and Symphonic Strings.
> 
> The Pinhole Ensemble is a brand new recording however.


Oh, that's interesting! They did one hell of a job mixing all of those together!


----------



## brenneisen

anp27 said:


> Aperture Strings were derived from pre-existing Spitfire libraries: Studio Strings, Chamber Strings and Symphonic Strings.
> 
> The Pinhole Ensemble is a brand new recording however.



not Studio Strings

Pinhole, Solo, Chamber and Symphonic


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## anp27

brenneisen said:


> not Studio Strings



Thanks for the correction! I edited my previous post 👍


----------



## Mike Fox

Does anyone know if there's a way to adjust the dynamics on the spiccatos? Or is it all decided by velocity? Seems like it's the only patch where the mod wheel does nothing.


----------



## wlinart

Mike Fox said:


> Does anyone know if there's a way to adjust the dynamics on the spiccatos? Or is it all decided by velocity? Seems like it's the only patch where the mod wheel does nothing.


According to the video (don't have it yet) there's an option called "cc mapped vel." which should do exatly what you want.


----------



## Mike Fox

wlinart said:


> According to the video (don't have it yet) there's an option called "cc mapped vel." which should do exatly what you want.


Ah! Ok. I'm going to look into that. Thanks!


----------



## Mike Fox

wlinart said:


> According to the video (don't have it yet) there's an option called "cc mapped vel." which should do exatly what you want.


Yep, that did it! Thanks.


----------



## tomosane

Well, I caved in and bought Epic Strings, Chamber Strings and consequently also Aperture Strings. I don't need another string library, I don't need another string library, I don't need another string library...


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## anp27

Spitfire Audio’s award winning marketing team strikes again! 

(and again and again and again)


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## synkrotron

I was a Good Boy. I only purchased Tundra to bag my Aperture


----------



## brenneisen

anp27 said:


> (and again and again and again)



261 times


----------



## Mike Fox

tomosane said:


> Well, I caved in and bought Epic Strings, Chamber Strings and consequently also Aperture Strings. I don't need another string library, I don't need another string library, I don't need another string library...



Been thinking about picking up Chamber. Maybe I'll hold off until the Christmas sale.


----------



## tebling

Some quick fun with Aperture Strings (and some other Black Friday loot). I tried to highlight the dynamic range, which is pretty nuts.


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## jononotbono

I’ve had a quick play with Aperture. Like it. It’s a rather nice concept going from a small to a large number of players. I didn’t buy anything to specifically get Aperture so for me it’s like having a bonus library. And of course, it sounds excellent. It’s made up from the String libraries from the SSO... I have all of those so it’s a sound I’m very familiar with.

I think quite a lot of people bought stuff to specifically get Aperture. People will be so pissed if it ever gets released in the future.


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## tomosane

jononotbono said:


> I’ve had a quick play with Aperture. Like it. It’s a rather nice concept going from a small to a large number of players. I didn’t buy anything to specifically get Aperture so for me it’s like having a bonus library. And of course, it sounds excellent. It’s made up from the String libraries from the SSO... I have all of those so it’s a sound I’m very familiar with.
> 
> I think quite a lot of people bought stuff to specifically get Aperture. People will be so pissed if it ever gets released in the future.


I dunno, I think the SF team really doesn't want to stir up any more controversy w.r.t. this library. That's why I think they won't be offering this and/or an expanded version in the future


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## jononotbono

tomosane said:


> I dunno, I think the SF team really doesn't want to stir up any more controversy w.r.t. this library. That's why I think they won't be offering this and/or an expanded version in the future



I haven’t said they will. Only that people would be pissed if they do.


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## tomosane

jononotbono said:


> I haven’t said they will. Only that people would be pissed if they do.


Yeah, I was referring more to the speculations about a "Professional edition" earlier in this thread.


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## AndyP

Thousands of composers are no longer booked because they don't have the Aperture strings. A pre-sale drama in 3 acts! I'm curious about Act 3. Will life go on? And if so, how?


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## Rex282

Eptesicus said:


> Yeh it would seem odd that they would just throw aperture strings in the bin.
> 
> I see no reason why they couldn't just release it after black friday as a priced release.
> 
> Will be difficult for them to do now though as they would then have been lying about it only being available this Black Friday...


I have a strong feeling they meant "only the free version will not be available".These guys have marketing down.


----------



## Rex282

transverb said:


> 100% correct. Just checked with SF chat support. Epic Strings and OPW don't qualify for BF discount or Wishlist discount.


Maybe because they gave Epic Strings to Albion ONE owners....


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## Mike Fox

Rex282 said:


> I have a strong feeling they meant "only the free version will not be available".These guys have marketing down.


Right. The "Black Edition" will only be available just this once, but I'm sure there will be a much bigger edition released in the not too distant future. The word "edition" in the title is a pretty big indicator.


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## Rex282

synkrotron said:


> I was a Good Boy. I only purchased Tundra to bag my Aperture


Yep I bagged The Ton And LCO...clever boys they are...


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## Rex282

Mike Fox said:


> Right. The "Black Edition" will only be available just this once, but I'm sure there will be a much bigger edition released in the not too distant future. The word "edition" in the title is a pretty big indicator.


Right ..no complaints I like the libraries I bought to get it for free.They can make the Black and Blue All Over Edition as far as I care,...sounds great.


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## kelexys

Aperture Strings, Aperture Brass, Woodwinds, Percussion. They are at play at Spitfire 
Do the owners of Aperture feel like this is a brand new and innovative tool to use?
Not just a recycling of other libraries in a new package?


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## LinusW

I really like it. The dynamics are like crescendo/diminuendo, I'd use this on sparse arrangements.


----------



## jbuhler

tomosane said:


> I dunno, I think the SF team really doesn't want to stir up any more controversy w.r.t. this library. That's why I think they won't be offering this and/or an expanded version in the future


I think SF will offer an expanded version with new sample across the board and new options so it will be sufficiently different that folks won’t get upset. Aperture has me thinking about how I could make a similar library for various other instruments through resampling (refractions for very soft horns, for clarinets, for voice, etc.). The larger concept I’m a bit less certain about except for voice and maybe horn because ensemble size does not generally expand to the extent it does for strings.

I find the main Aperture patches interesting and inspiring but the patches I really love are the refractions.


----------



## Mike Fox

jbuhler said:


> I think SF will offer an expanded version with new sample across the board and new options so it will be sufficiently different that folks won’t get upset. Aperture has me thinking about how I could make a similar library for various other instruments through resampling (refractions for very soft horns, for clarinets, for voice, etc.). The larger concept I’m a bit less certain about except for voice and maybe horn because ensemble size does not generally expand to the extent it does for strings.
> 
> I find the main Aperture patches interesting and inspiring but the patches I really love are the refractions.


Yes! The refractions are gorgeous, and are a breeze to play.


----------



## idematoa

Some notes in total improv but here with a layer: *Reflections - Tremolo _ Pinhole Ensemble - Long Flautando

APERTURE




*


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## Mike Fox

As a side note, Aperture has Spitfire's slickest GUI I've ever seen.


----------



## anp27

brenneisen said:


> 261 times



The Dislike button count is at 269 currently LOL


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## mralmostpopular

jononotbono said:


> I think quite a lot of people bought stuff to specifically get Aperture. People will be so pissed if it ever gets released in the future.



Someone will be upset no matter what Spitfire does.


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## kelexys

I'm still not sure. I was going to get british drama toolkit. But if I take another library I can get Aperture. Is it worth to have in your arsenal? 
I was thinking about getting symphonic evolutions also to achieve the amount to get Aperture. I'm looking for a nice library to lay underneath piano scores. I also looked at heavyocity Rhythmic textures , but the sound seems a bit sharp. But I do like the runs and loops in that library. 
Would the symphonic evolutions be a good investment? I already own Albion one, Arks 1/2, berlin inspire 1/2, css,csss


----------



## synkrotron

anp27 said:


> The Dislike button count is at 269 currently LOL



I am sure that a majority of that number are the usual Spitfire Audio Haters.


----------



## synkrotron

kelexys said:


> Is it worth to have in your arsenal?



Have you checked out the Spitfire Audio videos and audio clips. Plus there are a few independent examples popping up now.


----------



## John R Wilson

synkrotron said:


> I am sure that a majority of that number are the usual Spitfire Audio Haters.



Or individuals who spent a lot of money on the BBCSO only a few weeks ago and who do not particularly like what they decided to do with the aperture strings.


----------



## kelexys

synkrotron said:


> Have you checked out the Spitfire Audio videos and audio clips. Plus there are a few independent examples popping up now.


Yes I have, and I do like the sound of it. But I'm afraid when I buy BDT, and then SSSE just to get Aperture, I will have 3 libraries with kind of the same flavor.


----------



## synkrotron

kelexys said:


> with kind of the same flavor



With emphasis on the word "kind"

If your wallet can stand it, and you think you can use Aperture, just go for it.

Personally I went for Tundra as it was an easy choice for me, and just the one purchase required to bag Aperture.


----------



## kelexys

synkrotron said:


> With emphasis on the word "kind"
> 
> If your wallet can stand it, and you think you can use Aperture, just go for it.
> 
> Personally I went for Tundra as it was an easy choice for me, and just the one purchase required to bag Aperture.



Yeah, of course. With that I mean, they all tend to be useful for underscore I think. But they do sound great. I just wish Spitfire had something like Heavyocity Rhythmic textures. Great concept, but the sound is too harsh for me compared to Spitfire


----------



## jbuhler

kelexys said:


> I'm still not sure. I was going to get british drama toolkit. But if I take another library I can get Aperture. Is it worth to have in your arsenal?
> I was thinking about getting symphonic evolutions also to achieve the amount to get Aperture. I'm looking for a nice library to lay underneath piano scores. I also looked at heavyocity Rhythmic textures , but the sound seems a bit sharp. But I do like the runs and loops in that library.
> Would the symphonic evolutions be a good investment? I already own Albion one, Arks 1/2, berlin inspire 1/2, css,csss


I would go for OACE before Symphonic Evolutions, personally. Symphonic evolutions feels rather large and the EVOs generally aim at a more intimate feel. Still Symphonic Evolutions are very useful for giving you a wide variety of longs to be used with a larger orchestra. But your pairing it with Aperture got me thinking about whether you could do something Aperture like by pairing Symphonic Evolutions with complementary patches in OACE and indeed the quartet OA Evolutions. BDT is very nice, btw.

I find the Heavyocity stuff (like rhythmic and intimate textures) in this vein very nice but harder to mix into the ensemble. I probably haven't yet found the right reverb settings and EQ.


----------



## jbuhler

kelexys said:


> Yes I have, and I do like the sound of it. But I'm afraid when I buy BDT, and then SSSE just to get Aperture, I will have 3 libraries with kind of the same flavor.


They don't sound at all alike, and not at all the same flavor except that they focus on longs. But Aperture also does shorts, and the SF ostinatum feature allows you to automate rhythmic patterns there.


----------



## Mike Fox

kelexys said:


> I'm still not sure. I was going to get british drama toolkit. But if I take another library I can get Aperture. Is it worth to have in your arsenal?
> I was thinking about getting symphonic evolutions also to achieve the amount to get Aperture. I'm looking for a nice library to lay underneath piano scores. I also looked at heavyocity Rhythmic textures , but the sound seems a bit sharp. But I do like the runs and loops in that library.
> Would the symphonic evolutions be a good investment? I already own Albion one, Arks 1/2, berlin inspire 1/2, css,csss


I thought Aperture would have been a gimmick (because it was "free"), but it is surprisingly good, and I've been using it a lot lately.


----------



## synkrotron

I have finally gotten around to registering Aperture with Kontakt. Had a play... Not a big library, obviously, so didn't have to play for long. Now I just have to come up with something appropriate...


----------



## anp27

synkrotron said:


> I am sure that a majority of that number are the usual Spitfire Audio Haters.



I doubt it. I have never seen a Spitfire Audio product video get more Dislikes than Likes.


----------



## kelexys

I caved and bought the ton, with BDT, and also bought OACE. Don't regret it at all, such beautiful sounding libraries. I only had Albion one from Spitfire. Waiting now for my Aperture download


----------



## synkrotron

kelexys said:


> I caved and bought the ton, with BDT, and also bought OACE. Don't regret it at all, such beautiful sounding libraries. I only had Albion one from Spitfire. Waiting now for my Aperture download



Nice one


----------



## iMovieShout

jpb007.uk said:


> An update following a chat with the Spitfire support team this morning (thank you Jack and Harry). It seems the multi-output options are NOT currently available, but will be made available in an update which is due out in the coming days.
> So we mere mortals will have to be patient
> 
> This will definitely make HZ Strings more useful to our core studio template and projects going forward, and, if multi-outputs are made available to the BBCSO then that could also be a purchase in the future (if / when its on sale).



*HZ STRINGS UPDATE:*

Following the update to HZ-Strings last week, I'm now experiencing CPU massive and SA PlugIn issues. 

Wit just one articulation of Violins and with all outputs separately routed via the SA PugIn's 16 stereo outputs and in to 16 inputs in Vienna Ensemble Pro 7 (aka VEP7 64-bit version) and then in to Cubase10 - its impossible to play more than 2 notes without maxxing out the allocated 24 CPU threads on the Vienna Ensemble Pro server!! 

However, closer inspection shows that Spitfire Audio's plugin does not appear to be functioning correctly - not multiprocessor compatible. It only appears to be using one CPU thread out of the 24 threads that I allocated for each VEP7 Instance. I've actually only loaded up one instance with one HS-Strings Violins articulation (though I have tried this with Flautando, Long, Sul Tasto - same result). 

I've tried this on one of our VEP7 servers - a physically separate Dell server with dual CPUs giving a total of 24 CPU threads, with 256GB RAM. No other sample library has maxxed out the allocated VEP7 CPU threads like this. 
Reducing the number of allocated CPU Threads in VEP7 just makes the CPU max out almost permanently in SA's plugin. And reducing the number of playable voices in SA's PlugIn just makes the instrument sound awful.

There is something going on here that makes no sense. Either the Windows10 CPU performance monitor is not correctly showing CPU utilisation, or SA's PlugIn is not utilising the CPU thread allocation correctly. I suspect the latter.


To become playable then the only way forward is to reduce the number of active Microphone's down to 3 or 4. Its workabe but means that mixing everything in the DAW now becomes a challenge. I'm going to try having one instance for each HZ-Strings articulation. This is not what VEP7 is designed for and will make the whole setup somewhat clumsy and unwieldy. But I suppose its worth experimenting with whilst I have a little time to find a workable solution to get around the Spitfire Audio plugin issues.

Has anyone else experienced this?


----------

