# Spitfire BBCSO - Core Sample Delays



## DovesGoWest (Jul 18, 2020)

All,

So recently i reached out to Spitfire to ask if they had a list of timings for offsetting the various instruments so that samples actually play on the beat rather than lagging. The response i got was that they didn't have this information at the current time but there was some intended tutorial videos etc planned in the near future which may help.

As a result i did a little experiment using Cubase 10.5 Pro to see if i could work these out in a fairly simple fashion, and have found a few what i consider odd things. The big help to working things out was the VariAudio feature in Cubase which if your unfamiliar with allows you to see in an audio wave form where the actual note value starts and ends. For my test i picked Violins 1 and used a simple 4 bar 4 note sequence, for the shorts i merely split each note into 4.

*Results

Longs*: Offset -50ms for single notes, where there are a sequence of notes things change in that the note following the initial note need to brought forward and 1/16 so that they will play\sound in the correctly place. If the release is set to 0 then there is no need to nudge the note forward.

*Legato*: Offset -50ms

*Shorts*: Offset -45ms with Tightness at 0, if you set Tightness to 100 then there is no need for the offset although you do lose 45ms of the sample.

Now i have only done this for Violins 1 so far as i wanted to see if there was any interest from others to continue and do the entire library. I have also been looking at the effects for the Release and Reverb settings have on the sample as well


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## mybadmemory (Jul 18, 2020)

I wish all developers did like Audio Imperia, with their coherent and adjustable sample start for everything.

With BBCSO I’ve noticed that the delay is very varying, Especially Violins 1, not just between notes/articulations but even between round robins in the shorts. 

The ideal would be something like what AI does, but that automatically turns off all delay when playing/recording, and automatically turns in back up to the max at playback.


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## madfloyd (Jul 18, 2020)

Why would anyone have delays on their samples? Laziness or is there a benefit?


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## mybadmemory (Jul 18, 2020)

madfloyd said:


> Why would anyone have delays on their samples? Laziness or is there a benefit?



If you cut the sampels at the transient, they feel more direct to play, but you miss the real start of the note, which is always some sort of buildup.

Therefore sample developers cut the samples before the transient, to get the buildup to the transient intact. This sounds better but is harder to play.

Different developer treat this differently. Some have the same preroll on everything, some have longer preroll only on certain patches, some have it on note level (which is a pain to work with), and some have it even on round robin level (which is more to be seen as a mistake I guess). Some offer adjustability and some not.

The very fact of this is impossible to get around, but it could be solved much better for us users, if the plugins and DAWs took care of this for us by automatically turning it off when we play live and record stuff, and automatically turn it back on when we play back our tracks. I hope someone starts doing this soon.


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## christianhenson (Jul 18, 2020)

Really interesting thread you may want to watch


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## DovesGoWest (Jul 18, 2020)

christianhenson said:


> Really interesting thread you may want to watch



Hi Christian , I am slowly working my way through the core library and recording the offset times for legato/long/short and whether notes need to be nudged forward. Would this information be useful to spitfire?

dave


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## mybadmemory (Jul 18, 2020)

christianhenson said:


> Really interesting thread you may want to watch




What’s your thoughts on this Christian? Wouldn’t it be possible for sample developers and DAW makers to work together on a solution that handles all of this automatically for users?

1. Keep all preroll consistent within a library or at least within each patch.

2. The library communicates to the DAW the exact sample delay for each patch.

3. The Library and DAW work together to automatically turn off track delay and set sample start to the transient while playing and recording. And automatically set the track delay and sample start to whatever value the developer has added as appropriate while playing back the track.

This way all patches would always be playable without delay, but still always be played back at maximum realism without users having fiddle with manual track delays or midi note offsets. 

I might be missing something that makes this impossible or difficult of course. It just feels like something that “should have been solved” considering all other amazing magic you guys pull off nowadays! :D


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## DovesGoWest (Jul 18, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> What’s your thoughts on this Christian? Wouldn’t it be possible for sample developers and DAW makers to work together on a solution that handles all of this automatically for users?
> 
> 1. Keep all preroll consistent within a library or at least within each patch.
> 
> ...


Whilst i applaud your idea this is something that every DAW maker would have to agree to and implement as its not part of the VST or MIDI definitions.

If you think about it all the VST is sent is a note on note off signal regardless or whether playing or recording. At least for me the first step is that all instruments publish their delay time which at least means you set up the track delays so ensure everything hits the beats its meant to. Having been and organist and then pianist for 30yrs i agree with what Christen says in his video that you develop this ability to play ahead of the beat. Whilst this is all fine and dandy in the MIDI world it means if you try to create scores etc note are in the wrong positions even though it sounds correct.


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## DovesGoWest (Jul 19, 2020)

I now have a complete list of the offsets for BBCSO Core I just need to assemble this into a format thats useful, if anyone is interested can you let me know what format would work best


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## z3p (Sep 22, 2020)

Hi DovesGoWest, would you mind sharing this list? Its a shame that there is no official one by Spitfire Audio. But it seems as there arent many bbcso-users that even care.
I went on with my template and used your values (-45ms for shorts, -50 for longs) not only for the violins but for all instruments except the (tuned-) percussion. Didnt have a chance to verify tho


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## msjdowner (Sep 22, 2020)

I'd certainly be interested in your results DovesGoWest - thankyou for your work on this, and any format will do (Text, excel spreadsheet etc.). Thought the AI solution works really well in my experience.


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## lewisinkpress (Oct 23, 2020)

This is a great thread -- I have been spending a ton of time on this lately. A newbie, but I have gone through my CORE template (the biggest one) and added a few things outside of BBCSO, then I have do a test whereby I created a piano track -(after deterring that I think there is NO delay). and then played a quarter note pattern followed by an 8th note pattern - then I have tried different delay times for each instrument/articulation in my template until I feel I have them truly synched. It definitely varies within instruments by articulation - typically the longs require a higher delay offset than the legatos- and the shorts require the lowest number - I have tried to do it over several sessions so my ears don't totally lose it. I will return to it tomorrow and see if I like what I decided - I have then created an excel spreadsheet for with each instrument and the offsets -- I will keep people posted.


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## JJDaly (Nov 27, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> All,
> 
> So recently i reached out to Spitfire to ask if they had a list of timings for offsetting the various instruments so that samples actually play on the beat rather than lagging. The response i got was that they didn't have this information at the current time but there was some intended tutorial videos etc planned in the near future which may help.
> 
> ...




Hi,
My response to this post is just like the samples in question....... a bit delayed.

I'm very interested in this topic as, I love the sound of BBCSO , but I'm finding it a bit frustrating to work with for the exact reason you mentioned. 

I also got in touch with the guys at Spitfire looking for a list of delay offset times, presuming such a thing would exist. Apparently, it doesn't. They suggested that I just use my ears and nudge midi notes accordingly. 
Which on one hand seems reasonable enough if it was a consistent thing, but its not. 
And really, it takes the joy and enthusiasm out of making music if i have to go through every single note and listen to it in painstaking detail to see how it sits against the beat/click.

From my experience so far, it appears the issue runs as deep as the round robins even having different delay amounts per sample. 
So it kind of makes it impossible to completely correct as not all playthroughs are the same depending on where you start the track etc.....

When the the tightness is turned all the way up ( it sounds horrible but...) they all trigger in time. As you "loosen" them, that control seems to affect all the round robin samples slightly differently, and certain notes start to slide off time.


Some people were saying that they love the imperfections and that it adds humanity to the library, but I don't agree, of it was a live recording session with real musicians, you'd do another take!
And as for more "human" timing, believe me , my playing will introduce enough of that 🤣.
If i want to maintain some natural timing variations in a piece, i would like them to be mine that i can choose to use or flatten out. Not be at the mercy of some lazy editing/scripting.

Just in case this starts to appear like a rant against Spitfire, it's not. I love their products and enjoy alot of their videos etc, I actually wouldn't be offended if I was put in the category of Fan boy. 
I just really want them to make this better or fix it in updates etc. It might be just too big a job to go back through the whole library at a sample level and readjust them, but if they don't do it, they are leaving it to the end user to spend that time doing it.

Sooo..... back to the issue.

I've been slowly compiling a list of delay times that is stuck to the bottom of my monitor. But some days I just can't be bothered dealing with it and I've invested in a different company's libraries that just work without the headache of being dragged out of the creative process by offtime notes etc.

BUT I LOVE THIS LIBRARY! 
And keep getting drawn back into the quagmire by the promise of fixing it once and for all.


Anyway,
Super interested in seeing your list 👍

Please post it somewhere and let us know

Cheers, 

JJ.


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## JJDaly (Nov 27, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> I now have a complete list of the offsets for BBCSO Core I just need to assemble this into a format thats useful, if anyone is interested can you let me know what format would work best


Did you post it anywhere?

Thanks,

JJ.


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## z3p (Nov 27, 2020)

> From my experience so far, it appears the issue runs as deep as the round robins even having different delay amounts per sample.
> So it kind of makes it impossible to completely correct as not all playthroughs are the same depending on where you start the track etc.....



That's it. Sometimes you got the offset right but not for every round robin. Thats kind of ridiculous frankly. It bugged me that much, that I started to use Audio Imperias Strings instead, since they have that nice samplestart feature, even though I like the BBCSO sound better. I eventually decided to sell the BBCSO just to realize that Spitfire doesn't allow resales.


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## mybadmemory (Nov 27, 2020)

As far as I've understood the inconsistencies in the shorts are not between the round robins, but between the velocity layers. If you set all velocities to the same value, it will sound consistent, but as soon as you change between velocity layers, the timing will be different. Lower velocity layers seem to have shorter delay, and higher velocity layers seem to have longer. But I’m pretty certain it’s not the round robins. At least for the most part. 

Legato transitions also seem to have very different delay time between different intervals. Legato patches obviously always has delays, but they’re usually very consistent, so you can either adapt your playing, or pre delay on track level, but here you pretty much have to do it on note level. Just as with the shorts. The sound of the library is gorgeous though, so I put up with it. But really hoping for a fix some day.


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## JJDaly (Nov 28, 2020)

I have actually documented my time spent on this issue quite well.
Maybe others will appreciate the journey I've been on?:


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## JJDaly (Nov 28, 2020)




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## JJDaly (Nov 28, 2020)




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## JJDaly (Nov 28, 2020)




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## JJDaly (Nov 28, 2020)




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## JJDaly (Nov 28, 2020)




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## JJDaly (Nov 28, 2020)




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## JJDaly (Nov 28, 2020)




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## handshaker (Nov 28, 2020)

at least it’s cheap!


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## darthdeus (Nov 28, 2020)

While I don't have any immediate use for the data, it would still be great if you could share it here for everyone.

I'd say that at least in Reaper on Bitwig it might be possible to integrate this somewhat reasonably, since they let users write extensions for the DAW. I'm not sure what their API looks like as I haven't written an extension yet, but this could be potentially quite easy to do if you simply take the note & velocity, lookup the delay in the data sheet, and offset the midi note recorded in the DAW by that offset. Realistically it'd be probably better if it only ran as an explicit action, since doing this while recording will make any quantization & editing meaningless.

Anyway, I'd say it's always better to share things even if nobody is asking than to restrict access. You might even get some community effort going that way.


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## mafgar (Nov 29, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> I now have a complete list of the offsets for BBCSO Core I just need to assemble this into a format thats useful, if anyone is interested can you let me know what format would work best



Please god post it! You're the best!

I'm new to Orchestral Libraries and just picked up Core thinking it was a good starting place. Not a huge fan of having to micro adjust every single midi note.


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## DovesGoWest (Nov 30, 2020)

Im still working on this list and as others have found its more complex than first thought, i need to take into account every articulation as well :( also on this journey i found an issue with velocities which really bugged me.

For example (this is off the top of my head as i don't have the real issue to hand), if expression is set to 100% and dynamics is set to 80% i would expect every note for the given instrument to be roughly at the same volume level.........BUT NO i found for instance C3 had a peak of -16db and C4 have a peak of -12dB.....WTF.

Now i get that across the entire range of an instrument there maybe a slight change volume due to the instrument and the player etc. but a 3db difference in an octave in the middle of the instrument range for me means something is wrong. I found this while mixing one of my pieces and couldn't understand at first what was happening. So i have expression displayed in db and having to use automation\cc11 to either raise or lower the value depending on the note.


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## darthdeus (Nov 30, 2020)

This is probably a naive question, but why aren't all samples of the same dynamic level normalized to be the same loudness? I guess real instruments don't behave that way, but then I'd ask why not get the loudness per frequency curve from the real instrument, and normalize the samples to match it. Or would this not work either?


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## mafgar (Nov 30, 2020)

If people would post what they have recorded on their own we can compare notes and maybe help eachother solve this problem a little faster ? 

Gonna figure out a way to figure this out on my own as well.


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## jaketanner (Nov 30, 2020)

The following is based off my experience with Pro Tools.

The not knowing the latency of a sample is mostly annoying for those that program rather than perform. If you perform it in, regardless of the latency, you will have latency on input (at least my DAW does not compensate on the fly)..the ONLY way to avoid this latency on input, is to have a built-in offset, similar to what NSS did or Performance Samples. 

Also, if you do perform in your shorts, the latency is also pretty irrelevant since you are going to be slightly off click (live performance) anyway...so to give an example: I usually play a bit ahead of the beat for shorts to compensate...just got used to it, but also because it's live, there will be a slight variation in timing...so setting it to what is spec'd on paper, usually doesn't work. For CSS and even the legato, I usually only need about 150ms offset rather than the 300 as stated for the advanced legato. One way around this is to do it by ear until it sounds right...play back the audio, move the track offset in your DAW of choice as it's playing until it sound good.

Again, if you are step inputting then the latency is helpful...but I believe doing it by ear is usually best. 

Lastly, keep in mind that the more you tax your CPU, you may run into lag times anyway...thus throwing the whole latency spec out the window.


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## sostenuto (Nov 30, 2020)

JJDaly said:


>



_Oh Yeah !!_ *An obvious Oscar ! *


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 20, 2020)

Well after spending hours redoing things i have all the offsets calculated, these were done using the categorization Spitfire uses of Legato, Longs, Shorts, Pizz\Col and FX. These were done in Cubase Pro 11

Strings
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V1 Legato -60 V2 Legato -35 Va Legato -25 Vc Legato -25 Cb Legato -25
V1 Longs -78 V2 Longs -25 Va Longs -15 Vc Longs -60 Cb Longs -25
V1 Shorts -60 V2 Shorts -35 Va Shorts -35 Vc Shorts -50 Cb Shorts -50
V1 Pizz Col -50 V2 Pizz Col -25 Va Pizz Col -20 Vc Pizz Col -78 Cb Pizz Col -25
V1 FX -0 V2 FX -0 Va FX -25 Vc FX -60 Cb FX -15

Brass
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Hn Legato -25 Tpt Legato -25 Tbn Legato -2 Tba Legato -35
Hn Longs -55 Tpt Longs -30 Tbn Longs -52 Tba Longs -70
Hn Shorts -0 Tpt Shorts -25 Tbn Shorts -25 Tba Shorts -20

Hn4 Legato -50 Tpt3 Legato -10 Tbn3 Legato -190 Btbn2 Legato -104
Hn4 Longs -60 Tpt3 Longs -30 Tbn3 Longs -35 Btbn2 Longs -25
Hn4 Shorts -0 Tpt3 Shorts -10 Tbn3 Shorts -20 Btbn2 Shorts -35

Winds
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Picc Legato -25 Fl Legato -25 Ob Legato -25 Cl Legato -50 Bcl Legato -55 Bn Legato -30
Picc Longs -25 Fl Longs -50 Ob Longs -25 Cl Longs -50 Bcl Longs -60 Bn Longs -25
Picc Shorts -25 Fl Shorts -25 Ob Shorts -10 CL Shorts -25 BcL Shorts -75 Bn Shorts -10

Fl3 Legato -35 Ob3 Legato -104 Cl3 Legato -30 Bn3 Legato -80
Fl3 Longs -35 Ob3 Longs -15 Cl3 Longs -30 Bn3 Longs -10
Fl3 Shorts -15 Ob3 Shorts -25 CL3 Shorts -20 Bn3 Shorts -5

Other
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hrp -0 Celeste -25 Tubular Bells -0 Crotales -0 Glockenspiel -0 Xylophone -0
Vibraphone -0 Marimba -0


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 20, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> The following is based off my experience with Pro Tools.
> 
> The not knowing the latency of a sample is mostly annoying for those that program rather than perform. If you perform it in, regardless of the latency, you will have latency on input (at least my DAW does not compensate on the fly)..the ONLY way to avoid this latency on input, is to have a built-in offset, similar to what NSS did or Performance Samples.
> 
> ...



Very much agree with you Jake on this, however Cubase at least does have automatic latency compensation built in when you play live so having the track offsets for the samples does mean when playing back the samples sound correct. Also say i have an ostinato been played by both V1 and V2 whilst the midi positions might line up due to the differences in offsets unless i compensate for them the play back sounds like one section is out of time.


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## jaketanner (Dec 20, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Also say i have an ostinato been played by both V1 and V2 whilst the midi positions might line up due to the differences in offsets unless i compensate for them the play back sounds like one section is out of time.


Are you saying that there are different latencies per instrument? That is nuts otherwise. Also, I noticed different latencies based of how much info I have going on. For instance, at the start of a project, I can run even a buffer of 1024 (sometimes I forget), but as time goes on, I need to lower it once the CPU starts to get up there...same with RAM. I have also found that one plugin I use in particular (WEISS mm-1), caused serious latency issues when on the master bus. Very strange, since they all go through this, but once I inactivate it, doing any additional MIDI input is perfect.


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 21, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> Are you saying that there are different latencies per instrument? That is nuts otherwise. Also, I noticed different latencies based of how much info I have going on. For instance, at the start of a project, I can run even a buffer of 1024 (sometimes I forget), but as time goes on, I need to lower it once the CPU starts to get up there...same with RAM. I have also found that one plugin I use in particular (WEISS mm-1), caused serious latency issues when on the master bus. Very strange, since they all go through this, but once I inactivate it, doing any additional MIDI input is perfect.


Yes there are different latencies per instrument and per articulation within and instrument. When i did this all i have loaded in the project were the number of instances for the instrument i was measuring, for instance when doing the flutes i had 3 instances of the solo flute for (legato, long and short) and 3 instances of the flute section for the same articulation.


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## cloudbuster (Dec 21, 2020)

JJDaly said:


> If i want to maintain some natural timing variations in a piece, i would like them to be mine that i can choose to use or flatten out. Not be at the mercy of some lazy editing/scripting.


+1 ... couldn't agree more. What really gets me off is when such obvious sloppiness/laziness (lack of QC) gets marketed as 'characterful' or some such bollocks.


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## mybadmemory (Dec 21, 2020)

The differences are not just between instruments and articulations, but also between individual notes, velocity layers, and in some cases even RRs.

It’s just one of the quirks with BBCSO that I think we’ll have to accept. It sounds great but it always requires you to nudge individual notes to get right.

There are other libraries and developers that are much more consistent in these regards, but they usually have others quirks instead. Win some, loose some.


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> The differences are not just between instruments and articulations, but also between individual notes, velocity layers, and in some cases even RRs.
> 
> It’s just one of the quirks with BBCSO that I think we’ll have to accept. It sounds great but it always requires you to nudge individual notes to get right.
> 
> There are other libraries and developers that are much more consistent in these regards, but they usually have others quirks instead. Win some, loose some.


Completely agree with this been a combination of articulations, note, velocity, RR etc. It was the constant nudging to get different instruments to "line up" that was doing my noodle. So at least now in my template every track has the offset set and whilst its not perfect (which i dont want it to be and keeps the "human" element) it means everything is more or less in time.


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## mybadmemory (Dec 21, 2020)

I think there are two quite different personas using orchestral libraries, and the same two personas crafting them.


The first one plays everything in live, never program, never quantize, use the click just as a reference, and are very comfortable straying from it and dragging individual notes to craft almost every phrase. I believe this is probably how the Spitfire guys work themselves and therefore how they intend their products to be used.

The other persona might play things live, but might as well program it, always quantize, always want things to line up to the click and to the grid, and above all want everything to be exact and consistent. They expect a line played on one instrument or articulation to be in sync with any other using the same midi data.


The second approach requires libraries to be crafted with this in mind. Like Audio Imperias for example. Every note on every articulation on every instrument always line up. There is just one pre-delay for the entire library. This type of perfection is as aspiration from a developer that is probably closer to second user persona themselves.

Just as users, developers are different. They prioritize different things and obsess over different things. My guess is that the second user persona will never really be happy with spitfires libraries because they are closer to the first user persona themselves and therefore create products with other aspirations than grid perfection.


I find these discussions interesting since what one group clearly doesn’t mind at all, since it doesn’t affect their workflow the least, the other group will go totally nuts over and consider it not just a quirk but an actual fault in the product, since it doesn’t glue with their workflow at all.


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## Alex Fraser (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> I think there are two quite different personas using orchestral libraries, and the same two personas crafting them.
> 
> 
> The first one plays everything in live, never program, never quantize, use the click just as a reference, and are very comfortable straying from it and dragging individual notes to craft almost every phrase. I believe this is probably how the Spitfire guys work themselves and therefore how they intend their products to be used.
> ...


Absolutely this. I think you nailed it. I lot of the lively discussions on the forum are caused by both groups butting heads without realising this fundamentally different outlooks exists.

I've always worked on the assumption that timings will be "squiffy" regardless of the library. I think there are times regardless of one's approach that a tight-no-delay library is useful though, such as a laying down a trailer ostinato where timing is everything.


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## Cat (Dec 21, 2020)

I am afraid I disagree, especially if one uses the libraries professionally (with a tight deadline for a film/TV job,, for example). The first persona type (as you called it), would play in live, for example a cello line. They don't quantize, but, as you said, would have to go back and do some note timing editing, right? After a while they would have a good (decent) line but then, maybe for creative reasons, or maybe upon Director's revision notes, they would have to replace the Celli with a bassoon. The line would sound horibly out of time, right? They would have to start over with the note by note editing? This would not be necessary with a well crafted/programmed library.

In other words, I am sorry, I think there is no excuse for poor library crafting. 

Please note that I am here speaking in general; for the purpose of submitting this idea, I do NOT have any particular developer or library in mind. 




mybadmemory said:


> I think there are two quite different personas using orchestral libraries, and the same two personas crafting them.
> 
> 
> The first one plays everything in live, never program, never quantize, use the click just as a reference, and are very comfortable straying from it and dragging individual notes to craft almost every phrase. I believe this is probably how the Spitfire guys work themselves and therefore how they intend their products to be used.
> ...


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## Jotto (Dec 21, 2020)

Im new to this world and i just bought BBC Core. Do Spitfire fix things like this or are they allready working on their next «revolution»?


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 21, 2020)

I think i fall between the two persona's i do play everything in and then sometimes tweak the midi, other times like ostinatos etc that need to be tight i may program directly. The problem with the offsets been different between instruments\sections is that it can sound like a double not. Professional musicians dont do this their timing is normally bang on and if one section is off then the conductor would call them out on this and tell them.


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 21, 2020)

Jotto said:


> Im new to this world and i just bought BBC Core. Do Spitfire fix things like this or are they allready working on their next «revolution»?


There is a pending update to the core and pro libraries that everyone is waiting for that has some fixes in it along with some new muted brass instruments.

Regarding what this thread is about its highly unlikely to change as it would mean re-cutting every single sample in the library which would take months. As as already been said everything library has similar issues and they take either take the approach of making everything the same offset or having offsets different between instruments.

What i wish developers would do is just publish what the offsets are with the libraries and then as a consumer i can either use this to tighten things up or leave it alone, at least i have the choice then.


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## Alex Fraser (Dec 21, 2020)

Cat said:


> I am afraid I disagree, especially if one uses the libraries professionally (with a tight deadline for a film/TV job,, for example). The first persona type (as you called it), would play in live, for example a cello line. They don't quantize, but, as you said, would have to go back and do some note timing editing, right? After a while they would have a good (decent) line but then, maybe for creative reasons, or maybe upon Director's revision notes, they would have to replace the Celli with a bassoon. The line would sound horibly out of time, right? They would have to start over with the note by note editing? This would not be necessary with a well crafted/programmed library.
> 
> In other words, I am sorry, I think there is no excuse for poor library crafting.
> 
> Please note that I am here speaking in general; for the purpose of submitting this idea, I do NOT have any particular developer or library in mind.


Good jump off point for discussion.

If you're doing media work then you're probably not crafting intricate lines that you'll spend too much time fettling with the midi timings anyway. At least in my experience. IMO, It's best to pick a library from the outset that you know will deliver the sound and the performance you want.

I don't think I've ever moved "between libraries" and tried to make the same midi work. That way lies madness. 😉


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## Cat (Dec 21, 2020)

Did you really find that what I said "off point"?!

I couldn't disagree more with you regarding your line of thinking about media composers not having to "craft intricate lines" and that lots of libraries are not for them! Almost insulting!...

Did NOT say anything about moving lines between different libraries, but within the same library! 

I guess what I was trying to convey was that a certain degree of consistency regarding samples' timing (again, within the same library!) is normal to be expected.




Alex Fraser said:


> Good jump off point for discussion.
> 
> If you're doing media work then you're probably not crafting intricate lines that you'll spend too much time fettling with the midi timings anyway. At least in my experience. IMO, It's best to pick a library from the outset that you know will deliver the sound and the performance you want.
> 
> I don't think I've ever moved "between libraries" and tried to make the same midi work. That way lies madness. 😉


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> The differences are not just between instruments and articulations, but also between individual notes, velocity layers, and in some cases even RRs.
> 
> It’s just one of the quirks with BBCSO that I think we’ll have to accept. It sounds great but it always requires you to nudge individual notes to get right.
> 
> There are other libraries and developers that are much more consistent in these regards, but they usually have others quirks instead. Win some, loose some.


So do you still recommend me to buy it? i have my 15 days waiting over on the 27th so i will be able to check it out and buy core may be


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## Alex Fraser (Dec 21, 2020)

Cat said:


> Did you really find that what I said "off point"?!
> 
> I couldn't disagree more with you regarding your line of thinking about media composers not having to "craft intricate lines" and that lots of libraries are not for them! Almost insulting!...
> 
> Did NOT say anything about moving lines between different libraries, but within the same library!


Calm down. 😉
"Jump off point" meaning I thought what you said was interesting enough to talk about more. Not an insult. And I was clear that it was only in _my personal experience_ of writing for media.


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 21, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> So do you still recommend me to buy it? i have my 15 days waiting over on the 27th so i will be able to check it out and buy core may be


Yes Core was my first and only full library and its value for money is excellent, have you got the free Discover edition first to play with.

I suppose the question is do you want a classic orchestra sound or do you want an epic sound? BBCSO is a classic orchestra sound think John Williams\StarWars whereas something like Nucleus is epic think Hans Zimmer\Pirates of the Caribbean

My thinking was you can supplement Core\Pro in the future to make it sound more Epic whereas its harder to try and make an Epic library sound more classic.


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 21, 2020)

Cat said:


> Did you really find that what I said "off point"?!
> 
> I couldn't disagree more with you regarding your line of thinking about media composers not having to "craft intricate lines" and that lots of libraries are not for them! Almost insulting!...
> 
> ...


I guess the "off point" was misinterpreted, a common problem when there is no tone of voice and i can understand how it could be taking both ways.

I completely agree though with your other points, you may have written a line that you played using the Oboe and the director comes back and says to make it a Clarinet instead. We are living in digital world here and not having to rerecord a musician so you should be able to just move the midi to the Clarinet without replaying the part and bingo done without having to change timings. Like i said if all developers at least published the offsets with their libraries you would have a heads up.

Given my template has all my BBCSO sections\articulations set up in a disabled state i have set all of the track offsets now, so if i copy\move midi from one instrument to another i dont have to worry about timings.


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## Ruffian Price (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> The first one plays everything in live, never program, never quantize, use the click just as a reference, and are very comfortable straying from it and dragging individual notes to craft almost every phrase. I believe this is probably how the Spitfire guys work themselves and therefore how they intend their products to be used.


Probably don't reach for shorts much when you're scoring British TV :v Put a 16th gate on these _sul trattos _if you want adrenaline!

The fact that HZ Strings has the same issues with inconsistent timing between velocity layers and RRs is just nuts to me. You'd expect it to be like, _the_ ostinato library


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## Alex Fraser (Dec 21, 2020)

Ruffian Price said:


> Probably don't reach for shorts much when you're scoring British TV :v Put a 16th gate on these _sul trattos _if you want adrenaline!


I'm totally stealing that idea..


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## babylonwaves (Dec 21, 2020)

Alex Fraser said:


> I'm totally stealing that idea..


it's an old idea. Used a lot for R&B horn sections to get them tight before DAWs existed. Probably on strings too. they didn't use a gate back than, they've side chained the section leader's mic into a gate which opened the rest at the right point in time .


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## jaketanner (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> There is just one pre-delay for the entire library. This type of perfection is as aspiration from a developer that is probably closer to second user persona themselves.


A few libraries do this and not sure how. BUT, not all instruments are as fast as others. A violin can be very nimble compared to a double bass. There may be a lag there also due to the size in getting to some notes. Even differences with the viola. They usually can not play as fast as the violin so there will be more of a lag. Seems that way for a few libraries. So when the developer creates one delay for the entire section, there might be many delays under the hood also.


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## mybadmemory (Dec 21, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> A few libraries do this and not sure how. BUT, not all instruments are as fast as others. A violin can be very nimble compared to a double bass. There may be a lag there also due to the size in getting to some notes. Even differences with the viola. They usually can not play as fast as the violin so there will be more of a lag. Seems that way for a few libraries. So when the developer creates one delay for the entire section, there might be many delays under the hood also.



Not sure what you mean.

Where you cut the sample in relation to the transient is just a choice. You can either cut it individually for all instruments and articulations (like Spitfire), or consistently (like Audio Imperia).

Neither is much harder or easier to do, it’s just a creative choice in how many ms of silence or semi-silence you include before the transient depending on how you intend your library to be played and used.


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> Not sure what you mean.
> 
> Where you cut the sample in relation to the transient is just a choice. You can either cut it individually for all instruments and articulations (like Spitfire), or consistently (like Audio Imperia).
> 
> Neither is much harder or easier to do, it’s just a creative choice in how many ms of silence or semi-silence you include before the transient depending on how you intend your library to be played and used.


btw thanks a lot for your help


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## mybadmemory (Dec 21, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> So do you still recommend me to buy it? i have my 15 days waiting over on the 27th so i will be able to check it out and buy core may be



Depending on how much of a grid-guy you are this might or might not annoy you.The library sounds great, includes a lot, and is fantastic value regardless!


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> Depending on how much of a grid-guy you are this might or might not annoy you.The library sounds great, includes a lot, and is fantastic value regardless!


i am a natural composer, make melodies all the time, so I might be drugged by this I guess


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## jaketanner (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> Not sure what you mean.
> 
> Where you cut the sample in relation to the transient is just a choice. You can either cut it individually for all instruments and articulations (like Spitfire), or consistently (like Audio Imperia).
> 
> Neither is much harder or easier to do, it’s just a creative choice in how many ms of silence or semi-silence you include before the transient depending on how you intend your library to be played and used.


A live violin will play much faster than a viola...so if you do nothing, in terms of cutting or massaging the samples, then you will end up with different delay times...but seems that some developers are cutting them so they all line up to the same delay.


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 21, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> A live violin will play much faster than a viola...so if you do nothing, in terms of cutting or massaging the samples, then you will end up with different delay times...but seems that some developers are cutting them so they all line up to the same delay.


I don’t have an issue with differences just tell us what they are and save me 4hrs work lol


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> Not sure what you mean.
> 
> Where you cut the sample in relation to the transient is just a choice. You can either cut it individually for all instruments and articulations (like Spitfire), or consistently (like Audio Imperia).
> 
> Neither is much harder or easier to do, it’s just a creative choice in how many ms of silence or semi-silence you include before the transient depending on how you intend your library to be played and used.


I guess it depends on the sampling process, and how the musician is asked to perform


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## Alex Fraser (Dec 21, 2020)

I just play it all in live. I hard quantize the first note in the region, just so I get a guaranteed note on event when playing back that particular section.

Other than that, it’s just tweak as I go. Maybe the tightness control, maybe a track or region delay, maybe a sneaky note nudge or even a different library if it’s all going to s**t. Just replay the part. 

I sometimes think the forum over complicates these sort of things. You have to allow some flexibility in the process.


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## mybadmemory (Dec 21, 2020)

Alex Fraser said:


> I just play it all in live. I hard quantize the first note in the region, just so I get a guaranteed note on event when playing back that particular section.
> 
> Other than that, it’s just tweak as I go. Maybe the tightness control, maybe a track or region delay, maybe a sneaky note nudge or even a different library if it’s all going to s**t. Just replay the part.
> 
> I sometimes think the forum over complicates these sort of things. You have to allow some flexibility in the process.



That probably mean you belong to the same persona and have a similar workflow as spitfire themselves and are therefore not really bothered by this approach?

Whereas for the other persona it’s beyond incomprehensible why anyone in their right mind would cut these goddamn things inconsistently. 😉


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## Alex Fraser (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> That probably mean you belong to the same persona and have a similar workflow as spitfire themselves and are therefore not really bothered by this approach?
> 
> Whereas for the other persona it’s beyond incomprehensible why anyone in their right mind would cut these goddamn things inconsistently. 😉


Read me like a book.


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## bachader (Dec 21, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Im still working on this list and as others have found its more complex than first thought, i need to take into account every articulation as well :( also on this journey i found an issue with velocities which really bugged me.
> 
> For example (this is off the top of my head as i don't have the real issue to hand), if expression is set to 100% and dynamics is set to 80% i would expect every note for the given instrument to be roughly at the same volume level.........BUT NO i found for instance C3 had a peak of -16db and C4 have a peak of -12dB.....WTF.
> 
> Now i get that across the entire range of an instrument there maybe a slight change volume due to the instrument and the player etc. but a 3db difference in an octave in the middle of the instrument range for me means something is wrong. I found this while mixing one of my pieces and couldn't understand at first what was happening. So i have expression displayed in db and having to use automation\cc11 to either raise or lower the value depending on the note.


Hollywood orchestra is notorious for this loudness difference. But for BBCSO, I think the is a more serious problem than delay since BBC Core is marketed as a balanced orchestral library.


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## paulthomson (Dec 21, 2020)

Hey all,

Interesting discussion which I’ve just noticed!

Two thoughts: re the volume difference - there are huge differences in what eg MF is across the range of an instrument - in strictly decibel terms. That’s why we never normalize - it destroys the inherent and beautiful variation in timbre and sound across the range.

Secondly - if you want to create Hollywood style (for want of a better word) super tight ostinatos- these are always created in post production. The recorded orchestra section is tightened by hand.

We provide a super easy and quick way to get this sound with no effort by using the “tightness” control.

You couldn’t copy a cello to bassoon as the attacks of the instruments are very very different.

You’d have to adjust that timing. Having said all this - I almost never adjust the timing note by note. I might do it once in 50 passes.

If you go hyper tight the reality will collapse and you’ll only hear a mechanical rendition.

But I qualify all that with the reality that I’m a pianist and also organist so I’m used to for example playing ahead of the beat to hear the “timing” land on the beat. It’s the same when I’m playing Clarinet, I know that I have to pre empt the beat to get the actual tone to sound on the beat - especially when playing quietly.

Just my 2p!!

Paul


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## jaketanner (Dec 21, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> I don’t have an issue with differences just tell us what they are and save me 4hrs work lol


For me doesn’t matter at all. So I use con Moto and fluid shorts at times. And I play it all in live, so depending on how ahead or behind the beat I personally am, is how much I delay it. So for me it something I do by ear in real time while it’s playing back. I’ll just adjust the track until it feels good. So the posted delays are only if you are step inputting.


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## mybadmemory (Dec 21, 2020)

Imagine cutting all samples with a consistent pre-roll to the transient. Let’s say around 250ms to keep the full buildup to the note.

This is obviously very hard to play, but then imagine that the plugin knew when we were recording and when we were playing back a track, and that it automatically cut 250ms into the sample (to the transient) while recording, and also automatically went back to keeping the 250ms pre-roll while playing back the track.

Then we’d always have a very tight playable patch without delay while recording, but also always get the full buildup to the note while playing back the track. As an added bonus, we’d also get total consistency of timing between all sounds. Obviously the plugin or DAW would also have to automatically add a corresponding pre-delay on all tracks not armed for recording to compensate for the difference, and just handle all of this behind the scenes for us.

In my mind something like this is ideally what technology should be doing for us. Taking care of manual labour, setting up individual pre-delays, or nudging notes around. I might be missing something that makes this utterly impossible, but I have the lingering feeling that something like this, that would be totally transparent to users and “just work” would actually provide three benefits in one: no delay while recording, full buildup intact while playing back, as well as consistency in timing between everything.

Obviously not specific to BBCSO, but just a very general idea!


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## jaketanner (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> Imagine cutting all samples with a consistent pre-roll to the transient. Let’s say around 250ms to keep the full buildup to the note.
> 
> This is obviously very hard to play, but then imagine that the plugin knew when we were recording and when we were playing back a track, and that it automatically cut 250ms into the sample (to the transient) while recording, and also automatically went back to keeping the 250ms pre-roll while playing back the track.
> 
> ...


I believe a few developers already do this. NSS, which just came out by Audio Ollie has an offset knob that tightens up the shorts so they are playable, they you put it back to get the full benefit of the sample. Performance Samples also does this, but gives you THREE patches in which to perform. A natural, tight and tighter patch so that you can adjust your playing accordingly...Seems simple enough but you also need the know-how to implement...maybe this is the case here, I don't know. But let's home the new update has some features that we have been asking for...there is a whole thread based on the feature requests for BBC that I personally started...hope spitfire watches it.


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## bachader (Dec 21, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> I suppose the q





DovesGoWest said:


> Well after spending hours redoing things i have all the offsets calculated, these were done using the categorization Spitfire uses of Legato, Longs, Shorts, Pizz\Col and FX. These were done in Cubase Pro 11
> 
> Strings
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ...



Very nice job! A bit of clarification would be useful. At what tightness did you get these delays? They should be different at different tightness. Have you checked the relation between the tightness value and delay in milliseconds? I think the delays must also depend on the current speed value defined in rhe technique editor, although I am not sure what 'speed' adjusts, is that legato speed during transition between notes, somewhat similar to CSS?


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## Trash Panda (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> Imagine cutting all samples with a consistent pre-roll to the transient. Let’s say around 250ms to keep the full buildup to the note.
> 
> This is obviously very hard to play, but then imagine that the plugin knew when we were recording and when we were playing back a track, and that it automatically cut 250ms into the sample (to the transient) while recording, and also automatically went back to keeping the 250ms pre-roll while playing back the track.
> 
> ...


This is how all Audio Imperia libraries work. The samples are cut at 250ms before the transient, with a knob that defaults to 125 and can be dialed between 250 to 0. There’s also a tight button that sets the predelay to 0 for recording and can be turned off to go back to what you dialed in for playback.


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## mybadmemory (Dec 21, 2020)

@jaketanner @Trash Panda 

Not sure if you read the entire post.  Yes, they do allow us to do this manually, but the idea is that the technology could be doing this for us, turning it on and off automatically and behind the scenes at recording VS playback and therefore be totally trransparent to users.

The user setting AI does is a great start, but only halfway there to when this is all handled by the computer behind the scenes so we don’t have to think or know about it at all.


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## jaketanner (Dec 21, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> @jaketanner @Trash Panda
> 
> Not sure if you read the entire post.  Yes, they do allow us to do this manually, but the idea is that the technology could be doing this for us, turning it on and off automatically and behind the scenes at recording VS playback and therefore be totally trransparent to users.
> 
> The user setting AI does is a great start, but only halfway there to when this is all handled by the computer behind the scenes so we don’t have to think or know about it at all.


I feel this would be quite difficult because it might coincide with the DAW's delay compensation numbers. Could be wrong here, but that might be one reason why it really can't be done universally...since not all DAWs compute the compensation the same. Again, just a guess here from using multiple DAWs. Anyway, I do this manually and really, it changes every time I play, so having something that is set for me, won't always work.


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 22, 2020)

bachader said:


> Very nice job! A bit of clarification would be useful. At what tightness did you get these delays? They should be different at different tightness. Have you checked the relation between the tightness value and delay in milliseconds? I think the delays must also depend on the current speed value defined in rhe technique editor, although I am not sure what 'speed' adjusts, is that legato speed during transition between notes, somewhat similar to CSS?


The tightness was set to 0 for all of these the process i went through was as follows in Cubase 11:

1) Created a project at 140bpm (i think), and then calculated how many milliseconds a 64th note would be.
2) Created a piece of midi play 3 notes holding each note for 2 bars for the longs, created a simple 2 bar ostinato for the shorts.
3) Render the midi to audio
4) Line up the transient with the bar and keeping the midi in sync with the audio.
5) Reopen the midi to see how many 64th's the notes had been shifted
6) Multiply the 64th millisecond value by the number found in the previous step, this results in the millisecond delay to set the track to


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## JJDaly (Dec 23, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> So do you still recommend me to buy it? i have my 15 days waiting over on the 27th so i will be able to check it out and buy core may be


Don't know if you took a chance on it yet, but despite the issues that annoy me about the library, at the current sale price of €269 its an absolute bargain in my opinion.
if you have time on your hands to work around the issues, the results can be very good.


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 24, 2020)

JJDaly said:


> Don't know if you took a chance on it yet, but despite the issues that annoy me about the library, at the current sale price of €269 its an absolute bargain in my opinion.
> if you have time on your hands to work around the issues, the results can be very good.


I will do my best since I dont know the issues you are talking about and the new sale is starting from tomorrow, so score of spitfire that is my new question


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 24, 2020)

JJDaly said:


> Don't know if you took a chance on it yet, but despite the issues that annoy me about the library, at the current sale price of €269 its an absolute bargain in my opinion.
> if you have time on your hands to work around the issues, the results can be very good.


still havent bought it, since i received an email stating that from the 25 there is a new sale


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 24, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> still havent bought it, since i received an email stating that from the 25 there is a new sale


Will be no change in the BBCSO as thats been on offer for all of december


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 24, 2020)

DovesGoWest said:


> Will be no change in the BBCSO as thats been on offer for all of december


ok still I will c if I can get better with the new sale coming we never know dont we?


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## jaketanner (Dec 24, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> ok still I will c if I can get better with the new sale coming we never know dont we?


it won't be better...LOL 40% off is the max. Make sure you get Discover first to get an additional $50 off...I paid a little over $500 for BBC Pro. That may be the best you will find.


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 25, 2020)

ok since I have waited and others discounts are available, what would you recommend? BBSCO or pro or Albion or else? I wanna do cinematics, movies soundtrack, tv and else I want versatile options of course the best for the price


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 25, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> it won't be better...LOL 40% off is the max. Make sure you get Discover first to get an additional $50 off...I paid a little over $500 for BBC Pro. That may be the best you will find.


there are whole options available now so I am bit confused


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## jaketanner (Dec 25, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> there are whole options available now so I am bit confused


what do you mean whole options?


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## jaketanner (Dec 25, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> ok since I have waited and others discounts are available, what would you recommend? BBSCO or pro or Albion or else? I wanna do cinematics, movies soundtrack, tv and else I want versatile options of course the best for the price


For your basic cinematic orchestral soundtracks, as well as TV, i think BBC Pro is perfect and a great starting point. Used as a whole orchestra, the sounds is fantastic...not really meant to be split off and combined with other libraries much...here and there is fine, but it really shines as one unit. For other synth stuff or more intimate TV writing, many like some of the toolkits available...possibly even AB1...but depends on your needs. If you are not currently working in TV, this is hard to predict, since what gig you get might be different than what library you have.


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## Trash Panda (Dec 25, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> ok since I have waited and others discounts are available, what would you recommend? BBSCO or pro or Albion or else? I wanna do cinematics, movies soundtrack, tv and else I want versatile options of course the best for the price


I think you’ll need to get a bit more specific. For cinematic are you thinking John Williams, Alan Silvestri (old like B2TF or newer like Marvel), Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman? More classical or more modern?

There’s not one library that can do it all, but it’s easier to make a recommendation if you know what you’re aiming for in most cases.


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 26, 2020)

Trash Panda said:


> I think you’ll need to get a bit more specific. For cinematic are you thinking John Williams, Alan Silvestri (old like B2TF or newer like Marvel), Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman? More classical or more modern?
> 
> There’s not one library that can do it all, but it’s easier to make a recommendation if you know what you’re aiming for in most cases.


lol I would say all of them, but I would like to develop a style popular now unless I dont want to work; but I want to work, so Marvel, Star Wars, Hans Zimmer, or Howard Shore... anything with a good sound and actual


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 26, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> For your basic cinematic orchestral soundtracks, as well as TV, i think BBC Pro is perfect and a great starting point. Used as a whole orchestra, the sounds is fantastic...not really meant to be split off and combined with other libraries much...here and there is fine, but it really shines as one unit. For other synth stuff or more intimate TV writing, many like some of the toolkits available...possibly even AB1...but depends on your needs. .


"If you are not currently working in TV, this is hard to predict, since what gig you get might be different than what library you have" I didnt get what you are meaning but BBC pro is the thing to get at such price? first choice in the whole libraries they offer on sale?


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 26, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> For your basic cinematic orchestral soundtracks, as well as TV, i think BBC Pro is perfect and a great starting point. Used as a whole orchestra, the sounds is fantastic...not really meant to be split off and combined with other libraries much...here and there is fine, but it really shines as one unit. For other synth stuff or more intimate TV writing, many like some of the toolkits available...possibly even AB1...but depends on your needs. If you are not currently working in TV, this is hard to predict, since what gig you get might be different than what library you have.


for solo intimate sound can it be good as well?


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## jaketanner (Dec 26, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> "If you are not currently working in TV, this is hard to predict, since what gig you get might be different than what library you have" I didnt get what you are meaning but BBC pro is the thing to get at such price? first choice in the whole libraries they offer on sale?


I mean that TV shows are specific with the direction. Some might be orchestral, some hybrid some just ambient...etc. so if you get a library now and then find work that requires the opposite you’d be stuck. And bbc is great but it is just orchestral. Traditional orchestra.


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## jaketanner (Dec 26, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> for solo intimate sound can it be good as well?


BBC is symphonic. They have “leader” solo instruments but nothing like a small section to create intimacy. But this also depends on how intimate. You can use the close and leader MIC positions in Pro to get a more intimate sound if that’s what you mean. But if you get core, you are stuck with symphonic.


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 26, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> BBC is symphonic. They have “leader” solo instruments but nothing like a small section to create intimacy. But this also depends on how intimate. You can use the close and leader MIC positions in Pro to get a more intimate sound if that’s what you mean. But if you get core, you are stuck with symphonic.


many like some of the toolkits available...possibly even AB1? which is the best that fit pro then? i wanna something versatile I would say something can go one way or the other, doesnt have to be the best of all but fit to do the job


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## jaketanner (Dec 26, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> many like some of the toolkits available...possibly even AB1? which is the best that fit pro then? i wanna something versatile I would say something can go one way or the other, doesnt have to be the best of all but fit to do the job


So you are not looking at bbc then...BBC is orchestral. So basically anything an orchestra is used for, use BBC...if you want an all around library that also handles hybrid, then BBC nor AR1 is that. AR1 is also orchestral but just ensembles. Albion One has orchestral AND hybrid sound design stuff, but is ensemble...not separated instruments. Possibly look into Jaegar then...might be what you're looking for. You may just need to get multiple libraries then to cover your needs.


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## DovesGoWest (Dec 27, 2020)

Just wanted to add a word of caution regarding at least the string shorts delay values, i have noticed in Cubase at least that if i have a fast ostinato playing notes were getting cut off or missed. Now i dont know if this is the fault of Cubase or the Spitfire player but either reducing the offset or setting it to 0 corrected the issue.


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## Dr.BrainyPopsin (Dec 27, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> So you are not looking at bbc then...BBC is orchestral. So basically anything an orchestra is used for, use BBC...if you want an all around library that also handles hybrid, then BBC nor AR1 is that. AR1 is also orchestral but just ensembles. Albion One has orchestral AND hybrid sound design stuff, but is ensemble...not separated instruments. Possibly look into Jaegar then...might be what you're looking for. You may just need to get multiple libraries then to cover your needs.


well I thought about that but these are light librairies in term of GB, and the BBC is 600 which is very big so plenty space for it, what I will be missing are some instruments and solos may I could get them somewhere, and there is a sale going on. I have also about 10 libraries from sonokinetic, phrases that could fit right in?


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## jaketanner (Dec 27, 2020)

Dr.BrainyPopsin said:


> well I thought about that but these are light librairies in term of GB, and the BBC is 600 which is very big so plenty space for it, what I will be missing are some instruments and solos may I could get them somewhere, and there is a sale going on. I have also about 10 libraries from sonokinetic, phrases that could fit right in?


I stay completely away from phrase based libraries...personally never found the need for them, so can't really comment. As far as fitting in with BBC, I think it would fit in about as much as it would fit with any other library. They are so different that it really doesn't make a difference.

You can always used BBC as your base...as if you had a full orchestra at your fingertips, then supplement with other libraries based off what you need. That would certainly work.


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## JJDaly (Mar 4, 2021)

Just an interesting follow up on this subject and the lack of info available on the specific delay offset times in manuals etc.

Spitfire did include some Legato delay offset values in the new Legendary Strings manual:

"LEGATO INFORMATION

CC1 DYNAMIC PEAK POINTS

ff - 127 (100%) 
mf - 64 (50%) 
pp - 20 (15%)

INTERVAL TYPES 
SLOW
Below 99 Velocity, playing at normal speed. Timed to 125ms.
Slow Intervals will trigger regardless of playing speed below 40 Velocity.

HARD
Over 100 Velocity, or playing at faster speed. Timed to 75ms.

RUNS
At very fast speed only. Timed to 125ms."


It's a start I suppose. 
Can't imagine that we will see the BBCSO manual updated with any info, but maybe we will get more info going forward.

Did a quick screen grab of one of the timing issues that I was having with the Violins 1 spiccato patch.
It was exactly what someone on here suggested, that the issue relates to the round robins in the upper dynamic layer. the timing is fine in the mid and lower velocity layers.



So as long as you like quiet ostinatos, you're grand 

It's only 5 samples causing the issue, surely it couldn't be a massive job to fix it?

If it was Kontakt we could probably go in and address it ourselves.

anyway,

Take it easy.


----------



## DovesGoWest (Mar 4, 2021)

JJDaly said:


> Just an interesting follow up on this subject and the lack of info available on the specific delay offset times in manuals etc.
> 
> Spitfire did include some Legato delay offset values in the new Legendary Strings manual:
> 
> ...



Good work, there is no reason why this information can’t be supplied fir bbcso. It’s seems this is the first time spitfire have mentioned this information after so many requests on here for it

What does shock me is that they have different timings based on velocity. There is also inconsistencies between round robins as well, this all points to some slip shod inconsistent practices in both sampling and QA. I’m surprised that a company like spitfire would be like this , obviously this is why the timing information has been so hard to get because ever sample could be a different length with a different start.


----------



## NYC Composer (Mar 27, 2021)

Bought Core on a whim. Very nice sound. Practically impossible for me to use as the sample starts are incredibly laggy and a huge pain in the ass. I don't get it.

EDIT-SOLVED. WEIRD DISABLED PLUG IN NEEDED TO BE REMOVED. HUMAN ERROR.


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## DovesGoWest (Mar 27, 2021)

NYC Composer said:


> Bought Core on a whim. Very nice sound. Practically impossible for me to use as the sample starts are incredibly laggy and a huge pain in the ass. I don't get it.


I don’t find them that laggy, what’s your asio buffer size


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## NYC Composer (Mar 27, 2021)

I brought it down to 32 to see. Made no difference.

EDIT-SOLVED. WEIRD DISABLED PLUG IN NEEDED TO BE REMOVED. HUMAN ERROR.


----------



## NYC Composer (Mar 29, 2021)

bumping-so no one else has a very laggy response with BBSCO Core? See my specs in sig...

EDIT-SOLVED. WEIRD DISABLED PLUG IN NEEDED TO BE REMOVED. HUMAN ERROR.


----------



## DovesGoWest (Mar 29, 2021)

NYC Composer said:


> bumping-so no one else has a very laggy response with BBSCO Core? See my specs in sig...


Are you running bbc through vep?


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## NYC Composer (Mar 29, 2021)

not at the moment, no-full BBSCO template, and I've figured it out. Plug ins on my master buss, THOUGH THEY WERE DISABLED, were giving me a stupid delay.

Apologies to Spitfire. Human error, though I don't know why.


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## RichardCooke (Apr 13, 2021)

I just encountered this issue with the BBCSO and Google brought me here. Did you finish your delay list? I've love to use it - although I guess I have to separate out each instrument's articulations into separate tracks now :(
Hopefully we can get them to include a sample start time dial in their player. This is unpleasant.


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## JJDaly (Apr 13, 2021)

RichardCooke said:


> I just encountered this issue with the BBCSO and Google brought me here. Did you finish your delay list? I've love to use it - although I guess I have to separate out each instrument's articulations into separate tracks now :(
> Hopefully we can get them to include a sample start time dial in their player. This is unpleasant.


I don't think that we will see a control like that in a spitfire product, as nice and all as it would be. But at least they have started to include some information in their manuals now (as of Legendary low strings Abbey road) in relation to the delay times 👍.

There is anything from 30ms to 150ms negative delay needed depending on the patch/articulation. 

The list that was produced was interesting to see, but honestly I settled on different values myself. And it's an ongoing process for me. Also if you watch a few of Christian's videos and pause on his logic session in key spots, you can actually see the offsets if you know where to look and then you actually have to use a quick formula to convert that number into ms 🤣.

I'm not a logic user myself, but it did also occur to me to download some of their BBCSO logic demo sessions that they made available to see what info you can find in there too


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## DovesGoWest (Apr 13, 2021)

JJDaly said:


> I don't think that we will see a control like that in a spitfire product, as nice and all as it would be. But at least they have started to include some information in their manuals now (as of Legendary low strings Abbey road) in relation to the delay times 👍.
> 
> There is anything from 30ms to 150ms negative delay needed depending on the patch/articulation.
> 
> ...


There is now a separate thread on this where a spreadsheet has been created and shared to store timings for every library from all providers. It’s an on going process but and invaluable one






Negative Track Delay Database / Spreadsheet


Heres a direct link to the database: Link EDIT: Ok, here's a Google sheet I've created. If you're interested in contributing values for some instruments (and know how to use a Spreadsheet), let me know and I can give you write access. ---- Original post: Is there a database anywhere of...




vi-control.net


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## DovesGoWest (Apr 13, 2021)

JJDaly said:


> I don't think that we will see a control like that in a spitfire product, as nice and all as it would be. But at least they have started to include some information in their manuals now (as of Legendary low strings Abbey road) in relation to the delay times 👍.
> 
> There is anything from 30ms to 150ms negative delay needed depending on the patch/articulation.
> 
> ...


There is the tightness control which spitfire says cuts into the sample start to remove latency and make the sample more playable. Like the rest of the interface though it provides no markings or meaningful figures. My theory was to turn the dial to make it as tight as allowed, bounce to audio. This gives a tight track on the beat, now turn the tightness back down and bounce to audio. This track will be a track where the predelay is on the beat. Now you drag the audio on the second track left until the waveforms match up, so the gap between two waveform starts is the delay


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## RichardCooke (Apr 14, 2021)

DovesGoWest said:


> There is the tightness control which spitfire says cuts into the sample start to remove latency and make the sample more playable. Like the rest of the interface though it provides no markings or meaningful figures. My theory was to turn the dial to make it as tight as allowed, bounce to audio. This gives a tight track on the beat, now turn the tightness back down and bounce to audio. This track will be a track where the predelay is on the beat. Now you drag the audio on the second track left until the waveforms match up, so the gap between two waveform starts is the delay


Sadly the tightness control is not on the most important articulations - like Legato strings. I've decided to just nudge every note left by ear, or swap to Audio Imperia when I give up in disgust.


----------



## JJDaly (Apr 14, 2021)

RichardCooke said:


> Sadly the tightness control is not on the most important articulations - like Legato strings. I've decided to just nudge every note left by ear, or swap to Audio Imperia when I give up in disgust.


I did that and came back to BBCSO for the sound of the strings. 
If only it was as easy as nudging the notes........
The round robins in some of the patches have different attack times, so you can spend some time working on the timing of a section and then play it from a different point and the timing changes. And all of your time and effort is undone. 
Also the timing of the different velocity layers can vary.

I thought I was loosing my mind at first, until I narrowed it down.
If they can fix those issues and just publish the delay times, that would be great. But even if they don't publish the times, the document on here created by David Kudell, should be enough to refer to if we get enough people contributing to it 👍


----------



## JJDaly (Apr 19, 2021)

paulthomson said:


> Hey all,
> 
> Interesting discussion which I’ve just noticed!
> 
> ...


Hi Paul,

only saw your post now....talk about a long delay time......ba dum chuh!
(as in ,my delay in noticing your reply)

Thanks for throwing your 2p in the mix.

I hear what your saying about playing preemptively, but I think the issue that a lot of us are having is with the inconsistency within a single instrument patch, not necessarily the difference in one instrument to another.

I won't even pretend to have a fraction of the experience that you do in this area, so I would happily bow to your professional objective on the issue. But I have been playing piano / keys for over 30years and I'm very comfortable with adjusting my timing to suit whatever instrument or patch that I'm working with.

This isn't really the issue in this case.

You will see even one of the type of issues that exist in the library in the short video that I screen grabbed mid session:



(issue is shown at 2:09)

I'm not putting this up to try bash on Spitfire or the BBCSO library, quite frankly I love it and use it every day.

As part of submitting a support docket about the issue it was suggested that users try capture footage of the fault occurring.


Don't want to bore you with this, but please, as a user who is also 'very excited' about the spitfire products, consider giving this issue of consistent sample start times more focus in the future and at the very least continue to include data on the delay times in the manuals for libraries as has been done with the Abbey Road Legendary Low strings.
(displayed on the GUI somewhere discrete would also be very helpful)

This is of course presuming that you have some level of influence in the decision making process during product development phase.

I'm sure you can see that it is enough of an issue that the users on this forum have actually created an online document to try get a handle on this library and others.

Thanks,

JJ


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## mussnig (Apr 19, 2021)

JJDaly said:


> Hi Paul,
> 
> only saw your post now....talk about a long delay time......ba dum chuh!
> (as in ,my delay in noticing your reply)
> ...



I haven't used BBCSO for Ostinati so far but this seems to be terrible. I assume you are using the latest version? I mean I really like BBCSO and would like to upgrade to Pro at some point but something like that shouldn't happen ...


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## John R Wilson (Apr 19, 2021)

JJDaly said:


> Hi Paul,
> 
> only saw your post now....talk about a long delay time......ba dum chuh!
> (as in ,my delay in noticing your reply)
> ...



I have also experienced this with BBCSO string shorts. On some lines I have had tightness turned right up but have still experienced this. 

Layering CSS or SCS over the top is my way of rectifying the issue when needed, however, it would be nice if an update was made to BBCSO string shorts that addresses this.


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## mussnig (Apr 19, 2021)

John R Wilson said:


> I have also experienced this with BBCSO string shorts. On some lines I have had tightness turned right up but have still experienced this.
> 
> Layering CSS or SCS over the top is my way of rectifying the issue when needed, however, it would be nice if an update was made to BBCSO string shorts that addresses this.



There is a quite nice Ostinato patch in Spitfire’s Originals Epic Strings (if I understand correctly, it's taken from the old Albion 1) and most of the times I am ending up using just that one - I just like it and it works. Sure, it's an ensemble patch and a different room (but I am mixing different rooms anyways) but for some reason I like it more than all the other options I have ...


----------



## Thorgod10 (Apr 19, 2021)

JJDaly said:


> This isn't really the issue in this case.
> 
> You will see even one of the type of issues that exist in the library in the short video that I screen grabbed mid session:
> 
> ...



I second this.
If we could get a fix on the string shorts, we would all be absolutely thrilled.
Even with max tightness, performing repetitions creates an unusual delay, only mitigated by setting round robin to 1.


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## JJDaly (Apr 30, 2021)

mussnig said:


> I haven't used BBCSO for Ostinati so far but this seems to be terrible. I assume you are using the latest version? I mean I really like BBCSO and would like to upgrade to Pro at some point but something like that shouldn't happen ...


Yep , it's the latest version


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## Bman70 (May 17, 2021)

I've been reading this thread with interest, and I think I fall more into the second category mentioned, where it bothers me to have inconsistent sample delays. Or, for that matter, volume shifts in the same velocity.

Paul made a good point regarding normalizing: "re the volume difference - there are huge differences in what eg MF is across the range of an instrument - in strictly decibel terms. That’s why we never normalize - it destroys the inherent and beautiful variation in timbre and sound across the range." 

Yet it could be argued that some normalizing makes it _more _realistic: A violinist, for instance, will sort of "auto normalize" all the notes in a given passage to be consistent. He won't _arbitrarily _introduce a velocity or decibel change on some of the notes in a passage, because that would amount to random accents / dynamics. And there's nothing random about where a string player puts accents and dynamics. 

There may be huge differences in MF across the range, but a player can compensate for this, and will, by softening the louder ones and loudening the softer ones. This isn't the same as telling the orchestra to play an "A" note at MF. Record a sample. Then play a "D" note at MF. Record a sample. There is no performance tying the notes together to give them a cohesive choice of dynamic, and therefore any various in MF will be arbitrary, and not natural to a live orchestra which performs in phrases and lines, not notes. 

Performance-based sampling can be one solution, to a degree. But, I think in general some mild normalizing (in a given dynamic layer) might be the easiest safeguard to keep dynamics consistent in a given phrase.


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## MusiquedeReve (Aug 4, 2021)

DovesGoWest said:


> Well after spending hours redoing things i have all the offsets calculated, these were done using the categorization Spitfire uses of Legato, Longs, Shorts, Pizz\Col and FX. These were done in Cubase Pro 11
> 
> Strings
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ...


How did you figure all of this out? Trial and error or is there an App that can do this?

Do you know how these times translate to BBCSO Pro? in Logic?

Thank you


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## MusiquedeReve (Sep 2, 2021)

JJDaly said:


> Hi,
> My response to this post is just like the samples in question....... a bit delayed.
> 
> I'm very interested in this topic as, I love the sound of BBCSO , but I'm finding it a bit frustrating to work with for the exact reason you mentioned.
> ...


Which libraries "just work" without having to try and figure out the negative delay and then having all the articulations on their own tracks?

I love the sound of BBCSO but, I spend so much time nudging MIDI notes rather than even attempting to figure out the negative delay for every articulation of every instruments


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## Trash Panda (Sep 2, 2021)

MorphineNoir said:


> Which libraries "just work" without having to try and figure out the negative delay and then having all the articulations on their own tracks?
> 
> I love the sound of BBCSO but, I spend so much time nudging MIDI notes rather than even attempting to figure out the negative delay for every articulation of every instruments


Audio Imperia uses a universal pre-transient value of 250 ms and offers a slider that lets you control it from 250 down to 0.


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## MusiquedeReve (Sep 2, 2021)

Trash Panda said:


> Audio Imperia uses a universal pre-transient value of 250 ms and offers a slider that lets you control it from 250 down to 0.


Ahhhh, that's some news I can use
So, basically, with Audio Imperia, every track would use a -250ms negative delay?
WOW!


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## Trash Panda (Sep 2, 2021)

MorphineNoir said:


> Ahhhh, that's some news I can use
> So, basically, with Audio Imperia, every track would use a -250ms negative delay?
> WOW!


If you so choose. It defaults to -125, but is fully adjustable between -250 down to 0.


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## MusiquedeReve (Sep 2, 2021)

Trash Panda said:


> If you so choose. It defaults to -125, but is fully adjustable between -250 down to 0.


OK not to sound obtuse but, is setting it to -125 in an effort to have some more "realism" rather than having everything on the grid?

So, for example, in Logic Pro, if I had Audio Imperia Jaeger and the default is -125, all I would have to do is play something in, quantize it to the grid and then set the track delay to -125?

What would be the benefit of having it at -250? or 0?

Forgive my newbie questions


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## mybadmemory (Sep 2, 2021)

MorphineNoir said:


> OK not to sound obtuse but, is setting it to -125 in an effort to have some more "realism" rather than having everything on the grid?
> 
> So, for example, in Logic Pro, if I had Audio Imperia Jaeger and the default is -125, all I would have to do is play something in, quantize it to the grid and then set the track delay to -125?
> 
> ...


250 sounds better but is almost impossible to play. 0 sounds worse but is extremely responsive. 125 is a middle ground I guess. But personally I would record using 0 and then set it 250 for playback.


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## MusiquedeReve (Sep 2, 2021)

mybadmemory said:


> 250 sounds better but is almost impossible to play. 0 sounds worse but is extremely responsive. 125 is a middle ground I guess. But personally I would record using 0 and then set it 250 for playback.


What would you use if you were just drawing in the piano roll instead of playing? I assume -250 this way I'd get the full range and still be snapped to the grid


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## mybadmemory (Sep 2, 2021)

MorphineNoir said:


> What would you use if you were just drawing in the piano roll instead of playing? I assume -250 this way I'd get the full range and still be snapped to the grid


Yeah, if you don’t play but program it all I’d use 250 for everything!


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## MusiquedeReve (Sep 2, 2021)

mybadmemory said:


> Yeah, if you don’t play but program it all I’d use 250 for everything!


OK now, keeping my fingers crossed for an Audio Imperia sale -- I assume the next one would be Black Friday


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## Wedge (Sep 2, 2021)

MorphineNoir said:


> Which libraries "just work" without having to try and figure out the negative delay and then having all the articulations on their own tracks?
> 
> I love the sound of BBCSO but, I spend so much time nudging MIDI notes rather than even attempting to figure out the negative delay for every articulation of every instruments


Audiobro Modern Scoring Strings and Modern Scoring Brass both have an option to add a set delay to each instrument so the articulations line up (I don't own MSB). Sometimes the values vary between instruments Violins1 = 440ms and Violins2 = 420ms, but they have the value listed next to the switch on the bottom left. I got pretty frustrated with BBCSO's shorts (Violins1 is out of time with itself, Violins2 is worse and behind Violins1.) Which led me to picking up MSS. 

I didn't know that Audio Imperica does similar negative delay as MSS, otherwise I would have checked them out too.


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## madfloyd (Sep 3, 2021)

MorphineNoir said:


> Which libraries "just work" without having to try and figure out the negative delay and then having all the articulations on their own tracks?
> 
> I love the sound of BBCSO but, I spend so much time nudging MIDI notes rather than even attempting to figure out the negative delay for every articulation of every instruments


I've switched to VSL for this reason. I have a hard enough time creating music to fight this sort of nonsense.


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## MusiquedeReve (Sep 3, 2021)

madfloyd said:


> I've switched to VSL for this reason. I have a hard enough time creating music to fight this sort of nonsense.


What is the negative track delay situation with VSL?


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## Casiquire (Sep 3, 2021)

Wedge said:


> Audiobro Modern Scoring Strings and Modern Scoring Brass both have an option to add a set delay to each instrument so the articulations line up (I don't own MSB). Sometimes the values vary between instruments Violins1 = 440ms and Violins2 = 420ms, but they have the value listed next to the switch on the bottom left. I got pretty frustrated with BBCSO's shorts (Violins1 is out of time with itself, Violins2 is worse and behind Violins1.) Which led me to picking up MSS.
> 
> I didn't know that Audio Imperica does similar negative delay as MSS, otherwise I would have checked them out too.


I haven't experienced a variable delay or 420ms. How did you get that? My understanding is that there are two options: Lookahead which adds 400ms, and Auto-divisi which adds 40ms, and the two are independent from one another.


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## Casiquire (Sep 3, 2021)

MorphineNoir said:


> What is the negative track delay situation with VSL?


There's little to no delay, and i think it's a big part of why I'm not crazy about any of their string legatos. I think strings just can't be snipped like that


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## Wedge (Sep 3, 2021)

Casiquire said:


> I haven't experienced a variable delay or 420ms. How did you get that? My understanding is that there are two options: Lookahead which adds 400ms, and Auto-divisi which adds 40ms, and the two are independent from one another.


I'm not exactly sure. I just double checked and I was using the snapshot for Violins2 DAW integration (small) and only the stage mic.


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## Casiquire (Sep 3, 2021)

Wedge said:


> I'm not exactly sure. I just double checked and I was using the snapshot for Violins2 DAW integration (small) and only the stage mic.


DAW integration? Maybe that makes a difference. Out of the box i don't think anything is variable. That's good to know, thanks!


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## MusiquedeReve (Sep 4, 2021)

DovesGoWest said:


> Well after spending hours redoing things i have all the offsets calculated, these were done using the categorization Spitfire uses of Legato, Longs, Shorts, Pizz\Col and FX. These were done in Cubase Pro 11
> 
> Strings
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ...


I tried the strings settings you posted in Logic for BBCSO Pro

I had to change a lot of them and even then, some timing is off (usually the third note in a 4-note legato - no idea why that would be - above my pay grade)


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## pandamacion (Sep 28, 2021)

MorphineNoir said:


> I tried the strings settings you posted in Logic for BBCSO Pro
> 
> I had to change a lot of them and even then, some timing is off (usually the third note in a 4-note legato - no idea why that would be - above my pay grade)


Would you be willing to post your changes to the original list?


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## MusiquedeReve (Sep 28, 2021)

pandamacion said:


> Would you be willing to post your changes to the original list?


Yeah let me try to remember which project this was for and I will make a list - I should be able to check and post later this evening


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## jaketanner (Sep 29, 2021)

For those that are asking for exact delay times...why? I am not sure why you need the exact times, when you can nudge this by hand and sit it in the track by ear. Won't the time vary anyway, especially if you play it in live? Is this for hard quantizing?


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## mybadmemory (Sep 29, 2021)

jaketanner said:


> For those that are asking for exact delay times...why? I am not sure why you need the exact times, when you can nudge this by hand and sit it in the track by ear. Won't the time vary anyway, especially if you play it in live? Is this for hard quantizing?


Workflows vary. While some people play everything in, never quantize, and are ok with nudging by hand, others might program their stuff using a mouse, or play it in but hard quantize everything, and would never want to spend time dragging things arbitrarily (by ear) off grid but much rather set up a predetermined pre delay value on track level once and then never having to think about it again (at least in theory).


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## jaketanner (Sep 30, 2021)

mybadmemory said:


> Workflows vary. While some people play everything in, never quantize, and are ok with nudging by hand, others might program their stuff using a mouse, or play it in but hard quantize everything, and would never want to spend time dragging things arbitrarily (by ear) off grid but much rather set up a predetermined pre delay value on track level once and then never having to think about it again (at least in theory).


Guess it makes sense if you program it in.


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## Casiquire (Sep 30, 2021)

jaketanner said:


> For those that are asking for exact delay times...why? I am not sure why you need the exact times, when you can nudge this by hand and sit it in the track by ear. Won't the time vary anyway, especially if you play it in live? Is this for hard quantizing?


I often use midi which is hard quantized. I absolutely don't have time to go nudging every note in every track


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## jaketanner (Sep 30, 2021)

Casiquire said:


> I often use midi which is hard quantized. I absolutely don't have time to go nudging every note in every track


And you program or play it in? I don't quite understand quantizing unless it's for score printout, in which case you already have a "performed" version for playback. I was just curious.


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## jaketanner (Sep 30, 2021)

Casiquire said:


> I often use midi which is hard quantized. I absolutely don't have time to go nudging every note in every track


Also..it's a track offset, not every note needs to be moved. It's global per track.


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## Oxytoxine (Sep 30, 2021)

jaketanner said:


> Also..it's a track offset, not every note needs to be moved. It's global per track.


As the delay unfortunately is different on different articulations and even in different dynamic layers of the same articulation, a simple track offset does not work :(

I had an exchange with Spitfire about this, and to my surprise the guys, as nice and helpful as they are, do not seem to even comprehend the issue, despite so many posts / videos etc. demonstrating it. One of the founders even said in a thread here that the sloppy cutting of the samples adds to realism.


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## jaketanner (Sep 30, 2021)

Oxytoxine said:


> As the delay unfortunately is different on different articulations and even in different dynamic layers of the same articulation


what?? Wow...never heard of that. I get SF is all about realism being "sloppy"...LOL. And perhaps this is true for your average orchestra that are low budget, but the guys getting double and triple scale...working on big budget movies have their shit together and are not sloppy. I hate this philosophy...heres why: they're samples...they repeat over and over, with the same sloppy edits, same tuning issues...etc. live players FIX these things. I just don't get it.

Having said that...I do love BBC Pro...the sound is beautiful, and I really didn't run into any issues when using shorts for ostinatos.


----------



## Oxytoxine (Sep 30, 2021)

Fully agree! Sorry, they of course did not use the word "sloppy" - rather an explanation that slight timing variations are also natural and thus might even add to realism, like an inbuilt humanize feature. Yeah, we're talking few milliseconds here. Often, I do not even notice it, but sometimes it has the potential to drive me crazy, as it is so inconsistent and thus not easily possible to program around it, and sometimes it is really so bad that it destroys the timing of the passage and can not be remedied. There is e.g. a Daniel James Video where the issue is clearly demonstrated (ignore the rambling rest). First, I did only notice that some fast ostinati / patterns had a strange "feel" to them and I could not pinpoint the cause - but the problem went away when putting another lib on the same midi. Then I tried to read up about the issue, bouncing tracks and measuring the offsets etc. and probably got into it way too much. What put me off more was the - in my perception - rather ignorant reaction from the company to the flood of complaints. Which is a pity, because like you I dearly love the beautiful sound of e.g. BBC Pro, Chamber Strings etc. This drove me away from Spitfire. Only problem: the libs of other devs also have their inconsistencies, only in different areas. E.g. I recently got Berlin Symphonic Strings and the Orchestra, and man... don't get me started, it was an (expensive and bad) surprise to find so many niggles. So I finally arrived at the same conclusion that probably every human being on the planet with the exception of me already has had ages ago: they all have their issues and on the flipside they all shine in different areas. 

If it doesn't bother you, I would just ignore it and happily continue to use BBCSO


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## Iustin (Sep 30, 2021)

jaketanner said:


> what?? Wow...never heard of that. I get SF is all about realism being "sloppy"...LOL. And perhaps this is true for your average orchestra that are low budget, but the guys getting double and triple scale...working on big budget movies have their shit together and are not sloppy. I hate this philosophy...heres why: they're samples...they repeat over and over, with the same sloppy edits, same tuning issues...etc. live players FIX these things. I just don't get it.
> 
> Having said that...I do love BBC Pro...the sound is beautiful, and I really didn't run into any issues when using shorts for ostinatos.


I use Audio Imperia(Jaeger) for ostinatos and after I put some BBCSO or Abbey Roads for a more complete sound. But unfortunately, you cannot use BBC or AR like the first choice.


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## jaketanner (Sep 30, 2021)

Oxytoxine said:


> Fully agree! Sorry, they of course did not use the word "sloppy" - rather an explanation that slight timing variations are also natural and thus might even add to realism, like an inbuilt humanize feature. Yeah, we're talking few milliseconds here. Often, I do not even notice it, but sometimes it has the potential to drive me crazy, as it is so inconsistent and thus not easily possible to program around it, and sometimes it is really so bad that it destroys the timing of the passage and can not be remedied. There is e.g. a Daniel James Video where the issue is clearly demonstrated (ignore the rambling rest). First, I did only notice that some fast ostinati / patterns had a strange "feel" to them and I could not pinpoint the cause - but the problem went away when putting another lib on the same midi. Then I tried to read up about the issue, bouncing tracks and measuring the offsets etc. and probably got into it way too much. What put me off more was the - in my perception - rather ignorant reaction from the company to the flood of complaints. Which is a pity, because like you I dearly love the beautiful sound of e.g. BBC Pro, Chamber Strings etc. This drove me away from Spitfire. Only problem: the libs of other devs also have their inconsistencies, only in different areas. E.g. I recently got Berlin Symphonic Strings and the Orchestra, and man... don't get me started, it was an (expensive and bad) surprise to find so many niggles. So I finally arrived at the same conclusion that probably every human being on the planet with the exception of me already has had ages ago: they all have their issues and on the flipside they all shine in different areas.
> 
> If it doesn't bother you, I would just ignore it and happily continue to use BBCSO


For now, I’ve been lucky. What is unusable for me is SCS and it’s tuning issues. Prevents me from it but that’s for a different thread. Lol


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## Casiquire (Sep 30, 2021)

Iustin said:


> I use Audio Imperia(Jaeger) for ostinatos and after I put some BBCSO or Abbey Roads for a more complete sound. But unfortunately, you cannot use BBC or AR like the first choice.


I've switched from A, writing my music by hand or in notation software then playing every note into dry and static libraries to B, writing my music into notation software, exporting the midi, then using libraries with the kind of recorded expression I'm looking for. Saves tons of time and pain and sounds a hundred times more natural and expressive. Of course i need to tweak CCs, velocities, and the like, but i don't need to mess with timing or squeezing life out of static samples by playing everything a hundred times until i get a result i like.

In music, sometimes something as small as not having to do multiple takes and passes is enough to keep the creative energy flowing


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## MusiquedeReve (Nov 26, 2021)

OK finally coming back to this thread - what I have found very consistent in BBCSO Pro, at least for the following articulations across all instruments is:

Legato -120ms
Spiccato/Staccato -60ms

I am using Logic Pro 10.7.1


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