Just curious David... what are your thoughts on the timpani compared to some of the other libraries?
As my response, I decided to do a quick comparison render of hard strikes and a crescendo roll of the four timpani that I have available and actually use (I also have timpani in EWQLSO Gold, but I don't think it merits comparison to any of these). In order heard, they are:
1) NI Symphony Series Percussion
2) OT Berlin Percussion Exp A
3) HZ03 (JunkieXL mix)
4) Kontakt Factory Library
I added some Valhalla Room to the OT timpani, as it is otherwise significantly more dry than the others. I also did a rough volume match of all four, in order to avoid having volume affect the perception of quality. These examples just use the stereo mix for SSP, and the tree mics for OT and SF.
Until now I have been using either OT or HZ03 for timpani, and in general I don't see that changing, as they both seem to have more "smack/presence" than the others, with the OT version probably having the best raw sound and the HZ03 version having that terrific ambience which blends so well with all of my other Spitfire libraries. The Kontakt factory library one, in comparison, is very much deep and boomy, and I haven't gone back to it after getting any of these others. The new Symphony Series timpani falls somewhere in between those extremes, I'd say - like much of the rest of SSP, it isn't as "hyped" in the high end as both the OT and SF timpani are, but on some occasions that could be a desirable quality, and in my opinion it is noticeably closer to the OT and SF offerings in overall quality than it is to the factory library one.
It isn't shown in this example, but the SSP timpani does have a quirk on the release sample of its rolls, mostly when released at a low to mid dynamics level, where it sounds kind of unnatural and like a pasted on semi-hiss rather than the same timpani head ringing. It isn't a problem if you release the roll with the dynamics at a high setting.
One bad thing about the SF offering is that there are audible transitions in the velocity layers that make it more difficult to get smooth dynamics. Both the OT library and the new SSP library come off better in that regard.
Unlike the others, the OT timpani doesn't have any semblance of a strike built into the release of the roll ... I could have added one in, but decided to leave it as is in order to show that difference. OT also has fixed length crescendo rolls which sound really great, but I decided to also do the roll with the modulation wheel in order to have it be a fair comparison with these other libraries which lack recorded roll crescendos.