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Spitfire Studio Brass

It's sad that we've come to point where the user defends these issues with a ridiculous work-around. Why on Earth would I want to have the same patch loaded twice just so I could use the low dynamics and the high dynamics separately. At some point, you simply just have to say, "Yeah, these issues are garbage and need to be fixed. Hello Spitfire Support, fix this shit...please."

I mean, if you feel like you weren't let down by that purchase, that's fine but don't seriously avoid the elephant in the room that is those issues. Also, you have encountered those legato transitions because they were just demonstrated to you. It's great that you haven't encountered them in your work but they exist and are very, VERY, bad. It would be really great if the users of these libraries would actually raise hell with Spitfire for releasing such a lazily put together paper weight equivalent to a hard drive.
I didn't say they weren't bad, I just said I hadn't encountered them. Many of @re-peat's examples take work (and unmusical playing) to produce, like the horn example he posted a while back.

ETA: The transitions here are irritating but as I mentioned I encounter these sorts of things all the time in libraries from pretty much every producer. I haven't had this library long but I've messed around with both trumpet patches, I'd noted the poor transition in trumpet 1 (it's hard to miss and it's a real limitation) but also that it seemed containable to the transition. I noticed some other weird things in trumpet 2 that seem to have to do with the vibrato (reducing the vibrato made the issue go away) but I haven't experienced anything like the example @re-peat posted. I don't doubt that they exist and if I encounter them in routine work I'll definitely report them. I already noted that the horn 1 legato patch has all sorts of problems and that I don't like the way the open sustains work for pretty much all the instruments (again the transition layers are a problem). The library overall is limited—at the regular pro price almost certainly over-priced for those limitations—but it serves my needs as a supplement so long as I can get it to mix with SSB, and I haven't had it long enough to know yet about that. I would not recommend the pro library for someone who doesn't have another dedicated brass library. Core is harder to say because of the low price point and so the question becomes: how does the library stack up against comparably priced libraries and things like the Kontakt Factory Library?
 
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I didn't say they weren't bad, I just said I hadn't encountered them. Many of @re-peat's examples take work (and unmusical playing) to produce, like the horn example he posted a while back.

ETA: The transitions here are irritating but as I mentioned I encounter these sorts of things all the time in libraries from pretty much every producer. I haven't had this library long but I've messed around with both trumpet patches, I'd noted the poor transition in trumpet 1 (it's hard to miss and it's a real limitation) but also that it seemed containable to the transition. I noticed some other weird things in trumpet 2 that seem to have to do with the vibrato (reducing the vibrato made the issue go away) but I haven't experienced anything like the example @re-peat posted. I don't doubt that they exist and if I encounter them in routine work I'll definitely report them. I already noted that the horn 1 legato patch has all sorts of problems and that I don't like the way the open sustains work for pretty much all the instruments (again the transition layers are a problem). The library overall is limited—at the regular pro price almost certainly over-priced for those limitations—but it serves my needs as a supplement so long as I can get it to mix with SSB, and I haven't had it long enough to know yet about that. I would not recommend the pro library for someone who doesn't have another dedicated brass library. Core is harder to say because of the low price point and so the question becomes: how does the library stack up against comparably priced libraries and things like the Kontakt Factory Library?
I never said you said they weren't bad so please don't imply that I was putting words in your mouth (ironically enough). You're missing my point that I was trying to make. Your reaction (so far) is to not pressure the creators to fix these issues. We shouldn't have to avoid very important functions of these libraries like dynamics. If something is that bad, the users should pressure the creator to fix it. That is why they have a support line. How on Earth can they improve their products if users don't critique and demand a fix. If the company doesn't fix it after they've been given the opportunity, then that is just terrible customer service and poor business practices which they can be reviewed on separately.

Maybe you have submitted a request to them but you haven't said so after I've made that point so I'm basing my opinion off of the evidence you've given me at the moment. You're simply just ignoring the issues and just work around those problems. I don't know about you, but if I spend hundreds of dollars on a piece of kit, I expect it to work as advertised and if it doesn't, I expect them to fix those issues in an update after I provide them with adequate examples and feedback of those issues, like those @re-peat has demonstrated. Unmusical or not, they are problems that need to be fixed. Spitfire, among many other large companies, have demonstrated a high level of incompetence on the QA side of things with their latest releases. The Studio Series being one of the worsts I've ever encountered by a large developer.
 
I agree.

I wonder if Paul and Christian are still developing libraries, or if people like Homay and others are doing them, and Paul and Christian have just taken an oversight/CEO type role. That would explain alot.

Of course, I have no idea what is going on behind the scenes, and this is nothing but pure speculation.
Will Evans has taken over as CEO of Spitfire. Paul and Christian have moved to a more Co-Founder role and I guess oversee the creative direction their company goes. I don't think they have too much to do with the actual development until it gets to BETA. I highly doubt they are present for every recording session, like they were in the early days.
 
Paul and Christian have moved to a more Co-Founder role and I guess oversee the creative direction their company goes. I don't think they have too much to do with the actual development until it gets to BETA. I highly doubt they are present for every recording session, like they were in the early days.

Bummer.
 
I never said you said they weren't bad so please don't imply that I was putting words in your mouth (ironically enough). You're missing my point that I was trying to make. Your reaction (so far) is to not pressure the creators to fix these issues. We shouldn't have to avoid very important functions of these libraries like dynamics. If something is that bad, the users should pressure the creator to fix it. That is why they have a support line. How on Earth can they improve their products if users don't critique and demand a fix. If the company doesn't fix it after they've been given the opportunity, then that is just terrible customer service and poor business practices which they can be reviewed on separately.
First, I haven't had the library long enough to submit a report. I do routinely submit reports when I find problems in libraries; sometimes they even get fixed! If I encounter something like that trumpet 2 example, I would certainly report that. I may report the issue I'm having with the vibrato on trumpet 2 if I can isolate it well enough to write a complaint. The transition for trumpet 1, I'm less sure about. It doesn't sound good, true, but this is often the case for these layer transitions on many instruments I own and often they are the consequence of what the developers chose to optimize when there were tradeoffs. From my noodling, I like the two layers in themselves, they just don't seem to sit well with each other. Most layer transitions aren't as pronounced as this, that is true, and it is not ideal, that is also true. As for the horn 1, I don't even know where I'd begin my complaint. They'd have done better not shipping the library with that legato patch, but I did know about it when I bought the library.
 
Many of @re-peat's examples take work (and unmusical playing) to produce

I’m sorry but they don’t. I come across these things within 15 seconds after opening a patch. Play a few legatos with the Trumpet 2, and there you have it. Hold a long note in the upper register of the French Horn 2, and there you have it. Try to do something expressive with the Oboe, and you can’t. Dare use the highest notes of the Flute Legato and out come these strange noises that have nothing to do with a Flute whatsoever. Use Trumpet 1 Legato with the modwheel and hear a pig being strangled. Nothing ‘hard work’ about it. Simply play these Studio libraries like you would any other library, and you’re in for one unacceptable horror after another. Seriously. (And I can add least 12 more of these things which I’ve come across but haven’t mentioned yet.)

It seems to me some of you people are satisfied with using 2% of a library and if that happens to sound half-decent (which, I’ll admit, the Studio Series is capable of too), you’re happy. Dear oh dear.

I agree however that some of my examples exhibit unmusical playing. But here’s why: most of the patches simply aren’t capable of rendering musical playing into accordingly musical audio. Can’t be done. You play musically and it comes out sounding unmusical. That’s the perfect description of the Spitfire Studio Series. And playing even more musical than I already do, will only reveal more flaws and embarrassements.

Core or Pro, doesn’t make one bit of difference, they both are Crap. Utter and Complete Crap.

_
 
First, I haven't had the library long enough to submit a report. I do routinely submit reports when I find problems in libraries; sometimes they even get fixed! If I encounter something like that trumpet 2 example, I would certainly report that. I may report the issue I'm having with the vibrato on trumpet 2 if I can isolate it well enough to write a complaint. The transition for trumpet 1, I'm less sure about. It doesn't sound good, true, but this is often the case for these layer transitions on many instruments I own and often they are the consequence of what the developers chose to optimize when there were trade-offs. From my noodling, I like the two layers in themselves, they just don't seem to sit well with each other. Most layer transitions aren't as pronounced as this, that is true, and it is not ideal, that is also true. As for the horn 1, I don't even know where I'd begin my complaint. They'd have done better not shipping the library with that legato patch, but I did know about it when I bought the library.
Well, I hope you're able to send them some detailed support requests. The ones I sent for Studio Strings were very thorough and haven't been fixed, as far as I'm aware. Something that has bugged me since they switch to their own download manager is the lack of informative reports detailing the list of changes in their updates. I get frequent updates for libraries like Symphonic Brass but without any information as to what was fixed. I had a 3 gb update sometime last year. I was excited hoping it was some sort of content update but it wasn't. I found that out after waiting a week for their support line to just say it was various bug fixes and updates to their engine. That's great to hear but also, it would be nice if they'd publish some reports so we can be informed. This is the most common thing found in software development, period. Anyway, I'm just ranting about a separate issue. Glad to hear you will report those issues when you have more to report.

Best,

Chris
 
I’m sorry but they don’t. I come across these things within 15 seconds after opening a patch. Play a few legatos with the Trumpet 2, and there you have it. Hold a long note in the upper register of the French Horn 2, and there you have it. Try to do something expressive with the Oboe, and you can’t. Dare use the highest notes of the Flute Legato and out come these strange noises that have nothing to do with a Flute whatsoever. Use Trumpet 1 Legato with the modwheel and hear a pig being strangled. Nothing ‘hard work’ about it. Simply play these Studio libraries like you would any other library, and you’re in for one unacceptable horror after another. Seriously. (And I can add least 12 more of these things which I’ve come across but haven’t mentioned yet.)

It seems to me some of you people are satisfied with using 2% of a library and if that happens to sound half-decent (which, I’ll admit, the Studio Series is capable of too), you’re happy. Dear oh dear.

I agree however that some of my examples exhibit unmusical playing. But here’s why: most of the patches simply aren’t capable of rendering musical playing into accordingly musical audio. Can’t be done. You play musically and it comes out sounding unmusical. That’s the perfect description of the Spitfire Studio Series. And playing even more musical than I already do, will only reveal more flaws and embarrassements.

Core or Pro, doesn’t make one bit of difference, they both are Crap. Utter and Complete Crap.

_
Can you do that again but with more emotion? Haha.

I totally agree with you man. Within 5 minutes of fiddling around with Studio Strings, I was very frustrated. Not only was the library just bad but their product page had published completely inaccurate information of the contents. The biggest one saying they had recorded 4-8 layers of dynamics. The most layers found after searching every patch was 4 (in the Spiccato). The average was 2-3 layers across the entire Pro version. They've since fixed that information but it was present for the first week of the release.

At the end of the day, everything about the Studio Series from concept to release has demonstrated a complete lack of oversight and quality assurance. I wanted to like the Studio Series but there is, sadly, nothing remotely likable about any of it.
 
Will Evans has taken over as CEO of Spitfire. Paul and Christian have moved to a more Co-Founder role and I guess oversee the creative direction their company goes. I don't think they have too much to do with the actual development until it gets to BETA. I highly doubt they are present for every recording session, like they were in the early days.
Wrong.
 
Okay. I guess you won't clarify where I'm wrong but that's cool. Will Evans is the CEO of Spitfire now. Christian mentioned on one of his 200+ youtube channels (that I am not going to go chase down) that Paul and him were taking a step back to a slightly different role and, based on their schedules and the events they do, I can't possibly see how they are present for every single recording session possible. They record A LOT. But whatever, you're the type of person to just say wrong and not have to give any explanation, oh the joys of certain VI-C individuals. If you can provide me with some more context of where I'm wrong, I would gladly change my opinions on this.
 
Well to me it feels a bit like the complete studio series was rushed out (purely driven by business intentions), in order to come to the market before CSB and CSW drop.
CSB is light years ahead of the studio brass when it comes to quality.
However the price point of the studio series is really great.
It has lots of useful content.
 
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I’m sorry but they don’t. I come across these things within 15 seconds after opening a patch. Play a few legatos with the Trumpet 2, and there you have it. Hold a long note in the upper register of the French Horn 2, and there you have it. Try to do something expressive with the Oboe, and you can’t. Dare use the highest notes of the Flute Legato and out come these strange noises that have nothing to do with a Flute whatsoever. Use Trumpet 1 Legato with the modwheel and hear a pig being strangled. Nothing ‘hard work’ about it. Simply play these Studio libraries like you would any other library, and you’re in for one unacceptable horror after another. Seriously. (And I can add least 12 more of these things which I’ve come across but haven’t mentioned yet.)

It seems to me some of you people are satisfied with using 2% of a library and if that happens to sound half-decent (which, I’ll admit, the Studio Series is capable of too), you’re happy. Dear oh dear.

I agree however that some of my examples exhibit unmusical playing. But here’s why: most of the patches simply aren’t capable of rendering musical playing into accordingly musical audio. Can’t be done. You play musically and it comes out sounding unmusical. That’s the perfect description of the Spitfire Studio Series. And playing even more musical than I already do, will only reveal more flaws and embarrassements.

Core or Pro, doesn’t make one bit of difference, they both are Crap. Utter and Complete Crap.

_
That's your experience, not mine. I played around with the trumpets for 30 minutes to an hour yesterday, and I had immediate issues with the dynamic transition of trumpet 1, yes. I had some foibles in the second trumpet that seemed related to the vibrato. But I did not encounter the issues you documented. Maybe it was luck. I can't say yet, as I haven't been at my rig to test your exact examples. All I can say is that noodling around I didn't encounter them. And I also rather like the soft dynamic layer of trumpet 1 legato.
 
Oh you know, why not. It wasn't too hard to find. Especially after I looked up my emails with Will talking about the whole promotion. But just so those who have any doubts that I was "wrong," here you go.

Yeah, Will is CEO, but Will likely has near nothing to do with the recording process. His role is to offload management responsibilities from everyone else so they can focus on dev and recording. Paul and Christian are constantly at AIR. Paul is still hardly seen outside of the tutorial videos, so what do you think he's doing all the time? It feels harsh to speculate in that damning way like it's fact.
 
Yeah, Will is CEO, but Will likely has near nothing to do with the recording process. His role is to offload management responsibilities from everyone else so they can focus on dev and recording. Paul and Christian are constantly at AIR. Paul is still hardly seen outside of the tutorial videos, so what do you think he's doing all the time? Calm down the harsh speculation, bud.
I think you are reading into my words a little bit, and I think calling them harsh is a bit much. I have a professional relationship with Will as well as a few other employees at Spitfire. I know a bit about their process, especially the development side of things. Paul and Christian play a vital role as co-founders, I'm not diminishing that at all. They oversee the direction the company goes as far as products but the overall business side of how those products are marketed, shipped, managed, produced, etc, is run by Will and a few others (obviously), such as their product manager, Stanley Gabriel. Stanley isn't mentioned or talked about much in the public eye of Spitfire. But, he's a composer, producer, etc who has worked with Paul and Christian for a very long time. It's people like Stanley who help inform someone like Will.

Paul and Christian have taken a step back from that role to simply enjoy life a lot more. Both of them write music more because of it and Paul, well, he's building his own studio at his place and has been creating videos of his own now for a few months. They are a for profit endeavor so to think that their mindset hasn't changed from the days of old would be fairly ignorant, not that I'm implying that about you. We're clearly seeing a trend with the level of quality of Spitfire's products diminishing with each new release. I've followed their company very closely for a number of years now as I used to run my own reviewing series on sample libraries. I use their libraries a lot in my work and I've come to find that their newer products are quite inferior to their older ones and their older libraries aren't without issues as well. Those issues are just worse in their newer products.

I'm not wearing a tin foil hat over here. I'm simply stating observable issues and problems that have developed out of Spitfire in the last few years. Ever since the rebranding of the BML series into SSO, we've seen a steady dip in quality by Spitfire. It sucks. I like their style and concepts they approach but I would really like those concepts to be executed with better precision. They have a lot of employees now, there is no reason why they can't have a higher caliber of output from here on out, especially when these issues are being brought up by all users. Especially Spitfire fans.
 
Hi,
Herewith a few examples I made with different brass products, based on the Airport theme from Herrmann's North by Northwest. Made with 8DIO Century Brass (x4) - Orchestral Tools Brass - Spitfire Symphonic Brass (x4) - VSL Triple horn (x4) and VSL Dimension Brass Synchronized.

I also added a version from the movie: Streets with the same notes , but this time very fast and very soft (pp indicated).

And sorry.....I don't have SSB on my HD yet, so no example of this library.
PM me for a midi-file if you want!

I hope you'll enjoy the offered overview

8DIO
[AUDIOPLUS=https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/herrmannnbnw8dio-mp3.17430/][/AUDIOPLUS]

Orchestral Tools Brass
[AUDIOPLUS=https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/herrmannnbnw_ot-mp3.17431/][/AUDIOPLUS]

Spitfire Symphonic Brass
[AUDIOPLUS=https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/herrmannnbnw_ssb-mp3.17432/][/AUDIOPLUS]

VSL Triple horn (x4)
[AUDIOPLUS=https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/herrmannnbnwvsl_triplehorn-mp3.17433/][/AUDIOPLUS]

VSL Dimension Brass Synchronized
[AUDIOPLUS=https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/herrmannnbnwvsldb_synchr-mp3.17435/][/AUDIOPLUS]
Dammmn LOVE the OT. Soooo, what's the final verdict on this library? What a about core vs pro? Getting seriously tempted.
 
Yeah, Will is CEO, but Will likely has near nothing to do with the recording process. His role is to offload management responsibilities from everyone else so they can focus on dev and recording. Paul and Christian are constantly at AIR. Paul is still hardly seen outside of the tutorial videos, so what do you think he's doing all the time? It feels harsh to speculate in that damning way like it's fact.

Well, then Will should do a good deal more off-loading, cause The Studio Series aren’t exactly evidence of there having been much focus on dev and recording.

And we can't be harsh and damning enough, as far as I'm concerned. I don’t care who does what at Spitfire these days. The fact that is that Paul and Christian gave these libraries the thumbs up for release. It's none of my business, I know (except that it affects my business), but I would humbly, politely and respectfully suggest that they both take a moment, well, more than a moment, to review the seriousness of the situation and spend some quality time with their former selves, because those former selves would never ever ever have released anything anywhere near as bad as the libraries under discussion here. Never.

_
 
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Was headed for SStOrch, but waters are surely muddied at this point. Even muddier given talents of most posters vs personal limitations.
Gonna back off to the fun stuff …… OACE, WW EVO, maybe LCO Textures.
Appreciate these candid conversations and clarifications affecting notable dinero.
 
Well, then Will should do a good deal more off-loading, cause The Studio Series aren’t exactly evidence of there having been much focus on dev and recording at all.

And we can't be harsh and damning enough, as far as I'm concerned. I don’t care who does what at Spitfire these days. The fact that is that Paul and Christian gave these libraries the thumbs up for release. It's none of my business, I know (except that it affects my business), but I would humbly, politely and respectfully suggest that they both take a moment, well, more than a moment, to review the seriousness of the situation and spend some quality time with their former selves, because those former selves would never ever ever have released anything anywhere near as bad as the libraries under discussion here. Never.

_
Oh sure, I don't think patting anyone on the back and saying "good job mates, you tried your best" when you're disappointed with a product is the only option. But there's definitely a weird fire in this thread that's pointed to take aim at the souls of other people. It's incredibly disheartening to see these threads continually turn into these big damning personal dissections of character and intent. So many devs rightfully scared away from this place.
 
I think you are reading into my words a little bit, and I think calling them harsh is a bit much. I have a professional relationship with Will as well as a few other employees at Spitfire. I know a bit about their process, especially the development side of things. Paul and Christian play a vital role as co-founders, I'm not diminishing that at all. They oversee the direction the company goes as far as products but the overall business side of how those products are marketed, shipped, managed, produced, etc, is run by Will and a few others (obviously), such as their product manager, Stanley Gabriel. Stanley isn't mentioned or talked about much in the public eye of Spitfire. But, he's a composer, producer, etc who has worked with Paul and Christian for a very long time. It's people like Stanley who help inform someone like Will.

Paul and Christian have taken a step back from that role to simply enjoy life a lot more. Both of them write music more because of it and Paul, well, he's building his own studio at his place and has been creating videos of his own now for a few months. They are a for profit endeavor so to think that their mindset hasn't changed from the days of old would be fairly ignorant, not that I'm implying that about you. We're clearly seeing a trend with the level of quality of Spitfire's products diminishing with each new release. I've followed their company very closely for a number of years now as I used to run my own reviewing series on sample libraries. I use their libraries a lot in my work and I've come to find that their newer products are quite inferior to their older ones and their older libraries aren't without issues as well. Those issues are just worse in their newer products.

I'm not wearing a tin foil hat over here. I'm simply stating observable issues and problems that have developed out of Spitfire in the last few years. Ever since the rebranding of the BML series into SSO, we've seen a steady dip in quality by Spitfire. It sucks. I like their style and concepts they approach but I would really like those concepts to be executed with better precision. They have a lot of employees now, there is no reason why they can't have a higher caliber of output from here on out, especially when these issues are being brought up by all users. Especially Spitfire fans.
I reckon you're right. I think the comments just hit me off-kilter, and that's my fault.
 
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