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Spitfire Studio Brass

I honestly don't mean any offense whatsoever to anyone. However, does it seem as if some folks have a bigger problem with SA than just the recent libraries? I keep reading all this invective and yet still am not hearing anything woefully wrong with the grand majority of this series. I could be wrong but this kind of conscientiously bilious denunciation seems largely unnecessary and to a good extent erroneous. I've liked what I've heard from these libraries again and again and I'm glad the final decision is down to me. I think young people are getting unnecessarily confused...again, no offense but it sounds more as if SA somehow pissed in a couple of individuals' corn flakes in the past months, and seemingly for reasons having only a modicum to do with what seem to me fine and desirable libraries. I could be completely wrong, forgive me if so. Looking forward to hearing more of use about the libraries...re-peat I do respect you but to be honest your audio was the ultimate reason I bought SStWW. For that I'm grateful. Really.
 
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For what it's worth: I got SStWW, which got a lot of flack, during the sale that's going on right now and for the price tag it is absolutely phenomenal.
I repeat it is phenomenal for the pricetag.
It is a statement where the causal determination needs to be taken into account which I feel often gets lost within these posts.
Granted, when we listen to people with a lot of experience in here, it probably also means we are listening to people who have heard a lot of libraries, who know how well individual instruments and patches CAN sound thus raising their own standard when they look at a new library.
But for the price tag it is absolutely lovely.
It offers a lot of content, a lot of flexibility and yes - it needs work to make it sound good and sit well in a mix. It is not an Afflatus Woodwinds. But it certainly is a good entry point.
 
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.
Well, my counter argument to your assessment as well as @Parsifal666 is there is nothing wrong to criticize the issues we discover and find, in these cases, very bad. @re-peat has been a very long time customer of Spitfire's before they were a commercial entity. I started buying their products when all they had was the Joby Burgess Percussion and Albion 1 Legacy. We've both grown to know Spitfire's sound and style and have watched it developed for years, the good and the bad. We are both recognizing a trend in their new products that concerns us. @re-peat has demonstrated those concerns that aren't limited to just one library but the entire series in question. I can no-longer demonstrate similar issues because I'd prefer not having a 200+ gb library that is full of major issues sitting unused on a perfectly good hard drive that helps drive my main template.

I am not bashing or attacking any individual's soul who likes what they purchased but simply defending my position that the noticeably bad issues with these latest libraries aren't a minor blip on Spitfire's buggy radar. These are issues that have continued to snowball for the last few years. One can speculate as to why, which is what I've been doing. Based on the limited information I have, it simply lies within their QA department. The people in charge of making sure these things get ironed out before release either don't think these are problems or they are n't adept to working in those positions. That's the simplest answer to the pressing question but, despite the odds, it could just simply be an accident that managed to slip through the cracks. Oh well, like I said, one can only speculate.

-C
 
Well, my counter argument to your assessment as well as @Parsifal666 is there is nothing wrong to criticize the issues we discover and find, in these cases, very bad. @re-peat has been a very long time customer of Spitfire's before they were a commercial entity. I started buying their products when all they had was the Joby Burgess Percussion and Albion 1 Legacy. We've both grown to know Spitfire's sound and style and have watched it developed for years, the good and the bad. We are both recognizing a trend in their new products that concerns us. @re-peat has demonstrated those concerns that aren't limited to just one library but the entire series in question. I can no-longer demonstrate similar issues because I'd prefer not having a 200+ gb library that is full of major issues sitting unused on a perfectly good hard drive that helps drive my main template.

I am not bashing or attacking any individual's soul who likes what they purchased but simply defending my position that the noticeably bad issues with these latest libraries aren't a minor blip on Spitfire's buggy radar. These are issues that have continued to snowball for the last few years. One can speculate as to why, which is what I've been doing. Based on the limited information I have, it simply lies within their QA department. The people in charge of making sure these things get ironed out before release either don't think these are problems or they are n't adept to working in those positions. That's the simplest answer to the pressing question but, despite the odds, it could just simply be an accident that managed to slip through the cracks. Oh well, like I said, one can only speculate.

-C
Oh yeah, I can respect that entirely! (not like you need my permission haha)

There's just a weird vitriol that keeps spreading in these divisive threads rather than a truthful pursuit for honest help and exploration and critique. I know I'm not the only one that's been feeling it.
 
I actually didn't see Re-peat say anything bad about the library until someone asked him his honest opinion. Then he got attacked for it, which wasn't really fair.

I find every library out there has flaws. And a lot of times it is personal opinion and personal music style that makes the difference as to whether or not something is an actual problem. I think the biggest issue is that there is no demo for a lot of these orchestral samples. So you have to buy it to find out whether it works for you. Then you are stuck with it. And if this is how you make a living, or you are on a limited income, it can be a problem. I have a whole bunch of libraries I've bought that I'm not sure I will ever use. But I don't say anything because I think it may be my inexperience and not the libraries.

But from a business perspective, there are too many sample companies out there now and they are all rushing to make more product to sell because there is a limited audience for the product. I think the time of being able to take longer and make it perfect is pretty much gone. You have the people and space for a short time and if you can't get a good take from your oboe player, you don't have time to get another one in to redo it. I don't know what the answer is because having a single oboe player come in won't necessarily work because the space sound will be different. Plus the customers want Power Legato when you can't even get a good regular legato from your tuba player.

I don't know what the answer is other than letting others have their opinion and not getting personal about it.
 
To be fair, having read the comments I don't feel anything bad was said. Honest and blunt, yes.
But I have learnt so much from both sides. And as pointed out, unless someone takes the negative stance (always the unpopular one on forums) nothing will ever get sorted from the devs.

There's certainly an air of "wow, all these goodies are so cheap (I'll forgive basic QA) and I'm grabbing them all!" in the threads. I personally don't want to spend good money and have to use workarounds and avoid certain or even whole sections! So I welcome these comments/examples, otherwise these same users are failing fellow peers by NOT saying something.
 
Actually, I find the negativity quite wearing. It follows and appears in every thread about the Studio Series. I'm all for discussing the pros and cons of any given library, but there's a line where a constructive conversation crosses into tedious axe grinding and insults. And that line has been crossed a lot. For 18 pages. Front and back.
 
Nobody finds it more wearing than I do, Alex. Do you seriously think I enjoy spending — or rather wasting — several hours a day on problems such as these?
If only developers would do their job better and have some more respect for their customers, none of these 18 pages would have been written. But as it is, I'm of the strongest opinion that there's great necessity that they *are* written.

_
 
Nobody finds it more wearing than I do, Alex. Do you seriously think I enjoy spending — or rather wasting — several hours a day on problems such as these?
If only developers would do their job better and have some more respect for their customers, none of these 18 pages would have been written. But as it is, I'm of the strongest opinion that there's great necessity that they *are* written.

_
Have you aired your concerns to Spitfire directly? And if so, did you receive a reply? Genuine question.
 
I much appreciate @re-peat and @The Darris taking the time to write out their experiences, whether negative or positive. I find it very helpful reading informed opinions especially when they are well-argued.
 
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]


So after all these years, hate to say, I am still Spitfire hater it seems, their brass sounds absolutely worst from all the examples.
 
I'm not going to get drawn into creating more little demos to counter what Piet is saying here, as I did before. I'll simply observe that its actually pretty easy to make any sample library sound bad. You find an element that you can expose, say thats quickly moving the modwheel between certain values, and then you just ride that to make it sound as bad as possible. This is clear in the screenshot posted what is going on.

I own quite a few of the other devs libraries for my own interest - theres great stuff in all of them. However I could easily make some examples of them sounding awful. Why would I do that though? It would be incredibly unfair and unrepresentative, and I have a lot of respect for any dev who goes through the incredible amount of hard work to get a product of such complexity across the finish line.

Its a fact that Christian and I are massively involved in the creation of our products. Its a fact that they come out - thanks to a large team of very talented programmers and QA who are all also musicians - with way fewer bugs than they used to when we were a handful of people. We're always aiming of course for zero, but its complex software, and anyone involved in this knows how hard it is to catch everything. We still put out tons of updates and constantly work to improve our products.

Its a shame that so many devs have left VIC. I loved this place before I was a dev, I still enjoy coming here and following whats going on, but its so hard reading stuff presented as fact that is either unfair or simply untrue. I actually spent a week editing and refining stuff for the Ambient Guitars release only a few weeks ago. And yes - I'm not doing this *most* of the time, as I have a ton of other responsibilities, but I still get my hands dirty in all kinds of ways. I love making samples as much as I love making music. I'm not sitting in the clubhouse on the 19th hole drinking gin and tonic.

A key point - I'm still a totally passionate end user of our products, as is Christian. Thats how we started, and thats how it still is. We have really talented people working with us who have undoubtedly helped us up our game across the board.

There is a cognitive dissonance though when you on the one hand get fantastic feedback from triple A list record producers and composers, through to students and keen hobbyists who purely write for pleasure - and then you read that your products are 'absolute utter crap' - believe me I could take the King James cello and make it sound crap. Doesn't mean that the lucky cellist who currently plays it can't make it sound utterly divine!

I'm also absolutely passionate about music education and opportunity for people of all ages to discover music, performing and composing, and so I spend some of my time on that side at the moment.

Not really sure what I hope to achieve by posting this message, probably nothing. I have no desire to muzzle anyone. People have different tastes, and will like the sound of different things, I have absolutely no issue with that. I struggle with misrepresentation and confident announcements of 'fact' that bear no relation to reality.

One thing is for sure. When someone uses one of our products, they are using something that has been lovingly nursed into existence with care and attention and a ton of work by a team of really talented people who work hard to make the products as good as they can. We often bin stuff that isn't up to our standards. We also have a fantastic and dedicated support team that you can communicate with who are a key part of us refining and making our products better, so please do talk with them. It really helps us, which helps you.

I joined VI-C in October 2005. Thats nearly 14 years ago! nuts. Still can't quite manage to tear myself away - and why should I have to? Theres a lot to love about a community of passionate music makers who are also massive geeks like me. I just need to learn the skill of selective reading ;)

Peace out

P
 
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