Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

INTRODUCING Albion NEO. The next chapter in our bestselling Albion series.

Mike Fox said:
This.

No lie. I often have VIC running in the background (or on my phone). It's a nice way to take breaks from composing. Plus, I'm a sample library nerd, so I find it enetertaining to discuss this stuff with my fellow nerds.
Click to expand...

I think there's research to show that for a certain type of work (generally on the more creative/realational side of things) working in a cafe, so long as its not too loud can be good for productivity.

And I think it may come down to the element of social energy that comes being out instead of sitting alone at your desk.


I'm speculating here, but in that you generally can't compose in a cafe, occasional focus check-ins might provide a certain amount of social energy, which, in moderation, might be beneficial to actually getting work done in isolation.

Except of course when it doesn't.
 
Mike Fox said:
Yeah, it's kinda funny. Coming to a forum and then complaining about people posting in the forum is the equivalent of someone going to the beach and then complaining about the sand.
Click to expand...
If we're comping to the forum to obtain and contribute helpful information sure. If the motive is self-promotion, not so much...
 
Iswhatitis said:
Sorry, I also forgot to include that I own all the Evolutions, OAE, Solo Strings, ASS, Sacconi, and BBCSO too. I would not say that Neo is a must buy if someone owns Tundra, OAE, BBCSO or SCS. It really has to do with what one owns already or how much a composer loves the smaller and softer sound of Neo. I don't think given what you own you have to buy Neo, but I own much more than you and really like Neo, it's like having more shades of colors to choose from. Neo is not necessary but certainly is nice to have. The Neo strings nor any of the sounds in Neo are not redundant to anything you or I own. But some of the Neo strings are similar to some of the shades of tonal color in SCS, SStO (or in your case Studio Strings), Tundra and OAE.

Each Albion is not like the OT Berlin Inspire Orchestra, which is directly derived from the Berlin series of VI. Someone earlier believes that the Albion Collection is just a sketching tool. I find the Albion Collection to be very useful for sketching ideas and just as useful to use on its own or blending with other libraries to create a new palette of tonal colors for a finished track. Also, Albions all have very highly well recorded orchestra sections and are wonderful to compose with during all stages of music production. You should really check out the walkthroughs on Spitfire.com to see what each Albion is about, but I love using the Albions alone or with my other Spitfire libraries and do not feel like I have any redundancy as each Albion was recorded from a unique orchestra and blends well with other Air Studios libraries. Neo though can work well in both a small intimate space and Air Studios sound stage. If you don't own Studio Strings Pro definitely upgrade to the SStO Pro version as the strings alone are fantastic and give you 3 more string libraries in one by owning Studio Strings Pro. I would upgrade your Studio Strings to Pro during BF or Xmas sales before getting SSO or SSS, though I love SSO in general. The Albions definitely have some special flavors particularly III Iceni, IV Uist, V Tundra, and VI Neo. If you don't own any of the Albions wait till Xmas sale when you may be able to get them for 50% off if you buy the Albions Collection. I also own all the OT BOI and MA series and I do not find redundancy between MA and the Albions. If you can ever afford it get all the MA and Albions libraries. One of the ways the Evolutions excel including Tundra and Neo is to bring in ways to allow a musical track to breathe with subtlety, grace, and intimacy in ways the full orchestra libraries don't do as easily.
Click to expand...

Wow, thanks a lot for this comprehensive answer! Sheds light on various facets / aspects that I was not considering, will reflect on it :thumbsup:

Glad you mentioned the Berlin inspires, which I also have and now realize probably were one source of confusion for me, because I (wrongly) was under the impression that the Albions would be in a similar relationship to SSO as the BOIs to the "big" Berlin Series and thus did not really investigate the other Albions.

Also nice to learn that Neo can fit nicely with both the rooms of Air Lyndhurst and the Air Studio series, I did not yet consider to expand SStO. The woodwinds and brass choices in Neo seem really odd to me (not only due to the obvious "bacon" issues mentioned above thread, but also due to chosen limited dynamic range and the fact that the ensembles are not available separately, what would catapult the utility of them into a new sphere), but all in all Neo seems to be versatile then.
 
Last edited:
Iswhatitis said:
Don’t forget LCO and LCO Textures are very cool tools too in this vein.
Click to expand...

This adds a very interesting dimension to it.

I have LCO, and find it has a real contiguity to Studio Strings and BDT. But I find that there's a real gap between BDT and Tundra.


That said, I can mix BDT with OACE, if used carefully (BDT has, surprisingly become my go-to for detail wind textures along with Orchestral Swarm). And I can mix OACE with Tundra. But BDT/LCO with Tundra ... not so much.


Not disagreeing with you. Just that this is a space I simply haven't worked our myself.

Although i do have a theory a out the ‘axis of musicality’ at play here.
 
Iswhatitis said:
I love SStO Professional and strongly recommend anyone who owns StO to upgrade to the Pro version the next big sales cycle. The additional various string sections make SStS Pro incredibly full of value and diversity in string section sizes as though one has 4 different string libraries in one VI.
Click to expand...
So I have Studio strings (core), and am really starting to love them love, and understand their musicality beyond simply being ‘SCS lite’ (which is why i initially bought them).

But it feels a completely different space to me than Tundra/Neo/OACE (although they do mix with OACE wonderfully, with a bit of messing around and lots and lots of reverb).

Would be very interested in you insights about how to bring these two worlds together.
 
easyrider said:
sorry I think you misunderstood...I meant for all the Albions how much has it cost for all of them ?
Click to expand...
I really have no idea, since I acquired them over the years on sales and with EDU discount. I also paid in pounds for some of them, so I'd have to go find the credit card records for those. My guess is that I paid a bit less than the current bundle price of $1219 for the five Albions currently available. (The current bundle price, btw, is quite good, and on par I think with what you'd get during a wishlist.)
 
Iswhatitis said:
If anyone thinks that putting their music onto this Forum is gonna get them a gig I’d be stunned if that happened. I don’t see anyone self-promoting on this forum. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen unintentionally or intentionally but doesn’t seem to be what this forum is about unlike LinkedIn where one gets bombarded with endless self-promotion.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Even then, there is an area of the forum where people can promote themselves, and that's where i see most of the self promoting taking place.
 
ism said:
I think there's research to show that for a certain type of work (generally on the more creative/realational side of things) working in a cafe, so long as its not too loud can be good for productivity.

And I think it may come down to the element of social energy that comes being out instead of sitting alone at your desk.


I'm speculating here, but in that you generally can't compose in a cafe, occasional focus check-ins might provide a certain amount of social energy, which, in moderation, might be beneficial to actually getting work done in isolation.

Except of course when it doesn't.
Click to expand...
Interesting!

To add to that, there probably is some evolutionary explanation for the link between socializing and creativity. They often seem to go hand in hand. After-all, we as artists do many things for an audience.
 
Mike Fox said:
Interesting!

To add to that, there probably is some evolutionary explanation for the link between socializing and creativity. They often seem to go hand in hand. After-all, we as artists do many things for an audience.
Click to expand...
I would take a wide view of ‘creative’ work. Certain stages in working through problems in theoretical physics, for instance, i can do well in a cafe. Grinding through calculations calling for great precision, not so much.

I’m wildly speculating here, but if you believe the evolutionary psychology that understand art as epi-phenomenal, then i don’t thing there’s likely to be specific insight from evolutionary into artistic endeavours. But there are clearly different modes of thought that we oscillate between / gravitate towards / are repelled from.

The ‘write drunk edit sober’ maxim for composing music applies equally, if less obviously, to theoretical physic, and even engineering. And there are elements to the craft of writing music that are as tediously and relentlessly calculative as any mathematical grinding I’ve ever had to do.

(Caveat is that all this evolutionary psychology is in its infancy, so i’d take it all with an enormous grain of salt).\

But to make this relevant to neo - I’d argue that we’re seeing different subjective modes of though mixing both fluidly and conflictually on this thread.

An artistic / musical subjectivity - open to the expansiveness of the emerging music space.

Vs

A consumer / technical subjectivity - focus on nailing down details, maximizing purchasing decisions.

Both are important, and not necessarily irreconcilable modes of thought, but capable of being messy when they bounce around on the same thread.

Edit - i think you’re probably right about the social and creative. Again, i’m not too clear on avant guarde evolutionary psychology, and not saying I necessarily believe it, but i thing there is of theme that most of human cognative ability is evolved towards the social realm. Which makes the human ability for theoretical physics an epi-phenomenal evolutionary accident, perhaps even more than the human capacity to write symphonies.
 
Last edited:
ism said:
I would take a wide view of ‘creative’ work. Certain stages in working through problems in theoretical physics, for instance, i can do well in a cafe. Grinding through calculations calling for great precision, not so much.

I’m wildly speculating here, but if you believe the evolutionary psychology that understand art as epi-phenomenal, then i don’t thing there’s likely to be specific insight from evolutionary into artistic endeavours. But there are clearly different modes of thought that we oscillate between / gravitate towards / are repelled from.

The ‘write drunk edit sober’ maxim for composing music applies equally, if less obviously, to theoretical physic, and even engineering. And there are elements to the craft of writing music that are as tediously and relentlessly calculative as any mathematical grinding I’ve ever had to do.

(Caveat is that all this evolutionary psychology is in its infancy, so i’d take it all with an enormous grain of salt).
Click to expand...
Ah, true! I guess biological and physiological evolution is limited to physical manifestations and testability, which would still possibly sprout a solid answer for the social/creative link. But yes, the psychological aspect behind it is incredibly fascinating.

And if you believe art transcends those limitations and derives from a more spiritual source, then you've just opened a window of neverending ideas, theories, philosophies, and possibilites of such phenomena, eh? Also fascinating.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ism
ism said:
I suspect that for basic flautando, Neo and SCS are very directly contiguous. And this adjacency is, in my estimation, best though of not as a duplication, but as a valuable point of continuity that, in the first instance, gives the ability to sketch quickly in Neo, and then go into detail with SCS.
Click to expand...
You can already do this with the very nice ensemble patches of SCS (it's long been my string sketching library of choice), so in that respect Neo doesn't add anything to that capability, except additional varieties of longs, which don't have exact correlates in the individual section patches. So in that respect, Neo, too, is more akin to Tundra in offering extensions to SCS/SSS rather than a means of sketching to be replaced by SCS. Yes, SCS can be used to bring detail to Neo especially with the large number of legatos for the individual sections. But Neo has flavors of flautando and sul tasto that SCS does not.
 
Paul Cardon said:
Here's your bacon, y'all




I'm not torn by it, I'm always a huge fan of a bit of looseness and funkiness in my libraries, but I'm sure some of you will disagree completely.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this! Great demo. It's a little too much for me but I might just throw a filter on it.
 
jbuhler said:
It's long been on my wishlist, but every time a sale comes along some other shiny object manages to get in the way...
Click to expand...

Just make sure you like the sound of the room before you buy BHCT. It gives the overall library a very niche sound/vibe. It's a great library though!
 
jbuhler said:
You can already do this with the very nice ensemble patches of SCS (it's long been my string sketching library of choice), so in that respect Neo doesn't add anything to that capability, except additional varieties of longs, which don't have exact correlates in the individual section patches. So in that respect, Neo, too, is more akin to Tundra in offering extensions to SCS/SSS rather than a means of sketching to be replaced by SCS. Yes, SCS can be used to bring detail to Neo especially with the large number of legatos for the individual sections. But Neo has flavors of flautando and sul tasto that SCS does not.
Click to expand...



Have you and sense of whether Neo give you the same "feathered" feel in its orchestration along the lines of OACE?

Ensemble patches are great for sketching, but in practice you probably don't want all the instruments of all the time just because they happen to be in range.

Wheres when you, for instance, play an ascending melody on OACE the feathered orchestration has a lovely sense of good sections entering slowly - ie not all the violas entering immediately when you hit c2, and so on.

In practice I find it give a much nicer balance that I get with conventional ensemble patches. Which is where I would an ensemble patch in Neo might be more like OACE that SCS.
 
Mike Fox said:
Just make sure you like the sound of the room before you buy BHCT. It gives the overall library a very niche sound/vibe. It's a great library though!
Click to expand...
Isn't it the same room they used for the Studio series?

I've heard lots of demos with it and I very much like the sound.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom