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AVAILABLE NOW — Abbey Road One: Orchestral Foundations

Has anyone who owns Albion One bought the Low-Strings? I use the 8ª patches of A1 a lot, and these lows sound so awesome. Would they be a nice addition to my template?
 
Hi,

Since the reduced price of AR-F will exprie on March 11th, I'm giving myself a few more days to think about adding AR-F, and Leg. Low-Strings.

So... Do we have any timeline, or guesses as to when SA will release the first library of their AR-Modular Orch. ?

Thanks.
Initially, they said 2022, but I guess it depends one what has been recorded. Last March, they said something to the effect that the media library was fully recorded but they had only started on the modular library. If they have enough to do one section or more, we may see it. There's also the problem of how soon they can start recording again. And there was mention of dumping stuff that was already recorded because it didn't sound good. I didn't know if that applied to Abbey Road stuff or BBCSO extras that people were asking about.
 
Has anyone who owns Albion One bought the Low-Strings? I use the 8ª patches of A1 a lot, and these lows sound so awesome. Would they be a nice addition to my template?
The Albion One lows were surprising good when I tested them against the Legendary Lows. I prefer LL but AO still hold up. They do have a somewhat different character so that’s good as well.
 
Since I have ProjecSam Symphobia 1, and Symphobia 2. Which are also ensembled based libraries, I was re-discovering them, since I rarely use them, and that's what I'm a bit worried about, that I will buy AR-F, and rarely use it. The interesting thing is I found that the Symphobias have some really interesting, and useful patches. I'm guessing AR-F sounds much better than the Symphobias which are quite old libraries, I think Symphobia is 10 years old.

I would like to hear from AR-F users, how they think it compares to Symphobia 1 and/or 2. if they have these ProjectSam libraries.
 
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Since I have ProjecSam Symphobia 1, and Symphobia 2. Which are also ensembled based libraries, I was re-discovering them, since I rarely use them, and that's what I'm a bit worried about, that I will buy AR-F, and rarely use it. The interesting thing is I found that the Symphobias have some really interesting, and useful patches. I'm guessing AR-F sounds much better than the Symphobias which are quite old libraries, I think Symphobia is 10 years old.

I would like to hear from AR-F, how they think it compares to Symphobia 1 and/or 2. if they have these ProjectSam libraries.
I have also found it difficult to use the Symphobias over the years but found Albion One and the other Albions (except Uist) much more useful. ARO is closer to the Albions, especially Albion One, without the hybrid element (e.g., Steamband).

I think the approach of ARO and Albion One is quite different from that of the Symphobias. ARO and Albion One are focused on traditional sections where I would say the principle behind Symphobia is topical combinations that relate to the stories and multis. They can be nice idea generators but I generally feel a bit boxed in when using the Symphobias.

One traditional method of sketching orchestral works involves a short score divided out by instrumental sections, and the patches for ARO more or less conform to that with perhaps more detail to the brass than what you’d have in a short score. The Symphobia combinations are more like orchestration recipes for particular moods, a little bit like what @PhilipJohnston is doing on a more general level with his orchestration recipes. No not every patch of the Symphobias is designed this way, and the Symphobias don’t have to be used in this manner but that seems to be what the libraries (1, 2, and 3 at any rate) are optimized to do. (And the Project Sam tutorials are fantastic illustrations of the capabilities of using their libraries this way.)

So Lumina, for instance, is a library optimized for fantasy (among other things) and it is in essence a toolkit for making that kind of music, whereas Albion One is a large symphony orchestra in Air divided into instrumental choirs with a dynamic range of roughly mf-ff and ARO is a large symphony orchestra in Abbey Road divided into instrumental choirs with a dynamic range of roughly pp-ff. So the focus of Albion One and ARO is on quickly getting the sound of a well scored orchestral ensemble; whereas the focus of Symphobia is giving you a toolkit to quickly construct the set of musical topics or moods.
 
I have also found it difficult to use the Symphobias over the years but found Albion One and the other Albions (except Uist) much more useful. ARO is closer to the Albions, especially Albion One, without the hybrid element (e.g., Steamband).

I think the approach of ARO and Albion One is quite different from that of the Symphobias. ARO and Albion One are focused on traditional sections where I would say the principle behind Symphobia is topical combinations that relate to the stories and multis. They can be nice idea generators but I generally feel a bit boxed in when using the Symphobias.

One traditional method of sketching orchestral works involves a short score divided out by instrumental sections, and the patches for ARO more or less conform to that with perhaps more detail to the brass than what you’d have in a short score. The Symphobia combinations are more like orchestration recipes for particular moods, a little bit like what @PhilipJohnston is doing on a more general level with his orchestration recipes. No not every patch of the Symphobias is designed this way, and the Symphobias don’t have to be used in this manner but that seems to be what the libraries (1, 2, and 3 at any rate) are optimized to do. (And the Project Sam tutorials are fantastic illustrations of the capabilities of using their libraries this way.)

So Lumina, for instance, is a library optimized for fantasy (among other things) and it is in essence a toolkit for making that kind of music, whereas Albion One is a large symphony orchestra in Air divided into instrumental choirs with a dynamic range of roughly mf-ff and ARO is a large symphony orchestra in Abbey Road divided into instrumental choirs with a dynamic range of roughly pp-ff. So the focus of Albion One and ARO is on quickly getting the sound of a well scored orchestral ensemble; whereas the focus of Symphobia is giving you a toolkit to quickly construct the set of musical topics or moods.
Thanks. That was very helpful.

To continue evaluating ARO, and its Expansions, I have been listening to as many demos of ARO as I can find on YouTube, to get a good idea of what users are able to produce using it. I noticed that there are quite a few users trying to emulate the JW sound from some of his famous soundtracks, i.e. Harry Potter, Star Wars, ET, . .. etc. Great Soundtracks, but not my main interest for using ARO, it's more about the sound of ARO. I wish there was more of a variety of user demos showing ARO producing more modern, and original sounding tracks.
 
Thanks. That was very helpful.

To continue evaluating ARO, and its Expansions, I have been listening to as many demos of ARO as I can find on YouTube, to get a good idea of what users are able to produce using it. I noticed that there are quite a few users trying to emulate the JW sound from some of his famous soundtracks, i.e. Harry Potter, Star Wars, ET, . .. etc. Great Soundtracks, but not my main interest for using ARO, it's more about the sound of ARO. I wish there was more of a variety of user demos showing ARO producing more modern, and original sounding tracks.
So I'll nervously share some work in progress here. I loathe the "hybrid" monkier for stuff, but I guess this fits that. This is work I'm doing as part of my masters. All of the strings and brass are Abbey Road One, and some of the percussion (however mangled) is, too. [There's also plenty of Spitfire Alternate Solo Strings, LCO Textures, S+A Cycles and Auras, some sounds and effects processing from my Eurorack, etc.]

This is music that's way out of my comfort zone, and I'm betting it doesn't sell the library for anyone, but at least it's the widest use of AR1 that I've had yet. Ignore that it's not fully filled out yet, or mixed, and doesn't come to a close. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

 
OK.

Too much GAS for me to handle, plus I was getting a bad headache, so .. I finally Purchased Abbey Road ONE Foundations, and Legendary Low-Strings Expansion.

I feel much better now. :elephant:
Definitely want to hear what you come up with with it, and also if you end up feeling like your concerns about it were overblown. ;)
 
Hi @styledelk ,

Thanks for sharing your hybrid style track using ARO, and other libraries, it sounds very unique, and refreshing. I have heard enough Star Wars demos being done using ARO. ;) And I wish you all the best with your Masters program. :thumbsup:

I enjoy listening to more original works using ARO, sorry, but I'm really tired of listening to imitations of famous scores done at AR-1. Anything new, and creative is so refreshing to listen to.

I will install the libraries, and give them a spin tomorrow. I will also post my first impressions about them as well.

Thanks to all of the forum members who helped me decide, and on evaluating ARO, and Legendary Low-Strings, I'm confident I will enjoy having them in my Sample Library tool kit.

Cheers,
Muziksculp
 
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Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, but I don't think I've come across a listing of the player count in the Abbey Road One Orchestral Foundations sections. For example (hazarding a guess) High Strings: 16vn1/14vn2/12va, Low Brass: 3tbn/1b tbn/tuba. Could someone point me toward that info if it's available? @Spitfire Team
 
Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, but I don't think I've come across a listing of the player count in the Abbey Road One Orchestral Foundations sections. For example (hazarding a guess) High Strings: 16vn1/14vn2/12va, Low Brass: 3tbn/1b tbn/tuba. Could someone point me toward that info if it's available? @Spitfire Team
The library comprises strings (16, 14, 12, 10, 8), brass (four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, two bass trombones, one contrabass trombone, one tuba, and one contrabass tuba); and woodwinds (piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, one cor anglais, two clarinets, one bass clarinet, two bassoons, and one contrabass bassoon); and percussion, performed by three players on a stunning selection of instruments.
 
The library comprises strings (16, 14, 12, 10, 8), brass (four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, two bass trombones, one contrabass trombone, one tuba, and one contrabass tuba); and woodwinds (piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, one cor anglais, two clarinets, one bass clarinet, two bassoons, and one contrabass bassoon); and percussion, performed by three players on a stunning selection of instruments.
Thanks. I was way off with the low brass then. :whistling:
 
@jbuhler ,

And you were wrong about this too. They already finished their first chapter of the modular library a while back, so I think we will see part of their AR-1 Modular Orchestra released this year.
I don't think we will. But of course this is all speculation. I think Christian means they finished recording one of the modular libraries, if you look at how that excerpt you presented connects with the previous bit. He mentions finishing recording something in Abbey Two. And in any case, I also don't think they want to release one modular library and then have a big gap before the next. I could be wrong about that, of course, but I expect all the foundation expansions to be released before the first modular library comes out. I still think first quarter of 2022 is the earliest we'll see any of the modular and it might not be until late next summer.
 
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