This is a direct CSS competitor. There's 30 musicians here, compared to 35 in CSS (and 28 in Berlin). The intro price is also exactly the same as CSS's price so... y'know... doesn't seem like coincidence...
Except, on the other hand, you get so much more than CSS at the same price. Six mic positions instead of three, extended techniques, true sordinos, sul tasto and sul pont, trills beyond half/whole.
The size flexibility is
killer. You have a 30-piece string orchestra with divisi in every section (except basses). You have two choices for 17-piece ensembles, which competes with SCS and Light&Sound (and the upcoming Hyperion I suppose). And you can combine the half and full size sections to get a 60 piece orchestra that weighs in with Hollywood Strings, Spitfire Symphonic Strings, and LASS. So while sticking with the studio sound, it competes in the chamber sized, studio sized and Hollywood sized arenas. What really made my day is seeing that Spitfire have prepared NKIs at each section size that already "bake together" the sample content. You don't have to load 3 sets of patches to get the divisi+divisi+full sound. That is a huge usability feature & RAM saver.
Except except, on the other
other hand... the longs seem to have 3 dynamic layers (4 in CSS), there are only 2 lengths of short notes (4 in CSS), and there's only one set of legato transitions (quite fast) plus portamento (3+port in CSS). And overall, the sound seems more reserved while CSS feels "musical" in every note. I skimmed through the videos and demos and nothing about this string sound really blew me away the way I remember first hearing the CSS demos (and when I use them every day!
). It's more like Spitfire's other libraries: very neutral, and therefore very usable and flexible.
I think this is gonna be an interesting addition to all the options for strings. Looking forward to user reviews!
Looking beyond that - if it's not totally silly to do so on the day a library drops - this is Spitfire announcing that they're throwing their hat into the ring for another full orchestra.
That means in addition to upcoming dry woodwind and brass ensembles from Cinematic Studio and Soundiron Hyperion (and probably Adventure Woodwinds to complete Musical Sampling's range), there will be a Spitfire Studio option as well. Spitfire Studio Woodwinds will be particularly interesting because in their BML range they showed an interest in sampling the rarer auxiliary winds. I got the opportunity to play with the Bass Flute instrument on a friend's composing rig, and it's a stellar instrument. So Spitfire Studio Winds will be one to watch out for, I think. Heckelphone, Christian? Please?