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Something is Coming - Spitfire Thunderbolt

Daniel James said:
Gah dammit. I don't know why but I was hoping for some thunderbolt hardware thing, maybe a Spitfire Audio Interface. Could have been fun.

HZStrings at $479 is actually a pretty decent deal tho! Also eyeing up the British Drama Toolkit, anyone got an opinion on that one? Where are you finding yourself using it the most.

-DJ
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Daniel,

British Drama Toolkit in my opinion is kind of "meh". It's built in layers that respond to velocity (most of the time 3 layers) and while the sounds are nice and depressing in a dramatic British way I feel the interface makes it difficult to control the sound. I haven't used it in any composition yet and don't know if I will.

My 2 cents,

Darren
 
dpasdernick said:
Daniel,

British Drama Toolkit in my opinion is kind of "meh". It's built in layers that respond to velocity (most of the time 3 layers) and while the sounds are nice and depressing in a dramatic British way I feel the interface makes it difficult to control the sound. I haven't used it in any composition yet and don't know if I will.

My 2 cents,

Darren
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I have a similar issue.

Since I'm not a trained keyboard player (guitarist) I have trouble with playing velocities constantly.

It's not a knock on the VI but more on me.

I'm practicing more and am getting better at it.

What keeps me hacking away at it is once I do, on occasion, get it all right BDT produces some really nice music...
 
lp59burst said:
I have a similar issue.

Since I'm not a trained keyboard player (guitarist) I have trouble with playing velocities constantly.

It's not a knock on the VI but more on me.

I'm practicing more and am getting better at it.

What keeps me hacking away at it is once I do, on occasion, get it all right BDT produces some really nice music...
Click to expand...
I find the velocity access to the layers to be one of the best aspects of the library. It allows a kind of EVO by other means. One thing that helps is keeping visible the version of the GUI that shows the velocities visually. It really helps you train your fingers so that you can work to hit the layer and position within the layer that you want.

Building multis with a bunch of the instruments makes for a nice effect. I find that playing around with the velocities can draw out various instruments of the ensemble. I'm not sure why it works that way but that's the effect it has for me.

BDT Multi.jpg
 
erica-grace said:
I feel the same. A bit of a let down.

Great products, but their marketing campaigns more often than not leave a lot to be desired.
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From a marketing standpoint, I think this was done primarily to keep people occupied before the Studio Woodwinds drop on Thursday. I suspect they didn't want the Woodwinds analyzed to death on the basis of Paul's walkthrough or people complaining about how there aren't any demos yet. Instead, this gets us talking about these libraries and wondering why these libraries are being grouped together and why the name "Thunderbolt," even as we continue thinking and talking about SF in preparation for Thursday's release. If the aim was distraction that primed us to think about SF up to the release, I think we'd have to classify it as a success.
 
whiskers said:
the one thing steering me away from SASS is the legato. Sounds rather unconvincing (to my noob ears.)

Anyone had this concern that still got it?

ETA - if there was a patch to fix this, I would be all over it.
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I have the cello and violin from when they were part of the artisan series. The short and long articulations are very nice across the board. The legato is not that great IMO. The vibrato is very strong and only controllable by velocity, no crossfading. A low velocity triggers a gentle progressive vibrato and high velocity triggers an immediate, very strong, hairy vibrato which I think sounds over the top most of the time. I find it difficult to play without constantly triggering the higher velocity. It would be nice if you could adjust the crossover point as I feel it's set too low. They are really nice sounding libraries, but I wouldn't buy them for flexible legato performance.

I can upgrade and get the viola and bass for $89 with this sale, but I'm on the fence...
 
just had a play - in addition to being a progressive vibrato the low velocity is also portamento, so it wouldn't really work for faster passages anyway. So for faster stuff your stuck with immediate heavy vibrato.
 
miket said:
If anyone can bear my clumsy music, here's an example of the ASS cello doing something more lyrical and outside of its comfort zone.

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I really didn't plan to listen to the end, but I did anyway because I liked it so much. Reminds me of the exploration tracks in the Skyrim Soundtrack that I've listened to a lot recently. Beautiful!

Nothing against being humble, but when almost everyone regardless of experience prefaces their posted tracks with some kind of self-deprecating disclaimer, it's getting silly. I see many members who do this, not just you.
 
jbuhler said:
From a marketing standpoint, I think this was done primarily to keep people occupied before the Studio Woodwinds drop on Thursday. I suspect they didn't want the Woodwinds analyzed to death on the basis of Paul's walkthrough or people complaining about how there aren't any demos yet. Instead, this gets us talking about these libraries and wondering why these libraries are being grouped together and why the name "Thunderbolt," even as we continue thinking and talking about SF in preparation for Thursday's release. If the aim was distraction that primed us to think about SF up to the release, I think we'd have to classify it as a success.
Click to expand...

Great thoughts, I've been wondering the same things, but I keep coming back to why they would want to introduce a new product just after pushing a bunch of people to spend money two days before. Maybe the idea is that when people find out about Thunderbolt too late they get excited that they could still get Studio Woodwinds on sale? I don't know, and I don't mind, I like that they are doing more sales. Helps people that may have not had it in their budget around Black Friday/Christmas.
 
It's been a while since I bought a sample library. I was starting to feel ill and get the shakes. Although 180gb is going to rob the Isle of Wight's entire monthly internet bandwidth allocation, I am so excited to finally get my hands on HZ Strings.
 
Can any current owners speak to LCO strings? I've got a scoring gig coming up that's a noir comedy that takes place in a funhouse filled with surreal characters, and I'm thinking the detuned sounds may be the perfect addition to my arsenal, and not really possible to capture with anything else. I've also heard, however, that the library is limited in what it can do.
 
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