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Spitfire Albion One - Opinions and Impressions

The Legacy content, as far as I can tell, is 1:1 the original Albion I patches, there haven't been any changes done to them, other than wrapping them in the new UI. The new Albion ONE functions like Release and Tightness are in the UI, but don't have any effect on the Legacy samples.

Albion ONE however only contains a selection of the old patches and not the original Albion I library as a whole. Which is too bad, because I indeed still like and use some of the Albion I stuff that wasn't included in ONE.

Overall, I have to say that in hindsight, I still prefer Albion I. ONE had a few good additions - Col Legno und Tremolo articulations for example, or the Hi Woods arranged shorts patch. The low strings, especially the octaves, are absolutely thunderous and it's a sound you can't really quite get with Albion I. But honestly, I'm not convinced that Albion ONE was really necessary, especially since it replaced the old one completely and made it unavailable.

The percussion is probably overall better in ONE, but several other things IMO just aren't quite right, and if I had to choose, I'd stick to Albion I. I guess I would have been happier with some of the Albion ONE stuff as an addition to the existing library, at a lower price point, than a full-blown library that replaces the old one and is supposed to do everything that Albion I did better, but IMO doesn't.
 
I find especially the strings more processed in One, which can make them sound a bit "plasticy" (maybe "synthy" is a better word). Albion 1, imo, "suffers" from having noticeable octave playback. So use the new One the most, but it's been relegated to background.
 
Geron said:
Anyone got any idea how i can control the attack of the con sordino strings? I was always missing that with Legacy. You know that really soft Morricone style fade in. I can do that with the modwheel/dynamics to an extent, but wherever the progression goes from there the notes come in rather abruptly. Probably the only thing i'm missing now that i have some control over the release.

Cheers.
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Jimmy Hellfire said:
Overall, I have to say that in hindsight, I still prefer Albion I. ONE had a few good additions - Col Legno und Tremolo articulations for example, or the Hi Woods arranged shorts patch. The low strings, especially the octaves, are absolutely thunderous and it's a sound you can't really quite get with Albion I. But honestly, I'm not convinced that Albion ONE was really necessary, especially since it replaced the old one completely and made it unavailable.

I guess I would have been happier with some of the Albion ONE stuff as an addition to the existing library, at a lower price point, than a full-blown library that replaces the old one and is supposed to do everything that Albion I did better, but IMO doesn't.
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I still prefer Albion 1 (legacy) over Albion ONE as well, but I look at them a little differently than how Spitfire represented the new version. Regardless of what Spitfire might have said about it being a replacement for the legacy version, I regard ONE more as if it is "Albion V - Epic Trailers". For example, the nasty low brass from Albion ONE is something I have been using a lot lately, and which just isn't possible for the softer Albion 1. In general, Albion ONE is far more aggressive. I think that representing ONE as a replacement may be a case of Spitfire believing that's what the Albion 1 audience really wanted instead of what Albion 1 actually contained, especially after so many reviewers wrote it up as a softer library. Whereas for me, most of what I write is not epic trailer music, and hence is overall better suited for the legacy Albion, and in fact I bought it in the first place based upon some of those "it's a softer sounding library" descriptions from reviewers.

Case in point: the legacy mid brass is MILES above Albion ONE's mid brass for my usual needs, as it actually sounds like horns rather than like a synthesized horn patch being blasted through a fuzz box and a brick wall compressor. The latter is only usable for me in those very rare cases when I might be reaching for something so epic that I need the orchestra to sound like a wall of noise rather than individual instruments. But, as you say, ONE does offer a variety of useful stuff, like the nasty low brass, some of the strings articulations, etc. I don't regret having bought the crossgrade, but at the same time I am very glad that I have the entirety of legacy Albion 1 still available and not just the subset thereof included with ONE.
 
Geron said:
Yeah, i always thought it's just another gain controller. Will look into it.
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It is in the sense that it's just an absolute percentage of volume of CC7 (Volume) but in conjunction with CC1 it can be used to extend the perceived dynamic range of instruments and get extra "expression" from your parts.
 
WindcryMusic said:
I don't regret having bought the crossgrade, but at the same time I am very glad that I have the entirety of legacy Albion 1 still available and not just the subset thereof included with ONE.
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Pretty much this. The combination of both the original complete Albion 1 and the updated Albion One now makes it the almost perfect (basic) scoring tool for me.
 
prodigalson said:
It is in the sense that it's just an absolute percentage of volume of CC7 (Volume) but in conjunction with CC1 it can be used to extend the perceived dynamic range of instruments and get extra "expression" from your parts.
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I'd still like a dedicated attack control over the sustained articulations. With some Kontakt libraries i'm able to add an ADSR curve internally, but doesn't seem to work in this case.
 
Albion ONE is the first Sample Library I bought.

I really think you can do the job, of making bombastic music. However, when it comes to more quiet tunes, it have it's flaws. I have tried to make some light and silent tunes, and it does work. But Albion does not make it easy to do this.

My opinion. :)
 
RRBE Sound said:
Albion ONE is the first Sample Library I bought.

I really think you can do the job, of making bombastic music. However, when it comes to more quiet tunes, it have it's flaws. I have tried to make some light and silent tunes, and it does work. But Albion does not make it easy to do this.

My opinion. :)
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I believe that in the Albion's that would be the realm of Albion II, Loegria.
 
Yes, true. Not to be off topic, - I do not have Loegria, but I feel like et lags some of the things Albion ONE has?
 
RRBE Sound said:
Yes, true. Not to be off topic, - I do not have Loegria, but I feel like et lags some of the things Albion ONE has?
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Yes, Loegria does lack some things ... no woodwinds other than recorders (which frankly I've found to be useless), no trumpets/tubas/french horns (although the euphonium samples more than make up for the lack of horns), etc. It is a library that is tightly fixed on small string sections, with a smattering of other instruments to go with it. But what it does, it does very, very well ... the strings and euphoniums are quite wonderful, and it has a pretty good set of percussion options as well. There is absolutely no bombast in Loegria, but whenever I need something to sound quiet, subtle and/or sad, I look to Loegria first.
 
I love both One and Legacy, but for different things. In Legacy the Ostinatum can be devastatingly useful, but on the other hand I do hear a lot of the rooms those instruments were recorded in, sometimes far more than is desired. That last tends to soften things a bit (at least to my ears). When compared to something like Albion III the effect is even more pronounced, and at times things (like the strings and horns) get a bit mushy in the mix because of it. That's when I usually just break out the East West HS. However, the sounds overall in Legacy can be absolutely terrific, and more than worth the money imo.

In Albion 1 (recent) it's a more bald sound, and of course we have the different options in terms of screwing around with the sound to taste.

I also happen to love things about Albion One that AREN'T orchestral, so there's definitely that.
 
I came into the Albion world very late in the game. I bought Albion One and had a quick play with it initially and was disappointed at the time and it sat dormant for some time. I didn't use it until the few months back now and boy how wrong my initial thoughts were. So wrong in fact the first test drive piece I wrote which is in my signature below (Aroha - Albion One) was almost entirely Albion One with a little Redux , I had no real need to reach for anything else. Since then it's been an incredibly useful library for me and when blended with other developers libraries it can really create some Magic. I can't think of another single self contained library that handles all the sections as well.
 
SymphonicSamples said:
I came into the Albion world very late in the game. I bought Albion One and had a quick play with it initially and was disappointed at the time and it sat dormant for some time. I didn't use it until the few months back now and boy how wrong my initial thoughts were. So wrong in fact the first test drive piece I wrote which is in my signature below (Aroha - Albion One) was almost entirely Albion One with a little Redux , I had no real need to reach for anything else. Since then it's been an incredibly useful library for me and when blended with other developers libraries it can really create some Magic. I can't think of another single self contained library that handles all the sections as well.
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The name that hits me, again, is East West Hollywood...the layering capabilities with Albion are simply astounding, vast. I've gotten over on every unschooled listener as far as realistic mockups go. But, if lacking the cash, the Albions are terrific resources, you really can't go wrong even with them alone. And if you haven't yet, don't even hesitate getting all five Albions, they will pay off for you over and over. The Evo strings are nice too, but I daresay less essential if you have the above.

WindcryMusic said:
Very, very true. Perhaps my most-oft-used element of Albion ONE thus far has been the Stephenson's Steam Band section with eDNA. Really remarkable for design of sound beds that blend well with an orchestra.
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It's great stuff, no doubt there. I also appreciate how the SSB got me grabbing ahold of Earth DNA with Kinematik,
Apocalypz, etc. It is such a cool synth resource center. I mean, I use it despite already having the always magnificent Zebra/HZ, XILS IV, Electra, Nave. So it's that worth having, because those are all incredible synths.

That said, at the risk of sounding like the world's most tiresomely broken record, if all I had were my Albions, East West Hollywoods, and Zebra/HZ on a desert island I would probably do just fantastically.
 
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Parsifal666 said:
if all I had were my Albions, East West Hollywoods, and Zebra/HZ on a desert island I would probably do just fantastically.
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I've been thinking about this a lot lately. If i had to choose three libraries/plugins out of my arsenal that i'd be happy to work with exclusively i'd probably go with Albion One (+Legacy if that counts), Aeon (or Zebra 3 once that comes out) and Gravity.
 
Geron said:
If i had to choose three libraries/plugins out of my arsenal that i'd be happy to work with exclusively
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There's a new thread in there somewhere.

I was surprised at threads I was recently looking through saying that Albion 1 was the Most disappointing library people had purchased. Albion 1 would be one of my most used libraries, it was my first 3rd party purchase aside the kontakt ultimate bundle and is used way more that other libraries I have purchased since. Layered with some of the embertone individual strings, Albion 1 and V cover a lot of my string duties.
 
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