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SPITFIRE - Announcing Spitfire Studio Strings! 24 Hours LEFT on Promo Price!

I wouldn't hold my breath on any fixes to libraries unless they're really major goofs. The way I see it, Spitfire is so busy pumping out libraries that I just can't see them having the bandwidth to polish anything post release. The work that goes into creating these libraries is tremendous and they are so prolific.

If they do release a patch, consider it a bonus but safer to just not count on it.

I've lost track of the number of releases but I somehow held off on HZ, Solo Strings and the BDT (which was my fave although I thought all sounded really good). It seems the releases are coming so fast that most of us can't afford to buy them all!

I do think I will buy this one, just trying to decide between regular and pro. I'm one of the ones who have been asking for this type of library so I better darn well put my money where my mouth is this time.
 
One thing I'm curious about... I sort of thought that since Spitfire went through the trouble and expense of building their own engine (first used for the HZ strings), I'm surprised that they're not using it for this new library. Wonder if there's more to that story. Is it possible that showing they were serious about building their own engine got NI to make some concessions?

At this point, glad it was released on Kontakt. Nothing against the Spitfire player -- but with HZ Strings, just doesn't get as much use outside of Kontakt. Lack of Multi ability with other instruments slows things down for me with the Spitfire player (not a big template user, combining instruments on the fly). If everything Spitfire released was in their player and one could overlay multiple libraries/patches - then no need for Kontakt. Good direction for Spitfire, but will be good when they are further down the path with their player.
 
First impression after sitting with it for just 30min or so. Good sound but as usual with spitfire libraries the legato is once again flawed. Not sure why they even bother including these articulations anymore since they can never get them right.
 
First impression after sitting with it for just 30min or so. Good sound but as usual with spitfire libraries the legato is once again flawed. Not sure why they even bother including these articulations anymore since they can never get them right.

Thank you for saving my money... I appreciate your feedback
 
Thank you for saving my money... I appreciate your feedback
Actually after restarting my system for some reason a "ducking" that was going on before seems to have disappeared. Can't really say why. Anyway. I have to say the sound is really good though so don't be to fast to save that money. This might turn out to be a very good library. But yeah I'll give you a longer update next week.
 
Spitfire,
A very minor imperfection in the programming, one that certainly doesn't spoil the fun, but perhaps worth knowing about anyway: the b-Violins 1 (8) - Long Harmonics (Stereo) patch (found in the Stereo Mixes > Advanced > Individual articulations folder) doesn't produce any sound when Mix2 is selected. (Mix1 is ok though.)

_
 
Spitfire,
A very minor imperfection in the programming, one that certainly doesn't spoil the fun, but perhaps worth knowing about anyway: the b-Violins 1 (8) - Long Harmonics (Stereo) patch (found in the Stereo Mixes > Advanced > Individual articulations folder) doesn't produce any sound when Mix2 is selected. (Mix1 is ok though.)

_
Not sure it's the best place to report a bug. :) Would be better to report to the support directly, don't you think?
 
It appears that there's no ensemble patch (I didn't check before purchase if there would be one). It will certainly be missed.

I didn't find one either -- would have been nice to include this for sketching out ideas.
 
I wouldn't hold my breath on any fixes to libraries unless they're really major goofs. The way I see it, Spitfire is so busy pumping out libraries that I just can't see them having the bandwidth to polish anything post release.
They've pushed out multiple patches since the Solo Strings release, and they're incredibly receptive to feedback and bug reports. I've been emailing back-and-forth with one of their support members for a few weeks now about very minor issues, relatively speaking, and the team's totally on it, 100%. Spitfire support is awesome. Response times are very fast, as well. Actually, I'd go as far as saying their support is the best I've experienced with a sample library company.
 
So with the caveat that this is really just more of my amateur noodling, I though I'd share an experiment - I'm mostly just working out how to add reverb and mix it with libs recorded in AIR lyndhurst.


Here's what I came up with in the last couple of hours, using:

- lots of Vc + Vl flautando, and then Vl + Vc + Va legatos
- Just the tree mics
- lots (ie. *lots*) of Valhalla Room reverb. One of the cathedral presents.
- no eq or any other processing.






Some thoughts:


- Valhalla room is a perfectly adequate reverb here, which alleviates my biggest concern about buying this library. SCS, or a higher end reverb, would probably be better for such a wet piece, but all in all, I'm very happy with the sound. Although I set out to write something really drenched in reverb thinking it would be the easiest type of sound to get working - I'm really just trying to replicate SCS here, and not trying to take advantage the "studio" dry sounds. (So I'm probably not using the library in the way it is supposed to be used, in much the same way that I don't actually plan to ever write any British drama with the British Drama Toolkit).

- even with the slathering of reverb, you still hear quite of lot detail, which I really love. I'm not sure precisely how this compares to SCS, since you have both the hall sound + the fact that it has smaller sections to account for. I'd be curious to get a better sense of the difference.

- I love the sounds of the winds here, but more importantly, how they blend - which was largely the point of the experiment. I did find myself needing to quite a lot of close mic on the winds, in addition to the tree, as well a surprising amount of the Valhalla reverb. I normally wouldn't add so much external reverb to SSW, but it helped give them consistency with the strings. Probably not the most realistic orchestral mix, but that's not the sort of think I tend to worry about.

- the legatos are limited compared to other libraries, but I do find them quite expressive, and the dynamic range is better than a lot of libraries (although I tend to crank up the volume and use only the lower couple of layers anyway).

- there's a little bit of (spitfire) solo strings as a flourish at the end. I love the way it just adds a bit of even finer detail, and again it fits really nicely in the mix, for these three notes. But in general I had a more difficult time figuring out how to get them to fit. Which is something I struggle with for all solo strings libraries. So that's something to revisit.

Basically, I just really love the sound of these musicians and how they've been captured. More advanced legato would have been nice. As would a close mic (without having to go pro). And some dynamic arcs (a la L&S). And progressive vibrato longs. And rebowing (which is a must-have on the next string library I buy).

But for $200, I just don't think you can beat this for its sheer sonority.
 
That sounds *very* nice! The legatos are quite pleasing there.

Up until Thursday, I'd been pretty grumpy lately because I still don't have a proper core orchestra in my lineup, just an ever-shifting mishmash of a semi-decent one. Now, I'm kind of glad it's taken me this long to really start building one....
 
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They've pushed out multiple patches since the Solo Strings release, and they're incredibly receptive to feedback and bug reports. I've been emailing back-and-forth with one of their support members for a few weeks now about very minor issues, relatively speaking, and the team's totally on it, 100%. Spitfire support is awesome. Response times are very fast, as well. Actually, I'd go as far as saying their support is the best I've experienced with a sample library company.
That has been my experience as well.
 
Their support and user experience have improved immensely in the past couple years. They are now more like Native Instruments than the original Spitfire Audio in many ways. They probably have a different business model too.

They put so much thought into these beautiful long articulations but as noted earlier still haven't perfected the art of legato. To be fair that's not an easy task but I'd expect them to be able to hire the best of the best to do it.
 
They put so much thought into these beautiful long articulations but as noted earlier still haven't perfected the art of legato. To be fair that's not an easy task but I'd expect them to be able to hire the best of the best to do it.
The art of legato at least to my ears was nearly mastered in Spitfire Chamber Strings,where the performance legato enabled you to almost "play strings" on your keyboard(something that was as well present in Artisan Strings legato(now alternative) and Sacconi Quartet)
The fact that this kind of patch is nearly perfect,made me ask the Spitfire support group about plans on expanding that possibility to Spitfire Solo Strings(they don't have performance legato).The answer was negative.
On the other hand when the Sable Strings(former name of the chamber strings) came out,there was a promise...there would be expansions,there would be different kind of legatos,there would be fast legato runs,there would be no vibrato to molto vibrato.It took years but I think to my ears at least it came true.Now we don't have nothing promised,so nothing more to expect rather than just what we are buying.
To me abandoning that performance patch legato(with port-slur,finger,bow and fast runs legato) is just stepping backwards.
 
I'm also curious about the apparent abandonment of the performance legatos and noticed a conspicuous lack of Andy Blaney demos for any product since the Bernard Herrmann library... curious...:unsure:
 
Ah great. wondering why this track isn't listed as a demo on the product page but I stand corrected. Still confused and disappointed by their abandonment of the performance legatos in Solo Strings and Studio Strings. They really do work and are pretty great.
 
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