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Spitfire Audio “This is London Calling” - BBC Symphony Orchestra

Albion One’s a good idea. I was also thinking of some quieter passages.
 
Brasart said:
I've used the brass fff layer from NI's full Symphony library, it's quite useful because they made alternate individuals articulations with only one layer (mf, ff... etc)
Otherwise I've used a bit of brass from Albion One if need be, but I almost never have to write loud brass parts so yeah.
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I find the dynamic transitions in HO easier to control. I still have problems with BBCSO which is probably due to the bumpy transition of the dynamic steps.
 
AndyP said:
Brass shorts for example. I prefer the HO brass shorts over the BBSCO. String runs! The part I like best in BBCSO is the woodwinds. They sound very good. I think HO and BBCSO can be combined well (although HO works well with many libraries).
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The woodwinds are also my favourite part of the library and the percussion is very nice as well. As you say HO works well with many other libraries so it should work quite well with the BBCSO.
 
AndyP said:
Brass shorts for example. I prefer the HO brass shorts over the BBSCO. String runs! The part I like best in BBCSO is the woodwinds. They sound very good. I think HO and BBCSO can be combined well (although HO works well with many libraries).
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Indeed, and while HO doesn’t have great woodwinds, BBCSO is quite welcome there.
 
I really like the BBCSO, it’s my favorite library at the moment, the overall sound is awesome, but I don’t like everything.

Disappointments: Sound of the Brass, especially Horns (which is usually my favorite instrument, but in BBCSO its my least favorite..., lack of muted Brass, few dynamic layers

Room for improvement: Customizable default settings for the Spitfire player. Its quite limited... I wish I could change the default Mic positions...
 
Context to this reply:

In this other thread... https://vi-control.net/community/th...ox-sound-sketching-library.89943/post-4509411 I stated the following:

"I have every BBCSO art loaded using Mix 2, Full Spill mics and a couple of close mics and it’s around 16GB...". This was in reply to South Thames that BBCSO takes "f@@k loads of RAM".

Then I was challenged by my statement by an opposing statement of "that's literally impossible":

ridgero said:
That's literally impossible

I have a BBCSO only template with every single articulation incl. 2 Mic positions loaded and it takes 34GB RAM. (Mix 2 + Sp.Fl)

Christian Hensons full template takes around 16 GB RAM with only Mix 1, so my numbers make more sense.

Screenshot 2020-02-11 at 11.02.35.png
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So I set about going through my template jotting down the BBCSO mic settings for each instance (I understand duplicate instances will not draw extra RAM? Not 100% sure, but that would make sense).

My current RAM usage as displayed in the plugin itself is 16.6GB and that is the figure I was quoting. Doesn't make sense to me to quote the DAW RAM as that includes the DAW itself and you would run that regardless.

Spitfire Audio “This is London Calling” - BBC Symphony Orchestra

I have all articulations loaded and I used the following mics:

Mix 2 and Sp. Fl:
Piccolo (2 instances)
Flute (3 instances)
Flute a3
Oboe (2 instances)
Cor Anglais
Clarinet (2 instances)
Clarinet a3
Bass Clarinet
Bassoon (2 instances)
Contrabassoon
Horn (5 instances)
Horn a4 (4 instances)
Trumpet (3 instances)
Trombone (4 instances)
Trombone a3 (2 instances)
Bass Trombone
All untuned percussion - all separate instances: Snare Drum 1, Snare Drum 2, Military Drum, Tenor Drum, Cymbals, Piatti, Tam Tam.
All tuned percussion - all separate instances: Harp, Tubular Bells, Glockenspiel.
Violin 1 Leader (4 instances)
Violin 2 Leader (5 instances)
Viola Leader
Violins 1 (5 instances)
Violins 2 (2 instances)
Violas (2 instances)

Balcony Mic only:
Trumpet (2 instances)

Mix 2, Close and Sp. Fl:
Contrabass Trombone
Tuba
Contrabass Tuba
Cello Leader
Celli (instance 1)

Close, CloseW, Stereo and Sp. Fl:
Bass Drum 1

Close and Stereo:
Bass Drum 2

Mix 1 only:
Untuned Percussion
Anvil
Triangle
Tambourine
Toys
Crotales
Xylophone
Vibraphone
Marimba

Close and Sp. Fl:
Timpani (instance 1)

Close, Stereo and Sp. Fl:
Timpani (instance 2)

Mix 2 and Close:
Celli (instance 2)
Double Bass Leader
Double Basses

No way I can screenshot every mic position and post it here, so please take my word that this is accurate.

These are my BBCSO plugin settings:
Max Voices: 768
Preload Size: 6144
Stream Buffer Size: 8192
Maximum Pitch Voices: 12

@ridgero I think the discrepancy/disagreement is just down to the fact that we are quoting two different RAM amounts. You are quoting your total Logic usage, whereas I'm quoting the figure in the plugin. Also your settings could be different to mine.
 
Cormast said:
Written in your file : Spitfire Audio - BBC Symphony Orchestra/Documents/Release Notes.html
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Though I updated everything, that file is not updated and only shows for me the info up to 1.0.7
Maybe you can share the update info that is in your file if yours is up to date?
 
So, we’re a little down the line since release. There’s nothing but a sad handful of toffee pennies left in the Quality Street tin. (Because I ate the rest..)

Who’s still using the BBCSO? Has it lived up to the hype? Been put to one side in favour of another? Anyone using it daily for commercial work? Who’s still in love?

Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts and insights.
 
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Alex Fraser said:
So, we’re a little down the line since release: The Spitfire marketing machine is directing its Eye of Sauron elsewhere. There’s nothing but a sad handful of toffee pennies left in the Quality Street tin..

Who’s still using the BBCSO? Has it lived up to the hype? Been put to one side in favour of another? Anyone using it daily for commercial work? Who’s still in love?

Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts and insights.
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I love it. It’s not without its flaws which I’m struggling to sidestep. But it has improved my work considerably and allowed me to concentrate more on composing rather than mixing which I’m not so hot on.

I do have something to share which I plan to do within the next two weeks.

I do find the boundary between vibrato and non-vibrato too abrupt in many of the instruments. In other words, it seems to transition over only a couple of mod CC values so getting any smoothness or subtly is very hard (for me).

I also desperately need some vibrato on the solo trumpet. I’m having to fudge it, and it ain’t pretty.

So, still lots to explore and very happy with how it sounds and the updates that Spitfire have rolled out.

I don’t think SA have moved on from it at all. They just have other plates in the air and they are a business after all.
 
Alex Fraser said:
Who’s still using the BBCSO?
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Honestly I'm just getting into it, using it more now (bought it at intro price). I just realized two days ago how much I like the spiccato / staccato and general room tone of the strings. Very "classical". Also they fixed some timing issues in the recent update, I think. Didn't had timing problems since - some staccatos were out of tune (had a "pitch-down" feeling to them) but otherwise, great sound.
Before, I only used the (mostly solo) woodwinds, which I liked from the beginning. In fact, they are my main woodwinds now. I don't think I'll be best friends with the brass, ever. Because of the general quality in some patches, but mainly because of the missing ff layer, mentioned countless times before in this thread. And yes, I need it for my music (quite often). Few velocity layers aren't as big of a problem in the other sections, for me.
Had few crashes and a lagging DAW and high CPU since (with many BBCSO instances / a full loaded template) - but all in all, the sound and room tone is just so much my taste, I'll be using it much more in the future.
Still, waiting for the promised updates...
 
Zedcars said:
I love it. It’s not without its flaws which I’m struggling to sidestep. But it has improved my work considerably and allowed me to concentrate more on composing rather than mixing which I’m not so hot on.

I do have something to share which I plan to do within the next two weeks.

I do find the boundary between vibrato and non-vibrato too abrupt in many of the instruments. In other words, it seems to transition over only a couple of mod CC values so getting any smoothness or subtly is very hard (for me).

I also desperately need some vibrato on the solo trumpet. I’m having to fudge it, and it ain’t pretty.

So, still lots to explore and very happy with how it sounds and the updates that Spitfire have rolled out.

I don’t think SA have moved on from it at all. They just have other plates in the air and they are a business after all.
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Thanks Zedcars, great insights. I've edited my original post as it read like I was accusing the BBCSO of being abandonware, which wasn't my intention. ;)
 
Alex Fraser said:
So, we’re a little down the line since release: The Spitfire marketing machine is directing its Eye of Sauron elsewhere. There’s nothing but a sad handful of toffee pennies left in the Quality Street tin..

Who’s still using the BBCSO? Has it lived up to the hype? Been put to one side in favour of another? Anyone using it daily for commercial work? Who’s still in love?

Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts and insights.
Click to expand...

I don't have anything like the amount of time available to play with it as I would like (applies to eveything, not just BBC), but still very impressed with it and it's the first thing I consider if I want to fanny around explore some creative time with any orchestral stuff.

Regarding the marketing, they haven't forgotten it; Spitfire have put out a tweet just an hour or so ago with a link to The Page.

Finally got round to actually finishing a track with it, which started off as a synthy Tangerine Dream rip-off idea but morphed into something completely different. Great fun to do, and I am very comfortable with the Spitfire interface now, despite all the flak it gets.

 
Alex Fraser said:
Who’s still using the BBCSO? Has it lived up to the hype? Been put to one side in favour of another? Anyone using it daily for commercial work? Who’s still in love?

Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts and insights.
Click to expand...

Using it daily on a few productions albums I am working on and it I like it, it also blends nicely with other libs that I am using it with such as CSS, Time Macro, HZ Strings, Erich Whitacre Choir and does work well in hybrid situations as well. I really love the woodwinds and also string leader patches. All in all I am happy with the purchase.
 
It's part of my day-to-day workflow, I love it and use it almost everywhere I can.

There's also something unique about BBCSO that makes me think about how I orchestrate my pieces - something I would pay way less attention to before -, it feels so positive to me, really makes me happy.

And finally, I welcome every update but wouldn't mind if it stayed the way it is now.
 
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