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

Finally ! That can close the debate of pros and cons.
Paul Thomson is right when he speaks of those who simply copy a midi file and are unhappy with the result ... An orchestral library does not work like a vulgar CD player! must be tamed, understand his philosophy and for what use it was created.In any case I am more and more enthusiastic for this library, yet I had doubts by reading all the reviews, but listening to some demos, I realize its potential if we have a minimum of knowledge in harmony, orchestration and so on.
Many criticize the brass for example, and the horns in particular (I thought if i understand) ... not enough FF etc .. but how many have really heard horns live in the symphony orchestra?
They are often soft and fluffy, with an attack more often soft than brutal.It is impossible for a musician to hold FF for 50 measures without catching his breath, or playing constantly in the extreme registers of his instrument.Imagine the bass trombonne player !, or the violonist always playing in 8 th or 9th position.
I also think that many are too used to thunderous orchestrations, "blockbuster" sounds, often among young people (it's not a criticism), who do not have the knowledge of what a symphonic orchestra is, limits instruments, all this dynamic, this balance between the different instruments, this "Alchemy" so difficult, impossible to reproduce with samples.
The fundamental mistake is to believe that a symphony orchestra sounds like the over-the-top trailers of some Hollywood movies, always with the same sound and effects that many copy. The music does not stop only in Hollywood and Hanz Zimmer (which I like a lot). When I listen live a symphony orchestra, or a string quartet, I slap each time a slap in the face, I realize the ditch, the distance that there between reality and our virtual orchestras ... It's frustrating, but it opens our ears and also our brain, it's part of learning, it makes us progress enormously.
Nothing is perfect in this world, even the best musicians make mistakes and false notes, they bug, too, but who hears it ?, if the emotion and the intention are there.
We live in a wonderful world with our expensive toys.
We are fortunate to have at our disposal day and night the samples of a world-famous symphony orchestra, played by top musicians, and we are the conductor !.
It's up to us to make it sound, it does not come by itself, we have to work a lot. We are spoiled children, stifled by technology. Let's stop dissecting this library or others
in technical and esoteric terms like numbers of layers, milliseconds latency, shorts not enough shorts , in modweel CC1 to 65 instead of 54, too many microphones, or artifacts on the E4.
At the end we get up and we still applauded SA for taking this risk.
in layers, milliseconds late, in shorts not enough shorts , in modweel CC1 to 65 instead of 54, too many microphones, or artifacts on the E4.
:) When I think of the Orchestra Strings srx cards of my Roland U 22O expandeur of the 80's, how lucky we are now !.:)
At the end we get up and we still applauded SA and Paul Thomson for taking this risk.
Think about music and be creative, and that's the hardest thing.
And even with an old wooden tennis racket, a good tennis player will always be better than me and my racket is carbon !.:unsure:
PS : Sorry for my bad english !.

well Patrick, I'm no slouch when it comes to scoring and imv, a lack of dynamic breadth is a bar to effective and less restrictive composing and scoring. I don't expect ff for 50 bars anywhere in an orchestra, but I should be able to achieve ff when I need it. Likewise, high d's and e's on violins are not completely unreasonable when approached adequately and with care.
Not all of us are trailer composers, some here are classically trained (some trailer guys too no doubt) and yet there is still dissent about this product because it has seemingly cut a corner that impinges directly on expression.
 
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Finally ! That can close the debate of pros and cons.
Paul Thomson is right when he speaks of those who simply copy a midi file and are unhappy with the result ... An orchestral library does not work like a vulgar CD player! must be tamed, understand his philosophy and for what use it was created.In any case I am more and more enthusiastic for this library, yet I had doubts by reading all the reviews, but listening to some demos, I realize its potential if we have a minimum of knowledge in harmony, orchestration and so on.
Many criticize the brass for example, and the horns in particular (I thought if i understand) ... not enough FF etc .. but how many have really heard horns live in the symphony orchestra?
They are often soft and fluffy, with an attack more often soft than brutal.It is impossible for a musician to hold FF for 50 measures without catching his breath, or playing constantly in the extreme registers of his instrument.Imagine the bass trombonne player !, or the violonist always playing in 8 th or 9th position.
I also think that many are too used to thunderous orchestrations, "blockbuster" sounds, often among young people (it's not a criticism), who do not have the knowledge of what a symphonic orchestra is, limits instruments, all this dynamic, this balance between the different instruments, this "Alchemy" so difficult, impossible to reproduce with samples.
The fundamental mistake is to believe that a symphony orchestra sounds like the over-the-top trailers of some Hollywood movies, always with the same sound and effects that many copy. The music does not stop only in Hollywood and Hanz Zimmer (which I like a lot). When I listen live a symphony orchestra, or a string quartet, I slap each time a slap in the face, I realize the ditch, the distance that there between reality and our virtual orchestras ... It's frustrating, but it opens our ears and also our brain, it's part of learning, it makes us progress enormously.
Nothing is perfect in this world, even the best musicians make mistakes and false notes, they bug, too, but who hears it ?, if the emotion and the intention are there.
We live in a wonderful world with our expensive toys.
We are fortunate to have at our disposal day and night the samples of a world-famous symphony orchestra, played by top musicians, and we are the conductor !.
It's up to us to make it sound, it does not come by itself, we have to work a lot. We are spoiled children, stifled by technology. Let's stop dissecting this library or others
in technical and esoteric terms like numbers of layers, milliseconds latency, shorts not enough shorts , in modweel CC1 to 65 instead of 54, too many microphones, or artifacts on the E4.
At the end we get up and we still applauded SA for taking this risk.
in layers, milliseconds late, in shorts not enough shorts , in modweel CC1 to 65 instead of 54, too many microphones, or artifacts on the E4.
:) When I think of the Orchestra Strings srx cards of my Roland U 22O expandeur of the 80's, how lucky we are now !.:)
At the end we get up and we still applauded SA and Paul Thomson for taking this risk.
Think about music and be creative, and that's the hardest thing.
And even with an old wooden tennis racket, a good tennis player will always be better than me and my racket is carbon !.:unsure:
PS : Sorry for my bad english !.

My issue is it still doesnt sound like a real orchestra. So the argument that the fewer dynamic layers somehow makes it more real doesnt hold water for me.

Deeper sampling and less mics and this really would be all you need.
 
Not all of us are trailer composers, some here are classically trained and yet there is still dissent about this product because it has seemingly cut a corner that impinges directly on expression.
It's almost as if some seem to be moving towards the suggestion you only need to sample one dynamic layer anyway, just throw a filter over it to compensate. Less samples = better. :laugh:
 
well Patrick, I'm no slouch when it comes to scoring and imv, the lack of dynamic breadth is a bar to effective composing and scoring. I don't expect ff for 50 bars anywhere in an orchestra, but I should be able to achieve ff when I need it. Likewise, high D's and e's on violins are not unreasonable when approached adequately.
Not all of us are trailer composers, some here are classically trained and yet there is still dissent about this product because it has seemingly cut a corner that impinges directly on expression.
You're probably right,
I trust my ears, but I'm wrong maybe ... In any case BBSO attracts me a lot, because I heard beautiful things ..
But my mastery of composition and bookstores does not allow me to have a reliable opinion, unfortunately I'm just a little amateur musician, with a lot of curiosity and passion since I was late to learn (in addition to the piano and the alto sax which are my basic instruments), the violin and the cello, so back to the music school ... just to understand and suffer too, because it's a lot of work. tells me that I have a beautiful sound, but I am unable to play more than 8 bars without making a mistake, but it does not matter, since I can start again as many times as I want ...
It's just to say that I think the practice of one or more instruments can be useful for composing and using our libraries.
Finally I believe by experience, at my small level.
 
The brass section looks buggy. In addition to the already known Staccatissimo problems, I noticed one more thing:

The Legato notes lacks crispness and can not be played as loud as playing a note individually - It seems like you are playing a different layer

Is that just me or others?
 
Concerning the "missing" crossfade layer in the Horns:

I could see 2 ways to deliver that with the current samples:

1. take the highest velocity layer and process it with a filter so that it fits sonically right between the
mf and ff layer. Of course this is not the real deal, but might be worth trying out if an additional recording session is out of question.

2. implement a special filter in the player that will take care for that: there used to be a filter in Gigasampler, that could create lower dynamics from an ff sample. I can't remember what is what called, but it provided very good results. Many years later, Kontakt introduced something similar with "AET".

If I sample a person shouting and whispering, blending these two layers wouldn't add up to a person speaking normally. That's the best illustration I can think of regarding the solo horn legato. The p layer is very good and the f layer is decent. But when DJ played at around 50-70 on the modwheel it really sounded like those two layers blended (i.e. mostly hearing the forte layer with a volume decrease), rather than a rich and full but not-buzzy mezzoforte. Not sure if there are actually 3 dynamic layers. Can people who own the library check? Is it listed in the manual somewhere?

You do not have to take @Daniel James 's word for it. Here is a walkthrough by a different gent, he really likes the library. (please note that the sound is coming from the speakers in the room, not recorded straight off the computer).

In any case, it doesn't seem like the 4hns have this problem, only the soloist. And once again, there's lots to love about this library. Those con sordino tremolos and the flautandos and the celeste are just really excellent.

 
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I cannot.

There is stuff already recorded that we will be adding.

but remember the point of this library was a sub 1k complete orchestral library ina box.

It really is very expressive. There’s a couple of misconceptions.

The horns, were crazy loud in the room playing ff. yes they don’t sound like a 12 horn patch, and we haven’t EQd them to sizzle like a trailer lib - that’s super easy though. I might do a vlog on production techniques and show stuff like that.

Spending a million dollars on a library ain’t “cheaping out”!!

and re the above Quality St ref:

I have CQDs card marked.

It clearly stands for “Chocolate? Qualitystreet Demanded”
 
So - as someone about to take a deep dive into orchestral stuff - and having had second thoughts on BBC SO once I watched both Guys and Daniels helpful reviews - I still am wanting to invest and standardise in just one good big orchestral GOTO library.

Currently I have the following - KOMPLETE 11 Ultimate with the Essentials Orchestra stuff one gets with KOMPETE 11 and of course the VSL Factory Kontakt library........AND ..... because I wanted Vienna Ensemble Pro - now have the EPIC Orchestra SE 70GB library that comes with VEP. I actually really like - love sometimes even - the sound and quality of the EPIC stuff in VEP - but its very clear that this is really just a very pared down "taster smorgasbord" collection to lure one into their proper libraries. Which do appear to cost an arm and a leg.

Should I go BIG on one of the Vienna deals then or start with something like Berlin or Cinematic Strings?

At this point I'm not going for jobs yet - I first want to inspire myself and make music that inspires me personally and "reflects" me - ie just for myself. But I want a toolset that doesn't have me hunting myriad different orch libs just to get the right violin or nipple gong... ( memories of the proms there )

any suggestions peeps?
Orchestral Essentials 1 & 2. Lots of instruments, fx, and articulations. All recorded in the same hall. Sounds and works great out of the box. Easy on resources. Will cost you a mere $379 for the bundle. One of the best options on the market, imo. Check out Guy Rowland's walkthrough videos!
 
I cannot.

There is stuff already recorded that we will be adding.

but remember the point of this library was a sub 1k complete orchestral library ina box.

It really is very expressive. There’s a couple of misconceptions.

The horns, were crazy loud in the room playing ff. yes they don’t sound like a 12 horn patch, and we haven’t EQd them to sizzle like a trailer lib - that’s super easy though. I might do a vlog on production techniques and show stuff like that.

Spending a million dollars on a library ain’t “cheaping out”!!

and re the above Quality St ref:

I have CQDs card marked.

It clearly stands for “Chocolate? Qualitystreet Demanded”


Thank you Paul, that's the kind of straight forwardness I'd been hoping for in terms of response to questions and concerns. Gives me a sense of clarity and trust.
 
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