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Spitfire Audio London Contemporary Orchestra Textures – Available now

Hmmmmmm …….. heavily committed to Omni for long time. Starting to hesitate spending ~ $200.
for something Omni2.5 can do with reasonable chops.
Do you think it sounds Omnisphere-ish? I mean, you’re the only one who can say whether it sounds duplicative for your uses.
 
Yes, a very tasty spice, meant to be mixed with other libraries, synths, sounds, ..etc. At least that's my impression so far.
exactly my thoughts. At least for the most part.

@jbuhler - here is my first attempt at mixing with other tracks, as well as using multiple instances of LCO textures. This [draft] track has 3 instances of LCO textures (2 curated, one custom), an NI piano with the reverb bumped up to try and match the LCO II lib, and a guitar from @TheUnfinished 's Cyberia Omnisphere library (left mostly unaltered).

 
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For my uses ….. I will need to purchase and explore /decide. Reacting to couple other posts making this inference /comparison.
in my uninformed opinion, yes, they can be similar, and they mix pretty well. It definitely feels a bit more organic than omnisphere, and I like the EVO grid, but it's up to you if that's worth the 200$.

If i have one nitpick with the library so far, it's that I wish it was more dynamic. But I still have much to explore.
 
If i have one nitpick with the library so far, it's that I wish it was more dynamic. But I still have much to explore.
Working through the instrument myself. Some of the evolutions can build up quite a lot of dynamics, but they take a good time getting there, and yes the focus of the dynamic range seems to be from pp to mf, occasionally f. There's more potential to create melodic material than I thought there would be. That's not the point of the library, of course, but you can get some measure of tonal movement, and because the tail moves (and disappears) with the note it doesn't build up like it would in a long reverb.

I tried pairing Textures with various patches from BDT without adding anything to BDT except the built-in reverb and the initial experiments are encouraging there. It doesn't seem like you have to dial back the hangar reverb or dial up the reverb on BDT to get them to sit together.

Actually, even the official demos don't show a lot of variety. I'm sure this is a great library when used with other libraries, synths, ..etc. but when used alone it lacks the variety.
It depends on what you mean by "variety." The library is definitely (and not surprisingly) dominated by evolving longs (and the reverb is part of the sustain). The dynamics are focused on the soft side, I think, because like most of the Evos, the emphasis in this library falls on the detail and intimacy (it's interesting to consider the cultural work of the reverb tail in this context of a library that seems to nevertheless bank on such detail and intimacy, and the hangar reverb becomes part of the materiality of the sound). I think there is quite a lot of variety within those parameters, but those parameters may be so determining for you that the variety nevertheless seems slight. And I do think there is a question of how much variety of mood—which is maybe the real challenge—can be got from these kinds of libraries, which demand a stasis of tone if the note is going to be allowed to make its timbral transformation.
 
Working through the instrument myself. Some of the evolutions can build up quite a lot of dynamics, but they take a good time getting there, and yes the focus of the dynamic range seems to be from pp to mf, occasionally f. There's more potential to create melodic material than I thought there would be. ***********

I tried pairing Textures with various patches from BDT without adding anything to BDT except the built-in reverb and the initial experiments are encouraging there. It doesn't seem like you have to dial back the hangar reverb or dial up the reverb on BDT to get them to sit together. ************

And I do think there is a question of how much variety of mood—which is maybe the real challenge—can be got from these kinds of libraries, which demand a stasis of tone if the note is going to be allowed to make its timbral transformation.

As you also have other, later SF_EVO(s), can you offer some thoughts about Textures vs OACE vs SS Evo. Clearly these each have their merits and shortcomings, but if one had to prioritize until adding them all, how do you now rank these (obviously for your personal needs /preferences).

THX for these helpful perspectives ! :thumbsup:
 
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Working through the instrument myself. Some of the evolutions can build up quite a lot of dynamics, but they take a good time getting there...

In Paul's walkthrough, he showed the variation slider giving the user a little control over the length of time the evo takes to evolve. Will that help to build up the dynamics quicker?
 
As you also have other, later SF_EVO(s), can you offer some thoughts about Textures vs OACE vs SS Evo. Clearly these each have their merits and shortcomings, but if one had to prioritize until adding them all, how do you now rank these (obviously for your personal needs /preferences).

THX for this helpful perspective ! :thumbsup:
I'm not sure at this point. I use SSSE differently than OACE. SSSE serve generally as substitute longs for orchestral strings, ways of pulling off timbral transitions as it were within a large orchestral context (and many of these transitions are hard to reverse engineer with other samples compared to other EVOs). I don't actually use the grid portion of SSSE very much, and indeed for a long time when I approached it only through the grid SSSE stumped me because I associate the EVOs with an intimate sound that seemed (to me) contrary to a large orchestral string sound. But when I shifted my thinking to SSSE as giving different long articulations that performed timbral transformations, it opened up a real use for them.

I sometimes use individual evolutions from OACE that way too for a chamber string sound, but I find OACE works really well in the grid doing the kind of things that EVOs do so well, the evolving pad/timbre kind of thing that plays up the intimacy of these delicate effects emerging from and returning back into the ensemble.

My initial impressions of Textures is that it falls more on the side of OACE than SSSE, but with a distinct timbral palette. There is some overlap with strings, but Textures' palette is wider (closer to Time Macro but not identical with that either—and TM is optimized for other things), but also, because the reverb tail is such a strong element of sound, not so firmly in the realm of a traditional chamber orchestra. (I also haven't yet done enough random throws on the grid to know how well the grid works. I should have a better sense of that in a few days.)

This brings me back to the passing remark I made about the signification of this reverb. What cultural work is it doing? What is being imagined musically when you use this sound? I like it, but I'm also not quite not sure how to answer that (and it is a question that often arises for me when musical sound plays with imagined space in ways that are agnostic with respect to real space). This is, I think, an obscure point about which it is hard to be clear, and I apologize about that.

So ranking? I don't think I can do that. Really, the question could only be answered by considering the kind of music you write and the other libraries you have. Initially impressions are that Textures is well executed for what it is. For me, Textures fills a niche that I don't think is duplicated by anything else I have—or at any rate would take considerable processing to get in the same ballpark. But I don't have Omnisphere. For someone who has Omnisphere, Textures may not be as useful in that respect.
 
In Paul's walkthrough, he showed the variation slider giving the user a little control over the length of time the evo takes to evolve. Will that help to build up the dynamics quicker?
I don't think so because as I understand it, it changes the sample start point, so it just starts at a higher dynamic level, as it were, rather than compressing the time over which the build occurs. So you get, say, a shorter build from mp to mf rather than the longer build from p to mf. You can probably use the variation slider to create the impression of a bigger build by bringing in later notes at an initial higher dynamic level (rather than having to wait for it to build). I haven't played enough with the behavior, though, to know if this is how it really works in practice.
 
Textures fills a niche that I don't think is duplicated by anything else I have—or at any rate would take considerable processing to get in the same ballpark. But I don't have Omnisphere. For someone who has Omnisphere, Textures may not be as useful in that respect

@sostenuto - if you need long textures with padlike ethereal sounds, you could go this route or omnisphere. For everything that omnisphere can match with LCO II, the LCO lib is much more noticeably organic/natural sounding.

So it depends on:

1. How often do you use/need/want these otherworldly long pads/evos?

2. When you do need them, could you get away with a slightly more synth sound, or does it need to sound more acoustic and organic?

I find in certain areas they can trade blows, but they each have their own kind of flavour. Each lib can do a little something better than the other.

Like @jbuhler said, it depends on your use/needs. And what kind of music you want to write.

That being said, I own the olafur evos, and it does fit right in line with those as far as operation/what to expect.
 
I'm not sure at this point. I use SSSE differently than OACE. SSSE serve generally as substitute longs for orchestral strings, ways of pulling off timbral transitions as it were within a large orchestral context (and many of these transitions are hard to reverse engineer with other samples compared to other EVOs). I don't actually use the grid portion of SSSE very much, and indeed for a long time when I approached it only through the grid SSSE stumped me because I associate the EVOs with an intimate sound that seemed (to me) contrary to a large orchestral string sound. But when I shifted my thinking to SSSE as giving different long articulations that performed timbral transformations, it opened up a real use for them.

I sometimes use individual evolutions from OACE that way too for a chamber string sound, but I find OACE works really well in the grid doing the kind of things that EVOs do so well, the evolving pad/timbre kind of thing that plays up the intimacy of these delicate effects emerging from and returning back into the ensemble.

My initial impressions of Textures is that it falls more on the side of OACE than SSSE, but with a distinct timbral palette. There is some overlap with strings, but Textures' palette is wider (closer to Time Macro but not identical with that either—and TM is optimized for other things), but also, because the reverb tail is such a strong element of sound, not so firmly in the realm of a traditional chamber orchestra. (I also haven't yet done enough random throws on the grid to know how well the grid works. I should have a better sense of that in a few days.)

This brings me back to the passing remark I made about the signification of this reverb. What cultural work is it doing? What is being imagined musically when you use this sound? I like it, but I'm also not quite not sure how to answer that (and it is a question that often arises for me when musical sound plays with imagined space in ways that are agnostic with respect to real space). This is, I think, an obscure point about which it is hard to be clear, and I apologize about that.

So ranking? I don't think I can do that. Really, the question could only be answered by considering the kind of music you write and the other libraries you have. Initially impressions are that Textures is well executed for what it is. For me, Textures fills a niche that I don't think is duplicated by anything else I have—or at any rate would take considerable processing to get in the same ballpark. But I don't have Omnisphere. For someone who has Omnisphere, Textures may not be as useful in that respect.

Even with only Tundra (EVO), and EVO 3, I get relevant meanings from this helpful Reply.
Past priorities have been OACE; then SSSE, and your comments place Textures comfortably.

I feel Omnisphere 2.5 (2.6 soon), and its many 3rd Pty expansions, fill a different role for me, and I set Omni apart. However _ also have Heavyocity Rhythmic Textures and Intimate Textures, which are more similar to EVO(s), especially SF's latest.

Throughout this Thread, and mostly these later, experiential comments, I am mainly learning, not truly making purchase decisions ….. as all three EVO(s) mentioned here are planned additions.

Many thanks. Looking forward to your evolving experiences with LCO Textures.

@ whiskers …. I trust this Reply applies as well to your latest comments (which were being posted as I responded here). I'm very comfortable with any related decisions now and with this commendable, new SF creation. :thumbsup:
 
I feel Omnisphere 2.5 (2.6 soon), and its many 3rd Pty expansions, fill a different role for me, and I set Omni apart. However _ also have Heavyocity Rhythmic Textures and Intimate Textures, which are more similar to EVO(s), especially SF's latest.
I don't have Rhythmic Textures (yet—I'll likely pick it up when Heavyocity runs one of their periodic 50% sales and includes the library in it), but I do have Intimate Textures, which I like, though I don't use as much as I might because I find it takes a lot more work to get IT to sit with my other libraries. My initial tests suggest that LCO Textures will comparatively be a breeze to integrate. And as with OACE, IT and RT are just strings, so LCOT gives a wider palette there as well.
 
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