Thanks for the kind comments and interest!
When we made the bespoke series - never originally intended to go beyond some Chamber Strings (its thanks to John Powell that the rest of the range exists - his gentle encouragement!) - and it was a non profit endeavour. Just a way to make some great tools and pay the costs associated. The Brass and WW were more limited in release than the Strings, that is the reason the per license cost was higher.
The samples will never be commercially released - that was the agreement with the players and with the licensees.
We did a lot of experimental stuff beyond the 'vanilla' patches. I designed some playable fx as I was sick of hearing the same old orch fx in every TV show! We really went deep into things like measured trems and found ways to make them playable.
Some things didn't work out so well. But as a whole the library is still pretty amazing sounding. I used it extensively in LBP2 - quite a lot of which has been uploaded to Youtube - if you are interested enough to chase some stuff down to listen to. Quite a few composers I know still use it in their templates.
We fell into becoming a commercial endeavour totally by accident when we had spent a lot of money making a percussion library (Joby) and discovered that all our A listers weren't interested as they preferred to use their own private percussion! Joby was up for it and we crept into the world of commercial sample development hoping to make back our costs.
I often refer to the creation of the bespoke line as the most extraordinary (and expensive) private orchestration tutorial ever - I learnt an incredible amount recording and talking to all those incredible musicians over days and days of focussed listening!
The one thing that I'd like to pick up is the 'unfinished' thing.. The libraries were finished (in terms of everything we promised to deliver). Some things didn't quite work as planned, and some areas of the library wouldn't stand up as commercial releases, but you can work around them as private projects. We were obviously restricted budget wise so we couldn't go on forever without going bankrupt.
We actually added a ton of material that had never been planned. Legato patches for the Symphonic Strings, and areas of the Brass and WW. We re-edited the multitracks for some of the Brass to create early 'multi mic' versions of some of the instruments. Added extra solo instruments to the Brass.
We created a whole 'massive low trombones' addition to the Brass library called 'Monster Bones' that was obviously .. ahem .. "influential"... haha
But yes - the library as planned and sold had no legatos (this was back in 2008-2011 ish) and was very carefully spec'd and planned out, programmed (by myself) and delivered. We made a load of additional material above and beyond the initial spec which Andy B and Blake came on board to help program, at no additional charge to the bespoke licensees, in fact it was paid for by our income from selling the commercial libraries. There obviously came a point at which we had to close the cash hose. Remember, it was entirely not for profit.
I do believe we've surpassed the bespoke libs with commercial libraries we've done since, obviously the more you do something the better you get at it
but of course we still love some of the great sounds in the old libraries. And for its time - there was nothing that sounded as good, I'm fairly confident to be able to say that having heard what people did with it beyond just our team!!
Happy days. And of course - grateful for the group of composers who believed in us enough to buy a license. We always 'leapt before we looked' and paid for sessions with the belief that we were doing something great and the audience would appear.
Anyway I've rambled enough!
Cheers!
Paul