What's new

Spitfire Hammers?

jsnleo

Active Member
Hi I bought Damage 2 when it came out and I’ve been pretty happy, but I’m kinda intrigued by Hammers. I was wondering if it’s somewhat redundant? Should I get “hammered”?
 
I just can say: I have and love Damage 2 and absolutely no need for Hammers.
If I would have either of those I would probably choose Hammers… maybe^^
 
Excellent sound and playability - I used it a couple of days ago on a cue. Recording quality is excellent, the range of instruments is good and the way they are mapped out for two handed playing makes for a really fast workflow.

However... (brace yourself)

- It runs in the dogshit Spitfire player, so loading times are pretty slow and you'll be needlessly scrolling through 3 pages of mics while 90% of the screen space is wasted. As it's a non-Kontakt library, it is also subject to the whims of Spitfire's awful licensing system, so it may occasionally lock you out for no reason until you can get support to reset your license. If this happens on a Friday you'll lose the whole weekend. I speak from experience.

- Some of the round robins are quite inconsistent. I had an issue with snare rolls in my recent cue where occasionally a roll would suddenly unexpectedly blast out of the mix at full volume - that took a lot of exasperated head scratching hunting down the cause! Unlike the old Spitfire Kontakt libraries you can't use the cog and remove the offending samples, so I had to turn the round robins down from 9 to 1 to get past the issue. Here's an example with the exact same note just copy/pasted 12 times - check out the volume and release inconsistencies.

View attachment Hammers Snare roll.mp3

- The 3 provided mixes cannot be used at the same time as the other mics for some weird reason. So if you want to add a touch of close mic to Mix 2 for example, you're out of luck. Enabling an additional mic will turn off the mix. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but this seems odd?

- Even running a buffer of 256 in Logic at a basic 44.1KHz, I get dropouts if the voice count goes over about 120. This is on a 16 core 2019 Mac Pro with 384GB of memory and 8x Samsung 980 Pro M.2 drives. CPU usage shown in the player is around 46%.
 
- Some of the round robins are quite inconsistent. I had an issue with snare rolls in my recent cue where occasionally a roll would suddenly unexpectedly blast out of the mix at full volume - that took a lot of exasperated head scratching hunting down the cause! Unlike the old Spitfire Kontakt libraries you can't use the cog and remove the offending samples, so I had to turn the round robins down from 9 to 1 to get past the issue. Here's an example with the exact same note just copy/pasted 12 times - check out the volume and release inconsistencies.

View attachment Hammers Snare roll.mp3
I watched @Daniel James walkthrough again yesterday and remembered he had an issue where the volume would randomly jump up to max. Seems its not been sorted out yet then?
 
I watched @Daniel James walkthrough again yesterday and remembered he had an issue where the volume would randomly jump up to max. Seems its not been sorted out yet then?
I think that's a different issue with the master volume for each player instance - I was just talking about round robin inconsistencies. But no, I don't think it's been updated in a least a year - the current version is still 1.01, same as the one in DJ's video from August 2021.
 
The 3 provided mixes cannot be used at the same time as the other mics for some weird reason. So if you want to add a touch of close mic to Mix 2 for example, you're out of luck. Enabling an additional mic will turn off the mix. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but this seems odd?
You can have them active at the same time but you need to enable this first (I think somewhere in the top right menu). This is to prevent people from mixing signals which might create phasing issues and other problems.
 
You can have them active at the same time but you need to enable this first (I think somewhere in the top right menu). This is to prevent people from mixing signals which might create phasing issues and other problems.
Good catch! I haven't seen that option before - it's not in BBCSO, EWC or Symphonic Motions, but it is also in Appassionata Strings.

For anyone else looking for that option it's in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard under Settings/Interface, scroll all the way down, second option from the end.

Screen Shot 2022-08-03 at 6.15.40 AM.png
 
I watched @Daniel James walkthrough again yesterday and remembered he had an issue where the volume would randomly jump up to max. Seems its not been sorted out yet then?
I get that ALL the time with BBCSO. Literally just had to remove all automation from the master volume, which is far from the end of the world, but such a weird bug to have persistent in your sampler across multiple instruments and libraries.
 
- Even running a buffer of 256 in Logic at a basic 44.1KHz, I get dropouts if the voice count goes over about 120. This is on a 16 core 2019 Mac Pro with 384GB of memory and 8x Samsung 980 Pro M.2 drives. CPU usage shown in the player is around 46%.
Try playing with these settings.


Desktop settings:
  • Maximum Voices = 999
  • Preload Size = 50,000 (default is 12,288)
  • Stream Buffer Size = 150,000 (default is 65,536)
  • Maximum Pitch Voices = 64 (probably irrelevant unless you're pitching stretching to increase AROOF instrument ranges)
  • Enable Memory Mapping = Off (unsure of the effect here)
Laptop settings:
  • Maximum Voices = 999
  • Preload Size = 75,000 (default is 12,288)
  • Stream Buffer Size = 150,000 (default is 65,536)
  • Maximum Pitch Voices = 16 (probably irrelevant unless you're pitching stretching to increase AROOF instrument ranges)
  • Enable Memory Mapping = On (unsure of the effect here)
 
@charlieclouser or anybody who knows this. I can't figure out how to use loops and warps at different tempo's than host. I know I have to disable the "sync to tempo" function, but how do I set a new tempo for the loopt itself. For instance, DAW tempo is 120, and I want a loop to play back at 60.
 
Question re: Hammers terms:

In the loops section what does a "Cutdown" loop mean? It seems that the cutdown loops become syncopated after 1 bar
 
Top Bottom