Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

The end of Albion 2 Loegria?

I bought Loegria virtually on the day it was first offered and never regretted it. By comparison with some of the more recent offerings I guess it has it's quirks (sackbuts and recorders!) but if it were only for the strings and the Horn / Euphonium ensemble I'm not parting with my copy. Lose the recorders (I'm more than happy with Embertone's) and lose the sackbuts too. Be really nice if they replaced them with the tree mic versions of the instruments missing from the core versions of Studio WW and Studio Brass and I'd willing pay full price for the replacement.
 
Summarizing the speculation thus far...

Based on past actions, it seems a safe assumption that Spitfire will release another version of Albion 2 in the future. Nonetheless, it is only an assumption at the moment.

What's harder to guess is the nature of any replacement that Spitfire will release. Will it be a completely new product or a revised version of the old product? Will it be better or worse than the old one? Will it be hosted by the new Spitfire platform or on the Kontakt platform? Only time will tell.

As with new releases, I think it's best to make buying decisions based solely on what we know about a given product, rather than on what we anticipate will happen in the future.

In other words, is Albion 2 Loegria—as is—worth its current 50% off price?

Best,

Geoff
 
Last edited:
Geoff Grace said:
As with new releases, I think it's best to make buying decisions based solely on what we know about a given product, rather than on what we anticipate will happen in the future.
Click to expand...

The problem is that the marketing explicitly asks us to "buy it before it's too late" - ie creating an urgency to buy now explicitly because of what will happen in the future (ie it will be gone).

So if you want Albion 2 at some point, you there's no neutral option. You either have to bet on anticipating one thing happening in the future or another.

Not that anticipating a new Spitfire library is in anyway unpleasant, in and of itself. Its just that one way or another, it's a bit of a lucky dip.
 
So, say I have Albions One and 5, and Arks 1 and 2, and Lumina.... Is this going to have anything worth the asking price for me?
 
Last edited:
ism said:
The problem is that the marketing explicitly asks us to "buy it before it's too late" - ie creating an urgency to buy now explicitly because of what will happen in the future (ie it will be gone).

So if you want Albion 2 at some point, you there's no neutral option. You either have to bet on anticipating one thing happening in the future or another.

Not that anticipating a new Spitfire library is in anyway unpleasant, in and of itself. Its just that one way or another, it's a bit of a lucky dip.
Click to expand...
Yeah I agree, too much FOMO. I have been pushing back on the SFA marketing hype hate that we get around here, but at this point it's crossed a line for me too. I'm a customer, I bought this library, what does it mean for me that you're discontinuing it?

Because end of life'ing a product needs to be handled in a professional way and this certainly is not it.

Spitfire is transforming itself into a standard company that just happens to makes sample libraries. Whether this is good or bad I don't even know anymore. But it's very very different than it was 5+ years ago.
 
ism said:
The problem is that the marketing explicitly asks us to "buy it before it's too late" - ie creating an urgency to buy now explicitly because of what will happen in the future (ie it will be gone).

So if you want Albion 2 at some point, you there's no neutral option. You either have to bet on anticipating one thing happening in the future or another.

Not that anticipating a new Spitfire library is in anyway unpleasant, in and of itself. Its just that one way or another, it's a bit of a lucky dip.
Click to expand...
Certainly, the artificially imposed time constraint impacts whether or not to buy it now; but I plan to buy—or not to buy—based solely on the qualities and value of the product itself.

Best,

Geoff
 
I guess what I want to know, is there anything bad about Albion 2? I know a lot of people complained about Albion 1 (and Albion One to be honest), but I don't think I've read as many complaints about 2. And it could be because not as many people bought it? Or the people that bought knew what they were getting? Or I just totally missed the complaints? Searches tend to bring up more than I am looking for.

Thanks!
 
I honestly don't know why they don't offer downloads for their legacy version for new purchasers.

Orchestral Tools lets purchasers of BWW Revive to download the legacy version as well. (which is one of the biggest reasons for my purchase)
 
Last edited:
I'll nail my colours to the mast and bet there's absolutely a newer version of the library incoming. Else why end-of-life the existing (working) product?

Also, I'm still bitter about never picking up the original Albion I.
 
dzilizzi said:
I guess what I want to know, is there anything bad about Albion 2? I know a lot of people complained about Albion 1 (and Albion One to be honest), but I don't think I've read as many complaints about 2. And it could be because not as many people bought it? Or the people that bought knew what they were getting? Or I just totally missed the complaints? Searches tend to bring up more than I am looking for.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
I’m not fond of the recorders. The library is not very cohesive as a concept. But that is not really an issue in terms of quality. I always liked the strings and would still use them a lot if I wasn’t doing most of my work with individual sections. I do still use the horn/euphonium patch quite a lot.
 
jbuhler said:
I’m not fond of the recorders. The library is not very cohesive as a concept. But that is not really an issue in terms of quality. I always liked the strings and would still use them a lot if I wasn’t doing most of my work with individual sections. I do still use the horn/euphonium patch quite a lot.
Click to expand...
Thanks! That is useful to know.
 
jbuhler said:
I’m not fond of the recorders. The library is not very cohesive as a concept. But that is not really an issue in terms of quality. I always liked the strings and would still use them a lot if I wasn’t doing most of my work with individual sections. I do still use the horn/euphonium patch quite a lot.
Click to expand...


How would you describe the Albion 2 strings when compared to SCS? Obviously there's the section sizes, but any sense of places that one can go that the other can't?

And I suppose the context here is that, I agree that while the recorders might be nice to have, but are kind of inessential. So a posited Albion Two would presumably explore this space some more with soft winds.

BDT and Orchestral Swarm have some wonderful soft woodwinds (not to mention SSW) - and Time Marco winds are not bad (though I find the they don't seem to work quite as well in very soft dynamics as the choirs), and there's a certain (very) sweet spot of the Claire instruments within a certain styles of very soft wind articulations also. But taking the Albion 2 concept further into wind ensembles sounds like it could be amazing.
 
Last edited:
667 said:
<snip...>I'm a customer, I bought this library, what does it mean for me that you're discontinuing it?

Because end of life'ing a product needs to be handled in a professional way and this certainly is not it.<snip>.
Click to expand...
Nothing... and, technically it's not "end of life'ing" it's simply EOS (end of sale).

It's not like your copy stops working on April 17th... if it did, well... then... that would be EOL... :sneaky: ;) :cool:
 
Last edited:
Loegria is a wonderful library, one of my favourites. I have a whole heap of other libraries, strings especially, but I still use Loegria often. Especially for underscore or softer pads, backing for other solo instruments and such, it just works.

The main standouts are the Strings and the Horn/Euph patches. The strings especially with the con sord, the flautando and the 1/2 sections are simply beautiful, nothing compares. But the whole lot is excellent when it comes to the strings if that style is what you want. It really is beautifully recorded.

Don't expect the legato to give you anything fast (it will give you some odd quirks if you try), but when I have slow pieces I really like the legatos, especially given you can change the speed down to be a longer more natural legato in the interface. This works especially well for the low strings.

The shorts are good too. Nothing snappy or tight, but there are short lengths in there like the staccatos that I can't achieve with any of my other string libraries. They have a soft quality to them, and some are longer in length than standard, which most other libraries don't have. I've used the low shorts a fair bit because there's nothing else I know that does that. The pizzicato is fantastic too, both high and low sections.

I don't think some of these same qualities exist in SCS, it definitely adds a different element than SCS does for small sections. It's a different sized section too, slightly larger I think, so it is more easy on the ears sometimes than SCS, especially with the vibrato. Personally I like Loegria more for some of these specific patches compared to SCS, but that's just me maybe.

And I don't think anything beats the Horn/Euph patch for warmth and tone. I really wish there were more articulations. It matches very well with some of the Albion 1 legacy brass too, eg. the mid brass.

Whether it is "worth it" depends a lot on whether you would use this smaller / softer approach to ensemble instruments.

(I'm ignoring the disservice they did to those recorders - what were they thinking!?).
 
Does anyone know the origins of the Albion 2 Loegria theme picture? Is it taken from a historical photo or painting of some sort, just with modern photo effects applied over the top?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom