What makes this one any different?įor starters, it’s the simple renown of the orchestra they’ve chosen to sample, and the location which they’ve chosen to sample them at. We have quite a few orchestras all sampled in the same hall: East West Hollywood Orchestra, Orchestral Tools Berlin Inspire, Red Room Audio’s Palette: Symphonic Sketchpad, Audio Imperia’s Nucleus, hell, even Spitfire’s own Symphonic Orchestra, and probably more I can’t think of. We’ve learned the product in question was their BBC Symphony Orchestra, and it was staking a claim at the top of the “all-in-one” orchestra market. “ This is London Calling!” they pronounced, as well as claiming “ Everything is about to change”, hereby adding bold promises on top of their usual marketing hype. What could they have done this time? We all feverishly guessed and commented like eager school children, building up a record breaking thread in the process.
Thanks for reading!Īh, we all remember it (not so) fondly: Spitfire Audio tickled our curiosity with a series of vague, ambiguous and visually enticing promo teasers… making their rounds on Facebook, VI-Control, and the like. I simply refuse to treat this company with kid gloves or give only praise to this library because “their hearts were in the right place”, or what have you. I’m a person who has used this product extensively. So I’d like to finally apologize to those who took offense, but also remind everyone: it’s just a product, and to conveniently overlook the good things I say about the library is, quite frankly, nothing more than “selective reading” on your part. I simply know if I have zero orchestral libraries and was a beginner in terms of sample library collection, I would appreciate this library a lot more. Others have taken offense with the fact I say I’m a non-beginner, and for some reason, they jump to the conclusion that I think anyone who likes this library must be a beginner or a non-professional, which again, is completely false. In my extensive test and real world use, these libraries mentioned sound better and simply out perform their correlating sections in the BBCSO. To clarify some points: the libraries I prefer for brass are Junkie XL Brass, Cinematic Studio Brass, and 8dio’s Century Brass, while the libraries I prefer for woodwinds are Berlin Woodwinds, Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds, and VSL Synchron-ized Woodwinds and the ensembles from VSL SE Vol 2. If I simply ignore these promises and don’t judge it on its merits compared with the other libraries on the market, that, to me, is not an honest evaluation. Remember: Spitfire promised a game changer, something that will benefit every composer on the planet, and delivers a sound and ease of use better than anything you’ve tried before. The biggest thing I want people to take away from this review, is the fact there are better options, but you’ll end up spending more (which is also why I specifically state it’s a GREAT VALUE). There’s some amazing content, but there’s also some mediocre or flat out bad content. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as I do NOT hate the product and really tried to be balanced and fair in this review. I’ve also noticed a select few people have had a very defensive and extreme reaction to my thoughts about this library, some going so far as to personally attack me and insinuate I am making stuff up just to bash the product.
I will certainly re-evaluate the entire library and plug-in performance after I install said updates.
Update : Spitfire has announced a 35gb update to this library, adding muted brass among other things, and hopefully optimizing the plug-in further.