Spitfire BBC Symphony Orchestra

[Tanuj Tiku]

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/ ... orchestra/

Spitfire Audio have just announced a completely new line up. BBC Symphony Orchestra. It is complete down to percussion and harp.

I have just heard Andy Blaney's demo and it does sound very good. I really like the new space, an old studio in London which the BBC has been using for years. I am glad they have moved away from Air and hope that this library will shine. It does sound very good.

Very unlike Spitfire, obviously because of new players and space.

Lots of talk about mic positions etc (mic-bleed option here) but I am now also waiting to hear more about new innovations in scripting.

Coming October 24th - $749 Pre-order and $1000 on release. Intro offer ends on 7th November.

Actually, I am very excited about this because I really liked Andy's demo (he is a genius after all) but also because it sounded very controlled and pristine. And if the QC is great on this, I think Spitfire have a winner for the next several years.

I am very happy that they have done this and moved away from AIR. Very refreshing.

[Linos]

12 microphone positions? That's just silly.

Andy Blaney's demo does sound very good. But so do all his mockups. What stands out for me with this one is that it sounds pretty dry, yet has a lot of depth. That's rare in orchestral samples. And the orchestra sounds very good.
The price is more than fair for what you get. However, two question marks remain for me. One is the articulation list. I hope that will be comprehensive. Second one is the quality control. We'll see after the release how consistent the whole orchestra really is. Luckily the intro price is available for a bit after the release date. So there is really no need to preorder now.

[The Saxer]

Really interesting library! At that price I'll definitely preorder it. I hope they get the quality control thing better than in the previous libraries. My impression is that the Spitfire Sampler libraries (EW Choir, HZ Strings and Labs) have less problems than their Kontakt libraries (but that might be a pious hope). I like the room size from what I could hear from the demos.

[Guy Rowland]

As an ex-BBC employee of some 15 years, to see this commercial venture to replace musicians (as some see it) is... a surprise.

The sound is fantastic, and moreover isn't like any other sample library. It is, dare I say, familiar - from the Proms, apart from anything else. Sounds like it will work very well for concert music and media work. I totally share your enthusiasm here Tanuj. I'm pretty sure Maida Vale is a relatively dry hall, and shouldn't suffer from a lot of the issues at Air.

Andy B's demo is, for the most part, outstanding. I guess a lot of people have written variations on that sentence a lot for the past decade, mind. Pretty much the only time my ear frowned (have you never seen them do this?) was 0.34-0.36, suddenly those shorts sounded like every other so-so sample library. But that's about it. It really does sound incredibly good.

For what you get, the price seems very good. But - here we go - I'd take 3 mic positions over 11 any day to more than halve the size, and I'm surprised they're not allowing for a piecemeal approach, to build bit by bit. BML feels like a long time ago.

Given their history, I can't think about pre-ordering without some detailed real world feedback. There's two weeks for that at least. Definitely one to watch.

[Pablo Crespo]

I would like two players per woodwind instrument instead of a3, berlin was the one that got it right.

Will see what CSW bring to the table before jumping into this one. Nevertheless this looks very good!

[Geoff Grace]

What stands out for me with this one is that it sounds pretty dry, yet has a lot of depth. That's rare in orchestral samples. And the orchestra sounds very good.

This stood out for me as well.

I'm very interested; but considering my glut of orchestral sample libraries that are currently unaccompanied by a glut of orchestral gigs, I'm likely to put off purchasing this for a year or so. By then, it will be a more developed platform; and the pros and cons will be well-known.

In the meantime...

Best,

Geoff

[Tanuj Tiku]

I would like two players per woodwind instrument instead of a3, berlin was the one that got it right.

Will see what CSW bring to the table before jumping into this one. Nevertheless this looks very good!

Pablo, this is a good observation which I also noticed. For example, there is a solo horn and then straight 4 horns ensemble. My guess is and I have mostly found this to be true in my workflow as well - Using the same patch for another voice is not much different from having a second sampled horn in terms of audible results. Though for 2 player unison, that would be different. I am just guessing that at this point, it is a cost effective measure and I am not really going to complain because there are usually many other problems in a mock-up. It would have been nice to have but I do understand the cost ratio.

[Tanuj Tiku]

As an ex-BBC employee of some 15 years, to see this commercial venture to replace musicians (as some see it) is... a surprise.

The sound is fantastic, and moreover isn't like any other sample library. It is, dare I say, familiar - from the Proms, apart from anything else. Sounds like it will work very well for concert music and media work. I totally share your enthusiasm here Tanuj. I'm pretty sure Maida Vale is a relatively dry hall, and shouldn't suffer from a lot of the issues at Air.

Andy B's demo is, for the most part, outstanding. I guess a lot of people have written variations on that sentence a lot for the past decade, mind. Pretty much the only time my ear frowned (have you never seen them do this?) was 0.34-0.36, suddenly those shorts sounded like every other so-so sample library. But that's about it. It really does sound incredibly good.

For what you get, the price seems very good. But - here we go - I'd take 3 mic positions over 11 any day to more than halve the size, and I'm surprised they're not allowing for a piecemeal approach, to build bit by bit. BML feels like a long time ago.

Given their history, I can't think about pre-ordering without some detailed real world feedback. There's two weeks for that at least. Definitely one to watch.

Guy, absolutely I would be more than OK with 3 mic positions. I am guessing this is also for the LA crowd who now have to deal with Atmos. Though, I always thought everything was replaced in their final masters. However, I do remember seeing a MWTM video of Alan Meyerson where he kept some of the samples in as a layer!

Those shorts - yeah, that is a tough test for samples. I love the composition. Andy truly is very talented but like Linos and you said, something is pleasantly different about the sound.

However, I am VERY much looking forward to advancements in legato scripting and ways to convincingly build realistic and in turn more musical sounding phrases out of the various articulations. Historically, the legatos may have been a problem because of recording at AIR. Though, I am not sure if the legatos in the studio series are better. But, I am hoping that a more dry space allows them to script much better legatos, like other developers already have.

And....did I say I am loving the brass in this? It just sounds in place!

PS: In comparison, I thought their BML Brass (Ensembles) were really bad and I have almost never used them since I bought it.

[Tanuj Tiku]

12 microphone positions? That's just silly.

Andy Blaney's demo does sound very good. But so do all his mockups. What stands out for me with this one is that it sounds pretty dry, yet has a lot of depth. That's rare in orchestral samples. And the orchestra sounds very good.
The price is more than fair for what you get. However, two question marks remain for me. One is the articulation list. I hope that will be comprehensive. Second one is the quality control. We'll see after the release how consistent the whole orchestra really is. Luckily the intro price is available for a bit after the release date. So there is really no need to preorder now.

Absolutely with you on the depth and clarity! I too hope the QC will be good on this one. They have a lot of experience behind them now. I am really hoping that they have built on that.

[Lawrence]

If there was ever a sterling opportunity NOT to cut corners with QC, this would be it. I'm skeptical but hopeful.

My policy is to never listen to Andy Blaney demos, so I'll have to wait for others to emerge.

Edit-I see there was a CH demo, so I listened to that. Nice but within human capacity. Hmm.

[NoamL]

I'm cautiously excited. Just some scattered thoughts:

1. Assuming you actually need/want everything in the library, the price is really outstanding.

2. Releasing the entire orchestra in 1 product is kind of a double edged sword. The consistency, coherence and convenience are advantages, but then you can't buy a single section or, say, just the harp.

3. The Blaneydemo is fantastic as per usual.

4. The size of the library is massive (1.4tb uncompressed) but part of that is it's the ENTIRE orchestra and also there's 11 mics and several mixes. The articulation list from what we've seen is about the same as SSO aka BML.

5. A little bit disappointed that there isn't a deeper sampling of sections (strings divisi, horns a2 instead of just 1 & 4, multiple woodwind soloists). The lineup for the library is actually rather conservative and seems to be aimed at making "the next EWQLSO" not "the next Hollywood Orchestra."

6. Nothing in the keynote really about new technology/new scripting.

7. The sound of the demos is very very "studio." Dry and controlled. I'd love to hear demos with more of an Abbey Road kind of widescreen sound.

[Guy Rowland]

7. The sound of the demos is very very "studio." Dry and controlled. I'd love to hear demos with more of an Abbey Road kind of widescreen sound.

This is true, but its actually what I really liked about it. I wouldn't call it televisual, it could totally work for film imo, but true it's not Hollywood. And that sound really hasn't been properly captured to date.

That said, the sound in the live video presentation is atrocious. I've droned on here before about terrible sound in developer promos - popping VO mics, room ambience, awful voice / music balance and noise in the background etc. This doesn't sound like they had a dedicated sound mixer for the live feed at all, and we were listening to the PA mix - no discernible audience mics either. WTF?! How much did the launch cost? How much did the product cost to make? And your big launch you don't have a mixer at all, so what we hear of the product itself is mostly spill off personal mics to the sound of a dead room?! Unbelievable.

Hopefully they multitracked the event, and they can remix it and put it up again. If not, there's going to be a lot of disappointed folks forevermore who watch that video, thinking it represents what the product actually sounds like. My ear is tuned to this stuff because of my TV mixing, but not everyone will hear it for what it is.

[Tanuj Tiku]

I was actually thinking about you when I noticed this Guy, during the keynote You have previously made such comments about product videos.

It is quite disappointing and it is simple enough to do. The live event was 720P too, so Andy’s Demo did not sound as good there but on their website it’s in full glory.

I hope they can replace it. The event did not ‘look’ great either.

[Geoff Grace]

No kidding! The thundering rumble at the top of the first cue practically knocked me out of my seat, coming through my BM15As, because I had them cranked to hear the dialog.

Best,

Geoff

[riffwraith]

'Tis what I expected. Esp after someone (?) brought up a BBC connection on the VI Forum.

AB's demo is fantastic, but did anyone expect anything else?

User demos will be the real test, esp for those of us who can tell the diff between a user who has a clue, and one who doesn't.

Personally, I think this is the beginning of the end for orchestral sampling. People have already started to figure out that a slightly better sample lib does not equate to better sounding cues. I think in about half a year's time, when people start to see that the current largest sample lib co. with all of the experience in the world under their collective belts, can't make everyone sound all that much better than they already do, a shift towards, ...I already have what I need... and ...this new lib sounds great, but I am not going to make better sounding cues with this... will start to ferment, and devs are going to start to shy away from orch sampling.

It will take quite a while for this to happen of course, and I fully expect to see niche products based on stuff you simply can not do with individ. samples. Be it phrases (ala Sonokinetic), or certain combinations/groups, or what have you - I don't think that's going anywhere. But I think the days of full-blown orchestral sampling, tho not over just yet, is on the way out.

That said, I wish Spitfire the best of luck with this - I am sure it will do extremely well.

Cheers.

[tack]

That said, the sound in the live video presentation is atrocious. I've droned on here before about terrible sound in developer promos - popping VO mics, room ambience, awful voice / music balance and noise in the background etc.

Also the video wasn't deinterlaced so it looks very amateurish on Youtube. (Why do people still record video interlaced anyway. Aren't the vast majority of displays progressive nowadays?)

Really interesting library! At that price I'll definitely preorder it.

Is there anything to be gained by preordering? AFAICT the discount is the same after launch until November 7th. Without a financial incentive, it seems more prudent to wait for quality reports to come in before pulling any triggers.

[Geoff Grace]

7. The sound of the demos is very very "studio." Dry and controlled. I'd love to hear demos with more of an Abbey Road kind of widescreen sound.

This is true, but its actually what I really liked about it. I wouldn't call it televisual, it could totally work for film imo, but true it's not Hollywood. And that sound really hasn't been properly captured to date.

This seems to be a pretty nice try though:

LA Modern Percussion

I'd like to hear a collaboration with Alan Meyerson on the other sections.

(Sorry to veer off-topic.)

Best,

Geoff

[Geoff Grace]

Personally, I think this is the beginning of the end for orchestral sampling. People have already started to figure out that a slightly better sample lib does not equate to better sounding cues. I think in about half a year's time, when people start to see that the current largest sample lib co. with all of the experience in the world under their collective belts, can't make everyone sound all that much better than they already do, a shift towards, ...I already have what I need... and ...this new lib sounds great, but I am not going to make better sounding cues with this... will start to ferment, and devs are going to start to shy away from orch sampling.

Coals to Newcastle.

Best,

Geoff

[Ashermusic]

I was impressed and my curiosity is piqued.

[Guy Rowland]

My main thought this morning having slept on it is that this library only makes sense if you use it pretty much exclusively. The whole mic bleed thing... not sure how much that is marketing hype and how much of a sonic difference it makes, but the entire concept here is to go all-in.

Which makes you wonder what you should now do with the thousands of pounds you've invested in other libraries. Of course BBC won't sound right for everything, so it becomes one vs everything else when you're starting out on a cue, rather than more tools to mix and match. At the moment, we don't have much of a clue about how the BBC stuff breaks down, the limitations of the ensemble sizes and lack of divisi, what the articulations are, what the QC is like, all of which you need to factor in before making that decision.

So in pragmatic terms, I feel less interested than I was yesterday. Wake me when the proper walkthroughs are out, and / or they do a 3-mic position version.

[The Saxer]

Really interesting library! At that price I'll definitely preorder it.

Is there anything to be gained by preordering?

No. I just know I will order it anyway and when it's out I don't have to think about that money anymore.

[FriFlo]

Finally, we have an announcement instead of one of these embarrassingly stretched teasers for yet another sample library (well, some people don’t seem to notice how embarrassing this whole game is ...).
The prospect of a sampled BBC orchestra is not a minor thing to look forward to, yet, I think it will only live up to its name, if they have taken as much time to get it right with those fancy players as they should do with any serious sample library. Great players cannot make up for lots of inconsistencies and sloppy recordings! The same goes for editing, scripting and QC, of course.
So, now imagine you wouldn’t have had all this build up and wouldn’t have done that unduly presentation? Just an announcement, that there will be a BBC Orchestra Sample Library would have excited me! With all that show, I had to be disappointed, unless they would have found the cure for cancer or at least revolutionized sampling (which they didn’t, of course).
And as a side note ... wasn’t it already known that there would be samples from the BBC orchestra, when they did the teaser? I think I read a leak like that on ViControl. It might have been censored ... I might be wrong about that, but I am sure about that one: I read about an upcoming BBC orchestral sample
Library about a month ago on Vi ...

[stonzthro]

I"m definitely looking forward to this library!

I have a LOT of orchestral samples already, but each library has a different sound - do my clients know the difference? Probably not, but I tend to stay more engaged when I know I can get closer to the sound I want with a particular library.

And the price for a full orchestra is fantastic! I can't remember seeing a library of this size, sell for this cheap. My Seidlaczek library was more than this (on CD-Roms) 20+ years ago.

We live in good times, folks!

As a side note, I really don't get the all the disappointment about Spitfire's hype-machine - they are a business - they have a marketing team - they have to put shoes on kids feet and such. If you are really THAT bothered with their marketing, here's a clue - con't click on that thread (my preferred method) or go to VI-C. I think I received one email from them regarding this launch. I get more spam from Berklee's upcoming semester than Spitfire.

[Ashermusic]

My main thought this morning having slept on it is that this library only makes sense if you use it pretty much exclusively. The whole mic bleed thing... not sure how much that is marketing hype and how much of a sonic difference it makes, but the entire concept here is to go all-in.

Which makes you wonder what you should now do with the thousands of pounds you've invested in other libraries. Of course BBC won't sound right for everything, so it becomes one vs everything else when you're starting out on a cue, rather than more tools to mix and match. At the moment, we don't have much of a clue about how the BBC stuff breaks down, the limitations of the ensemble sizes and lack of divisi, what the articulations are, what the QC is like, all of which you need to factor in before making that decision.

So in pragmatic terms, I feel less interested than I was yesterday. Wake me when the proper walkthroughs are out, and / or they do a 3-mic position version.

I think I agree with "that this library only makes sense if you use it pretty much exclusively." within a project if you interject "seems to" before the word only because none of us have it on our computers to try out.. And ion that proves true, it doesn't mean it need be your choice for every project.

There is a bit of me that is weary of the mix and match crap I do all the time that if I had one reasonably dry one that for most purposes I could use fairly exclusively it is tempting. I somewhat have that with the Hollywood Diamond Series, but it's pretty resource heavy. I wonder how resource demanding this will be?

And of course as a Logic user, I am curious about the Logic templates they are going to provide. Wlll they include Articulation ID Sets for instance?

Anyway, not sold, but definitely curious.

[Guy Rowland]

As a side note, I really don't get the all the disappointment about Spitfire's hype-machine - they are a business - they have a marketing team - they have to put shoes on kids feet and such. If you are really THAT bothered with their marketing, here's a clue - con't click on that thread (my preferred method) or go to VI-C. I think I received one email from them regarding this launch. I get more spam from Berklee's upcoming semester than Spitfire.

I quite agree, which is why I always avoid the VI-C hype threads before any announcement - it's this effect that I think irritates many, especially in the absence of any information.