Spitfire / Appassionata ("Impulse Legato" Strings)

[Malachistos]

I have to add some stuff. (I know, i try and don't write much of a public critic anymore, because I try to be less loud, but to hell with it. Thats just not who I am. I have opinions. )

Yes, the tone is great. I like that. But that is often the case with spitfire libraries. They do great work while sampling. It's just the scripting that let's these fantastic samples down. I think spitfire does do their best. But what paul and co do not understand is just how important it is for musicians to interact with these libraries. There are so many hidden controls which should be accesible. I could have done magic with an unlocked Kontakt library. But they are locked all the time. I could tweak and do stuff to my liking. But not here. 5 (!) only 5 controllable parameters. It's just not enough to work with. I don't understand how others can.

What bothered me immediately after trying the library was the omission of same-note-rebows. Which makes writing melody lines such a pain.
I would say a majority of current string libraries feature some sort of same-note-rebow-legato. So for this library to be described as: "The next generation of highly-detailed string legatos", feels like a joke. There are none.

Weirdly the repetition samples WERE sampled. But hidden in the hairpin articulations. But they are timed, so unusable for melodic writing.
Why. Can the spitfire player not interact with the sustain pedal like Kontakt does? It's just such a weird shortcut.

The sustain pedal does not work as one expects, other libraries have worked this out very well. It adds up, gets louder, but it does not retrigger.

When playing chords, it sucks the releases away. There is no release lenght control. It's just to hard to get fluid playing lines. In user demos I can hear the typical spitfire pumping and sucking. I felt so dissapointed. How hard can it be to implement attack and release controls like CSS had done?

As I understand it, the "smoothing of dynamics" is just a basic modwheel delay, which is implemented in a majority of Kontakt libraries. Lauding this as a new feature feels quite strange. (I could be wrong, but It is never explained, but behaves similar)

The sound is great, the playability is not yet. However, the sound is and tone is great. I will use this library. But just not as much as the marketing made me belive. If Spitfire is reading this. I do like this library. But please. These problems should not exist in 2022.

PS. However, I got a very weird unexpected, marketing e-mail after purchase:

"Thank you for visiting Spitfire Audio. We noticed you did not complete your order. For your convenience, we have listed the products you selected below." MY GOD, for my convenience. The begging. Because I could have forgot that minutes ago I was browsing your store? It's worse then amazon shopping mails. Immedialy left a bad taste after I purchased. That is not the way.

[Guy Rowland]

Malachistos - I opted out of their emails quite some time ago! And I agree on the rebows, I thought the same thing in the hairpin demo. It sounds great but is timed, so not really that useful.

Tanuj - you don't think tonally this and CineStrings are pretty similar on the basis of that little test? Obviously functionally they are totally different, but I was really addressing the idea that this is some new tonal ground.

[tack]

Yep, I unsubscribed from all Spitfire emails some time back. It was simply out of control.

Valid criticisms, Malachistos. I too miss rebows, but at least I did know from the walkthrough I wouldn't be getting them in the main legato patch. (There was one passage Paul played were their absence was quite noticeable.)

But that's a weak defense, because Spitfire's product page says "Referencing the aesthetic of classic melodies from the scores of composers like John Williams and Thomas Newman, this medium-sized string band (8,6,6,6,4) delivers a highly sought-after style of performance, with stunningly-realistic rebowing." With an emphasis on rebowing in the above-the-fold section of the product page, buyers would certainly be reasonable in assuming they would be getting a rebow in the main articulation, not buried in a much less usable fixed-duration hairpin patch.

[Malachistos]

It's just maddening isn't it. The samples are all nicely recorded. But somehow the programming talent does not want to work with the UK.

[NoamL]

I really like these. In fact, too busy having fun with them to write a proper review yet. Basically my old template was mostly CSS, plus CS2 for less vibrato-heavy legatos, and SSS for extended articulations. Appassionata is joining that template and taking over a few tasks from CSS and CS2. That is big news "for me" because it was no sweat to pass on the last ten or twenty string products that came out after 2018 like Berlin Symphonic, Tokyo Scoring Strings, Modern Scoring Strings etc I just didn't hear anything that competed. I was probably closest to clicking buy on Nashville and Con Moto but passed on those ones too. This library is special.

I'll just say 2 things so far:

1. ignore ALL marketing guff, just because this library is called Appassionata doesn't mean it's unversatile. It can do pretty good fast legato and workhorse string writing, just not VERY fast runs. I still feel CSS is world-beating in that regard.

2. eventually people will catch on that Spitfire has entered a new era, please hold your horses I don't mean a "next gen of sampling," just a new era of Spitfire's progress. They have new personnel and a new set of collaborators too. All of the skepticism that people residually hold against Spitfire is attached to their BML lineup from 8 years ago. It's perfectly fair to be critical of those libraries as even after multiple generations of "polishing up" and repackaging they can be frustratingly inconsistent. And since the BML days, Spitfire released a couple products that were duds or were recorded under some pretty tight constraints of time and space - BT Phobos, Studio Orchestra, BBCSO. but if you look at Abbey Road and Appassionata you can see where they will go from here. It's "BML 2" but the level of QA, recording engineering authenticity, and musicality captured in the performances, is really next level. Again I'm not saying "next gen" just next level *for them*. Put aside any Spitfire preconceptions, in short!

[Tanuj Tiku]

Malachistos - I opted out of their emails quite some time ago! And I agree on the rebows, I thought the same thing in the hairpin demo. It sounds great but is timed, so not really that useful.

Tanuj - you don't think tonally this and CineStrings are pretty similar on the basis of that little test? Obviously functionally they are totally different, but I was really addressing the idea that this is some new tonal ground.

Sorry, I missed that Guy. Yes, it is similar indeed and it is not new ground over all. But Spitfire sounds better to me. Obviously, I haven't got Appasionata strings and so I cannot confirm whether it is functionally better than CineStrings for sure but the legatos in CS are very poor by today's standards. The video and the demos from SA point me in the direction of Con Moto. If so, it should be better than Cine Strings.

In any case, like I said, this is Spitfire catching up. I think we are focusing too much on marketing. Yes, it is probably not wholly accurate. I haven't checked everything they have said - I stay away from marketing and completely ignore everything and scroll directly to where the meat and potatoes are.

Of course, it is off-putting but it is no different from many other libraries, with the exception of Jasper who is incredibly open and honest. A few others come to mind.

The amount of absolute crap that is sent in emails and seen advertised on the internet from nearly all developers is off-putting for sure. I suppose they have their reasons and we have ours - it sucks!

[Guy Rowland]

Yes, agree with all that Tanuj. Tangentially, I wonder what CineStrings 2.0 will bring - the library is routinely overlooked but has a lot going for it, and it also has the Runs library alongside it.

And I agree that all hyperbole and soliloquies aside (and with some of Malachistos caveats), this seems a very-nice-sounding and nicely playable library. I just don’t see (or hear) it as new sonic ground. Expectations in check and all that.

[Piet De Ridder]

(...) you don't think tonally this and CineStrings are pretty similar on the basis of that little test? Obviously functionally they are totally different, but I was really addressing the idea that this is some new tonal ground.

I’m sure if you look long enough, you might find samples in other libraries with which you can program a phrase for violins, violas, cellos or basses that sounds not entirely dissimilar to how SF Appassionata sounds when you listen to its isolated sections. You might even find samples from other developers which, in isolation, may appear to sound more convincing. But that’s only one fifth — and a rather meaningless fifth, if you ask me — of the story of how a library sounds, in my opinion.

What I’m soooo impressed with here, is how the five sections combine into an ensemble. It’s the sound of the full strings section which I really do find quite extraordinary and, I’ll say it again, completely beyond the abilities of any other of today’s serious strings libraries. Somehow, SF Appassionata, just like the Abbey Road 2 quintet before it, is engineered and recorded in such a way that when the sections (or instruments) come together, the combined sound is more than the sum of its parts. And that, to me, is by far the greatest attraction of this library. (Berlin Brass has a bit of that same quality too: a full Berlin brass section, carefully put together, is often more than the sum of its parts.)

And I never thought I would, but I’m also slowly coming around to Spitfire’s view with regard to their bewildering number of microphone perspectives. I still think they err on the side of pointless exaggeration in this department, but I have to say: some of the mic perspectives really add tremendous and irreplaceable colouring and mixing value to their recent libraries. It’s that raised level of engineering and recording which characterizes their newest libraries that makes all the difference, I guess. (Abbey Road 2 is another amazing example of this.) SF Appassionata could probably do with, say, three or four perspectives less, but those that then remain are truly mixing and colouring gold.

With all that in mind, I am more than bound to say that SF Appassionata *does* thread new ground. And for me, extremely important new ground. Heard it within 30 seconds of listening to the Dan Keen piece: this is something else, something very-very different from what we have been sold before. Performance-wise, I would never call the library a major leap forward or even moderately remarkable, but sonically and timbrally, I consider this, unreservedly, the absolute best that a sampled strings section can sound in the first quarter of the year 2022.

_

[Guy Rowland]

Careful, Piet, or you’ll start doing orchestral mockups again…

[Wiliford music 1]

What???? Piet is doing orchestral mockups again! Where do we subscribe?

Sorry, but this is the interwebs.

Back to the topic.

[Lawrence]

What I’m soooo impressed with here, is how the five sections combine into an ensemble. It’s the sound of the full strings section which I really do find quite extraordinary and, I’ll say it again, completely beyond the abilities of any other of today’s serious strings libraries. Somehow, SF Appassionata, just like the Abbey Road 2 quintet before it, is engineered and recorded in such a way that when the sections (or instruments) come together, the combined sound is more than the sum of its parts. And that, to me, is by far the greatest attraction of this library. (Berlin Brass has a bit of that same quality too: a full Berlin brass section, carefully put together, is often more than the sum of its parts.)

...and this is the charm of the Dan Keen demo.

[Muziksculp]

Any idea what "Impulse Legato" is all about ?

[FriFlo]

Any idea what "Impulse Legato" is all about ?

Maybe it is related to impulse buying?

[Guy Rowland]

Any idea what "Impulse Legato" is all about ?

Maybe it is related to impulse buying?

Oh that's genius.

[The Saxer]

:-D

[Guy Rowland]

...and this is the charm of the Dan Keen demo.

Anyone else thinking of "She was a fair Lass"?

That's not meant dismissively, incidentally. That demo showed what LASS can do in the right hands. It wasn't a trick.

[FriFlo]

You mean, Reunited at LASS? Seriously, you think the pieces are similar? Or just that they present mile stones in the history of demos?

The more I listen to Dan Keens demos, the more I start hearing those deficiencies of certain transitions, that just do not sound natural to me - they sound like chopped pieces of audio, frankenstein-ed to become a body (as do ALL conventional string libraries more or less). What kept me from hearing those before is the fact that this is just a beautiful piece of original music and the flow of phrases is very well crafted (mockup-wise). And this - I believe - is always the recipe for great demos: Not many people manage to write such a good piece of original music AND craft it well midi- and mixing-wise.

But the thing is: the moment you get that library, you will start to work with it and listen to the same phrase several dozen times. And that is when you will hear more and more problems. And in the end it is just one more string library in your arsenal - one sounds better than the other in this or that situation, but all are just that: string libraries! Of course, it makes sense to have some choices, but at some point you reach diminishing returns from adding one more. Obviously, I seem to have reached the point ...

That is exactly why I hesitate to push the buy button although it is tempting at that price ... I suppose, I would have bought it in Kontakt already! The SF-Player is what stopped me, so far.

Do me a favour and download the Dan Keen demo and listen to a looped version of the phrase at 0:19 and the run at 1:24. After that, listen to the whole piece again. Doesn't the sample-alarm ring a little louder for you then?

Finally, the first few times listening to that demo, I had the impression of a better flow of the dynamics with this demos - better than most things I had heard with samples. But the more often I listen, the more I get the impression of a very softened, flat version of what you hear in a real string recording with an expressive piece of music. It is just very flat and shallow compared to the real shape, that feels much more 3D - as if you could grab it coming from of the loudspeakers. Difficult to express that in words ...

[Guy Rowland]

You mean, Reunited at LASS? Seriously, you think the pieces are similar? Or just that they present mile stones in the history of demos?

The latter - just so we're clear, this gorgeous piece:



Not at all like SAP tonally or that the pieces are similar in any way, but it felt like a big leap forward for the industry at the time as a convincing mockup.

I listened more carefully as you suggested to Dan's piece. 0.19 sounds just fine to me even looped, but 1'24 hit me the first time I heard it. So few sampled demos can get away with that, I hear it all the time. Just as you say, once you've heard it, you can't un-hear it in context. Were it me, I'd write that line differently to hide the glaring deficiency, so kudos in a way for going with it.

Something about 0'54 slightly bugs me too if we're being picky.

[Scoredog]

In listening back to the demos, specifically Dan's and Paul's, Dan's sounds like he is writer who is going to do his own whether the samples behave or not. The run at 1:25 is a dead give away. As a person who has done way more than his fair share of sample library demos there is no way I would have let a few of transitions get by and especially the run at 1:25. I would have found a different art or a few or would have scrapped it over not allowing that bit of fakeness get heard.You don't hear any of that in Paul's which plays at a similar tempo but Paul's life is steeped in midi and I am sure he is acutely aware of when things work with samples and when they don't. Dan's piece is so nice that they decided to just go with it. If one believes that that is the way things went down then you can also see how the library is to work with. Dan's vision and dynamics were to play it in the best he could and that's that, probably not a ton of tweaking. I could be wrong but that is what my instincts are telling me.

[tack]

Something about 0'54 slightly bugs me too if we're being picky.

That's certainly not being helped by the lack of rebowing, as discussed earlier.

[Ashermusic]

I think this sounds just great and I can buy it for $164, which is tempting. But I am so in love with Afflatus and its legatos are just so playable, that I am not sure I will pull the trigger. I have until February 10 to decide though.

The other thing that tempts me is presumably how well it will blend with Symphonic Motions, which I just used heavily on a project that I cannot yet talk about,

[1gc]

Lawrence
"Second, I really enjoy the idea of writing a string line with one responsive legato patch that can adjust to a faster tempo if you want filigrees. The only one I’ve used that comes close is LASS."
I agree with you about the flexibility with LASS. However, there is an articulation in the Synchron Pro Strings titled "Legato Agile" that you might be interested in for the same reason.
This artic coupled with the normal VSL Legato and the Portamentos give me a comfortable variable with Legs, particularly when coupled with the LASS (I have the 2.5 version).
g.c.

[ZeeCount]

This sounds like a good step forward for Spitfire in terms of playability (and dynamic layers), however I'm not hearing anything that I can't already achieve using a combination of CSS and Vista. In most demos that I have heard where people are doing direct comparisons to either of these two libraries, I don't hear anything that makes me think I need to grab this. I picked up AR2 as that gave me something I was missing in my other libraries, but I'm not hearing the same thing here.

[Ashermusic]

Nevermind.

[Lawrence]

Lawrence
"Second, I really enjoy the idea of writing a string line with one responsive legato patch that can adjust to a faster tempo if you want filigrees. The only one I’ve used that comes close is LASS."
I agree with you about the flexibility with LASS. However, there is an articulation in the Synchron Pro Strings titled "Legato Agile" that you might be interested in for the same reason.
This artic coupled with the normal VSL Legato and the Portamentos give me a comfortable variable with Legs, particularly when coupled with the LASS (I have the 2.5 version).
g.c.

Thanks, g.c. That’s really good to know.