Upcoming library from Spitfire Audio "Albion"

[David Polich]

Eccchhh - these guys aren't getting any of my money. I don't do much
orchestration in my work, it's all pop, rock, and dance stuff I'm doing.
With Symphobia, the Vienna stuff in Kontakt4, Garritan Personal Orchestra 4,
all the Sample Modeling instruments, and the Gofriller Cello and Garritan
Strad violin, I'm covered.

I agree with Shooshie's observation that the crux of good virtual instrument
orchestration is the MIDI performer. Programming idiomatically (accounting
for the behavior and range of the instruments) makes all the difference.
I've heard amazing orchestrated music done on a Yamaha TG-500 tone module,
and cheesy crap done with Vienna and East-West libraries. Buying this
library won't make me an instant orchestral programming genius.

The fact that they recorded this all to tape doesn't even make sense to
me. I can see the value of recording rock and roll to tape but orchestral
instruments? That's where digital recording is, to me, a necessity, not
an option. Recording orchestral instruments to tape in this day and age
strikes me as pedantic and just plain-ass dumb.

[Shooshie]

The fact that they recorded this all to tape doesn't even make sense to
me. I can see the value of recording rock and roll to tape but orchestral
instruments? That's where digital recording is, to me, a necessity, not
an option. Recording orchestral instruments to tape in this day and age
strikes me as pedantic and just plain-ass dumb.

But doesn't it sound great to be able to say, "each sound is hand-crafted on a Studer A-800 Mark III 24 track recorder with Ampex 499 Grand Master Gold Tape." Marketing departments eat that stuff up.

Does it work the same to say "recorded to genuine Apple DIMMS and saved to a Hitachi 3TB SATA drive?" I mean, we want each sample to get as much hand-crafting as possible when we're about to spend £10,000 on a collection of woodwinds, you know?



Shoos

[David Polich]

The fact that they recorded this all to tape doesn't even make sense to
me. I can see the value of recording rock and roll to tape but orchestral
instruments? That's where digital recording is, to me, a necessity, not
an option. Recording orchestral instruments to tape in this day and age
strikes me as pedantic and just plain-ass dumb.

But doesn't it sound great to be able to say, "each sound is hand-crafted on a Studer A-800 Mark III 24 track recorder with Ampex 499 Grand Master Gold Tape." Marketing departments eat that stuff up.

Does it work the same to say "recorded to genuine Apple DIMMS and saved to a Hitachi 3TB SATA drive?" I mean, we want each sample to get as much hand-crafting as possible when we're about to spend £10,000 on a collection of woodwinds, you know?



Shoos

Hah! Well, I have UAD's Studer A800 so if I want things to sound like tape,
I can do that.

The more I look over their website, the more I'm thinking these guys
don't know what time it is.

[dcoscina]

They have posted links to some unofficial demos, more just noodling with some patches. The sound is very warm and detailed. A little moreso than Symphobia which is more a wall of sound. This product, Albion, looks to be geared towards the Symphobia crowd but at a fraction of the price with more legatos and mic set-ups. I own both S1 & S2 but could see getting this to fill in the spots where a smaller sound is required.

To be honest, I highly respect you guys on this forum and always find your observations balanced and fair. but for some reason, the Spitfire marketing credo or philosophy has seem to tweak a raw nerve. I'm sensing a bit of animosity or maybe disappointment with this company by some here. As far as I know, they are very small and have the idea of compensating their orchestra which explains the absorbadent cost for some of the libraries. I don't think this is too far off from what VSL charged for THE CUBE (I believe over $20,000). I'm a huge fan of VSL.

Then again, CineSamples' CineBrass was also recorded in Hollywood (Sony Stage) with Union players and their library comes in around $400. It's so hard to judge unless we ourselves are in the position of these sample developers. I don't know the scale for hiring players or paying them residuals or programmer fees or any of that.

I do recall a similar reaction to Project SAM's "high"pricing for Symphobia 1 & 2. Thing is, I don't know many professionals who don't own them. They are invaluable compositional tools.

[David Polich]

They have posted links to some unofficial demos, more just noodling with some patches. The sound is very warm and detailed. A little moreso than Symphobia which is more a wall of sound. This product, Albion, looks to be geared towards the Symphobia crowd but at a fraction of the price with more legatos and mic set-ups. I own both S1 & S2 but could see getting this to fill in the spots where a smaller sound is required.

To be honest, I highly respect you guys on this forum and always find your observations balanced and fair. but for some reason, the Spitfire marketing credo or philosophy has seem to tweak a raw nerve. I'm sensing a bit of animosity or maybe disappointment with this company by some here. As far as I know, they are very small and have the idea of compensating their orchestra which explains the absorbadent cost for some of the libraries. I don't think this is too far off from what VSL charged for THE CUBE (I believe over $20,000). I'm a huge fan of VSL.

Then again, CineSamples' CineBrass was also recorded in Hollywood (Sony Stage) with Union players and their library comes in around $400. It's so hard to judge unless we ourselves are in the position of these sample developers. I don't know the scale for hiring players or paying them residuals or programmer fees or any of that.

I do recall a similar reaction to Project SAM's "high"pricing for Symphobia 1 & 2. Thing is, I don't know many professionals who don't own them. They are invaluable compositional tools.

These are all good points. Having worked as a sound designer for major manufacturers and software developers over the years, I can tell you that
the cost of recording an orchestra (and a choir) is extremely high. And it
takes ages to do because you're asking the musicians to play single notes
in different articulations which puts a lot of stress on the musicians.
In theory the trumpet's range when overblown can get up to two octaves above
middle C on the piano or higher, but to ask a trumpet player to hit and HOLD
that highest note as long and steadily as possible so you can get a section of audio you can loop - that is always asking a lot.

Maybe the Spitfire/Albion folks need to hire some hotshot people to do their
demos. Like Shooshie or Frodo (or you). The demos aren't selling the product that well. And the cryptic navigation on their site isn't helping at
all.

[dcoscina]

UPDATE- I just pre-ordered this library and will do some demos for you guys once I get it. I'm editing this post because I did go back and listen to Paul's informal demos with good cans and the timbre and sound is there. I don't want to raise any tempers or blood pressure but all I can say is that I'm in front of an orchestra every week or so. I know what it sounds like. The tone of these samples is right on the money. And if you visit VI Control, you will see much more explanation of the control you will be able to apply to these sounds.

[malditoyanki]

Their marketing does seem a bit elitist/anti-democratic. Perhaps that's what some find irksome. Whatever works for them I guess. I did interact with Richard at Spitfire and he was very helpful FWIW. I think their percussion is a little pricey, but the exchange rate is pretty rough these days. Anyhow, I'm now using it in my work.

[Shooshie]

I just think the kind of exclusivity that Spitfire is marketing should be backed up by something that really makes you want to open your wallet. I've seen and heard nothing on their site which warrants that. Albion may be their mea culpa. It's an entire library, reasonably priced, which could win back a little respect. It's not just a raw nerve they've hit; they're guilty of a sort of exaggerated marketing. I'm talking about their expensive libraries. I'd have to work with them myself to prove myself right or wrong (and I'd LOVE to prove myself wrong*), but based on the work of other people I just can't hear anything to justify the cost. It's unfortunate that a lot of people might pay for that, thinking they're really getting their money's worth.

Caveat emptor.

I think of some of the orchestral demos that Dan Kury has posted here using nothing but Garritan Personal Orchestra. They're every bit as good as those using Spitfire's various entries, yet GPO can be obtained for less than $200. I dare say that I have a few myself that the Spitfire users would have trouble matching, using WIVI and/or VSL Special Edition. It's a free country, I guess, and they can charge what they want. Nobody's forcing anyone to buy it. I just hate to see such wildly misguided PR backing so little, for so much money. (not talking about Albion, but their other offerings)

Shooshie

* after a week of my asking whether the problem was in the library or the player's version of the piece, Spitfire posted a revised demo which, I'm pleased to say, proves beyond doubt that the library is capable of very subtle expression, and that it is not hampering the player in any way. Good show, Spitfire! This is a case where I am very happy to be wrong!

[spitfire]

Wow.. Guys, its a free world and you are totally welcome to your opinions on the quality of the Spitfire bespoke libs.

But I felt I had to register here to respond to being accused of fraud, "wildly misguided PR", anti-democratic behaviour, "not knowing what time it is", "pedantic" and "plain ass dumb" behaviour, "very aggressive marketing", "insulting the intelligence of the buyer" and of course, we are apparently "a joke".

If you had read about the bespoke libraries, you would know that these are non-profit projects undertaken at significant personal financial risk initially, to produce a private sample library for a group of film and TV composers. We agreed with the musicians how many licenses they felt comfortable with us creating (very significant to them when you look at the Brass and WW libs, where we are capturing people's character and sound) and then we simply divided the costs of production by the number of licenses.

We are immensely proud of having injected a very significant sum of money into the UK's studio and musician scene over the last 4 years, and having produced a set of tools, that are the template mainstays of some of the top A list composers in film today. You can see who is in part or all of the modules in the bespoke group in the "About Us" tab on the website.

We are not crooks, we are simply trying to make the best tools we can to help composers who always use live players - this is simply an honorable undertaking to the musicians who played for us, not some form of elitist nastiness.

In fact, we are a small handful of people working incredibly hard on both the non profit side and the commercial side of Spitfire. I answer tech queries as quickly as I can when I see them, late at night, early in the morning, and I also have a career to keep going as a composer myself as well.

We don't have yachts and lamborghinis, we are a small developer making the best tools we can, and with Albion, trying to make those tools affordable and accessible to as many people as possible.

My personal website is here: http://www.synesthesia.net" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

where some of my own music is demonstrated.

I hope this goes to clearing up some of the issues raised.

All the best,

Paul

[Shooshie]

Well, this certainly throws an interesting kink in things, doesn't it? Paul, your music sounds first-rate, and if it's created with the same sounds as those advertised on the Spitfire pages, then you do yourself an injustice by not using your own music as the demos. However, I did not hear woodwind solos within your posted music that I could compare to those or other libraries. Maybe I just didn't hear the right ones. Then again, I suspect that most of your recordings are actually live orchestras. If they are Spitfire libraries, then you've obviously done something right. But is it worth so much more than other libraries?

My comments are about the woodwinds and brass, specifically, though I didn't find the strings to be of any higher quality than most other existing libraries. They're certainly better than the typical fare from 10 or 15 years ago. I'm not saying they're no good, just that the price is, yes, insulting for what I'm hearing in the demos. Maybe there is something tremendously easy about using them which makes the pricing more attractive? I wouldn't know; I can't afford those prices, so why would I even bother to try them?

Yes, it's a free world, and you're perfectly within your rights to produce them, post them on a website, and charge a king's ransom for them. And anyone who will go along with you is perfectly well within their rights to do so. That's fine. But I find it very odd that the price and quality do not seem inter-related. If these sounds are the secret to why your compositions sound so good, then I stand corrected. I'd still like to hear woodwind solos and brass solos that are on par with Wallander, VSL, or Tommasini's entries. My goodness, your demo of the opening solo in L'Apres-MIDI d'une faune blows chunks! Why would you post something that bad as an example of a woodwind library that would cost us yanks close to $15,000? Where's the musical line? Is it capable of a simple crescendo spread out over the whole phrase? Why the bellows effect on every note? You said in your write-up "maybe it's a about getting the best?" Well, let's hear it.

But I suppose I've missed the point. It's a collective; a cooperative in which you're sharing the wealth with the players. Never mind the quality. This is about spreading our money around a bit more evenly. If that makes it easier to sleep at night, then it's a perfectly respectable thing to do.

Look, Paul; I believe that creating a sample library is one of the most significant undertakings possible in this business. It's difficult beyond belief. The tone of your writing on the site would indicate that you believe you've created the best there is. In spite of the incredible amount of work you obviously put into it, and the incredible costs of doing this, you've fallen short of the goal: the best. So close, but so far. Go the extra mile, and I'll sing your praises.

• [edit: after a week of my asking whether the problem was in the library or the player's version of the piece, Spitfire posted a revised demo which, I'm pleased to say, proves beyond doubt that the library is capable of very subtle expression, and that it is not hampering the player in any way. Good show, Spitfire! /edit]

But my criticism of your woodwind and brass -- which I realize costs me nothing and if unsupported could easily make me sound envious or cowardly -- stands as stated. Now let me explain why I bothered to write it. I've never been in a position to undertake something this massive, though I've considered it seriously. But I've definitely attempted to express, from a MIDI performer's point of view, when someone gets it right, or as is more often the case why so many libraries fall short even after having spent so much. I've been working at this same goal since about 1987. I only want what you do: the best. If you want to talk about that, I'm willing, but I'll spare you a treatise here in this forum. Fixing it may be very difficult (if you were to go the technical route of Tommasini and Lucato), or it may be fairly easy; I don't know the prognosis as I'm not acquainted with what you have already done. But if you want to honor your musicians with libraries that truly can be considered extensions of their own expressive abilities, then you have a bit further to go. At least in the case of your solo woodwinds or brass, your pricing and PR have leaped out of the starting gates quite a bit ahead of your technical prowess as VI library creators.

I do apologize for the harsh words: "fraud" is over-the-top, and it's not my intention to convict you and sentence you here or anywhere. After all, I want the same thing you do. I just find it extremely frustrating to see yet another library go up with the same flaws as all those that have come before it, while the PR and pricing get even more aggressive and set the wrong tone for others who may follow in your footsteps. But maybe I was hasty to be so critical without considering the total picture of your including the musicians in the bargain. And I must admit -- your percussion is really fine. Those things that simply depend on the sample itself are tremendously well-done. Where you come up short is in the stuff that has got to go through one more musician's hands and breath before it's committed to the recording. In other words, the stuff that is interpreted with expression by the MIDI artist; the composer or orchestrator. That would include solo woodwinds -- dear to my heart as a woodwind performer, and solo brass.

Thank you for coming here and standing up for what you believe in. I admire you for that. I hope that the result is that you will take another look at how you have created those expressive sounds and be sure that they give full control to the MIDI performer. Maybe in a future release. But if you're going to post demos like the Debussy, you've got to be willing to take the heat for it. If that's due to the limitations of the library, you've got a problem. If it's just the inexperience of the player, then you still have a problem, but one that's possibly fixable. But let's face it: the simplest of woodwinds has been the nemesis of many a woodwind VI library.

As for the pricing and PR, and the exclusivity of the elite and tiny group for whom this is targeted; well, that's your business. I have a right to be disappointed in the whole arrangement. Herb Tucmandl somehow hires very capable musicians and yet makes his outstanding product available to a broader group. Would that you could, too. Maybe that's what Albion is all about, eh?

Shooshie

[dcoscina]

Paul has posted a detailed breakdown of articulations on VI Index for those interested in ALBION. And perhaps I should take a moment and remind folks that this thread subject is their $299GBP library, not their other libraries. Yes, no demos means people will discuss what is on their website such as the Bespoke libs, but I know pros that do use their sounds and they are very happy with them.

Based on Paul's informal demos and the detailed patch list, I pulled the trigger and pre-ordered. I have Symphobia 1 & 2 but feel like Spitfire adds a different dimension of detail and intimacy in sound that would compliment Project SAM stuff, and VSL both of which I own a ton of. $500 is much less than Symphobia and there's a lot more variety in legato sections both 8ve and unison.

As for some other comments, gee, again, I'm really a little surprised at the type of adjectives that are launched at Spitfire. I always found this forum one of the most evolved, considerate climates on the entire Web. People here definitely don't get down and dirty anywhere near as much as on other forums...so I'm a little surprised...

EDIT- I was thinking of also posting a thread on CineSamples' CineBrass but I think I'll just direct people to VI INdex instead....I own that one too and as a brass player myself, it's awesome.

[Shooshie]

Sorry to disappoint. The function of VI's just happens to be a sore point on which I'm pretty much unrelenting. Very few have gotten it right. I'd just like to know if Spitfire DID get it right. It could have just been bad playing.

As for my mention that they were using "something like fraudulent advertising," I do apologize. A better word would have been "exaggeration." To charge so much for a woodwinds library and have it perform so poorly as is heard in the Debussy is just not something I can comprehend. I mean, it sounds like the thing is using an old-style ADSR envelope. Envelopes like that are very 1990's thinking. It's got to allow for continuous control that automatically switches layers as it gets more intense, with imperceptible crossfade. When I hear the old-school sample techniques applied to today's woodwind and brass VI's, I just cringe. Typically, VI developers put a lot of time and control into their strings, but little into their flutes and oboes. Big mistake.

But I'm waiting to hear back from Paul. I'm hoping he'll tell me it was just the player in that performance. I'd love to see a new VI that does it right.

Shooshie

[dcoscina]

Sooshie, I really value your opinion and perspective on things, don't get me wrong. And I respect how you couch things which is why I was a little surprised at the tenor of your posts on this particular occasion.

You've helped me out a lot on DP and I feel I'm really effective as using it thanks to you and others on this forum. It's an invaluable resource and I like the people who populate this place quite a lot.

[synergy543]

*** DELETED BY ADMIN FOR USE OF LITIGIOUS IMPLICATIONS ***

The Spitfire Percussion and Harp libraries offered so far have been nothing less than astonishing and I look forward to hearing more of what Albion has to offer too.

*** DELETED BY ADMIN FOR GODWIN'S LAW VIOLATION ***

[malditoyanki]

I had a feeling someone at Spitfire was gonna happen across this thread. Bottom line, the libraries they offer to us, the great unwashed, sound pretty good to me. I am enjoying the percussion a great deal.

Side bar: multiple high-quality mic position are absolutely required these days I just discovered. Spitfire really delivers on that one.

They claim to want "living libraries" that they add to over time. So far they seem to have done that (still no triangles in the perc library though )

I picked up Albion and could give a rat's ass what tape they recorded to or whatever. If it's on par with the perc I'll be pretty stoked.

P.S. I was kinda serious about the sleigh bells in my quick review...they're awesome