Upcoming library from Spitfire Audio "Albion"

[Ned Bouhalassa]

I don't post here often, but man, what is going on with this forum? This thread is so childish, it's not funny. I thought DP was a professional's choice? Where's the professionalism in this thread? Some of you are acting like kids who profess that the moon is made of cheese because... well... it IS!

What's so hard to understand about there existing some more exclusive sample libraries? It's not like we're talking about a million-dollar, tiny piece of rock to offer your wife. Many people worked very hard, and they want to keep it small so the players and the resulting material are not found/heard everywhere. It's their right, and in the meantime, those of us who can't afford the expensive set can still benefit greatly from the devs' experience, sound, etc, in their other libraries.

And please stop comparing a sketch pad (GPO) with professional sample libraries. Or keep drinking the kool-aid, and watch soundtrack pros leave this forum in droves.

[James Steele]

I don't post here often, but man, what is going on with this forum? This thread is so childish, it's not funny. I thought DP was a professional's choice? Where's the professionalism in this thread? Some of you are acting like kids who profess that the moon is made of cheese because... well... it IS

You're right... four posts in six years... yep that's not often. Actually really two posts asking for help a problem using MOTU hardware with Logic, one follow up related to that, and then this post.

What's going on in this forum is people are expressing their opinion about this library. You can express yours as well. It's not childish to do so. What has been childish is the message I had to delete earlier where people giving their opinion about the library are accused of "spewing hate" and then invoking Nazi Germany???? Excuse me???

...Or keep drinking the kool-aid, and watch soundtrack pros leave this forum in droves.

What Kool-Aid, Ned? Just because someone has a differing opinion on the price point of a library or the quality one receives for their money? As I said, if someone wants to give their blunt opinion they are free to do so. People rip into DP all the time on this forum... brutally. People voice their opinion about a sample library and it's "unprofessional?" Since this is your fourth post in six years, I have to wonder if you have a connection to the developer here?

As for your dire warning about "soundtrack pros" leaving this forum, we are chock full of them here and I'm not worried about that. In fact if these sound track pros are members like you who I assume have been reading this board since 2005 but have posted four times, I don't mind people like you leaving as users who actually post and contribute to this board and help others instead of passively take are worth much more to any online community. You've only come here when you needed help with Logic and then this time to gripe about the board. I'm supposed to be grateful for your patronage? Ummm... okay...

[Shooshie]

I don't post here often, but man, what is going on with this forum? This thread is so childish, it's not funny. I thought DP was a professional's choice? Where's the professionalism in this thread? Some of you are acting like kids who profess that the moon is made of cheese because... well... it IS!

What's so hard to understand about there existing some more exclusive sample libraries? It's not like we're talking about a million-dollar, tiny piece of rock to offer your wife. Many people worked very hard, and they want to keep it small so the players and the resulting material are not found/heard everywhere. It's their right, and in the meantime, those of us who can't afford the expensive set can still benefit greatly from the devs' experience, sound, etc, in their other libraries.

And please stop comparing a sketch pad (GPO) with professional sample libraries. Or keep drinking the kool-aid, and watch soundtrack pros leave this forum in droves.

Ned, there is no loss of professionalism in criticizing a problem in something that's supposed to be the best of the best. When you immediately see a huge crack in the wall of this façade, it makes you wonder just what else might be a problem. Words don't impress me; their website has a lot of nice words, but their demos simply revealed to me the very problem I have crusaded VI developers to fix. How am I supposed to be thrilled about this? How do I hold my tongue when this problem, if it is indeed a part of this library (Paul has not confirmed whether it was the player or the library which caused this), would completely kill its usefulness for woodwinds and brass? If it carries over into the strings, it would make solo strings less than great.

The point of the comparison with "the sketch pad" or Garritan Personal Orchestra was in no way to say that the quality of the samples was the same. It was to show that at least one person (Dan Kury) gets professional results from GPO in spite of its "sketch pad" level or price point. There are some relatively simple things you can do with a VI library in its development that make possible immensely more expressive tracks later in the hands of a real pro MIDI artist. And if you don't do those things, the best artists will have trouble getting great lines out of it. They'll do it in spite of those difficulties, but it's a lot more work, and the results will not be the same.

So, all I'm saying is first of all "is this the nature of this VI library?" and secondly, if it is, why doesn't Paul fix it? To be specific, listen to the Debussy demo (Prelude - L'Après-MIDI d'une faune) and hear the flute attacks. You may think it's splitting hairs; I think it's the difference between a half-assed library and a pro library. Which is it? I await Paul's explanation. Is the flute tracking an ASDR envelope? Can it do a simple crescendo and play the line as it was intended? Is the bellows effect coming from the player's inexperience or is it the limitation of the library? Will the flute sound cross-fade between layers as it crescendos?

Simple questions to answer. I've heard nothing from Paul on it yet. Of course, the bespoke libary affects me none to begin with since I'm neither invited to be a part of it, nor could I afford it. But what about Albion? Is it made this way? If it's using ASDR envelopes for the samples of woodwinds, then I'm sorry but it sucks. All sample libraries based on that concept are now obsolete and therefore suck. A professional library allows for infinite variations on every attack, release, and sustain. The point is to put the instrument into the hands of the MIDI performer.

So who is the professional? Get off your donkey Ned. These are easy questions to answer, and if it turns out that these libraries do these things, then Paul owes it to his subscribers to make them right. They've paid for the best. Give them the best.

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

One more thing: the reason I am taking the time to participate in this debate is that if the Spitfire Bespoke library gets a reputation of being "the best," others will consider it the one to beat. They will do what Spitfire did. If they hear the woodwinds working in a certain way, they'll do it the same way. After all, it's the best, right?

So yes, this DOES affect me directly. I've worked 25 years to overcome the crap we MIDI performers have had to deal with for sounds. I'm in no mood to let "the best" set us back a decade.

The test is simple: either it allows a performer using a MIDI Wind Controller such as the EWI or the Yamaha WX5 to enter with an attack of BC=1, and to crescendo gradually or suddenly, as the player wishes and the music requires, to any value up to 127. As the sound increases, the layers should crossfade to the upper layers with more intensity, seamlessly. Then the performer can release with a tongued stop (sudden release), or fade to zero, swelling the vibrato or making it spin or stretching it to straight tone -- all as the player desires.

Either it can do that or it cannot. If it can, then it may well be the best library out there. If ti cannot, then it certainly is not even in the league with the best. What is the answer?

Shooshie
PS: if it turns out that the demo's suckiness was a player's inexperience with the Debussy, which no professional flutist would play that way -- none -- and if it turns out that the library indeed can do anything the performer asks it to, then I will amend all my posts to refer readers to the one which bears the final answer. This will prevent it from permanently besmirching the library in the search engines. Now, what could be more fair than that? At this point I only want the answer. Those who think I've cast hate upon this poor company must in turn be poor readers.

Waiting for the other shoe...

[dcoscina]

Shooshie, did you happen to hear the Prokofiev bit? What did you think of that? I'm a huge Prokofiev fan and it sounds on the money to my ears.

[Shooshie]

Shooshie, did you happen to hear the Prokofiev bit? What did you think of that? I'm a huge Prokofiev fan and it sounds on the money to my ears.

I found the attacks in the Prokofiev flute excerpt from Peter & the Wolf to be OK. It sounded a little sequenced, but that's understandable; it was. That particular excerpt sounds good on most decent flute samples. It just requires clear, un-nuanced attacks that reach full volume in a few milliseconds. Good libraries like VSL, WIVI, or even "sketch pads" like GPO can easily handle this excerpt and sound reasonably like an actual flute recording. VSL's better flute samples can nail this part. They're excellent. It's the slow and expressive things like the Debussy that give us trouble with some flute libraries, especially if the interface tries to be too intelligent.

Shooshie

[Andy B]

Hi Guys,

I wouldn't get too worked up about the demos up on our site for the bespoke library. They're all marked either test or wip (work in progress) and are all a bit old now, but we were having fun programming and thought it would be nice to show the direction we were heading in. As the website suggests, Spitfire is a living library and we're a small team working literally every day to improve our offering, which explains why any demos posted are going to age quite quickly. Will we ever be able to deliver every possible nuance from every possible orchestral instrument? Probably not. Will we get close? I hope so, for my own sake as much as others - I'm also, like Paul, a working composer who relies heavily on samples to realise their music.

Seeing as Claude seems to be causing particular headaches, I thought I'd play that one out again using the latest version of the patch:

http://spitfire-webassets.s3.amazonaws. ... %20REV.mp3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm afraid I've to go as I'm still working on Albion. Here's a demo of the basic sustains (what we call Longs). It also features a guest appearance from the Spitfire harp. This is the sound out of the box. No reverb or EQ added:

http://spitfire-webassets.s3.amazonaws. ... gsDemo.mp3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hope you like the sound of the library. Right, back to Albion - all of this tape cutting is driving me nuts.

Andy.

[BKK-OZ]

I don't post here often, but man, what is going on with this forum? This thread is so childish...

Four posts in six years, and you pick this one to comment on?
How about a little disclosure here - do you have any interests that might be aligned to this topic?

[Dan Worley]

...Here's a demo of the basic sustains (what we call Longs). It also features a guest appearance from the Spitfire harp. This is the sound out of the box. No reverb or EQ added:

http://spitfire-webassets.s3.amazonaws. ... gsDemo.mp3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That is extremely pleasing to my ears.

c-ya,

Dan Worley

[Shooshie]

Hi Guys,

I wouldn't get too worked up about the demos up on our site for the bespoke library. They're all marked either test or wip (work in progress) and are all a bit old now, but we were having fun programming and thought it would be nice to show the direction we were heading in. As the website suggests, Spitfire is a living library and we're a small team working literally every day to improve our offering, which explains why any demos posted are going to age quite quickly. Will we ever be able to deliver every possible nuance from every possible orchestral instrument? Probably not. Will we get close? I hope so, for my own sake as much as others - I'm also, like Paul, a working composer who relies heavily on samples to realise their music.

Seeing as Claude seems to be causing particular headaches, I thought I'd play that one out again using the latest version of the patch:

http://spitfire-webassets.s3.amazonaws. ... %20REV.mp3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm afraid I've to go as I'm still working on Albion. Here's a demo of the basic sustains (what we call Longs). It also features a guest appearance from the Spitfire harp. This is the sound out of the box. No reverb or EQ added:

http://spitfire-webassets.s3.amazonaws. ... gsDemo.mp3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hope you like the sound of the library. Right, back to Albion - all of this tape cutting is driving me nuts.

Andy.

Thank you, Andy. I've enjoyed your MIDI/VI work for a number of years, and I know you have what it takes to create first-rate performances of orchestral works. This performance of the Debussy is marginally better than the last one, but I hear some of the same things that I was talking about before: the notes are not truly connected one to the other -- esp. the chromatic downward cascades -- and they each swell just a bit.

Ok, I know you may be thinking that Shooshie must be a pedantic flute teacher or something. Yes, I'm a flutist (2nd to my primary instrument, sax), and I've played in a number of orchestras, but really, this isn't about my preferences. Listen to a dozen recordings of this by the best of the best to the average orchestras, and you'll hear them all play it pretty much the same way: their notes almost slide into each other, making a beautifully connected whole of the line, more than the sum of its parts. What applies here affects almost every expressive woodwind solo from Bach's Brandenburg #1 to Philip Glass's Anima Mundi and beyond. Same principles. This is why it concerns me. Prove the concept on this excerpt, and you've proven your library. With all due respect to your talent and ability -- which I greatly admire -- you haven't proven that yet.

Would it be helpful if I recorded this on a few VI's for comparison? Or do you already know what I'm talking about? I'm reasonably sure that I can more closely match the standard practice on this excerpt using VSL, Wallander, or possibly even Miroslav or GPO. The latter is not one of my favorite flute samples, as it has some noise programmed into it which sounds incongruous with the performance in most cases, but I think the notes will still connect into a line.

I wish you luck with the library(s). The more good ones out there, the better for all of us, but this is a very serious issue. If the library is the problem -- and so far there is nothing to show that it's not the problem, since I know of your own abilities -- perhaps this little exchange might form the basis for improving it and making it seriously a great performing medium for woodwinds. PM me if you'd like to discuss it privately.

Shooshie

[spitfire]

Hi Shooshie,

Yes - please do post your versions of the Debussy with VSL, Wallander and GPO. I'd be very interested to hear what you are hearing and I think this comparison could be enlightening.

Thanks!

Paul

[Shooshie]

Ok, I'll see what I can do today; tomorrow at the latest.

Shooshie

[David Polich]

I think it's very gentlemanly of Andy B to reply personally on this thread.
Andy, if you're reading this, I apologize for the "don't know what time it is" comment. I was over-reacting to the "recorded to tape" claim. Personally
I'm not interested in anything recorded to tape, I have always hated tape
as a recording medium, even back in the day when it was the only medium.
Things simply don't sound the same coming back as they do going in. I guess
I question why you recorded everything to tape in the first place, but I
suppose you have your reasons.

The bespoke libraries are certainly way way beyond my budget. I might at
some point have some budget for the "inexpensive" version. I do wish you
the best with sales of your product. I know from firsthand experience
that you don't get wealthy from the sales of sound libraries, in general.

[spitfire]

David,

We record everything at 96k through Prism converters (and of course via the superb custom Neve preamps at Air).

We simply preferred the sound for Ensemble recording of the 'via Tape' route. (We obviously had two identical paths running for all the sessions in case we changed our mind, and for backup)

While its difficult to characterise sound, subjectively I would say the sound of the Tape route is warmer, rounder in the lower frequencies and less harsh in the high end.

Of course these are subtle differences as long as you are using a well set up machine running Dolby SR and with decent tape stock (very hard to find now - our brand new stock was actually manufactured 7 years ago).

But then the subtle differences end up making a better sound in the long run. I know this because I have personally hand edited approximately 110,000 samples over the last four years of creating the Spitfire bespoke and commercial libraries.

For us I would say that the sound is the most important factor, which is why we selected Air as the room we wished to record in. I would also say that far too often sample developers neglect the room sound when creating libraries, bearing in mind acoustic research and white papers concerning what the soundfield is doing at the listening point for any recording, whether it be a vocal overdub in a booth or a full string section in a hall.

But of course everyone has their own perspective on this, its highly subjective, and we found that we had a common ground with a group of likeminded individuals who are all exceptionally talented composers and (many of them also) technologists, and who are also commercially very successful.

Thats all that it comes down to really, we think that the way we do things sounds great, and then of course its down to the taste and preference of the potential purchaser to decide if they agree.

Hope that clarifies the whole 'Tape' thing! (I should also note that what works well for ensemble sample recording does not necessarily work well for individual instruments.)

Best,

Paul

[corbo-billy]

Hope that clarifies the whole 'Tape' thing! (I should also note that what works well for ensemble sample recording does not necessarily work well for individual instruments.)

This is obvious because if you then recorded and mixed several sources (tape sources), there may be conflict: I advance it in any amateur_