Abbey Road Orchestra - Violins 1 announced

[Muziksculp]

[Muziksculp]

[Guy Rowland]

Well TSB really is a tough crowd these days - sounded great to me. I liked the tone, the legatos sound smooth and looks very playable.It must have been a trick of my mind, but when he played the separate runs patch it sounded better than in the performance legato which should I think be playing the same thing - they sounded really good. The three different attacks all sound great, and look a cinch to use.

The negatives. I do like the sound, but it is familiar so doesn't give the library a real USP tonally. Then - a stuck record I know - but no glissandi. AGAIN. Still LASS has the field all to itself, in our third decade since it was released, and I'd love a reaaaaaly slow glissando option but nada.

Then there's the split between core and professional which, as usual, is frustrating. The adaptive legatos are only in Pro, and together with the attacks they feel like the shining beacon in the library. I'd take one mic position over the 16, but missing out on those is a cut too far.

Overall - a pretty easy pass for me, and the core/pro split, together with a feeling that there's not so much that is unique means it's likely to be a permanent pass.

The intro offer is £279 for Pro, £159 for Core - https://www.spitfireaudio.com/abbey-roa ... st-violins

[artinro]

Personally, I don’t hear anything in the legatos that I can’t do as well or better already (including with previous SF libs). Maybe it’s me. Room and shorts sound very good.

[Linos]

Tough crowd indeed. I am pleasantly surprised by the sound. Simon Rhodes seems to have done amazing work. The Mix 1 is too wet for me, and that's why I was not wowed by the Paul Thomson teaser. Mix 2 is more to my tastes. And with the microphone options - all of which sounding pristine - I am sure you get a lot of flexibility. Obviously with the restriction that they have captured a large strings section. Chamber Strings these ain't. With the close mics alone, maybe you can even approximate the sound of Piet's Appollon Musagète example.



The vibrato crossfades sound smooth. Great to get that control over vibrato. Also I couldn't hear any bumps in the velocity crossfades. 5 dynamic layers on the sustains, and 3 on the legato transitions, seems to be a sweet spot. The various legato transitions is a really nice bonus too.

On the downside, I would have liked to have more variations of short notes. Various lengths of détaché (not the bow change legato they label as détaché), and portato, would have been very useful. Instead, Spitfire Audio has kept to their usual set of articulations, with simply adding more varieties of legato.

Still, for large section symphonic strings, this might be one of the best tools around.

[Luciano Storti]

Having watched the video, for me it's confirmed that this sounds pretty damn good. Seems consistent throughout with thoughtful, useful articulations and programming. And that room (with release setting!). I'm definitely impressed.

[IFM]

I'll have to watch the walkthough as I really was not impressed with the sound. Hell my Hollywood Strings still sound pretty damn good especially when you get it all going with the right verb, and I'm becoming more impressed with updated VSL. I have it in my cart but so far any fast passage sounded terrible...thought crowd of one.

EDIT: Just watched the walkthrough and to me that's where they sounded the best. No disrespect to the composers for the demos, but I don't think they do this justice.

[Tanuj Tiku]

I have just seen Blake's video and it sounds to me like the best Spitfire library in a long time (orchestral). It is only violins 1 but I will be getting it for sure. It may retire CSS and Berlin for me, especially once the other sections are released.

I actually think this is rather special. It seems to be very well programmed aside from the obvious fact that it sounds great due to Abbey Road/Simon. There is a clarity of sound and consistency across the board. The release knob for once actually does something very musical here. The shorts sound well managed in their lengths between the various types. Again, very well done.

Incredible sound, I am very impressed. This will be very useful!

PS: Spitfire seem to have really built on their experience and user feedback. Unlike libraries recorded at AIR, these have a lot of clarity and strong dynamics. Exciting!

[Muziksculp]

I have just seen Blake's video and it sounds to me like the best Spitfire library in a long time (orchestral). It is only violins 1 but I will be getting it for sure. It may retire CSS and Berlin for me, especially once the other sections are released.

I actually think this is rather special. It seems to be very well programmed aside from the obvious fact that it sounds great due to Abbey Road/Simon. There is a clarity of sound and consistency across the board. The release knob for once actually does something very musical here. The shorts sound well managed in their lengths between the various types. Again, very well done.

Incredible sound, I am very impressed. This will be very useful!

PS: Spitfire seem to have really built on their experience and user feedback. Unlike libraries recorded at AIR, these have a lot of clarity and strong dynamics. Exciting!

Hi @Tanju Tiku,

I agree, and this is very much how I feel about this new Library. These vlns 1, in AR1 sound awesome to my ears. So, I did go ahead, and Pre-Purchase the Pro version today.

Oh, I also loved the way the 'Mids' mic option sounded. Very nice timbre, and acoustics. I don't think they had that mid option in their other libraries.

I'm also super excited about the next AR1Orch. strings module they will release, The Celli !

Cheers,
Muziksculp

[NoamL]

I'm in for Pro, and agree with everything Linos and Tanuj wrote. All the core aspects a library needs to do well... this does well. It's pleasant to see a release without some kind of obvious corner cut.

[Guy Rowland]

I haven't seen the library sizes listed anywhere. I'd guess Pro is circa 200gb, so all five string sections (and who knows if they start adding effects) is going to be pushing 1TB. Then add the rest of the orchestra for 4-6TB.

I have a few hills I will die on, and disregard for library size is but one of them. On the one hand, 6TB isn't that big a deal - I could buy NVMes that would fit this comfortably for £300-£400 today. But when it comes to mobile rigs, it's completely different. Size matters.

And the very very very silly thing is that this is on Spitfire's own player, built from the ground up, with no way to just install what you need like almost every other proprietary player. I miiiight be swayed by Pro if I could just install 1 mic mix on the Macbook. But it's not gonna happen. And that stops my buy-in to the entire Abbey Road ecosystem. With strong competition from other devs and a lack of a real sonic USP, it's just easier to go elsewhere.

In the end, this is just another string library. It sounds very nice, it looks like it plays very well and hopefully the QC will atone for their past sins. So no question this will be a quality and very useful product. But from a pure results perspective, there's nothing that can't be done with stuff already out there which is also part of a mature ecosystem. By contrast it will likely be years until we have the whole Abbey Road set, able to be mixed together as a cohesive whole.

[Daryl]

I tend to steer clear of these discussions these days, but whilst I don't hear anything wrong with these violins, there is nothing particularly different about them either, and, having conducted at Abbey Road many times, they sound nothing like a real violin section playing there.

So I would say, if you like the sound, then use them, but don't be fooled by the "Abbey Road" label. It's just another violin library.

[Guy Rowland]

Out of interest Daryl, I'm curious as to why you think it sounds nothing like the real thing? After all it's real violins recorded in the real Abbey Road. Besides the obvious that pertains to any sample library, what gets lost in translation here?

[mcalis]

Not blown away but not disappointed either. It's exactly what I was expecting from Spitfire: nice shorts, middle-of-the-road legato, great room, all the standard Spitfire articulations and the standard marketing hype. This company's playbook should be well-known at this point and so should all their strengths and weaknesses.

For once I'm quite happy to have a slew of microphone options. From what I heard, they do each really sound distinctly different. In combination with the release control I suspect there is a better sound hiding in the samples, one that neither the demos nor the walkthroughs have really shown (but Blakus' video does briefly).

To me, the main selling point on the Abbey Road series is the room. Now if Darryl says that it sounds different from the real thing, I'll believe him, but that is almost beside the point. Regardless of whether they called this Abbey Road or My Nephew's Bathroom, a great sounding room is a great sounding room.

For vibe I'll go to Performance Samples, for consistency to Cinematic Studios. As a non-professional hobbyist composer who just likes to mess around with samples, I approached the Abbey Road series from the start as a "room layer". Not how it's marketed of course, but I never came into any of the Abbey Road stuff expecting to use any of it as-is and that's saved me a lot of potential disappointment. Some patches can actually be used as-is (like the glock in AR1 or the trumpet staccatissimos) but I go into every new AR release assuming the opposite. AR will provide the depth of sound while something like Performance Samples or CSS can deliver the emotion and more of the intricate detail.

What I am somewhat surprised to see is the lack of Spitfire's standard extended articulations like Sul Ponticello. I wonder if there will be future expansions.

The other thing I'm dreading looking at the articulation set, is that they'll recreate all the inconsistencies between articulations across instruments that they've done for all of their big lines so far. I am fully expecting they're going to skimp on woodwinds again, or we'll have tenutos there that we don't have in the strings. At least the volume consistency between articulations seems to be better here than usual...

Anyway, I put in the pre-order because this precisely met my expectations and the discount it offered was good enough to pull the trigger.

Not the 2nd coming of Christ, but I really wasn't expecting it to be anyway.

[Karma]

I have just seen Blake's video and it sounds to me like the best Spitfire library in a long time (orchestral). It is only violins 1 but I will be getting it for sure. It may retire CSS and Berlin for me, especially once the other sections are released.

I actually think this is rather special. It seems to be very well programmed aside from the obvious fact that it sounds great due to Abbey Road/Simon. There is a clarity of sound and consistency across the board. The release knob for once actually does something very musical here. The shorts sound well managed in their lengths between the various types. Again, very well done.

Incredible sound, I am very impressed. This will be very useful!

PS: Spitfire seem to have really built on their experience and user feedback. Unlike libraries recorded at AIR, these have a lot of clarity and strong dynamics. Exciting!

Thank you Tanuj!

Honestly, this library is the culmination of years of R&D for me and a couple others in the team. Appassionata was a big step up for us (as well as some of the AR Selections), but this library in particular took everything learned from those (as well as many R&D sessions), and tried to address anything we felt we could improve on. It's an ongoing process, but as things stand I'm genuinely thrilled with how it's turned out.

Apart from anything, with the ARO line we're being meticulous with the QA, consistency across articulations, and how the whole thing "fits" together. Yes it is modular, but with the goal of being a high-end professional tool that just works. I think this is apparent from the way the 3 Percussion releases behave, and it will be the same for the Strings. No corners cut here, and certainly a real passion project. Yes, there are some things that we didn't grab - such as CS or Sul Pont, but this was a decision we made to focus on absolutely nailing the fundamentals. The rest will come.

I haven't seen the library sizes listed anywhere. I'd guess Pro is circa 200gb, so all five string sections (and who knows if they start adding effects) is going to be pushing 1TB. Then add the rest of the orchestra for 4-6TB.

Pro on my system is around 80GB!

I tend to steer clear of these discussions these days, but whilst I don't hear anything wrong with these violins, there is nothing particularly different about them either, and, having conducted at Abbey Road many times, they sound nothing like a real violin section playing there.

So I would say, if you like the sound, then use them, but don't be fooled by the "Abbey Road" label. It's just another violin library.

That's disappointing to hear! I can however tell you that this is exactly what it is, having been at the sessions myself, as well as working with the mix sessions. There's nothing going on here - what you're getting is the raw sound of 16 Violins at Abbey Road.

The other thing I'm dreading looking at the articulation set, is that they'll recreate all the inconsistencies between articulations across instruments that they've done for all of their big lines so far. I am fully expecting they're going to skimp on woodwinds again, or we'll have tenutos there that we don't have in the strings. At least the volume consistency between articulations seems to be better here than usual...

I can promise you this isn't the case. Everything is consistent and will continue to be - you're talking about recordings over a period from 2011-2015 mostly. Volume consistency and being "true" to the recordings is absolutely critical and I'm well aware of it.

I have a real feeling with this one that when it's released and people actually get their hands on the library, it'll be evident. Call it quiet confidence, given that it's the best library I've had the pleasure of using and working on.

[IFM]

Well I went ahead and got Pro. I also grabbed Metals which I missed before so shame on me if I want to keep this going at the lowest possible dollar amount.

[Guy Rowland]

Good to see you hear Karma, and good to hear it's a svelte 80gb!

Is there any chance the Spitfire player / downloader will ever allow installs of user-chosen mic positions?

[Karma]

Is there any chance the Spitfire player / downloader will ever allow installs of user-chosen mic positions?

It's certainly heavily requested, but I unfortunately cannot speak for the engineering/app team. If I had to take an educated guess I would say it'll almost certainly happen at some point. There is however the "mic delete" feature, which whilst not ideal in having to download everything in the first place, will simply result in that signal being "greyed" out in the plugin once removed. This is why the filenames of the samples include the signals:

image.png (6.28 KiB) Viewed 10781 times

[Guy Rowland]

There is however the "mic delete" feature, which whilst not ideal in having to download everything in the first place, will simply result in that signal being "greyed" out in the plugin once removed.

Oh hello... that might do it for me. Quite happy to download the lot then just keep the ones I need on each rig. Is it simply a case of 16 files and the user deletes the ones they don't need? Any ongoing issues with updates?

(sorry I realise this probably isn't your domain, but it really might make a big difference to a purchasing decision for many of us).

[Karma]

There is however the "mic delete" feature, which whilst not ideal in having to download everything in the first place, will simply result in that signal being "greyed" out in the plugin once removed.

Oh hello... that might do it for me. Quite happy to download the lot then just keep the ones I need on each rig. Is it simply a case of 16 files and the user deletes the ones they don't need? Any ongoing issues with updates?

(sorry I realise this probably isn't your domain, but it really might make a big difference to a purchasing decision for many of us).

That's okay - there's an article on it for HZ Strings here (which applies to all Spitfire plugin libraries):
https://spitfireaudio.zendesk.com/hc/en ... 5115752849

Unfortunately it's not just 16 files, it'd depend on the number of samples in the library - but a quick search/filter by the signal name and you can grab what you need and delete them. After that in the plugin it'd grey out like the Gallery is here:

image.png (161.92 KiB) Viewed 10757 times

As for updates, sample updates are less common (unless content is being added, etc), but in the case that does happen it'd download the updated files, so you'd just want to catch those ones and delete again for the specific signals. Like I say though, more uncommon that one!

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks Karma, that's invaluable info. It does seem a little risky:

NB: With HZ Strings, some mic positions for Legato are shared. It is recommend for each mic position you remove, you check the plugin is still functional to your requirements before emptying your trash/ recycling bin. Alternatively, back up the samples elsewhere.

Hopefully in the fullness of time Spitfire will have a built-in way to manage this stuff, but good to know it can be sorta done.

[Kohima]

If you're doing tv library work then you could get this to sound reasonable just like most libraries sound reasonable. The whole sections together will be interesting. There's way too much importance put on legato. Regarding sounding real; there isn't a sample string library out there that sounds like a real section or section group. You would need to have played in or recorded with a real orch to understand that. But real doesn't matter when you're doing tv library work. It just doesn't come into it for most people so you have to get the best out of what is available. Most people don't even do that. This sounds a bit plasticy out on it's own and it's not worth the money as it stands to me. Can do this with what is already out there.

[Daryl]

I tend to steer clear of these discussions these days, but whilst I don't hear anything wrong with these violins, there is nothing particularly different about them either, and, having conducted at Abbey Road many times, they sound nothing like a real violin section playing there.

So I would say, if you like the sound, then use them, but don't be fooled by the "Abbey Road" label. It's just another violin library.

That's disappointing to hear! I can however tell you that this is exactly what it is, having been at the sessions myself, as well as working with the mix sessions. There's nothing going on here - what you're getting is the raw sound of 16 Violins at Abbey Road.

I think you misunderstand, or maybe I was not clear. I'm not saying that the individual sounds don't sound like AR. I'm saying that nothing that anyone has played so far sounds any better than anything else on the market. Individual sounds are not that important, as long as they sound OK. The way that you phrase with them is, and so far it just sounds like more of the "usual" to me. Nothing special.

However, I digress, so I'll butt out.

[Guy Rowland]

Okay decision made for me - still a pass, but not necessarily a permanent one.

Gonna wait til all five are out and there's a bundle deal, and by which time they may even have sorted the player out to sort mic positions cleanly. 'Course by that time there'll be 10 other new string libraries in. And even if they all sound awful but one has slow playable glisses, I'll be buying that instead.

Until then I'll just have to somehow scrape by with LASS 3, Cinestrings core and pro, HW OPUS, Sable, Soaring Strings, The Symphobias, Albion ONE and Metropolis Ark 1. Feel my pain.

Will be listening to user reports with interest though, AR does look and sound lovely.

[Lawrence]

Guy, Your string list is interestingly close to mine. I don’t have the Symphobias except for Animator and I have Albion 1 but not One. I also have CS2 which I find useful to this day and BBCSO Core, which I don’t. The rest match up.

Oh, forgot Appassionata and the old EWQLSO. Probably forgot a few more too.