Black Friday / Christmas / etc tips

[soundbylaura]

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[Guy Rowland]

Spitfire now have their winter sale on, some good value bundles if it floats your boat.

[Linos]

Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds at €239 is interesting. Are they still useful today? I like the timbres that I hear in the demos. Are they a worthwile addition already owning VSL VI Woodwinds, BBCSO Pro, and Cinematic Woodwinds?

[soundbylaura]

Get an extra $50.00 off all deals
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Depending on your location.

[bbunker]

Linos - that's a tough question. Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds is a darn fine library, and it can be a pleasure to work with. Personally, I find it to be at the same level as BBCSO. It's wetter by nature, sounds a bit more artificial than BBCSO, but it's especially good if you're using it within 'orchestral textures' - i.e., not as exposed soloists, but as the flutes or clarinets in a line with the violins doubled by woodwinds. I find it to be one of the absolute best libraries for that purpose, although Cinematic Studio Woodwinds is not too far off, if you have it set up reasonably well, since it's designed around being able to drag and drop material from one section to another.

What I would say about SSW is that in ensemble passages, it captures more of the 'spirit' of an ensemble playing together more than just about any other library. Especially with the outriggers and close mics put to use, it blends and gels very well into an orchestral sound. It isn't the least artificial-sounding of the libraries out there, but it always seems artificial when it does so in a pleasant sort of way, where you know that something clearly isn't a real instrument, but isn't offensive about it, if that makes sense. Also, the shorts, especially of the shortest note lengths, are far more consistent than they are in BBCSO. Where you'll get quite a bit of tempo warbling in repeated shorts in BBCSO that itself feels artificial, SSW (and its siblings) tend to nail the 'looseness of a real orchestra' thing that Spitfire often tries to go for.

The real question is whether they'd be useful for you with what you have, since the VI winds are great as soloists, and the CSW set are great for that purpose, or coupled with CSS or CSB. I guess I'd say that if you're looking for ensemble-glue winds that the BBCSO doesn't quite get perfect, that SSW might be right up your street, and you'll be pleasantly surprised by how broadly useful they can be beyond that. The biggest caveat is that they're never DRY DRY, as even in the close mics there's the suggestion of room.

Sorry to wax poetically on the subject - the old Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra has a special place for me, because even after periods spent with BBCSO, Cinematic Studio Series, Berlin (Berklee and the full Berlin), and the EW HW Orchestra, going back to the Spitfire Symphonic instantly captures more of the 'feeling' of an orchestra than just about anything else, and the Winds especially are an important part of that with their ensemble spirit. Hard to describe!

[Linos]

Thank you bbunker! It actually makes a lot of sense and I think I know what you mean. I am using BBCSO Woodwinds in that way currently - more like a color or an ambience, rather than as soloists. Usually that works pretty well for me. SSW would probably fulfill a similar role for me. I have to think about whether that's worth the €239 for me.

[Guy Rowland]

I saw a lot of enthusiasm for Orchestral Tools' Salu, an Eastern European folk range of instruments and voices. I went for the string quartet - 30 euros inc vat with the Christmas discount 2023-holiday25.

24 articulations for that, including two legatos. But it was the more esoteric articulations that caught my ear - some really gorgeous low dynamic stuff, scatchy, earthy textures like irregular repetitions, crescendos, slow accents and flybys. The low dynamic tremolos are fabulous. Brilliant for scoring, partner with Raum.