Spitfire Albion V: Tundra

[Marius]

New instalment in the series, focused on the sound of a large orchestra playing quietly. Arvo Pärt's work is the stated inspiration.

Gorgeous announcement video too:

[Killiard]

The only thing disappointing was Christian's pronunciation of "Loch". He should really know better, being married to a Scot in all

[Guy Rowland]

All hyperbole and grandiose bluster aside, sounds a) like a great idea for a library and b) lovely.

[tack]

The philosophy of Albion V just gels with me. Christian's comment that (paraphrased) "the loveliest aspect of samples emerges just at the edge of silence" is something I've noticed too. My favorite textures from any sample library are Sable's flautando and Mural's super sul tasto.

[Muziksculp]

Hi,

TUNDRA is on my to-buy list. I'm sure it will be a very useful library to have.

Any info. on how much disc space TUNDRA will consume ?

Cheers,
Muziksculp

[Guy Rowland]

Hey there Anders! Are you sober yet? Would be lovely to get a bit more info on the evening and the product you lucky man :-)

[Killiard]

I was at an event tonight in London and got to have a go with Albion V and chat to Christian. It's very lovely. Very lovely indeed.

[Guy Rowland]

Do tell more!

I'm assuming they'll do a proper walkthrough before the promo price ends?

EDIT some new demos in a Soundcloud playlist:



EDIT 2 - not keen on every one of these from either library or composition perspectives, but Harnek's We Could Have Been (especially) is wonderful and makes me wants it my precious.

[Killiard]

I wasn't at the same event Anders, so no worries! I was at the Yellow Collective in Clerkenwell and all the Spitfire crew (minus Paul) were there. They had a little stand where you could put on some noise cancelling headphones and give it a blast. I played with it for about 15 mins. Lots of patches / articulations to choose from. There's even one called "Air", which I thought was a joke (I couldn't hear anything) until the rep noticed me and turned the volume up. It's even controllable with the mod wheel
It all sounds lovely though.

Like last year there was a free bar, so I was thoroughly intoxicated. Last year at the event NI was there and showed off their 88 key controller. I went on VI Control reporting my find, but nobody believed a drunk Scotsman at a free bar...

[TheUnfinished]

This is so up my street. I use the flautato patches from Loegria and Chamber Strings all the time, so a whole orchestra dedicated to that level of sound is a most beautiful prospect.

[Killiard]

Have you tried the labs Permafrost Strings they just put out. It's quite nice too.

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks for posting Anders, sounds terrific. I realise this is the most obvious thought in the world, but as well as the Scandi references, this reminds me of The Revenant sound too.

[Killiard]

It's going to take all my willpower to not order this right now...
Tundra is really up my street in terms of how I like my strings to sound.

[Guy Rowland]

I've had very little time to focus on this, but have now listened to most of the videos. All sounding really good - perhaps the Grid was a little disappointing as, for all the talk of gazillions of permutations, the examples shown all felt surprisingly similar tonally and in aesthetic, contrasting with the huge diversity of the Stephenson's Band for example (some lovely lovely stuff there). But to me that's a long way down the priority list anyway.

With the instruments being so quiet, I was curious from the outset as to noise reduction, but I've not noticed anything untoward in the demos. Which must mean that they've used it quite significantly but very well.

It's out now, right? Needless to say keen to hear any real world experiences.

[Killiard]

I can't figure out whether to get it or not. I want it, no denying that. I just can't decide whether to spend the cash. It's very unlikely that I'll have any gigs soon that I'll need it for (sadly), but at the same time it's the kind of sound that I really love, and it sounds like very inspiring stuff to me...help me...

[Guy Rowland]

Very similar position to you Jordan! I spend my working life telling people writing music for older kids is little different from writing for anyone else, but it's not entirely true - turns out Scandi Noir isn't that big on the CBBC channel...

[Killiard]

I'm trying to work out if I could use the Vral Grid from Tundra on the music for an audiobook I'm starting called King Flashypants and the Evil Emperor

They might not hire me again though.

[mickeyl]

The low UKP/EUR these days put me over the cliff, so I got it. And I love it!

[riffwraith]

Have it, like it.

With the instruments being so quiet, I was curious from the outset as to noise reduction, but I've not noticed anything untoward in the demos.

Heh. The sound is great, but that's on the players and Jake Jackson. However, AIR is not the place for a lib like this. And you certainly don't record this to tape. Not as a sample lib, anyway.

Many of the patches are not going to get used here, but not for the typical reasons. No - they wont be used due to the noise. Here is an ex of some low strings. It peaks @ -35 db.

http://www.jeffreyhayat.com/temp/vnorm.wav

That's with the Cubase Instr. ch and MF @ 0, the Kontakt vol. slider @ -6 (def.), and the MW on full. Now, we all know that this kind of stuff is supposed to be quiet. But it has to be audible. That doesn't mean that you boost it up to be as loud as the entire orchestra playing f, but, to some degree, it has to be audible. So for comparison, here is the same MIDI data, boosted 32db, and peaking @ just over -3 db

http://www.jeffreyhayat.com/temp/v32.wav

That's rough. Granted, that's a pretty sizeable boost; this is just for demonstration purposes. But IMHO, it can't sit @ unity either. That's not to say that all the patches are like that - but many of them are. Gonna have a hard time seeing where this stuff can fit, esp if I need to layer other quiet stuff on top, which has noise of it's own.

Thoughts?

[Guy Rowland]

Thoughts are - yuk. Now, I didn't hear anything like this in the walkthroughs - either I wasn't paying attention (quite possible) or they didn't major on the quietest stuff. IMO you can noise reduce this far more without significant undesirable artefacts - I think it is important they do this on ppppp. If you can send me a clean noise profile of the air room with all that hiss (did they do room tone anywhere?), I can mock something up in RX (Adaptive Mode isn't as good results, and I had to use that on your example). But of course really that's something for Spitfire to do, and at sample level, to avoid those particularly ugly bumps when changing note.

[Guy Rowland]

Ah ha, I see the Spitfire folks are using the ol' "natural dynamic range and meant to be played at the edge of silence" defence over at VI-C. Not a very convincing argument to me. The literal dynamic range of an orchestra - from the very quietest perceptible sound to the loudest tutti FFFF - is I'd guess around 80db. That's not a useable dynamic from a music making perspective, so it has to be translated to something workable. It's a trick I use daily of course with my sound hat on - if I need to boost dialogue recorded on location from a quiet speaker by, say, 10db relative to everyone else, if the noise is an issue I'll be noise reducing that gain-increased stuff by about 10db accordingly, creating the illusion of a smooth continuous background and consistent level of voices.

This is what I (somewhat foolishly) assumed Spitfire must be doing. You have a base level noise floor that with a few instruments going at a healthy level is reasonable. Then as you sample lower and lower dynamics, progressively you ramp in the noise reduction. The final cumulative effect of it all should be a considerably compressed dynamic range from ppp-fff - say about 40db, rather than the real world ppppp-ffffff, more like 80db. And - wowzers - the ability to actually hear these lovely super-quiet sounds you're sampling.

From the clips you posted, Riff, there's nothing particularly difficult about the environment from an NR perspective. It's the easiest thing in the world to have the Air studios noise profile (+preamps) captured in RX5. I'd assume they do it routinely, in fact - their response might well be "ha, you should listen to the files BEFORE we noise reduce them". If so, they're being far too conservative with the process imo.

[Killiard]

Eeeeck! That is damn noisy. I was just hoping for more justification for buying it

I did a VERY quick noise reduction test just to see how it would fair with RX.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mbfhutslhhri8 ... R.wav?dl=0

Granted I've gone a little too far with it (I should be getting on with work really) and I there are artefacts, it seems like it'll come out. Seems like SF could have just done some gently NR to remove the real heavy noise. You can hear it popping in as the note changes too.

I'm sure Spitfire would say it all adds to it though

[Killiard]

Ended up buying it. Strings are lovely. Lots of other nice bits and pieces. The Stephenson steam band stuff is quite lovely too.

Found a corker of a noise in the Brass Low FX patch. Someone clearing their throat on C2 and B1...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wmkxbtx4caxrr ... r.wav?dl=0

[Erik]

Mr Henson justification is rather "don't use the gain button on your DAW but layer sounds to achieve higher dynamics" which makes sense.
He said he'll work a tuto to show how to layer properly with Tundra.

[Guy Rowland]

Mr Henson justification is rather "don't use the gain button on your DAW but layer sounds to achieve higher dynamics" which makes sense.
He said he'll work a tuto to show how to layer properly with Tundra.

Yessssss.... I made a comment on that at the bottom of the previous page. Not entirely convinced, but I think its all in perspective - it's likely a relatively small part of the library at the really extreme end.