Spitfire Audio delivers Spitfire Studio Strings and it is all about control . . . and a great sounding sample set. In this first look, I take a look and listen to see what Spitfire Studio Strings has to offer right out of the box.
Demos and official videos: http://bit.ly/2x5dCBh

Spitfire Studio Strings is available from Spitfire Audio for $249.00:
http://bit.ly/2MWycNJ

 

who is @Don Bodin always with the Spitfire stuff

 

Taking nothing away from anyone that does a first look on anything new, it has become really noticeable that the reviews done by many are not by the players of said instruments. They seem to be done by Guitarists and Keyboardists primarily. IMHO - Yes it is important to go through the keyswitching via MIDI keyboard because that's where it is primarily triggered from, but what is missing is actually for example, a violinist, or a conductor or a french horn, or cor englais player saying: "It responds and sounds like the real thing".

While it will only ever be a sample library, only an actual real player of said sampled instrument(s) can truly vouch for: "It sounds like..."
As you were.

 

and let's face it, most of the reviews are shills for "in kind" benefits.. a free copy of said software, or maybe even hardware, or other compensation, so the reviews should mostly be regarded in the light of those bare facts...
If the guy says he bought it himself, tends to give a little more cred...

For me I usually put "forum" in my review searches, so you end up with an actual purchaser/user "joe shmo" much like myself/yourself who is willing to take a potshot or two at the shortcomings, because he took it out of his own hide to obtain said software/hardware... those thinly veiled (or not so ) , syrupy sweet, all but gushing reviews can get to be a bit nauseating after having seen scads of them...

I'm not necessarily opposed to some keyboardist demo'ing the library , when he has the dexterity to make a lib shine
and have seen some from just a recording engineer with very little keys chops.. and it was not much better
than an amateur presentation...

as always caveat emptor - let the buyer beware

 

you don't have to be an player of the instrument that is sampled to tell if it's realistic or not.

furthermore, it's obvious that a sampled instrument won't feel & sound the same, moreso if it's "hijacked" from its primary shape to be adapted to a keyboard.
(although the new libraries sound really good, iyam)

the only way would be for a player to use it with a midi controller, like there is for woodwinds, in order to tell

( yet I'm sure there's also midi violins, like there is midi accordions .. ) but maybe for the instrument to be realistic, the scripts would have to be changed, depending on the library.

these libs are primarily intended for composers, mainly in the movie industry for them to make realistic mockups, and TV scores.
most of them compose(d) on the piano anyway, they're at least good at 2 or 3 instruments...

now, if you compare it to guitar libraries, it gets even worse.
I can't imagine how much time they've spent to program the demos you hear for the guitar libs out there, because it's a pain in the *ss to use, even with a midi guitar.
most of the time, you'd be better advised to buy a cheap guitar (pawn shops are full of good ones) & take one year to learn the basics

 

+1

 

Telling whether or not it is realistic is not the point. Samples have been sounding realistic for decades.
Some samples played in demonstrations, a player just would not play their instrument that way.
Some are great and capture it and some do not.
It's the way something is played. Even Michael Brecker who used an EWI, chose to play a real horn every time. He never used the saxophone samples and I seriously doubt he ever would have if he was still alive. The EWI was designed to give single note wind players access to other sounds, it was never designed to replace their own horn.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 12, 2018

Oh man, this is so killin'. And Stern on guitar...is that Adam Nussbaum?

Thanks for sharing, I haven't seen this concert.

R.I.P. Mike!

 

yes it's Adam on drums. Yes I agree it is pretty fabulous. Michael Brecker set the bar for EWI's. His solo playing as well on it is pretty spectacular too. You can google more vids of him playing it on youtube.

 

Michael Brecker as well as Bob Mintzer have really presented/treated the EWI in the best possible way.

 

I dig. Don't Play This At Home was always a favorite of mine. The ewi blended here with Mark O'Conner's violin is a sweet sound.