They had a keynote livestream earlier today:

Intro price for 749$, available 10/24
https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/bbc-symphony-orchestra/

Those demos sound incredible.

 

This is interesting, demos sound really nice.
Disappointed to see that it's not for Kontakt. I really dislike their plugin. I just hate this "modern" design of wasted empty space everywhere, so annoying to constantly switch between tabs to find the settings that you need. And the worst part is that there is enough space to put almost all settings on 1 page. (also fuck the big knob that was put there just for sake of being there, because all coll kids have big knows, so we also must have one)
But enough about that, let's talk about the scary part. I haven't watched the video, maybe they stated it there, but on their site I cannot find information about the size of this thing, besides that there're over 1 million samples (I also hate then people do that. Over 1 mil? How much is that? 1 million and 1 sample? 1 million and 2? Just tell us the god damn number!). Also the fact that they offer the library on 1TB SSD makes me scared, which means it's HUGE, it's definitely over 500 gigs, probably around 750 I would assume. I understand that this is deeply sampled full orchestra library, but man, that size is still huge, definitely the biggest library I've ever seen.

 

It does sound nice, but very familiar, and your right, looks like the same crappy interface that's on their free Labs series. I'll have to agree. Crappy interface. And WTF ... possibly 1TB ...Naw I'm good. Any talented musician can still get the same compositional effect from a much smaller Orchestral library. I mean I thought the HZ piano was already bigger then needed. For some reason there are those who mistake quantity with quality. I've played some really large crappy libs, and then some really good small ones. But the bottom line (dollar), $999 standard for the lib, and $249 for an SSD. Again ...Naw, I'm good

 

According to their website, the library will be bigger than 500 gb:
They are starting to match Orchestral Tools and VSL...

 

I dont know anything about this, but just based on what I read here, this is something that could be a big deal. There is a big missing gap in the market for a full orchestral library with separate instruments at that kind of price range with the kind of sound quality that Spitfire is known for. I dont know of a library that has both a good sounding library, is priced at $750, and doesnt bundle sections together (violins and violas grouped, for example, such that you cant write separately for violin and viola with other "all in one" type libraries, like Metropolis, Inspire, etc). If this is what it sounds like it could be, this could be the goto starting library with which to start building a library collection from.

Now, if the size is because they recorded everything at 24 bit, that will make me sad, because, 24 bit is rather overrated. The memory usage tradeoff is just not worth it for the barely noticeable difference. My system is already taxed running 48 tracks of midi plus MIR Pro, plus compression and EQ, these 24 bit libraries just make no sense to me.

 

The library is 600GB, they said using their new compressed lossless format SFLAC it's down from 1.4TB.

The sound of Maida Vale is amazing from the short piece and they've basically added bleed mics, should be interesting. I love HZ Strings, so using this interface will be no problem for me personally. I'll admit I wasn't sure at first, but since using it for a few months I prefer it over Kontakt.

Having the BBC SO (in Maida Vale studio) in one plugin for $749 pre-order is just amazing. That's no ordinary orchestra, in a place that'll soon be gone.
BTW East West Hollywood Orchestra Diamond weighs in at 680GB. So nothing new here for a full orchestra.

 

This is crazy:

Mics & Mixes
SIGNALS

• Mono
• Close
• Tree
• Out
• Ambient
• Balcony
• Leader
• Stereo
• Mids
• Sides
• Close Wide Pan
• 5 Spill Mics

MIXES

• Mix 1 (Full)
• Mix 2 (Jake Jackson)
• Atmos (2 — front & rear)

​

Who needs all those microphones?

 

This might explain why the library weight more than 500 gb.

 

Singing Talula :D

 

While the library seems interesting and sounding great, their Kontakt alternative doesn't seem to play in same league.
Agree with earlier posters, it is a showcase of bad GUI design. And plain ugly.

 

Agreed, I don't like their native plugin either. The price point is a killer price, however it's just an intro sale, so it'll be 1000$ after that which is still a great bargain compared to their other orchestral bundles. I agree about the individual instruments - many of the libraries in this price range tend to pack multiple instruments together, like Albion and Metropolis Ark. I'd be really interested in this if it weren't for their stupid plugin. Too bad, the sound quality of their two demos is really something else.

 

Aesthetics aside, as that's personal preference. What is the bad design? There's nothing I can't immediately access from the main window that Kontakt versions offers. If anything, it offers more options. So again, I'd say this is personal preference over reality.

 

Want. Need.
Even at one million+ samples and 600GB.

Totally agree!

 

600 gbs a problem????

One of SFs latest releases (nearly a full orchestra - strings, brass & woodwinds) called "Spitfire Studio Orchestra" is about 450 gbs with less microphonespositions added.

If you need a quality orchestra - you´ll need a lot of HDD space... live with it!

Good information @vaiman!! I´ve tested the labs and Im not really impressed, but I guess the functionality etc is very limited compaired to major releases from SF?!? Could be nice to hear more about your experiences forward regarding this VSTi

 

Oh darn, it's not for Kontakt

 

For me bad design is wasted space that could have been used to show more settings and options at once without having to go between different tabs. For example, let's just compare BBC Symphonic Orchestra and Albion One. Albion has all the settings on one page, articulations, mic sliders and controls like vibrato, dynamics, etc. In BBC Symphonic Orchestra you have 3 tabs for Articulations, Mics and FX, then you have 3 tabs for articulations alone, then you have 4 tabs for mic sliders. It's just so much unnecessary navigation and wasted time in my opinion.
I did a quick shitty photoshop edit to prove my point "And the worst part is that there is enough space to put almost all settings on 1 page". Sorry, I'm not a designer, so it looks bad but a person with a skill could have definitely done something similar but better, while still maintaining balance between aesthetics and usability.

For people who do movie scoring in 11.1 surround I would assume. Quote form their website "The product also includes a staggering 20 signals, including eleven microphone positions, two stereo mixes, a set of signals designed for use in Dolby Atmos mixing..."

 

Yeah good points mate.

In BBC you can edit those articulations, which ones, the order of them, unlike Kontakt. So unless you hit over 8 then there will be no tab.
Most people only use these when mocking, as I normally use singles even in Kontakt. But I'll add a few of my most used in this version.
Mics, nice placement you have put them... can't argue with that. You can save these as presets and lock them. So you can set the mics and balance, never have to do it again. Very cool actually.
The drop down navigation is much better, way less clicking than in Kontakt.
Other than that the other stuff is there like vibrato, dynamics, tightness on the home page.

Don't get me wrong, you are right that it needs tweaking, as that big button all Devs love to use is simply a waste. You should send them your photoshop idea Much better than the current offering!
But I wouldn't call it a showcase in bad GUI design personally. Just not really there yet.

I agree the Labs are not great. A bit pointless in the App, might as well have kept them in their Kontakt version for me.
I'll defo report back what the release is like. The performance on HZ strings is good so hopefully a fully loaded template using BBC won't kill my machine

 

The point of the separate app is likely copy protection, its strange to me that no one has pointed this out. HZ Strings still has yet to cracked as far as I know, and Kontakt libraries are notoriously easy to crack.

As for the hard drive space being related to the number of microphone positions, if Spitfire did the library correctly, they should be using impulse responses to generate the reverb, which is a negligible amount of space. I havent used much of Spitfire libraries as I am not a huge fan of their over the top, shake the room, and flatten your face timbre their libraries generally have. It is very difficult to get a pianissimo out of Spitfire libraries, they seem to be designed for mezo-forte or louder.

As to the demo, I listened briefly to the shorter piece before I was interrupted, but demos are not very telling. As a guy who has probably every major orchestral library on the planet, I can tell you from personal experience that not a single library is perfect. My full orchestral arrangements usually require several variants of each ensemble for each piece, depending on what I am writing. For example, If I need an in your face horn section, Orchestral Tools for the foundation horns plus either Jaeger horns or Metropolis Ark 1 horns. If I need a more soft and elegant horn section (think Return of the Jedi, burning Darth Vaders body), Orchestral Tools plus Vienna Symphonic Library. If I want your face to be plastered on the rear wall, Jaeger plus Descant Horns from Cinesamples. That is just the French horns lol.

This library will be no different, except, it may offer Spitfire something they currently dont have, what I call a foundation library, that is, a library with individual instruments, at what is as far as I know, the best price for a library from a triple A developer. I used to point people to Vienna Symphonic Library Special Editions to get started, as they offer an exceptional amount of articulations for a price of $1000 and is also very light on system resources (the full library comes in at under 80 gb due to how tightly they pack their libraries and how they pitch shift their non-full libraries instead of providing a different sample for every note). If you have the Special Edition libraries, you can crossgrade to the Synchron libraries which provide a more hollywood sound for another $250.

The reason I pointed people to Vienna special editions, the philosophy behind their samples is to record the samples extremely dry (almost no reverb) and with the flattest sound possible (no equalizer, exactly how the instrument would sound if the player was 6 feet in front of you). This allows for the composer to change the reverb and equalizer however they wish, and there is never too much reverb or a particular frequency. The drawback is, you need to tweak the sounds out of the box for them to sound good (they sell something called MIRx for an extremely reasonable price that will do this without any effort other than checking a box).

As Spitfire is apt to do, it will be loaded with reverb in the basic samples and overly done in the equalizing department, because that seems to be the sound people are looking for these days, which is fine if you are doing film scoring, not so good if you are writing Jazz or classical music.

Currently, I point people to East West and Reaper. You are going to be hard pressed to find a better deal than this, and by the time the 1 year contract goes up on East West, you should have another foundation library that you use and like, or perhaps, you decide to continue to use East West, which is plenty good.

This leads me to my final point, it is funny how we all are, always on the search for the new shiny. Gotta have the newest, shiniest library, when the reality is, what we have currently available to us is very convincing. What all of these libraries lack is convincing sound out of the box, without having to tweak almost every single note. Very few libraries actually do good sound out of the box. Ironically, the two that do it the best are both doing it with the hardest instrument to synthesize, the human voice. In case you are wondering, Fluffy Audio's Dominus choir and the vocal thingy in Jaeger are the two that are doing it the best. I also forgot to mention, percussion libraries are pretty much where we need them to be as well. However, there isnt a string, wind, or brass library that doesnt require multiple tweaks to the midi cc data for each phrase to make them sound realistic, and this is a huge shame, considering this was the promise of true legato.

Anyway, dont buy into the hype. Let the pros like Daniel James spend his money on it, review it, then watch him write a piece over the course of 5 hours and decide then on whether to buy it or not. Too many libraries that I have spent money on that really left me feeling like I bought something I cant use. Honestly, the libraries that we had 5 years ago are plenty fine, their hasnt been much innovation, and this library doesnt look like anything unique or special, other than a good entry level price point with unique separate instruments. If you are getting started, this might be a good choice. If not, meh.

 

The Andy Blaney demo is excellent, but he can make a fart in a tin can sound good.
It does however, show the potential of the library and the dynamics that it can produce from subtle to bombastic. And the sound of that room is beautiful, like really nice.

Do we need more libraries? No. But there's a shit ton of stuff I don't really need in life but still upgrade/change.
Music gear is something I have very little regrets with, even if it's a turd purchase.

They do dry libs, so it's not a case of doing it correctly. You won't get the same sound from an IR of Maida Vale as these recorded mics, Christian on his YouTube has a very interesting look into why this is. That's without mentioning the bleed mics or gallery etc
Needless to say, you can use the close mics and room placement software if that's your choice. But I'll be wallowing in the sound of those mics.

 

I agree, more mic placements is the wrong direction. I'd like more round robins instead personnaly. Then for space I'm more interested in going the Vienna Mir pro route.