Cello Sections: tone & dynamic range comparison
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 พ.ย. 2023
- After the recent release of Spitfire Audio's new flagship strings library "Abbey Road Orchestra - Cellos" I thought it might be an interesting idea to compare the tone and dynamic range of this release to a couple of other sample libraries that also feature cello sections.
All libraries included in this video are using the spiccato articulation at default settings with no external processing except for some very rough volume matching I did by ear.
Libraries included in this video:
0:09 Abbey Road Orchestra Cellos (Spitfire Audio)
0:33 Cinematic Studio Strings (Cinematic Studio Series)
0:58 Afflatus Chapter One Strings (Strezov Sampling)
1:22 Pacific Ensemble Strings (Performance Samples)
1:46 Hollywood Strings (EastWest Quantum Leap)
2:10 Jaeger (Audio Imperia)
2:35 Tokyo Scoring Strings (Impact Soundworks)
2:59 CineStrings Core (Cinesamples)
Let me know your thoughts on this library in the comments and feel free to ask questions or to request specific demos. Make sure to subscribe to my channel for more demos, reviews and comparisons and consider checking out my other channel as well if you want to hear my original compositions: / @c-m-laurin-lenschow
Also follow me on Instagram for more music content and behind the scenes stuff: / laurinlenschow.music - เพลง
Let me know your thoughts on this library in the comments and feel free to ask questions or to request specific demos. Make sure to subscribe to my channel for more demos, reviews and comparisons and consider checking out my other channel as well if you want to hear my original compositions: th-cam.com/channels/dg_9E2ldoHxiWussEN-6Vg.html
Also follow me on Instagram for more music content and behind the scenes stuff: instagram.com/laurinlenschow.music/
Excellent and concise comparison. Thank you! One thing if for certain is every library is difference. ARO is sort of like Jaeger? CSS has a somewhat focused initial sound. Afflatus and CineSamples have a lot of nice extra noise. Pacifc really feels like the players are playing a bow stroke. I love TSS and how sitting in the room I feel listening to it.
Probably an unpopular opinion, but I prefer the ARO Cello ones the best actually after hearing all of these against one another. CSS has real tight shorts which I think work best for fast spiccatissimo lines. The Afflatus ones are interesting as they sound further back with kind of a medium bite to them. The Pacific ones were okay but I didn't care for them because of what sounds similar to pre-ringing in the reverb right before the attack like what happens when you put percussive elements through heavy linear-phase filters which just leads to muddy transients in the mix. The Hollywood Strings are a bit too dry for me and don't sound as musical. Interestingly the Jaeger ones have a good tone to them similar to ARO Cello which was surprising.The Tokyo SS sound bigger but more robotic to me than the others. The CineStrings I feel are both good and bad as in the tone is there but some of the attacks are muddy/noisy. So, if I only went off of this comparison alone I would choose ARO, CSS, or Jaeger. I would like to hear some OT & VSL against these as well :) good work!
I agree, although I think Jaeger+CS C+ TSS all did well. AR here had a nice balance of tone, dynamic range, and realism.
hello friend, I made a comparison using headphones, with different soundtracks from tidal, which were recorded in ar studios, pirates of the caribbean, lord of the rings, even some that were recorded in fox, compare soundtracks that contain shorts, with your samples, and Of all of them, the spitfire aro are surprisingly similar, that is, they sound practically the same as those of these soundtracks, none of the other brands come close, congratulations to spitfire for such a wonderful job, this is a tool that will undoubtedly mark a before and after, I don't understand how I read people who say they don't like them or that they are too expensive, I would have to listen to the other Berlin ones, but I dare say that aro I love them, they are the best that exist today.
Well I got Afflatus, Pacific, Jaeger, CineStrings. Compared to others I feel covered. I can wait til the whole Abbey Road collection is out.
Thanks for this. Did you add reverb or the opposite reset any inbuilt reverb to 0?
There's no external reverb and all patches are at their default settings.
Thanks.@@c-c-laurin-lenschow Some libraries come with their internal reverb enabled by default, which makes it hard to objectively compare the room tone across libraries. Would you consider comparing libraries without internal reverbs going forward? Spitfire even enables them on their Abbey Road stuff, which is completely redundant IMO when trying to listen to the sound of the room itself.
@@OliKember To be honest I'm a bit torn on this. I think your point is completely valid, but the counter argument would be that the libraries should be presented in the way the developers intended them to sound. The more I deviate from the default settings the more it becomes a video about my workflow and decisions rather than about the pure out-of-the-box experience. Maybe I'll solve this dilemma by making a few dedicated videos about room tone in the future... I'll put that on my list. (I could do Abbey Road vs AIR vs Teldex vs Sony - I think that would make for a very interesting comparison.)
Regarding the internal reverb of the Abbey Road libraries: What you say only applies to Abbey Road One Orchestral Foundations and the scoring selections. Libraries from the Abbey Road Orchestra range have their internal reverb at 0% by default, so what you're hearing in this video is the pure room tone.
And how do those celli compare with other Spitfire products?
I can't comment on that yet as the Abbey Road libraries are (almost) the only Spitfire libraries that I own so far. However, I hope to pick up their "Symphony Complete" bundle soon. When I do I will make extensive comparisons between the Abbey Road and the symphonic range.