Spitfire Legendary Low Strings and Sparkling Woodwinds [REVIEW]
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- Spitfire Audio has released it's first Abbey Road expansion packs - Legendary Low Strrings and Sparkling Woodwinds. Recorded at the world famous Abbey Road Studios in London with world class session musicians, the two packs extend the range of the Abbey Road Foundations library released a few months ago. But are they legendary and do they sparkle? Guy Michelmore takes them for a spin.
00:00 Intro
03:25 Update Overview
08:09 Sparkling Woodwinds
12:08 Abbey Road Foudations - Scoring
14:27 Step Time
18:30 Soft Piano Spitfire Labs
19:49 - Chromatic Mediant LINK
21:00 Low Strings
24:20 Percussion
25:55 Brass
31:12 Multiple Articulations
34:30 Sparkling Woodwind
36:04 conclusion
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Bought both of these yesterday and very happy with them.
By the way, as a violinist I'd just like to mention that we can get a little bit of vibrato on the open G by using vibrato an octave up (on the D string) while bowing on the G string. The open string will vibrate in sympathy though it won't sound as rich as directly fingered vibrato.
Wow, that’s an interesting tidbit!
I bought both as well! Cool info about the vibrato on the open G!!
Great review as always Guy. Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge. Off to purchase the lows now!
This is why I always love watching your videos, Guy. You are quite happy to show us the mistakes. That always gives me the confidence to persist. Thank you so much.
Guy, you have a very interesting mind. As ever, I thoroughly enjoyed our time together. Cheers!
Guy, I'd just like to reach out and say thanks for all the great videos!
I've been a musician for 40 plus years and feel that my real strengths lie in melodies so I find it surprising that I've never really delved or gravitated into the orchestral realm earlier.
Perhaps it's been (as you've said in the past) fear f the great unknown.
I find that this type of music really speaks volumes to me.
I've already started with a course from your ThinkSpace page.
Looking forward to going through a bunch of them.
I also want to commend and thank you for all the time you give on sharing your profound experience (and sense of humour).
You make learning and understanding the whole process very accessible and fun!
Please keep it up!
Regards,
Mario in Montreal.
Guy, you're a riot. You're also, IMHO, the most informative and pleasurable composer-reviewer-teacher to watch. Thanks for all you do mate.
GUY you are the GUY. Thank you so much for having energy to give us all you're best. Fearlessly.
LUV YA.
From Brazil
Love ya, Guy. You always put a smile on my face.
That library sounds amazing.
Well, that sounded great! No surprise coming from Spitfire and Guy, of course! Interesting to see the zebra mug and decor on the studio. Love me some zebras as well and got some in my studio too. They sure make everything sound better.
2:43 “Those low octaves speak volumes about my insecurity”
Same Guy, same
I was going to quote that but I'll give it a "ROFLMAO!" anyway. :)
The low octaves are always at the center of my insecurities... erm compositions!!
2:25 - 2:42 absolutely made my day. Thank you so much!
Guy feeling ~very~ silly today and I'm fully here for it
didnt care much for the library.. but Guy’ s reviews- priceless!! keep them coming!
Great as always!
Another great one Guy !! To cure your confusion the reason it wasn’t recording at 28 mins as you expected was you had “punch out” on
Every time one of these videos pops up, It's like "Will I learn something today, or will my wallet become lighter?"
(And I'll probably learn something as well.)
Yes ;)
Both!
Very soon I won't be able to afford to watch!🤣
I knowwwwww right!!
Another great video 👏
If all else fails, you definitely have a bright future as a comedian. Great review, thank you!
"With a fresh cup of tea everything in the world is good" the truest thing ever said on this channel 😉. Great video Guy
Guy, I think you need a vacation or this lockdown to be over. Great video, by the way - as always :)
I NEED A HOLIDAY
It’s like an episode of Bob’s Burgers if you replaced the ‘talking to the food’ Bob with ‘talking to string legato patches’ Bob
"Hello Phil the Glass". :-)
Thanks Guy for another helpful video!
Great and funny as always 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Omg, Guy, You always, always make my day! Thank you for your fantastic energy. I bought Low strings last night, loving the sound! Legato and spiccato are my favourites too. I also did the "Oh don't do that" moment, several times last night. ahahah Tried out all of his themes :D
That low legato is a freal goto sound - good purchase
@@ThinkSpaceEducation apsolutely! I'm in heaven with this silky smooth sound now hehe :D
That vibrato part while he holds his throat got me laughing ou lout! 🤣
@@mistral-unizion-music I love him! Always something that makes me drop down and laugh out loud!
Guy your a gem love the humor it makes learning fun
I like to listen to You, Guy, interesting and fun all the time
Guy, I sometimes think you may have been locked in your studio too long. Today’s madness proves it! Great video again, thank you. 😃
I've seen some negative chatter (not here) about these two new libraries but they are £59 and give a load of versatility with the mic options. Any ensemble library is a compromise but these sound amazing. Another fun reveiw video Guy, many thanks for keeping us informed and entertained
9:09 I got it! I got the reference thingy!
You're simply the Best!
Thanks, Guy -- !!
Hello how are you doing?
Guy is my favorite guy on the planet
10:29 the woodwind section, well of souls Raiders of the lost ark. Been looking for a patch to replicate that sound for a long time, thank you.
Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?
Thank you Guy! Here we can hear the real sound of Abbey Road One. I've just watched a walktrough video of the Sparkling Woodwinds were we can clearly see that Paul Thompson does not use only the Abbey Road One library but also Symphony Strings, Chamber Strings and Symphony Woodwinds...
I'm looking forward to the Clandestine Clarinets, Sensuous Saxophones and Apocalyptic Wasteland Windchimes!
love your Death Star shirt!!
I love you. No homo. Forgive the Lonely Island reference, not that there is anything wrong with being homosexual! 😄 I'm not, I think you are just an absolutely fantastically positive and fun to listen to human being. Even if you don't get any brown paper envelopes filled with money stuffed behind a radiator. Thanks gor not only reviewing the £1000 stuff and for being a delightful person who really brightens up my day after working 12.5 hour shifts wfor 3 weeks straight in a foreign country with no weekends off. You are doing a public service here and you might not even be aware of it so I wanted to tell you. No sunglasses of doubt here! 😎 Cheers from Germany - this time via Spain. 💚
38:15 best meta realisation on a sample library review video ever! :)
Hi, I enjoy your wackiness! You’re obviously a great composer and you know a lot about all the software that you use. I’m a composer and I’m trying to figure out which spitfire library I should get. Something that has it all.
I appreciate your videos. Thank you.
I have limited software but you gave me the idea to record strings/woodw on one track, copy paste to another track and change the voice to a glockenspiel/bell tone of some sort. then I would be able to manipulate each voice, creating many bouquets of sparkles mind you adding more time to the mix. Thanks for another great vid Guy...And tea does make everything better..
You're welcome :)
I bought the woodwinds library yesterday, and I was immediately inspired to compose something
Thats the idea!
@@ThinkSpaceEducation I didn't even expect to write an entire piece of music, it kind of just happened haha
You got the mug! It's still showing not delivered. Hope you like it. A small token of appreciation. I've learned a tremendous amount from you.
Thank you! Yes it had a circuitous route but I got it. I put it in so you;d notice it arrived
5:35 as we know vibrato makes everything except me sound better :D made my day
Those low string phrases at the beginning got me excited. Thinking.........
and so now i *must* know if it was my entry you were talking about with the high horn (although i know chances are slim, considering the over 1,800 entries...), because i definitely pushed it a couple of times. part of the reason is because i do love the strident tone of horns in their upper register, and the other reason is that i have limited libraries and the solo trumpet i had available sounded like poo most of the time, so i was avoiding using it in any exposed sections. :P
Guy Michelmore, is to music as Keith Floyd was to food....Minus the generous glass of fine wine, of course. Thank you for your reviews.
Related to all this: do you have a workflow/standard for how you switch articulations when working with, for example, a spitfire library? Is it better to keep articulations on separate tracks or just switch between them on the fly via CC msgs, all within a single track? Pros and cons? Love the channel, love to hear your opinion, Guy!
Probably less CPU and Ram being used when switching articulations on same patch!/track. Apart from that it's what ever works best for you.
A legendary, sparkling and perky ep. Whatta Guy!
HEy Guy ! Great Video again !! A couple month ago there was no legato function for Abbey Road One. Did they update it ? Thank you ! Kind Regards
Idea for future video, how to Write Ostinato Patterns
I have BBCSO Core and find you can get similar results using the basses and cellos together in Core and also short flutes (or piccolo) with gloc or xylophone.
Hello Guy. Would it be possible for you to analyze and test the new "Audiobro Modern Scoring Strings" string library? It's getting mixed reviews and I trust your judgment a lot.
Thank you very much.
Btw, I was saving up for one of those Strrsm Decks until I learned, that a €19 external numbers keypad with a little dabble into key bindings and a couple of cheap paper sticky things labelled using a pen does basically the same thing! ;) Note that that normally just replaces your normal num-pad on your keyboard BUT you can place it on the left so you can keep your right hand on your mouse ;D
Love it!..I so feel your pain...
Hey Guy, thank you for reviewing so fast! I'm wondering though, what is your opinion on OT Metropolis Ark 1? Don't know if you heard about it yet, but you can buy a lot of OT libraries instruments and choirs by themselves now, so SA and OT low strings are sort competing for my wallet right now, haha. Best regards, Chris.
Yup I bought Metropolis Ark ages ago and use it from time to time
I'm saving up for Metropolis Ark 1, a few friends of me own it and they always use the choirs and brass, which are incredible if you ask me. I'm not sure about the strings, since there are only 8vas for the lows, but for strings I have other libraries. Also (you probably know this) it's incredible loud, so if you don't like high dynamics, it's not that useful, but for the high dynamics it's perfect I believe.
@@benberkenbosch Thank you for your insight! I'll listen to some more reivews/sound examples and then decide. If I were to buy a full orchestra, it would be Ark 1 as well, but as I'm still starting out I don't know whether to slowly replace the free stuff with single instruments or if getting 1 great library is the way to go. I own some SA Originals which don't disappoint in the slightest, on the contrary, they re great, at least from a novices point of view. Anyway, thank you for your opinion and have a nice day.
Spitfire + Abbey Road Studio One = My bank account in fetal position.
I bought ARO at full price on the 12th - six days later they drop the price by $100 to promo the two new expansions Guy is reviewing above. I asked them for a credit. Lets see how it goes. Yeah, I'm not going to scoff at missing out on two new expansions. This stuff gets expensive.
...No kidding Jadon...I would also add the Waves Abbey Road VST plugins as well!!
☠☠☠💣💣☠☠☠ Rrrrrr join me crew and take what you want 😉
What should I buy with Albion One? I bought albion instead of abbey because low strings and proper woodwings were missing. What now? :)
"with a fresh cuppa tea everything in the world is good" :-) Agree 100%
I love how his assistant mutes when he drinks (in post production I'm sure), nobody wants to hear a slurp, lol
Hi Guy would really love more theory on harmony when arranging. Any ideas?
EVERYONE this guy is really mega famous!!! OMG,
I did not realise it was You. The voice on the box every evening when the south east news come on. I been watching you for sometime think I know you from somewhere. And then it hit me is that the "Coffee Guy" my mum always claim it was when she walk into the news Room you drop your coffee.
Were you write music when you were a news presenter on BBC south East.
Inspiring
A note to future self curently living in Guy's foretold post-apocalyptic world: with a fresh cup of tea everything in the world is good.
Great work Guy, looking forward to your course 'Learn Music Theory' quick Question, is it imperative to have a keyboard? Guitar player here, thanks in advance.
This course has theory for guitarists too!
@@nickexarchos6984 Thx Nikos
The quip about the Horns players obsconding to the pub reminds me of a story Frank Zappa had about recording with I *think* the LSO , and the , possibly brass, section got so frusturated with the complexness of the piece they ended up down at the pub, then returned and zappa had to cancel the session because if a sober orchestra couldn't play it, then a drunk one stood no chance. (Dont quote me on the specifics its from a book I read 15+ years ago)
I once had the privilege of having a behind the scenes tour of Abbey Road Studio One. In this library you can really hear the room and I think that's what makes this such a great library. Spitfire have given us this great opportunity to bring the world's best recording studio into our homes (and sheds!). Really immense.
I won't complain about the value. I mean, it's a small price for a small offering. I do wish there was a little more pitch range with Sparkling Woodwinds, maybe somehow include another octave by expanding both ends, dropping a few instruments out when necessary. I don't know. There's just not a lot to work with. I chose to purchase the woodwinds with my $50. If I had another fifty today I would probably throw it at the low strings. In any case, forty minutes on Guy's channel is always a pleasure. ;)
I think they are really fairly priced when you hear their sound Quality, and for those starting out, if your quick the AR core is only 349 wich I think is very reasonable for a basic kit, and both of these packs is good offers depending what you need. The low strings sounds absolutely amazing and gives you those missing legato's in the Core set
Guy makes me want to get into music making again.
There's a massive lag on the legato right now, FYI. Hopefully they fix that. I am cranking the midi modifier early by 60 values.
What is your take on the differences from Albion to AR and the difference in sample layers. As it propably will get passed the price of Albion as enough expansions get released. As you show we can find verion of the low strings in Albion too, but how much of a difference do all those extra sample layers in the newer libraries do. Is it nessecary for people just dabbling a bit in making orchestral compositions to have that extra expression the extra layers add, instead of just having a basic 2 or 3 layer patch in Albion or BBC, where you can get most of the stuff you need right now and not have to wait for a specific instrument expansion getting released ?
AR is a generation on in terms of programming and personally I love the AR acoustic. Ive lived with Albion for SOOooo long though its likereviewing your children so I dont know
You discussed using multiple articulations when playing the French horns and were using, I assume, key switching in real time to achieve that affect. That is pretty complicated for a newbie. Couldn't the notes be entered in first and then the control messages added after-the-fact to change the articulations?
Yes, I do that sometimes with patches that I haven’t used enough to get the particular set of key switches under my fingers. But you will play better if you’re hearing the right articulation. If I know which articulations I plan to use on each note, sometimes I play in the key switches first. But it’s well worth practicing switching as you play. Once you have the muscle memory, you’ll achieve more musical parts that way.
Here’s to John William’s lawyers: isn’t the bright finger at 8:06 a clear E.T. Reference?
2:40 What sort of 'thing' did you have in mind, Guy? The mind boggles :). 8:02 PS - More little diversions, please. These random nuggets are worth their weight. Great stuff. Have a good weekend.
Guy, looking back at this one are you tempted to put on the sunglasses of doubt or leave it as it is?
@20:10 for some reason I'm getting a Downton Abbey vibe here... :D
Love to see that even (self-deprecating) masters can't put together a tune from time to time. Makes me feel slightly less mediocre!
Guy, which 'piano keyboard' app is that...??? I see the keys and the foot pedals on the app. It lights 'blue' up when the key is struck (nice)...
Midiculous
@@ThinkSpaceEducation Thank you..., and LOVE your work and the inspiration you've given me and countless other aspiring (trailer) composers.
That was great, Mr Elfman... Sorry, Mr Mitchelmore...
Hello, something i feel like didn’t really fit the composition, as a piano player, is the use of the labs soft piano. The sound of an upright piano sampled in one super soft dynamic layer in a small room does not go well with the Abbey Road huge orchestra! To me it is leaning more toward minimalistic stuff maybe with synths or something like that :)
Legato legato legato. Do you think if you use the lower strings legato and hopefully the higher strings legato (once they get around to them) you might be able create a similar expansive sound as CSS. Same with the spitfire brass add on (horns). I appreciate they’re apples and pears but I’m trying to justify AR1 + it’s add on’s in comparison. Love the spitfire engine, not a great fan of Kontakt, love the ethos and general quality of spitfire, but it needs to be on my journey (using BBCSO pro and packing out now and then (carefully!) writing symphonies etc blah blah). Tied up with Dorico right now but raring to get back to DP 11. I just need enough to add that touch without spoiling BBCSO. Dare I veer from the trusted CSS path?
Hi Guy, have you used Hans Zimmer strings? And do you think you’d do a video with them?
This was presented back in February 21... I am NOT a fan of the Abbey Road line (at the time)...
It sounded to me like a 'John Williams' machine... still sort of does.
However, I discovered something about the newish SA player that I LOVE and changes EVERYTHING...
You can change the articulation based on key velocity.. so that mean almost EVERYTHING can be 'performance mapped'.
It makes Abbey Road products more flexible and makes my BBCSO libraries far more flexible as well...
Just wanted to bring that up... if you are struggling with the huge size of your templates with these 'Signature' SA libraries, it might make sense for you to figure out velocity key changing in SA's player.
(EDIT) let me clarify a bit... INSTEAD of templating separate channels for each articulation or trying to learn the factory key switches, go through and figure out what you need and set things up based on velocity. So, hit a key at 100 velocity it plays legato... hit a key at 110 it plays staccato or whatever... the choices are endless and you ONLY load up one instance of a library. If you want to 'change' an articulation, hit the piano roll, edit the velocity and... yep, it's there.
In the instrument window, on the top left corner there’s a red symbol (!) which, if you click on it, you get a message that something is wrong with the library. I’m getting the same in my case, but everything seems to work just fine... Do you know if that is a bug or is really something wrong?
I know - it always does that for me and everything seems to work fine so Im not arguing with it
Just a bug, no problem
Hi Guy... haven't seen anything from you for nearly two weeks now. I hope that you're doing well and that the only thing off is that you're busier than a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs! Just getting back into my course work again. Thank you for ThinkSpace Education!!
Hi, in your vedio has a keyboard , how can open it?
Isn't it about time you jumped into the pool again or went through the car wash? I particularly enjoyed those episodes !
So true. Lockdown put the damper on some of that but... where there's a will.....OK challenge accepted
@@ThinkSpaceEducation I can think of some ideas.
I very much like Spitfire for what they're doing, but that big round knob is just silly. It's uncontrollable with mouse (you have to go round it, not just up/down or left/right) and I'd rather see 1 to 5 more faders to even see where each of them is (I can control them all with CC - but I can't see them!). Clearly, that's the point where design won over reason many times over. The rest is rather OK although I'm not sure it's better than Kontakt. Yes, the sound is fantastic.
Agree. This single fat knob is just bad GUI design and very unpractical.
Hi Guy, I have downloaded the free version of Spitfire in Cakewalk,then connected my laptop with Yamaha P-125 .I press the key on my keybord but i do not hear the sound of the free piano from Spitfire in Cakewalk.Why?
LABS?
@@tomhick5372 Yes,exactly.
Empty Apocalyptic Wasteland is coming soon! Make music while you can.
Eat, drink, and buy sample libraries, for tomorrow we die.
ARO+LLS+SW OR BBC Core. Sameish price at the moment. Or Albion?
Come for the music, stay for the apocalyptic predictions of the future.
2:24 Composing, acting and screenwriting. You are the original triple threat.
"Somewhere in the forest... The princess was walking alone..."
How do you switch the articulations so quickly?
Depends on your daw, for FL you need BRSO Articulate to do it easy, Ableton, Logic and Cubase I believe have build in functions for this
Spitfire uses keyswitches - sending C-2, C#-2, etc change the articulations. Guy talked more about it in various videos - check out the hardware video for more info, but as far as I can remember, he has an ACAI APC Mini, which is essentially a drum pad that sends midi notes, starting at C-2. Therefore, by pressing buttons on the APC Mini, he can switch articulations without interacting with the GUI. Although, I think he mapped them to the buttons on his keyboard. Anyway, sorry for the long winded explanation.
Tl;Dr: By sending midi notes at very low octaves such as C-2, you can change the articulations in Spitfire Libraries very quickly.
Glockenspiel players should be called ‘Glock Jocks’
Mallet Men
"It's the thing!"
cool
wait, what was that step time thing??? :-o
In fact, it is very sad where we got to if it is possible to claim a simple interval. They all learned from the old masters, many borrowed shamelessly, but woe to a simple familiar motive.
which in ears do you use?
V cheap ones - waiting for an end ot l;ockdown to get some proper ones
That high concert C is well in the range for the horn. But sampled horns never really sound right.