Spitfire BBO or AbbeyRoad

hello
i wonder if it is very interresting to buy BBO or AbbeyRoad
the sound of both are very good
there is a lot of instrument , microphone position, everything seems to be great
the price is quite the same
as a novice in the composition i don’t know

what do you think about these two library ? what is your point of view as a professionnal musician ?
thanks a lot

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The version that is priced the same is BBC Core and that does not have a choice of mic positions. It’s also much smaller to download than the ‘Pro’ version. It’s very nice. Abbey Road One is an ensemble library so much faster to work with but you get less control. Both great.

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I own both and they are both pretty fantastic, but I prefer the sound of Abbey Road to BBCSO. BBCSO was recored in Air Studio if I’m not mistaken where ARO was in…Abbey Road One, which gives it that classic film score sound that I personally love.

That said, ARO is only an ensemble library and doesn’t have legato articulations which is it’s biggest drawback and doesn’t have as many instruments as BBCSO. BBCSO is a full orchestra with really good legatos for all the instruments, but it has only one mic mix and LOTS of reverb, which makes it hard to blend with other libraries.

I am currently doing a rearrangement/re-orchestration of a piece by Yuki Kajiura and I started out using all BBCSO. It all blended together well, but the violins were too quiet even at full modulation, so I ended up switching to Cinematic Studio Brass and Woods and celli/bass, but used Audio Imperia Areia for the violins/violas.

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thanks a lot Matt for all your information about these libraries, do you agree if i say that ARO is similar to Albion One ?
Albion One gives you woodwind, brass and string ensemble or arranged combination and sound very good to me

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Yes, they are similar that they are more ensemble patches rather than individual instruments, but style wise, Albion is more epic cinematic/trailer music and ARO is more John Williams, traditional film score style. They are both great, but again, ARO only has sustain and staccato articulations, no legatos so it is a bit limited in what you want to do. If you like that classic film score sound, Orchestral Tool’s Berlin Symphony series is also very good.

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thanks for your advice

BBC SO was recorded at Maida Vale Studios - the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s home studio. Completely different sound from Air which is much more reverberant.