Verdict on BBC orchestra

VST & Plugins
21

It’s set to 256 samples. I will share it in a few days. I’m still going back and forth with the director about timing, and he wants me to re-write one 45-second stretch that I thought was ultra-cool (but then, that’s always a bad sign when the composer thinks a certain section is ultra-cool). That section has this baroque classical organ playing a long string of notes that was jarring to him.

So I haven’t done a proper mix down yet, because we don’t have the full piece agreed-to quite yet.

I will say this, however: I found myself frustrated with the winds over the last week, and I kind of, maybe sort-of, might have bought Berlin Woodwinds.

If I did buy Berlin Woodwinds–and I’m not admitting that I did!–I might have tried putting a Berlin clarinet into the piece, and I might be blown away with how easy it was to make this clarinet sound beautiful, and to get it to phrase properly.

I wouldn’t say the Berlin sample itself necessarily sounds that much better than others (although I think it probably does somewhat), but just out of the box, legato phrasing was super easy. You play it, it sounds natural, like a clarinet. You draw a little mod wheel curve, the volume and intensity increase is linear, predictable. It doesn’t hover in one intensity range from 40-60 on the mod wheel, not seeming to get any louder, and then suddenly jump up in intensity between 60 and 65 on the mod wheel (or wherever). This is something all the Spitfire products seem to do for me, and I have no idea why.

The scripting seems to adjust effortlessly to any run I play. Slow line, fast line, no problem, both sound totally natural.

If I did buy Berlin Woodwinds, it’s my go-to woodwind section from here on. :wink:

No contrabassoon or bass clarinet, though. WTH? Guess that’s sold separately.

This is what I mean by spending time. I didn’t waste any time wrestling with Berlin to get the clarinet to sound right, to fit into the mix, to phrase the way I wanted. I played it in, drew a quick dynamic curve, and boom, moved on, and it sounded better than the same phrase would have sounded with me fighting against the BBC clarinet for 5-10 minutes, even though the quality of the sample itself is comparable across the two libraries. I like Berlin better, but that’s not all there is to the experience.

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22

One last thing: this experience of having a sample fit into the mix effortlessly, phrase easily, and not ask the composer to fight with it for 10 minutes, is SO LIBERATING. It allows you to write the part that’s in your head and put it in the piece, rather than settle for the part that your sample didn’t sound bad playing. The composer should be dwelling in his imagination, thinking up cool lines that make statements, and not wrestling with technology, frustrated that what he thought would sound great, just doesn’t.

So often, when the line you imagine will sound great doesn’t, it’s not the line’s fault. It’s the sample. A great player would have made it work. And so with a great sampling patch too.

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23

That creative flow, and “lack of frustrations and fighting against the samples” is exactly the type of software instruments I want, correction: need, final correction: must have! :stuck_out_tongue:

The tone is of course important, but to me the main factor will always be playability and creative flow. The “ease of use” so to speak, that you talk about here. Liberating is the correct term for it as you also pointed out.

PS. Did you find such a library for brass and strings, with this kind of liberation and great flow to create the sounds and expression you want?

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24

I haven’t found that holy grail. But I did just buy CSS studio strings.

I don’t particularly like the sound of them. They’re dark. But usability seems stunningly easy. Haven’t used them yet.

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25

I always get CSS recommended, but haven’t made the leap there yet myself. Interestingly I often struggle with too bright strings (at least for the violins) so perhaps a darker sound can be useful to have in my palette.

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Yes, violins can get too brassy. EW might be your solution. Or EQ. Something starting with E!

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27

I have the special editions of VSL and the Synchron Special Editions Vol. 1-4. I don’t know much about strings so I won’t comment on them. But to my ears, the Winds are pretty good. The saxes has some bad things going on with the velocities that can be tough to mix. The VSL brass on the other hand are average. Specially, the timbre of the trombone to my ears are down right offensive. It has a “twang” sound that is shameful to me. The VSL Percussion is pretty good to me.

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28

A couple of weeks ago, Mike asked if I’d post the score we were discussing above. I am about to do so. It’s called “My Name Is Laurens.”

It’s 12 minutes of underscore for a documentary, so it might get a little boring, but you can hear a lot of the samples discussed in this thread. I’ll discuss over in the music-posting area.

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29

so in conclusion is it really worth spend 900$ for this library if it is not a revolution ?

30

No. Although if you are starting from scratch, and want just one solid library, it’s a decent option at that price.

It’s just another orchestra. But it’s comparable with others, and 900 makes it a relatively cheap one.

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