KVR Audio

noiseboyuk · Post by **noiseboyuk** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:43 am

The unique thing about the Symphobia / Orchestral Essentials range is the multis. Don't believe those who say "it's easy to make your own" with other libraries - it really isn't. Where ProjectSAM excel is knowing exactly the right magic combos to get THAT sound instantly. It's pretty much like having half an orchestrator as well as the musicians. I've never really understood why nobody else has even tried.

You might want to increase your dilemma by considering the Orchestral Essential series. They lack some of the depth of the Symphobia series (only 1 mic option, less articulations), but in terms of breadth, bang and buck they're hard to beat. And they have some great multis.

(and full disclaimer - I do YouTube walkthroughs for ProjectSAM, so might be biased. The intention is for them to be very warts and all however, and I always point out any negatives - which are there, as with anything - with the positive. My Symphobia 1 instruments part one is here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz5LpFOc7-Y - click on my channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtBlIr ... juZs8vHU1g - for other parts, multis, OE etc. My poor keyboard skills also take care of any over-flattering.)

I don't own any of the Albion range, mostly because it's felt like duplication of what I already own. They are very well regarded, though I'm not a fan of the strings in the official Albion demos - they sound pretty synthetic to me, which isn't something I'd say from any of the rest of the Spitfire range. Albion One (what IS with their naming?!) is of course an unknown quantity, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't a major step up, given 4 years of R&D with the rest of their range. They're obviously also going for BIG with the size of the orch.

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 4:06 pm

Guy, Didn't they add some legato patches in the OE 1.1 update?
OE2 has legato.

dsan@mail.com · Post by **dsan@mail.com** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 5:05 pm

@noisyboyuk - First, thank you for posting your video within and reminding me of your great work! I always enjoy watching and learning from your videos, especially when you [and Daniel James] get to "rambling". There's a lot to be learned when you both go into that mode

. I think you keep a viewer's attention much more so than a lot of the "boring" reviews I have watched over the years.

As for "easily" , or not, create your own multi's, unless I miss something, how difficult is it to create them in Kontakt? Frequently I will make my own, perhaps adding patches from multiple libraries. Is there something more than selecting patches, perhaps tweaking, and dropping them into an instance of Kontakt I am unaware of?

No doubt these library creators have an advantage, knowing their libraries as they do, in creating multi's with patches that "work in unison". None the less, dropping patches into an instance of Kontakt is not at all that difficult and then "Save Multi As". If it turns out the patches in a multi are not as desirable as first thought, it's easy enough to replace, or delete, a patch.

The advantage Symphobia certainly has is available content. Albion is not quite up to par with Symphobia, content wise; however, all of these symphony libraries have their unique position in one's arsenal. One is not the do all end all of libraries IMHO.

Looking forward to your next review, Guy

Cheers!
dsan

@ Uncle E - Based on Guy's review of the multi's (and those of the package), there is no doubt I will enjoy using the multis in Symphobia. Now, if I can just find a discount code to use at JRR Shop to make it affordable

Cheers!
dsan

Echoes in the Attic · Post by **Echoes in the Attic** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 5:14 pm

bill45 wrote:Guy, Didn't they add some legato patches in the OE 1.1 update?
OE2 has legato.

Yes there are a few legato patches in OE 1 as well. They are some combo patches like Cello/Basses, violins/flutes, horns/trombones or flutes/clarinets.

And it's true that OE is also worth looking at. Cheaper, great multis. And actually you can often find OE used, and sometimes even symphobia used. OE also has a bunch of instruments that Albion does not.

Since Albion is on sale pretty cheap, your best bet might be to Albion and OE1. Those together together (especially OE used) would be pretty cheap and cover a lot of ground.

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 6:30 pm

dsan@mail.com wrote:@ Uncle E - Based on Guy's review of the multi's (and those of the package), there is no doubt I will enjoy using the multis in Symphobia. Now, if I can just find a discount code to use at JRR Shop to make it affordable

The 16% "Group" coupon works on those:

https://www.jrrshop.com/catalogsearch/r ... =symphobia

noiseboyuk · Post by **noiseboyuk** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:37 pm

dsan - my comment on multis was really referring to doing it well, rather than it being technically difficult to do it at all. It's dead easy to stack a few instruments, but where ProjectSAM excel is in a) knowing what instruments will work well in the first place and b) setting them up and tweaking every element so they sit properly together. They're not all gold - especially in S2 there's rather too many that need 4 hands and a couple of extra feet - but there must be 40-50 golden patches across the range. I keep a lot of them in the template now.

(Thanks for the kind words btw!)

EDIT - btw, Project SAM just announced today that there will be some big updates coming soon - interface, loading times, and extra content to S1-3. Amazing to get new free content for a library 7 years old.

dsan@mail.com · Post by **dsan@mail.com** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 2:53 pm

Uncle E wrote:
dsan@mail.com wrote:@ Uncle E - Based on Guy's review of the multi's (and those of the package), there is no doubt I will enjoy using the multis in Symphobia. Now, if I can just find a discount code to use at JRR Shop to make it affordable
The 16% "Group" coupon works on those:

https://www.jrrshop.com/catalogsearch/r ... =symphobia

Thanks Uncle E. The eyes just are not what they used to be

I should have seen that in your sig

So if the better half starts pounding you now just pretend you are Schultz

Cheers!
dsan

dsan@mail.com · Post by **dsan@mail.com** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 3:00 pm

noiseboyuk wrote:dsan - my comment on multis was really referring to doing it well, rather than it being technically difficult to do it at all. It's dead easy to stack a few instruments, but where ProjectSAM excel is in a) knowing what instruments will work well in the first place and b) setting them up and tweaking every element so they sit properly together. They're not all gold - especially in S2 there's rather too many that need 4 hands and a couple of extra feet - but there must be 40-50 golden patches across the range. I keep a lot of them in the template now.

(Thanks for the kind words btw!)

EDIT - btw, Project SAM just announced today that there will be some big updates coming soon - interface, loading times, and extra content to S1-3. Amazing to get new free content for a library 7 years old.

I get your point Guy. Perhaps I used the term "easily" a bit conveniently

I did not mean to simplify or dismiss the processes involved as I know, from my own experiences, it does take some work to build a proper multi.

Thanks for the info of the upcoming update

A question about the Multi's in Symphobia, if you don't mind;

Are they NOT made up from the existing patches in Symphobia, or, are they additional samples especially for the Multi's?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers!
dsan

noiseboyuk · Post by **noiseboyuk** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 3:13 pm

dsan@mail.com wrote:A question about the Multi's in Symphobia, if you don't mind;

Are they NOT made up from the existing patches in Symphobia, or, are they additional samples especially for the Multi's?

The majority are existing patches (albeit tweaked slightly), but there's quite a lot that are more significantly modified in some way and a few that seem unique, though I expect the content must exist in a different form in some instrument or other. I can't remember now what it was, but I think in an early version of S1 I took an element of a multi and saved it as its own instrument because it was pretty handy.

Echoes in the Attic · Post by **Echoes in the Attic** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 3:21 pm

noiseboyuk wrote:
EDIT - btw, Project SAM just announced today that there will be some big updates coming soon - interface, loading times, and extra content to S1-3. Amazing to get new free content for a library 7 years old.

Where did you see this? I don't see anything on the site.

noiseboyuk · Post by **noiseboyuk** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 4:14 pm

Echoes in the Attic wrote:
noiseboyuk wrote:
EDIT - btw, Project SAM just announced today that there will be some big updates coming soon - interface, loading times, and extra content to S1-3. Amazing to get new free content for a library 7 years old.
Where did you see this? I don't see anything on the site.

https://twitter.com/ProjectSAM_Libs/sta ... 1803783168

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 5:24 pm

OE 2 has Rich orchestral precussion too.

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Wed May 30, 2018 7:56 pm

i wonder what the opinions are now? i see symphobia 1-3 on sale and albion 1 e.g. 450 euros alone.

kontakt cinematic string sound for me kinda flat, i got some nexus stuff XPs and they are good for some hip hop etc. omnisphere has some nice patches as well. but sometimes i wanna make some cinematic electronic stuff, or soundscapes + dark ambience. would project sam cover it? i think albion would be only for pros?

noiseboyuk · Post by **noiseboyuk** » Thu May 31, 2018 7:13 pm

I think both the Albion and Symphobia range have sound design sections if you're looking for cinematic electronic or soundscapes, but in both cases I'd say these are ancillary to the main part of the libraries which are firmly orchestral. I'd say U-he Zebra or Spectrasonics Omnisphere will get your more mileage for the designed / hybrid stuff. Although both the Albions and Symphobias are made of ensembles / sections rather than individual instruments (in the main), they are nonetheless both designed primarily to sound like full orchestras.

Since this thread was last alive, I have bought Albion ONE and it's really terrific in places, especially the strings. These are excellent, they have a lush buttery tone in the longs and legatos, while the shorts have a fantastic bite and range. They compare extremely favourably with the original Albion 1 strings that I thought were horribly synthetic. Oh, and those string legatos are the best Spitfire have ever done (that I've heard anyway). The rest of the Albion ONE instruments I'm a bit less wowed by, though some of the percussion is impressively colossal.

Still nobody is doing multis like ProjectSAM though, and I still turn to them routinely. And they do keep adding new content, even for the 10 year old Symphobia 1.

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Thu May 31, 2018 7:20 pm

noiseboyuk wrote:I think both the Albion and Symphobia range have sound design sections if you're looking for cinematic electronic or soundscapes, but in both cases I'd say these are ancillary to the main part of the libraries which are firmly orchestral. I'd say U-he Zebra or Spectrasonics Omnisphere will get your more mileage for the designed / hybrid stuff. Although both the Albions and Symphobias are made of ensembles / sections rather than individual instruments (in the main), they are nonetheless both designed primarily to sound like full orchestras.

Since this thread was last alive, I have bought Albion ONE and it's really terrific in places, especially the strings. These are excellent, they have a lush buttery tone in the longs and legatos, while the shorts have a fantastic bite and range. They compare extremely favourably with the original Albion 1 strings that I thought were horribly synthetic. Oh, and those string legatos are the best Spitfire have ever done (that I've heard anyway). The rest of the Albion ONE instruments I'm a bit less wowed by, though some of the percussion is impressively colossal.

Still nobody is doing multis like ProjectSAM though, and I still turn to them routinely. And they do keep adding new content, even for the 10 year old Symphobia 1.

i appreciate all the knowledge sharing and opinion a lot!
i also checked out your videos but i dunno if i really want full orchestras primarily, you too of course dunno it for me

, but i wonder for single instruments, is symphobia still recommendable?
still thinking about getting symphobia 1 (and if money is enough maybe lumina or symphobia 2).

Albion I vs Symphobia I