Wow, Spitfire Albion!

[TristezaOrange]

http://www.spitfireaudio.com/albion.html

What's up at KvR? Why is nobody discussing this? The demos sounds wonderful - it seems like this libary has a certain quality that appeals to me that I can't put into words, something "old-time", "vintage" (not in the VA sense ) and certainly warm and fuzzy. I'm getting this as soon as I have the money.

Any comments on it? Did anyone get it already?

I'm excited about this!

[Bronto Scorpio]

Wow the demos sound really great!

Cheers
Dennis

[EvilDragon]

Spitfire Albion >> anything from ProjectSAM.

And the price is right. Symphobia is way too expensive in comparison (and it's a comparable product). And Albion sounds MUCH better!

[ma9sharp11]

Albion is a stunning library.

Straight out of the box it has that killer warm sound that you can even sculpt some more with the 4 recorded mic positions.

The (true) legato sections are extremely musical and inspiring to play.
There's modwheel controllable orchestral fx. The ostinatum section is incredibly useful for quickly creating tons of background patterns to propel a track.

On top of all the "conventional" orchestral stuff Spitfire processed the samples and created this "Steamband" section of atmospheric pads, drones and ambiences that are great for sound design with a warm, organic quality.

If you need a musical, inspiring, playable library than you definitely should check into Albion.

My internet connection is not the fastest. It's broadband, but broadband of the slow kind. To download the almost 18 gig, took close to 2 days. Seemed to be the longest 2 days in quite some time. But more than worth it.

[synaesthesia]

I finished downloading this morning and can't wait to have a play (am currently at work, rubbish!).

The user demos and feedback so far has been really good and it sounds excellent. And there's so much content for the price. Amazing library.

[MA-Simon]

I'll just leave that here


Bought and downloaded it in the preorder.
Love the sound, and i will use it often etc.

But: ranges only from ~ppp-mf-f-ish
So there is no real f-fff dynamic.

So be prepared!

[Daniel James]

Cheers for linking the vid Simon. I have been pretty busy of late and decided to pop in to post it only to find you beat me to it

Hope you find the vid useful!

Dan

[noizy]

I'll just leave that here


Bought and downloaded it in the preorder.
Love the sound, and i will use it often etc.

But: ranges only from ~ppp-mf-f-ish
So there is no real f-fff dynamic.

So be prepared!

Very nice man. thanks for the review i love the sound

[shadoe42]

So someone clear this up cause I am rather cloudy on this. is Albion a collection of loops? or is it a library more in line with EWQLSO? or both? the ostanatum function is pretty sweet. way out of my price range at the moment but still overall this looks rather spiffy.

[EvilDragon]

Both.

[synaesthesia]

So someone clear this up cause I am rather cloudy on this. is Albion a collection of loops? or is it a library more in line with EWQLSO? or both? the ostanatum function is pretty sweet. way out of my price range at the moment but still overall this looks rather spiffy.

It's primarily playable instruments like other orchestral librariees. the difference being that you get to play sections (high and low strings, high and low brass, etc.) instead of individual instruments.

The orchestral stuff sounds great, quite different from other libraries - has this almost 'British' feel to it, if that makes any sense. But the percussion (which includes some tuned and untuned loops) and pad sounds are equally excellent. In fact, the Stephenson Steam Pads are pretty bloody amazing.

[shadoe42]

Thanks mate. I am liking everything that I hear. Sounds like a very sweet library

[zakufan]

the demos sound so good
now its on my wishlist for christmas

[noiseboyuk]

Good company too - very friendly, keep customers in the loop and the musicians are on royalties. Albion duplicates too much of what I already have for it to be a priority for me, but if I was starting again it would probably be my first purchase. It looks and sounds stunning.

Spitfire's history is in private libraries for very high end professionals, exciting times that they're now releasing such great (and cheap) commercial libraries too.

[Guido Negraszus]

I for one am disappointed with Albion. I disagree that you can compare it to Symphobia or any other Orchestral library. I have Symphobia, LA Strings and East West Gold Orchestra but I wouldn't take Albion into the same league. I can't put my finger on it what it is but I find the playability very poor and it just doesn't seem to mix well with anything I do - so far. I also downloaded it straight away and tried to use it in 3 different Orchestral tracks so far and I always ended up using LA Strings and CineBrass instead.
I also find that the programing hasn't been done well. The strings "jump" in level if you do a velocity/modwheel adjustment and it sounds very unnatural in a mix.

For those of you who don't have a decent Orchestral library yet I wouldn't recommend Albion as a first library. You can't go wrong with LA Strings or Symphobia although LA Strings is my No.1 Strings composing tool.

Having said all this I do agree that Albion does have a nice tonal quality but I find it unsatisfactory as a Orchestral library by itself.