Overpriced Spitfire products

[Harry_HH]

I like their products, but I'm not that rich to buy them often.

Neither am I, the more important is, that you get value for your money.

[Harry_HH]

The yearly wish list sale has reasonable prices. You can always wait until then.

That's what I used - but it was anyway more than I usually invest in one library.
The one before this was the Emotional Cello by Bestservice, THAT was worth the money.

[EvilDragon]

BTW OP... Spitfire has never ever normalized their samples. This is not a QC thing, it's a top-down decision. They like to retain the recorded dynamic range, especially when crossfading between different velocity layers (if applicable for selected articulation).

[Harry_HH]

BTW OP... Spitfire has never ever normalized their samples. This is not a QC thing, it's a top-down decision. They like to retain the recorded dynamic range, especially when crossfading between different velocity layers (if applicable for selected articulation).

Yes, I know, but as pointed out, I think this "not normalized, keep retain dynamics" is a bad excuse.
You could have both, namely by solving this easily e. g. by adding simple on/off compressor to all instruments. Those who need hear the sound could press the "on" button.
(Yes, Kontakt includes that option, or you could use separate plugin for that, but it should be more simple and automatic implementation.)

[Tj Shredder]

Well, last time it was still more than I could afford... Even if you want to call it reasonable...
At some price points I wonder, if you would half the price you’d probably get more than twice the sales... Or wait, you sell it with 90% off and get more than 10 times the sales... I must have seen this before... Don’t tell SF, or they get too rich...

I am grateful for their 100% off LABS though...

[EvilDragon]

Yes, I know, but as pointed out, I think this "not normalized, keep retain dynamics" is a bad excuse.
You could have both, namely by solving this easily e. g. by adding simple on/off compressor to all instruments. Those who need hear the sound could press the "on" button.
(Yes, Kontakt includes that option, or you could use separate plugin for that, but it should be more simple and automatic implementation.)

Compressor does not equal normalization, it's not the same thing at all. Especially in context of what Spitfire is doing. It's not a bad excuse, it's an aesthetic. You don't have to like it, that doesn't make it any less valid.

[Tj Shredder]

I would always prefer the non normalized library over a normalized. The -6dB is what you would need as headroom for any recording anyway. Its good professional recording praxis...

[Obsolete236871]

Maybe post your concerns in their forum, I doubt they follow KVR threads.

Regarding the price: I made the observation that more generally British companies typically have more expensive pricing schemes compared to continental European (eg German) companies for equivalent products and services. I think this is due to higher cost of living in Britain (eg Spitfire is situated in the London area) compared to Germany (Ableton, Native Instruments, Bitwig, Renoise are all situated in Berlin). On the other hand one has to acknowledge that producing high-quality orchestral libraries with real orchestral musicians is a tedious, time-consuming and costly enterprise.

Personally, I'm very happy with Spitfire's free LABS series, which offer some of the highest quality free sample sets currently available. It's just unfortunate that they require an active online connection, so unlike some free .sfz libraries, you can not simply download from an online computer and transfer the files to your (in my case offline) music workstation using an USB drive.

And let's not forget that the great Pianobook.co.uk project was also established by Spitfire Audio's Christian Henson and continues to grow with new diverse (not limited to piano) sample libraries made by users every other week. They have some great gems over there and it's probably the best community-driven sampling project ever!

[Mr Arkadin]

I've just been going through the library and really I only found High Strings Pulsing Momentum Grid to be quiet - the rest I could hear perfectly fine at non-loud monitoring volumes. Also, once you start playing a chord the volumes stack up and it's fine.

I would not want normalised or compressed samples. If you find them low then maybe re-save the offending patches with the master volume up. Personally I think it's fine.

I also don't think they're overpriced, but always buy in the sales, which are more frequent than they used to be. I do wish their updates were more frequent though, but there are updates despite what someone said earlier. I have had a few just with Chamber Strings, which added Performance Legato patches (likewise Solo Strings has added great Violin and Cello Performance patches in its life cycle).

[ians]

They also hire out often Abbey Road studios for the orchestral recording sessions & I believe they pay royalties to the musicians, which adds to the cost.

Agreed on some of GUIs are a bit fiddly. The new in house interface is much better. Wouldn't want normalised orchestral libraries anyway.

Libraries like Tundra is, after all suppose to be quiet. Surely, normalisation would be the lazy option?

[Harry_HH]

I would always prefer the non normalized library over a normalized. The -6dB is what you would need as headroom for any recording anyway. Its good professional recording praxis...

You are talking about diffrent thing here.
I will set my - 6dB (or whatever), myself, not forced.
Or is the case, that all the following libraries, which work fine with me, are badly recorded, unprofessional products:
- all the Soniccouture libraries
- all the Orange Tree libraries
- all the EW libraries
- all the Kontakt Ultimate libraries
- all the Chris Hein libraries
- Emotional Cello by Bestservice

I could continue the list.
For me, compared with the above, Spitfire audio is a huge disappoinment, for the reasons listed in the OP start.
Obviously Spitfire is not for me, I've learned my lesson.

[dandezebra]

I have read mixed reviews about Kepler on VI. I don't know as I do no own that library yet. I will say that I love A One, Tundra, eDNA, and BDT.

[EvilDragon]

They also hire out often Abbey Road studios

AIR studios.

[yellowmix]

OP, are you using the expression control? By default the sounds can be quiet if your modwheel is in the 0 position.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

yeah, go ahead and make yourself more stupid saying this doesnt sound good.
https://soundcloud.com/layzerkvr/ramirez-precious-time

Without a hint of trolling, it does not sound good

It's a completely static sample buried in effects to sound 'effective'. Doesn't make it a good cello sample.

The greater issue there is that the music is bad.

Anyway, back on topic-ish. My 2cents on "overpriced" orchestral products.

I would say that ostensibly all of the big-name orchestral sample libraries are overpriced and generally pretty crap at using to write music that actually sounds musical.

This isn't because samples are inherently bad or something, but because all these big companies blow their loads (budgets) on irrelevant things for marketing purposes and so they come up short in articulations, programming, balance, whatever else. "We went to the best hall in the world, hired this superstar conductor, we got Dennis Sands (STAR WARS THIS GUY DID STAR WARS BUY OUR PRODUCT) to fiddle with some mic presets, and the BEST™ players in Hollywood to play long notes and stuff! You'll sound just like the big movie scores if you buy our product that we poored all these big name, unnecessary expenses into!"

I mean, Spitfire recently recorded some big-name orchestra I forget at the moment, the library costs like 1000, and I can almost guarantee you they did so for the above reasons — it sells.

But then, like with Cinesamples, you wind up with the biggest problem that plagues a lot of orchestral sample libraries: Inconsistency; no homogeneity between articulations. Take Cinebrass, for example. They recorded several types of short notes — which is good — but the "1/2 note" sample and especially the "sustain" notes have totally different dynamics from the other shorts, and so if you switch between long and short notes (which all good musical phrases do) you wind up with this awful timbrel imbalance that sounds exactly as if you stitched two totally different performances together. So you just avoid it.

Also, a "real" sounding sample is not necessarily the same as a "good" sounding sample.

What many "unrealistic" samples have is the virtue of consistency. So the trade-off for realism is that you can write music that has more authentic musicality in the composition; it sounds more like music an orchestra would actually play.

I, for one, would much rather listen to a lively, interesting composition done with 90s Roland Sound Canvas orchestra patches than one where the recording sounds "real" but is all boring string pads and legato melodies because that's what the $500+ sample library recorded at (name drop here) hall can handle. Forget John Williams, it can't even play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star without sounding like a mess.

The rule of thumb when purchasing sample libraries is that if the demos are exclusively original compositions, avoid it like the plague: Classical and romantic pieces are often public domain, and staples of orchestral repertoire. There's no reason for them not to mock them up other than because they struggle too much to play it. Original compositions can be tailored to the limitations of the samples and still sound impressive for marketing purposes.

Just by flipping through the manual and listening to the demos for this Kepler thing, I can already say it's pretty damn useless. Wouldn't take it for free, never mind pay 299 US