If you have been following this series and thinking these are great but are way beyond my budget then this penultimate article of the series is what you have been waiting for. I’m going to look at a couple of the “one-stop-shop” libraries that can be really useful to the composer starting out (or someone looking for a quick solution to a scoring situation.
Be sure to read my previous articles in this series - starting with How To Choose Orchestral Sample Libraries - An Introduction.
The two libraries under the microscope this week are:
Spitfire - BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover
Spitfire - Albion One
Here’s a short snippet of each library. Many thanks to Mark Fabian for helping me again this week with both audio demos and collaboration on the article.
Spitfire Discover
BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover is a remarkable product from Spitfire Audio. Renowned for their high-end sample libraries, curated tutorials and free “labs” libraries, BBSO Discover is a curated version made up of some useful samples taken from the BBC Symphony Orchestra Core + Pro libraries, which are the big brothers and sisters of the starter library.
It’s remarkable firstly because it gives you access to breadth across the entire symphony orchestra (admittedly with a limited articulation set) but secondly because it’s only £49 (or you can even get it free if you fill in a survey).
Before we laud the manufacturers too much for their generosity, it’s clearly a means to hook users into the ecosystem of the BBC Symphony Orchestral library series and when ready, you’d upgrade to the Core or Professional libraries. That said, it’s still an incredibly useful product in it’s own right.
Strings
The strings are split into their instrumental sections, so we have 1st and 2nd Violins, Violas, Cellos and Basses. This is unprecedented for a library at this price, and a welcome addition, although this means there isn’t an ensemble patch, a patch you can play the whole strings section. Like most libraries, the strings are split into different articulations. Each one contains a small but useful collection taken from the larger “Core” or “Professional” set.
Some are (in my opinion) more useful than others but there is something for everyone. Here are some thoughts on the different articulations:
Longs
The longs of the violins and violas are silky and lovely, it has that Spitfire signature sound. Highly recommended!
For all the strings I would have loved a legato patch to help write big emotive melody lines, but even without that they are great for pads and layering with other libraries in sections.
Staccatos
The staccatos are fine, but they do have a slight problem. They don’t have round robins. For anyone unfamiliar with this, the round robin samples are separate recordings of the same articulation which trigger if you play the same note more than once in repetition. It avoids the sound of “machine gunning” where the sample sounds identical in rapid succession. In this case it means if you play an ostinato it’s likely not to sound as good as if you use a library with a round robin staccato option.
Pizzicato and Tremolo
Pizzicato and tremolo sounds are not afflicted with the same problem as staccatos re machine gunning, so the lack of round robins makes no difference. It means these are excellent in most situations.
As a whole each section of the strings has its own character. I particularly like the sound of the Violin 2 section, you can clearly tell it was a smaller section than the 1sts, and I prefer their intimate sound to that of the 1st section. The violas and cellos are also highly usable and the bass pizzicatos are warm and mellow, perfect for a more classical sound.
Brass
As with the strings, the brass is broken up into their respective instrument groups. The library comes with Trumpets, Horns, Tenor and Bass Trombone, and Tuba. All of these have a long and a staccato articulation to choose from.
Longs
The trombones and the horns sound nice and mellow, perfect for a more classical style. As with the strings, the library does not come with legato articulations, so melodies can be tricky to program, but fine for layering with other libraries, or for chorale writing.
Staccatos
The shorts also have quite a mellow sound, so it’s best used in a more classical setting, but you can always EQ them to have a bit more bite. My favourite patch here is the Tuba shorts. They are warm and feel perfect for comedic drama.
Woodwinds
Like the strings and the brass, the woodwinds come in instrumental sections. We have solo Piccolo, 3 Flutes, 3 Oboes, 3 Clarinets and 2 Bassoons. I personally prefer the sound of solo woodwinds, but these patches can still be used effectively. All instruments have a long and a staccato articulation available.
Longs
All of these sound great on the long articulations, and while legato patches are not included, programming melody lines isn’t as difficult as with the other sections. The clarinet is a standout here, they sound warm and you get a great sound from that wonderful room at Air Studios, where these are recorded.
Staccatos
Again, all the woodwinds sound lovely in this articulation, perfect for orchestral programming. The flutes and piccolos are especially nice.
Percussion
This, in my opinion, is by far the best part of this library, the percussion we get is diverse and easy to use. We have the usual orchestral percussion with lovely timpani and snares, cymbals and triangles, but on top of all that we also get a very nice celeste, glockenspiel and marimba, not to mention the harp shorts. I think my favourite of all of these is the celeste and the glockenspiel, with the glockenspiel being especially nice. It has quite a present and close sound while also encapsulating a bit of room sound. I will definitely include them in my orchestral templates. The timpani, while lacking a roll patch, can still be easily utilised. It sounds soft and warm, ideal for more classical music than big epic percussion.
In Conclusion
Overall it is definitely worth every penny you pay for it, or if you get it for free, just an awesome starter pack to get you going on your journey of orchestral composition. Also, there are free templates available for your DAW with instruments correctly laid out to start you off, which is a huge bonus.
The biggest drawbacks are the lack of legato patches and the lack of microphone positions, but we can only expect so much for £49. If you are an experienced composer, this might still prove useful in your portable rig for sketching, or to layer with your other libraries.
Albion One
This is an old but classic all in one library from Spitfire Audio, originally released in 2008. It has since been re-released with new samples and features in 2018 and is definitely a staple when it comes to orchestral sample libraries. This library not only features ensemble patches with the 3 sections of the orchestra on various articulations, but also has various drums and percussion, organic and warped loops, and synth patches made from the orchestral samples, which makes this a truly epic collection of sounds for anyone wanting to get into trailer, or cinematic music composition. By using sections together (grouped by articulation rather than section) it takes the opposite approach to the BBCSO.
The Orchestra
The orchestra is in the main spotlight here, with the woodwinds featuring longs and short articulations broken up by low and high woodwind ensembles. The brass features a low, a mid, and a high brass ensemble also with longs and shorts, but also featuring a ‘nasty’ shorts and longs patch on the low brass, which is ideal for that Zimmer sound we are all accustomed to by now. While both of these sections are great and useful, it's really the strings that make this library worth it. It offers quite a few articulations including longs, con sordino longs, tremolos, as well as short articulations including staccatos, spiccatos, pizzicatos, and col legnos. The spiccato patch alone is a legendary tool used by some of the biggest names in the industry regularly. The library even features legato patches although this is still broken up into sections instead of individual instruments. The low string legato is one of my favourites, where cellos are doubled by the basses in octaves, perfect for a quick sketch.
The Percussion
While most people will first focus on the orchestral part of the library, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The library also includes a variety of cinematic drums, including low booms, tom ensembles and various orchestral percussion as well as cymbals and tam-tams. These are great for that epic percussion sound, but if you are going for something a bit more subtle they can be a little over the top!
Extras
The loops and synths are another highlights of this library, with various noises sampled into playable loops, as well as warped versions of the same loops put through various modular effects to create a truly hybrid sound. This stuff is awesome for when you just need some small rhythmic elements to drive a hybrid track, and I turn to them constantly as they are easy to use and sound great. The synth patches are also a unique addition to the library, where elements of the orchestral samples were put through various processing to create hybrid synth patches. These blend nicely with the orchestra and the drums, which truly makes this an all in one library. Creating a track with just this library in a hybrid orchestral style is a breeze.
In conclusion, this is an awesome first library to pick up if you want to get your teeth into hybrid orchestral music, but I would say that I’ve found it trickier to use it for anything else. This is a library almost every young composer has, and it could be difficult to create a unique sound world with tools that are so familiar to everyone in the industry. Nonetheless, as a starting point, I can think of no better option. While the BBC SO Discover comes in at an incredibly affordable price of £49, Albion One costs £399, although with a student discount you can pick it up for just £279, which is still a steep price for some, but I have never regretted making the purchase.
My Desert Island Choice
It’s difficult to compare two libraries at such a different price points, so it would come as no surprise that I would pick most elements of Albion One as my go to library, however, the BBCSO Discover really gives options to people more interested in pure orchestral composing, and also allows you to write for individual instruments instead of sections.
Next week in the series finale we will be looking at the other side of the DAW. By that, I mean sound libraries associated with other ways to input music. We’ll look at Note Performer for Sibelius and Staffpad (and in particular Berlin Strings).