so I made a recording yesterday
comparing spitfyre symphonic strings
with a number of other products from
east-west and 8 deal and someone
mentioned lass le SS la scoring strings
as another one to look at and I know
they made a product fork that is bundled
with complete ultimate 11 I'm not sure
if it's with non ultimate and string
ensemble symphony essentials I'm looking
at the feel as today and kind of looking
at mm-hmm slightly legato style lines
although there is no actual legato
articulation as far as I know in the
essentials it's just sort of a sustains
and and that's fine we don't need the
legato to do the experiment this is
pretty much the way the patch comes up
when you just load a viola is essential
I did take the expression down and for
the experiment I did modulate the
expression our you know automate the
parameter of the expression for this
phrase in the middle here but the main
takeaway is the similarity between
spitfyre symphonic which looks like this
Spitfire symphonic strings this is the
long patch which is really just the the
first patch that you'll pull up when you
double-click in the instruments you'll
see just violas and there's a lot of
other articulations in the full package
there's performance legato x' there are
a number of other there's ensembles
light resources there's time machines
there's individual articulations violas
I mean there's Long's con sword so Pont
you know and not all of that is going to
come with the Native Instruments but
let's get on with it
the similarities were very striking to
me very very impressive so we're gonna
start with just this just series of
intervals I've got a quantization
overlay overlap of 20 ticks we're in a
tempo of 120 beats per minute and here's
what symphonic Spitfire symphonic sounds
like so we'll listen to that first
notice kind of a gentle attack really
surprising
I think the similarities so the attack
of the Audio bro is a little stronger
that's the first thing that I notice
that's different other than that I mean
you could you could easily confuse these
if you're not if you're not paying close
attention
and the the Spitfire is pretty much as
it's loaded as well I think in fact none
of this has been changed that
microphones load up this way I mean you
have more control over the microphones
you could add a closed you could add the
ambient of the I think they called this
the ambient mic that a and but I didn't
really change the expression or the
dynamics the amount of reverb the amount
of vibrato and none of this has changed
either attack as as short as it goes
releases as long as it goes brightness
this comes up as triple Forte or
whatever this dynamic level of honor
percent is supposed to be expression
it's all just the default the deep
reverb is default so right out of the
box these two cans sound very very
similar
again this is viola section so one of
the differences that you'll note when
you look a little closer is the the end
of the note and this is a little harder
to to hear the end of the note on the
Spitfire is going to be just a little
longer than the release of the audio bro
and I think that's intentional and
spitfire is part they make a point in
their videos of saying that strain
Clair's will release you know maybe we
could say on the downbeat they'll begin
the release the audio burro kind of
releases almost immediately as soon as
the MIDI note ends
just took just a slightly quicker end to
the note another note note on this
passage fairly random notes I believe I
extended the overlap more than 20 ticks
on these two pitches because I wanted to
make them so it'd be more similar this
isn't a bad thing about Spitfire or a
good thing but when they were back at
the 20 tick overlap they there was a
little bit more separation here and I'll
show you the difference those this is
Spitfire when you take these two pitches
and you quantize the closer to about a
20 tick overlap a very short overlap
here all right they get a little more
detached you can hear a little
separation in the notes which is
slightly more which is not as easy to
hear in the audio pros they're more
connected here slightly more connected
it's especially in these last two
pitches so just to make them slightly
more similar and this is a level of
control that you've got the I call this
the spanner the release is in the middle
I could probably try extending the
release and see what happens on the
Spitfire oh yeah a lot more connected
that way so that's another approach you
could just if we shorten it
yeah actually so let me get more
connected with just a touch of more
release so you know a lot of a lot of
control and a lot and a few different
places and none of its bad yet I have
got one one nitpick about the audio bro
coming up so that's that passage let's
move on to another passage before I go
on to the nitpick the the thickness on
the Spitfire is slightly slightly bigger
there the outer Burroughs has audio Pro
has a little bit more direct sound to me
at least through my headphones through
this headphone amp it's just feels a
little a little more it's full but it's
a little slightly more playing or a
little bit more clear or maybe whereas
the Spitfire is a little bit more full
ambient and that can be controlled with
the vibrato so listen to the the vibrato
has a huge impact on this sound here so
I'll change it while we're listening
[Music]
and to get them more similar if you want
it to sound slightly more like the audio
bro you might have to turn the volume up
on the Spitfire you could just take the
vibrato down a touch and it starts
getting so similar that it's it becomes
difficult to recognize especially if I
brought it up about maybe three-quarters
of decibel or something you know a
slight volume change when you pull the
broad a while you gets a little quieter
as well and maybe there's some mic
adjustments you could make if you really
wanted to try to get a exact mimic so
we're at very fine points here I mean
the similarities are far outweighing the
differences in sonic quality which is
not what I expected I guess when I
started this I didn't include violas
initially and all the again of the
Hollywood brass and symphonic press from
East whether brass strings from
east-west were fairly different I mean
right out of the box so the patches that
I picked pretty obvious differences and
you can listen to the other video to see
them hear them and then a deal was quite
a bit different too and had different
little quirks that I liked that were
distracting more than just oh that's a
little different you know maybe I can
play with it and I can work with that it
was more like
I need to call tech support with that
product so and I will but here we go
this is the nitpick on the on the audio
bro listen to the way this last note
releases it's not doing it anymore
I wonder if I I wonder if something that
I changed okay so it's not in this
phrase it was in the future phrase so
we'll go to the over this whole phrase
in a minute but you can hear how a
sample feels like it drops out halfway
through this no I can even bring up the
score editor if you want to kind of
follow along
[Music]
it's just strange and I try to play with
all of these controls to figure out if I
could bring it back in but it just feels
like it drops out right here right on
the wall kind of on the downbeat and I
moved it in time and I can't get it to
come back it just dries up all of a
sudden
so that's really distracting and I
wasn't able to correct that maybe
there's a way maybe it doesn't happen on
a different dynamic level I don't know
let's automate it back in that's right
one more thing you know let's go the
other way
[Music]
no it just it keeps disappearing even if
even at the lower dynamic level so I
mean this is something that I if I cared
I would I would ask them about like is
there going to be an update
[Music]
I still feel like I'm hearing you
disappear without the automation but
this is a futile exercise this listen to
this whole line just we can hear the two
compared back to back that longer
release and I don't want to hear that
longer interesting so picky right here
[Music]
that didn't register this expression
change it sounds like 12 decibels sorry
contact welcome ego right too
[Music]
I mean just really similar so I would
have to really study them you know you
can pick out the differences when you
think about it and when you're listening
carefully but as soon as you sort of
stop paying attention just listen to the
music it's so similar I mean the
Spitfire to me does have more body more
it tends to feel more emotional I begin
to get lost in the music just I think
about the musical phrase just a touch
more the native instruments audio bro
sounds a little bit more stilted a
little bit more like you know it could
use some dynamic shaping and it could
use it could use a little automation to
to help it obviously a harmony would
really help it a couple other things you
know could really help make it feel more
convincing and help it feel very you
know beautiful but the Spitfire is just
doing that with quantize notes and you
know a basically a unchanged patch
and it's not a very interesting piece of
music I mean I wrote kind of random
notes so that the experiment would be
more about the way the pad know it's
connected and and make you think about
the sound
in that part I I don't have the same
feeling I mean I think audio board does
sound pretty pretty nice and musical for
me it's kind of jumping on in volume a
little differently I don't know why this
channel link mode keeps showing up let's
look at the score so we can kind of look
at something
[Music]
I mean you can hear them get longer or
louder when they're playing longer
durations but they're not jumping around
in volume the same way the phrases feel
like they're all as though they were
almost meant to be played that way even
though it's not a great it's not a
wonderfully written passage and
quantizing the notes doesn't feel
natural
this audio burro sounds very similar but
I don't get the volume jumps between
notes makes me makes me call into
question the the convincing Ness of the
performance some of them are louder some
of are quieter in a way that makes me
feel like I have to do something to make
it work more
the way this gets so much quieter right
here
I mean I could automate that to make it
better but it doesn't sound like I need
to do something like instantly I could
eat I could easily let that fly work on
a couple other parts and come back and
touch it up later whereas this is is
like why is it like maybe just touch up
the release a bit so much more connected
well this it's like pixel by pixel it
feels like it makes a big difference
here well I won't play with my positions
so that's that that'll that'll wrap up
this this little this little experiment
video hope you hope you got any at least
half as much out of it as I did I was
just shocked at the similarities and you
begin nitpicking about the differences
and I still feel like Spitfire is can I
become the one that I'm gonna be going
to more just based on this one patch
even though they have a lot more patches
but wow if you have this you have an
amazing tool just with these Symphony
essentials