Quick addition... I was on Spitfire's website checking out the paid versions of BBC SO and lo and behold, it looks like some poor web designer forgot to update the copy writing on one of the pages!
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Edit: So far not impressed with the commercial version.
I took the time to listen to all the demos and honestly I don't hear anything that's markedly better than EW Hollywood (which is what, 7-8 years old now?) or in some cases even VSCO 2 Pro (especially some of the perc). Particularly not a fan of the brass, which are subdued and close mic-heavy compared to Hollywood. Woodwinds sound quite good, as they usually are (except the clarinet which has almost no character/air to the point of seeming almost like a wavetable at times). Strings sound fine to me, although they are very, very hard panned and thus hard to listen to with headphones in isolation per section, but probably sound okay in section, and I guess maybe they were going for that "1950's/60's ultra super-wide stereo!" thing between that and the use of Coles ? The worst part to me is the default mixes; they sound worse than some of the mixes I did for VSCO 2 Pro before we went multi-mic on most things, with instruments sounding out of phase or having this weird disconnect between the close and far sounds. And while the legato is very nice at most times, any time he does a run on any instrument, it sounds like a slurred mess, not at all like it would be played by a professional orchestra; runs have always been a weakness of libraries, but at least don't bother showing it off if it sucks so much, or make a separate 'runs' patch with a dedicated super-fast legato. At least the staccatos are very nice, but it is next to impossible to screw up staccatos...
The most usable part to me is maybe the sections, which do sound really good, but I generally don't use except in hyped cinematic stuff. The most incredible part of this library is that they recorded it in only 200 hours; that's maybe only 25-35% more time than it took me to record VSCO 2 Pro. But efficiency of time management does not mean a superior product, sadly.
And that's ignoring the rather lackluster roster of instruments. Only one of each solo instrument, no aux WW, not even the common ones like A vs. Bb clarinet, Eb clarinet, alto flute (useful but uncommon ones like oboe d'amore), no solo bass trombone, no piano... but the percussion? only a SINGLE susp cymbal, crash cymbal, triangle, tambourine, tenor drum, tam tam, etc. Just two snares, two bass drums. This is the exact number of orchestral percussion instruments in a GM spec percussion patch, as specified 35 years ago as the standard minimum! EWQL SO has like three times the percussion instruments and it's nearly 20 years old! If I counted VSCO 2 Pro instruments the same way they count BBC Orchestra instruments, it would outnumber BBC Orchestra almost 3:1. Yes, there's a quality difference, but there's nothing more I dislike than being stuck with only ONE flute or ONE trumpet sound when I'm working on something and it just won't fit, and when you're trying to create a cohesive, single-ecosystem product like BBC Orchestra, it is stifling to only offer single player options.
The spill mics are to me an obvious and intentional gambit to increase total file size, which they effectively do by about 30%, most likely in order to fill that 1 million sample quota (why buy a sonically identical 700,000-sample lib when you can buy a 1,000,000 one!). Otherwise, any sane company would merge all the spill mics as a single slider, saving the customer gigs worth of RAM, storage, and download time.
Last complaint... but geez, I wish they wouldn't talk constantly through their entire playing videos, only playing 3-4 second little snippets here and there. It does not give the listener time to form an opinion, which I guess is the entire point, eh? A professional composer does not need explanations on what 'col legno' is; even a novice is smart enough to go google something like that.
Overall, it's just not cutting it for me. There are a lot of things I hate about EW Hollywood (namely that almost all the staccato samples are cut too short without fadeouts!), but honestly I almost feel better off with it than BBC SO, which is an enormous shame for such a potentially interesting instrument. I was actually really interested in this library when I first heard about it; I have many excellent recordings from this very orchestra, but it just doesn't cut it for 2020 for me. This doesn't sound any better or tighter than earlier Spitfire, and in some cases even sounds less coherent. I had to go back and listen to what their BML (now Symphonic WW/Str/Brs) stuff sounded like, and geez, I think it honestly sounds way better in a lot of cases.
Thoughts?
