Free Spitfire LABS Strings

[Mattias Westlund]

Spitfire Audio has released a freeware virtual instrument dubbed LABS. So far it has a piano and strings, but more instruments will be added eventually. The strings are OK though nothing really special. There's just two proper articulations -- short and long -- plus a third "ensemble" patch that appears to be a strange combo of the two others (why it's called ensemble is anyone's guess). Controls are limited to tune, pan, volume, dynamics, reverb level and release time and the interface is extremely bare-bones. It's a nice freebie but the lack of pizzicato and more in-depth parameters makes it a kind of one trick pony. Do check it out though, you never know when it might come in handy.

I haven't tried the piano as I have little interest in prepared pianos.

[Samulis]

Their ad for it on VI-Control is imho pretty horrible- it almost strobes or something. Animated ads are pretty silly nowadays.

Interesting from a free perspective, but I'm not sure what I feel about it from a freeware perspective. Like most of spitfire's apparent 'benevolence', it strikes me more as a business gesture than anything with truly good intentions (something backed up imho by their widespread {and surely costly} advertising of LABS), but that could just be the years of "British supremacy" marketing wank they've saturated their website with for the past decade rubbing me the wrong way... or the HZ Strings debacle.

[Mattias Westlund]

(06-05-2018, 11:53 AM)Samulis Wrote: Like most of spitfire's apparent 'benevolence', it strikes me more as a business gesture than anything with truly good intentions

Yeah, maybe. I dunno. If it actually sounded like their big expensive libraries I could see how it might be interpreted as some kind of marketing ploy, but it doesn't. In fact, if I hadn't heard any Spitfire libs and this was all I had to go on, I would be very hesitant to buy any of their products. So who knows what they were thinking with this.

[bigcat1969]

Dunno at VI-C it is being hailed as the greatest gift of all time...

The piano isn't prepared, it is just soft.

Problem for me is no way to make velocity control volume, hence worthless for midis.

[Viktor]

(06-06-2018, 01:15 AM)bigcat1969 Wrote: The piano isn't prepared, it is just soft.

Nah man, it got felt on it. I couldn't really make much out of the strings, (while I didn't really went deep into it) but I really enjoy the piano, despite the lack of dynamics, for soft, intimate passages it sounds really good.