Dear community,

After my last post on string libraries, I have shelled out quite a few £££ for some Spitfire stuff, since they had a spring sale earlier in April. I have never worked with Spitfire libraries before, but it has been an interesting experience, and I would like to share my experience with the community.

Their BML series (British Modular Library) includes two string libraries -- the Sable chamber strings (16 players) and the Mural symphonic strings (60 players). The Sable strings are so far more complete than the Mural strings, which are under development. In fact, they keep expanding and updating their libraries all the time, contrary to many other sample companies. The main Sable and Mural libraries are both multi-volume sets, with lots of articulations and techniques in each volume -- but both Sable and Mural are also available as one-volume ensemble packages, where you still have quite a few articulations available. The Sable Ensemble library thus comes with 15 different articulations,

The ensemble volumes are pre-panned according to a normal string setup, but you can still play around with four mic positions (close, Decca tree, ambient and outrigger). I have never been a great fan of ensemble libraries until now, but the Spitfire string ensembles are very fun and easy to use, and you can compose small strings pieces in no time. The Sable ensemble package is less than 30GB and, as a Kontakt library -- like all other Spitfire libraries -- it needs no USB key, so it is perfect for portable use. Here is what I instanstly sketched in Notion 5 after having installed the Sable ensemble (I have mixed three of the four included mic positions, no reverb or effects),



There are many ways, in addition to keyswitching, to trigger the different articulations in the Spitfire Kontakt interface. In my setup I set the full ensemble nki -- which contains all articulations, mic positions and settings in one window -- to omni. Then you can, by way of an extremely easy setup process, send each articulation to its own midi channel, and -- voilà -- you can use the "shift + I" shortcut in Notion to place and change any articulation wherever you want on any staff. It is almost as easy as using the Notion palette. Dynamic markings and hairpins work separately in each midi channel, via CC16. You can also record dynamics manually via CC1 on sequencer staves, if you wish.

The full libraries work in the same way, but here you have to use more than one nki to get access to all the included articulations. You have separate sections, of course, and you do not only get a whole lot of useful articulations and techniques -- including great legatos, both bowed, fingered and portamento -- but also seven mic positions and three mixes by Jake Jackson. The sordini, which I focused on in my last post, are very smooth indeed, with a soft attack right out of the box. Below you can listen to the first few bars I made with the full Mural strings library (I haven't purchased the full Sable library yet). The sequence starts out with sordini, as you probably will notice. Because of the slow moving and spacious character of the music, I have added reverb from VSL MIR.



All the Spitfire BML libraries are recorded in the same studio, with the same equipment, and with an orchestral setup, so they are all pre-panned and easy to use if you want an orchestral mix -- but they might not be quite so easy to combine with other libraries.

But to sum up, my first impressions -- as a Notion user -- of the Spitfire string libraries are very positive indeed. The interface and functionality is really made from a British no-nonsense perspective, and the libraries are the most functional VSTis I have used within Notion so far. I never enter my music by midi recording, but always directly as notation, and even if the Spitfire libraries are made from the point of view of playability -- that is what the two composer guys that started the company keep claiming -- they have a set of features that make them very handy for us notation-centric Notion guys as well.

If some of you are interested, I might record a short video where I demonstrate how I use the Spitfire strings in Notion.

Best regards,
Otto