Review: Abbey Road Orchestra 1st Violins by Spitfire Audio

Spitfire Audio is working on an iconic project: a series of deeply sampled libraries, covering the entire orchestra, recorded at Abbey Road Studio 1. The first of the strings libraries has now been released: Spitfire Audio Abbey Road Orchestra: 1^st Violins.

I believe this is the closest we have ever got to the ‘perfect’ string sound in my head. Full of vibrancy, passion and musicality, it is a joy to play!

Paul Thomson – Co-founder of Spitfire Audio

You may be thinking that a library of 1^st violins only is a bit of a truncated affair. Or you might be thrilled to finally be able to load a patch, play a few notes, and sound like John Williams. You would be both right and wrong on either. You’ll see why in a bit. But first, let me explain what’s in this library.

In order to keep this review just under the word count of a Tolstoy novel, after the next paragraph, I won’t bore you any longer with information that you can learn from the manual. Instead, I will concentrate on giving you tips that will hopefully get you started in the right direction with this library.

One section at a time

Abbey Road Orchestra: 1^st Violins (ARO Vl 1 for brevity) is the first release of the ARO
Strings. Next up are the celli, at a date to be announced.

The first violins contain recordings of 16 violins, recorded by sound engineer Simon Rhodes, with a total of 14 microphone signals plus two mixes by Simon Rhodes. If you don’t know who Simon Rhodes is, have a look at his IMDB page. Or simply read on, because I am about to tell you. Simon Rhodes is the sound engineer who recorded the music for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, James Bond (Spectre and Skyfall), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Avatar, and many more. He has worked with John Williams, and Howard Shore, to name just a few. He has won four Grammy’s. I’m not giving much away by saying that the sound quality in ARO: 1^st Violins reflects this.

The following articulations are included:

PROFESSIONAL TIER INSTRUMENTS/TECHNIQUES

Performance Legato Extended: A detailed and playable legato patch that reacts in real-time to playing speed. The Extended Pro version includes additional legato styles such as portamento and detaché. It also offers marcato and soft entries for single notes, making it our most advanced legato.

Lyrical Legato Extended: This is a relaxed legato patch designed for slower melodies. The Extended Pro version is enriched with additional legato styles like portamento and detaché and features marcato and soft entries for individual notes.

Longs Extended: A polyphonic sustained patch. In its Extended Pro version, it comes equipped with soft and marcato styles for note entries which are triggered by key velocity.

Legato Runs: This agile legato patch is perfect for fast passages and flourishes up to a minor 3rd. Note: Legato intervals greater than a minor 3rd will not sound.

Legato Portamento: A unique legato patch where all intervals are performed in a ‘portamento’ style, resulting in an intentional slide between notes.

Legato Detache: Here, all the connecting notes boast broad but separated bow strokes, making it ideal for strong and impactful statements.

Legato Slurred: A legato patch with slurred intervals performed with a ‘moderate tempo’ feel, perfect for sweeping melody lines.

Legato Allegro: A vibrant legato patch with slurred intervals and an ‘uptempo’ feel, ideal for quicker or arpeggiated ostinato material.

ALL TIERS INSTRUMENTS/TECHNIQUES

Performance Legato: A profoundly detailed legato patch that reacts in real-time to playing speed.

Lyrical Legato: A relaxed legato patch tailored for slower-moving melody lines.

Long: This is a polyphonic sustained patch designed specifically for pads and chordal writing.

Flautando: A sustained note, played with a fast bow speed close to the fingerboard (sul tasto), which creates a delicate and airy flute-like sound.

Tremolo: Executed with rapid continuous bowing, it provides delicate flurrying textures at lower dynamics and ramps up intensity at louder volumes.

Measured Tremolo: This tremolo is performed with a specified number of repeated notes and can be synced to the host DAW’s tempo.

Harmonics: Sustained notes derived from the overtones of the string (artificial harmonics) provide a sound that’s higher than the fundamental, creating glassy, suspenseful textures.

Trills: These are rapid alternations between two notes and are available as Major & Minor 2nds & 3rds.

Spicatissimo: An extremely short note length achieved by quickly bouncing the bow on the string – a technique designed for very fast, articulate material.

Spiccato: A crisp note length achieved by bouncing the bow on the string, making for a sprightly ‘all-purpose’ short articulation.

Staccato: A concise note length where the bow starts on the string, producing a clearly detached sound with a slight accent.

Marcato: A technique executed with a strong accented front to the note, longer than ‘staccato’, and comes with the option of Timed Release triggers.

Pizzicato & Bartok Pizzicato: The former is a short note created by plucking the strings with the fingers. In contrast, ‘Bartok pizzicato’ is recorded at the very highest dynamic (velocity >121).

Col Legno: A technique where the string is tapped with the back of the bow or a pencil, generating a light and woody sound.

There are five dynamic layers on most articulations, with three dynamic layers on the transitions. Long articulations also have three types of attack: soft, normal, and marcato. These are triggered by the velocity of the note you are playing.

Core or Pro?

ARO: 1^st Violins is available in two versions: Core and Pro. There are three main differences between the two.

Core comes with one mic mix by Simon Rhodes. Pro has 14 mic signals, plus two mixes by Simon Rhodes

Core has two legato patches, Performance and Lyrical. Pro has six more types of legato patches. Yes, six more. Head down to the ‘legato police’ section to learn more about them.

The Price. Core costs €229, Pro €399.

There are a few other small differences, such as Core only having two dynamic layers on the transitions. 

The elephant in the room is – which one should you choose? The main difference is the mics. Listen to Simon Rhodes Mix 1 in the demos and walkthroughs. Is this full sounding, large, cinematic mix what you always need for your music? Go with Core. Do you like to experiment with microphone signals? Do you sometimes need a dry and punchy mix, sometimes a big and mellow one? Do different tracks that you write require different sound signatures? Then you should choose Pro. Bear in mind that you can always upgrade from Core to Pro for the difference in price.

If you want Pro, and storage space is at a premium, you can delete microphone positions you don’t want to use. Unfortunately, the process for doing this is more cumbersome than it needs to be. See here (a dedicated page detailing the process for ARO will probably come at a later date).

About the sound

With Spitfire Audio’s BBC Symphony Orchestra libraries, the magic starts to happen when multiple instruments and sections are used in combination. You get a cohesive sound, and a wonderfully three-dimensional sense of the recording venue. I suspect this is due to the way BBCSO has been recorded and engineered. With only one of the strings and three percussion sections from ARO released, we will have to wait and see if the same magic happens when you combine different sections.

The sounds on offer here – amazing musicians playing in one of the finest studios in the world, captured expertly by Simon Rhodes – these sounds are outstanding. The concept of BBCSO is to be a starting point for composers. An affordable way into the world of creating virtual mockups of orchestral music. As such, it does not (and cannot) have the same depth of sampling as the Abbey Road Orchestra.

For this reason, I like to use the BBCSO for background tasks – accompaniment figures, middle voices, tutti passages. You name it. It gives me that wonderful sense of cohesion and spaciousness in my mockups. For solo passages, however, I often choose libraries that offer more depth in the sampling.

With ARO: 1^st Violins Spitfire Audio has achieved both. An absolutely beautiful sound, and a depth of sampling that makes this section ideal for all kinds of music, be it lyrical melodies, aggressive short notes, or blistering fast runs. As such it has become a one-stop shop for me when I need a symphonic first violin section. When BBCSO is a universal starting point, the entry to orchestral sampling, ARO is set to be the end point.

For some reason, symphonic-sized string sections seem to be much harder to sample than smaller ones. Sound-wise, chamber strings are often close to the sound we know from recordings. Somehow sampled symphonic strings tend to sound ‘smeared’ and less focused than recordings of symphonic orchestras. Not so with ARO: 1^st Violins. The sound is outstanding. Big and symphonic, and yet clear and present. For symphonic strings, I haven’t heard better.

In some of the walkthroughs and demos I have seen and heard, ARO: 1^st Violins have a certain sharp, shrill quality to them. I find this to be the case when you over-emphasize the highest dynamics. If you use the highest dynamics much more sparingly, only for the loudest passage in a track, you get a rounder, mellower sound. Keep the modwheel under control – below 100 for most of the time – and you will be fine. Just a tip if you are worried about the sound being too bright and piercing. If you need the 1st Violins to cut through the mix, go full tilt and there you go.

The room and the engineering are a prominent feature of this library. When you’re recording at Abbey Road Studios Studio 1, you don’t want the sound of the room to disappear. Here, even the close mics have depth. There is still a good amount of room information in the signal, even though there is less tail. As a result, the close mics sound more distant than in most other libraries. It sounds more like recorded from the first row of the parquet, rather than from the conductor’s perspective.

To avoid disappointment, it’s important to know what this library is for. It’s a symphonic-sized string section recorded at Abbey Road Studio 1. The expectation on the forums was that this would be the only strings library you would ever need. The one library that would make all the others obsolete. That’s impossible, of course. Do you want symphonic-sized strings recorded in a big studio for every single project you do? Of course not!

For example, if you are working on a singer-songwriter-track, you may want dry and intimate strings. No symphony orchestra, no matter how good, is going to be the right choice for that. So let me say this: if the other sections live up to the standard set by the first violins, ARO: Strings can be the library that can replace other symphonic-sized string libraries. The depth of sampling provides all the necessary detail – except for con sordino and effects, perhaps – and the concept and programming are consistent. The quality control is great, so you can get great results quickly.

Of the mics, the leader mic is really good at adding definition. The Outriggers 1 offers the greatest possible width. Much more than the Outriggers 2. The Ambient has a sumptuous hall to it. The hidden gem for me is the Leader Mic though. This mic helps to add detail and precision, and to push the sound forward.

If you want to mix ARO: 1^st Violins with other libraries – which you have to do at the moment, as the other sections aren’t available yet – this is a good place to start. Make sure the reverb is turned off in the plugin. Set the Close Mic to 100%. Add the Leader Mic to taste. The more detail you want, the more Leader Mic you can dial in. Now set Outriggers 1 to about 45%. For slow music, set the release to 100%. For faster music, shorten the releases to match the tempo of your music.

This should be a good starting point. If you want more hall, turn up Outriggers 1. If you want a drier sound, turn it down. If you want your ARO: 1^st Violins to sit further back, switch the close mic for one of the Trees, or the Mid mic. This should be a great starting point that works well with many wet libraries on the market. For example, it’s the setup I chose to mix them with Spitfire’s Appassionata Strings.

Legato Police

If you are a strings library nerd, you will want to know about the legato. Does it stand up to the legato police? It will, once you learned how to use it effectively. There are several legato styles to choose from.

Performance Legato, a combination of several styles that automatically adapts to your playing, works for most passages and is a good first port of call. It’s a very handy patch because it includes short articulations as well. If you play short and fast, you get a staccato sample. It’s very playable and makes sketching and working with the library quick and effective.

There is also Lyrical Legato, which retains more of the transitions. Great for slow, emotional lines. For faster passages, it has too much overlap.

Détaché Legato offers a bow change for each new note. Great for bold statements. It can also work for a run here and there when you need every note to be crisp.

Slurred Legato is played under one bow and is therefore more connected. Remember that the players bows aren’t fifteen feet long, and give them some notes that aren’t connected when using this articulation.

Finally, we have Legato Allegro and Legato Runs. Quite the selection, right? While Legato Runs is the fastest of the bunch, Legato Allegro is also slurred and is meant to be used for up-tempo figures and ostinati. Again, give the bow a break. I mean, not literally. Just give it time to change direction every now and then. For the runs, which legato to use and when? Fret not, and try different variations. Sometimes the Legato Runs work perfectly for very fast runs. Sometimes Legato Allegro works better. Don’t be afraid to use Legato Allegro in these cases. The great thing about so many choices is that there is almost always an articulation that is just right for what you have written.

Another important feature are the different note attacks. If you play softly, the note starts with a soft attack. Play with more force, and you get a marcato attack. Very nice and important feature, this. You get a much more natural and musical phrasing when you can vary the note attacks.

On to the shorts

The other articulations are invariably great too. Trills are sampled up to a major third, not just the standard second. The harmonics and flautandos sound lovely and airy (if you read ‘hairy’, you need a shave). The short notes are consistent in volume and length. When you switch from spiccatissimo to staccato, the volumes match between the two articulations. And they don’t jump around in the stereo field either – an annoying tic that unfortunately affects many a library. Not so here. Spitfire Audio have done a great and thorough job of editing and quality control here. This consistency makes ARO: 1^st Violins fast to work with.

There are not that many short articulations in the library. However, the selection is more versatile than you’d think. By working with the Tighten and Release parameters, you can make the articulations sound crisper, or longer. Be sure to experiment with these two parameters for the short notes.

Round up

Look, it’s a seemingly simple thing, but it makes all the difference. There are three note attacks, depending on how hard you hit the key. There are enough dynamic layers with smooth crossfades in between. The dynamic range – the difference between the quietest and loudest possible signal – is large. And you can crossfade seamlessly between three levels of vibrato. It’s not just on or off, but you can vary the strength. That’s all ideal and just right for a sample library. Spitfire Audio has got most things absolutely right with this release. And this bodes very well for the whole series of ARO libraries.

Let’s go through the criteria that make for a truly great sample library. Does Abbey Road Orchestra: 1^st Violins meet them? Depth of sampling? Check. Quality control? Check. Sound? Recorded at Abbey Road Studio 1 by Simon Rhodes. Playability? Check.

The downsides for most people are the price, which is justified, but high, the price, the price, and the resources required. With all the articulations loaded, Mix 1 alone takes up 3.12GB of RAM on my system. That’s actually surprisingly little when you consider all the content that’s included. However, if you load three mics, you are looking at 10GB, for just one section. So the strings alone can quickly eat up most of the RAM on a 64GB rig. Luckily, Spitfire Audio have introduced ‘Eco Load’ to their player. With it you can load only selected techniques into RAM.

But the depth of sampling comes at the cost of a large RAM load, and longer loading times. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. I am very happy that we have an offering here that prioritizes detail over resource usage. If you plan your project in advance and are not hell-bent on using all the mics together, most systems should work just fine.

Finally, there is also a caveat. As I said, it’s a large symphonic-sized string section recorded in a large hall. And that’s the sound this library delivers. Consider whether this is what you need. If it is, then Abbey Road Orchestra: 1^st Violins is in a league of its own.

So, should you buy ARO: 1^st violins? Yes. If you can. Definitely. The question of whether you should buy it now is a bit harder to answer. With the mixing tips above, you can hopefully combine the 1^st violins with other libraries relatively easily. However, you may also might want to wait until all the strings sections are released. With the celli next up in line, it will hopefully not be too long. The ARO: 1^st Violins have convinced me that it will be the definitive collection of symphonic-sized strings samples.

Find out more about Abbey Road Orchestra 1st Violins by Spitfire Audio