I was going to post this in the
thread about falling for marketing, but it seems more appropriate here (even though given the company involved, marketing played a role in my purchases)
Truthfully, the sample libraries I am starting to regret the most are Spitfire Audio, arguably the worst culprits or geniuses (depending on your view point) regarding marketing practices.
I just really don't like their sample player.
- I hate the lack of purge so everything loads
- I hate that I have 10+ mic options, which inflates the size, but they make it hard for you to remove mics or add them back in.
- I hate the interface and the hidden elements,
- I hate that it doesn't have multi-timbral support,
- I hate that you can't set a different set of mic options as default,
- I hate that to reduce the number of articulations in a patch you have to save it as a user preset rather than over-writing their patches.
- I hate all the issue you have at times when you move the content of a sample library and that you only get a set number of resets and have to contact them for more.
Even for the Kontakt instruments, I hate how small the interface is.
I have got to the point that there is nothing I like about how they do things.
On the positive side, I think some of the Originals are pretty cool and the above issues are less of a problem with those. But even then they feel more like entertainment than useful.
.... wow clearly I needed to get that off my chest after recently working with BBC SO and some of their other libraries.
This is the first time I've seen you say anything particularly negative about anything. I'm proud.
One of us! One of us!
Seriously though, I was a big fan of Spitfire but my interest started dwindling after a while. Around the release of BBCSO, I didn't understand the hype this time, but the marketing campaign was massive. It was everywhere at that time. Then the whole scoring competition extravaganza (excellent visibility for Spitfire, but perhaps the wrong kind of visibility.. ). After all that I lost all interest and any new product is just adding to the growing, seemingly abandonware-like content on their site. I'd much, much rather they quit the aggressive marketing, went back, made their core libraries as perfect as they can be, and invest in their player.
As you know, I was on the hunt for strings and brass libraries this BF. I considered Spitfire for all of 10 minutes. I went on their site, clicked "Strings", and there was 69 different options. Only strings. There's 200 libraries I can see on their site right now. Some tiny, some expansions, some really excellent creative stuff, but 200 libraries is crazy to me. I just see the vast majority of it as abandonware.
I look at the likes of Alex Wallbank (Cinematic Series) and the crazy stuff he could do with access to the rooms, gear, staff and clientele that Spitfire leverage. Maybe I'm wrong. But imagine having Alex Wallbank collaborating with Hans Zimmer, Abbey Road, AIR, BBC, etc etc.
All I know is that these company's marketing campaigns have become thinly veiled to me these days, and once you become even a little bit savvy to it, it's easy to see through the sophisticated branding, artsy trailers and minimalist aesthetic of their player. It all looks great, but there's a whole list of issues that go along with each library when you actually start using them.
There'll be nobody more happy than me if they release a genuinely game changing, new era of strings and sampling. SSS tone really is lovely, but that's no good if you're battling with it the whole time.
Thanks for sharing your experience Mark. It seems many people agree with you too.
