Reply To: 🆓 Spitfire Symphony Orchestra Discover is out for free

[LinkedMusicians]

On mustakatu said

Two octaves? ahahaha

Even an 88 note piano library that is only one velocity layer is superior to a two-octave piano. That is a total waste of space. It’s nothing less than a demo — an ad for their paid product.

Of course, other developers use their free libraries to promote their paid ones, but they usually make their free libraries more useful. A two-octave piano is a joke. I’d recommend anyone reading this who is considering downloading this demo promotion for Spitfire’s paid libraries to instead look at the LinkedMusicians lists of Best Free Sample Libraries for Free Players and Best Free Kontakt Libraries. You can find some great freebies there that aren’t as limited as this. Granted, other developers also limit octave ranges and articulations in their orchestral libraries, but Spitfire, IMO, went overboard in limiting this to where it just looks like an ad, and yet they are marketing it as a starter orchestra. Sure, if you’re studying cinematic music and can limit yourself to a two octave piano and only long sustained string notes, sure. The probelm is their marketing communications — or at least their former CEO’s video — overhyped this demo library. Now, if you’re just playing around and don’t actually create finished pieces of music, this may entertain you. But if you’re actually looking to write a finished orchestral piece of music, the limitations of this are too great. You will need to piece together your free orchestral instruments from various developers, but you can do it. I will put this on the Kontakt list, but with the caveat that it’s really not the all-inclusive orchestral package but is more useful only for a handful of libraries that have enough octaves to be usable in productions.

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