🆓 Spitfire Symphony Orchestra Discover is out for free

[mustakatu]

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/en-eu/pages/discover-sign-up

UPD: It’s out, the new link: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/en-eu/products/spitfire-symphony-orchestra-discover

 

Be the first to hear about Spitfire Symphony Orchestra Discover – the free, lightweight version of our bestselling orchestral library.

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[mustakatu]

Also, they give you 30% off code after subscribing to this wait-list. Here’s mine just in case: 30SA1LIB

As a member of our mailing list, you can save 30% on your first library with us.*

Enter the code below at checkout to save.

 

*Valid only on one library in your first purchase. Excludes our newest releases (released within the last 90 days), products in Rent-to-Own (BBCSO Professional, Abbey Road Two: Iconic Strings Professional, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Eric Whitacre Choir & Air Reverb), hard drives and The Professional Composer’s Guide. Does not stack with other offers.

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[LinkedMusicians]

I realize the benefit here is a 30% off coupon code, but I’m curious, is this a renaming of Spitfire’s BBCSO Discover or is it something new / different?

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[mustakatu]

We’ll see. They def are working on rearranging and rebranding archives after the Splice acquisition happened, so maybe it’s a bit of both — repackaging while adding something new to gain media exposure and reach new audience.

[joegyork]

Oooh very interesting – it seems that it is a cut down version of this – completely different to BBCSO – I wonder how it will compare to the free version of that and the other free orchestras…..

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/products/spitfire-symphony-orchestra

[LinkedMusicians]

Orchestral developers know that there’s big money in (1) the educational market, (2) the aspiring semi-pro market, and (3) the home hobbyist market — in other words, people who aspire someday to make money who are just starting out, either in schools or as hobbyists, and being there on their desktops and iPADs as they begin their journey has proven highly profitable. Go back more than 20 years and Garritan was really strong in marketing his products to schools. It showed other sample libraries to pay attention to that market.

So all of this free stuff is really just an investment in beginning a brand relationship with future spenders. It’s very smart business strategy and should never be confused with acts of altruism. It’s completely about long-term investments in customers. When brands like Soundtoys give one month of revenue to a good cause — that’s altruism, and it’s very rare. Almost all corporate giving is done to enhance the brand. I’ve tried to persuade every developer I’ve advised to do free libraries to keep their names in the public eye — staying relevant and newsworthy and establishing a direct marketing channel with future customers that is significantly lower cost than advertising. There are a number of factors, but just as an example, for some developers, if even 5 or 7 percent of those who get freebies convert to customers within a couple of years, it more than pays for the expense of doing the libraries or plugins. It can get them tons of free advertising (called “earned media”) that has a value what is often far beyond the marketing budget of a small or mid-sized company.

Head to my thought of doing what successful influencers don’t want to do, and that is, committing to maintaining extensive lists of reviewed and recommended free sample libraries and plugins. Influencers will do videos of free stuff to build their followings, but they’re primarily focused on the paid stuff — because it brings them money. Those faux influencer reviews are commonly commanding thousands to tens of thousands for a major influencer in this space. Free sample libraries can get attention without having to stuff cash into an influencer’s greedy little shilling hands.

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2

[mustakatu]

It’s out: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/en-eu/products/spitfire-symphony-orchestra-discover

[joegyork]

Interesting that they are using Kontakt for this library rather than their own app – I assume the full version was already in Kontakt. I put the folder in the wrong place when I first downloaded then noticed the demo video was using Kontakt

[Peter Woods]

On joegyork said

Interesting that they are using Kontakt for this library rather than their own app – I assume the full version was already in Kontakt. I put the folder in the wrong place when I first downloaded then noticed the demo video was using Kontakt

That’s great. I wish they would switch the Abbey Road libraries to Kontakt rather than their player. I love Abbey Road Iconic Strings 2, but I find their player pretty lousy.

So I just received their email for this new freebie. Here’s the video.

“Today we are excited to give back to our community who have been supporting us for so many years by offering you a new free library.

SSO Discover is a lightweight introduction to our flagship orchestra, featuring a curated bundle of 44 instruments – including strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, piano, and more – all recorded at the legendary AIR Studios Lyndhurst Hall.

As an email subscriber, you get immediate access. Join Paul Thomson explains in the video that this library is a multi-gig library, unlike BBCSO Discover, which is hundreds of megabytes. Basically, they’ve figured out that they needed to step up their freebie orchestra game to keep up with their competitors. Of course, I’ll be downloading this!

https://www.spitfireaudio.com/en-us/products/spitfire-symphony-orchestra-discover

LinkedMusicians Founder. Your friend who keeps the beat.

Check out my music. 

2

[patrickwichrowski]

Finally some news from them that obtain my attention.

https://linktr.ee/patrickwichrowski/

https://patrickwichrowski.bandcamp.com/

[LinkedMusicians]

After playing around with it, I found Spitfire limited this way too much. Would it really have been that much for them to create a full piano sample library with two or three layers? Instead, they have a two-octave piano range. Who would find that useful? They promote it as something useful for those just getting into orchestration, but the reality is, it’s little more than a demo for their paid product. They give you longs for the strings and then a single note of other articulations. That just furthers that this is nothing more than a promotional demo.

IMO, they would have been much wiser to offer more articulations and simply limit the sample detail, velocity layers, round robins, etc. By limiting octaves as they had, they instead created something that isn’t very useful beyond serving as a demo for a paid product.

Your thoughts? Agree? Disagree?

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21

[mustakatu]

Two octaves? ahahaha

[fretman]

I have found this to also be the case for many of their “accessory” instruments – Originals, Hearth & Hollow, etc. It made me disappointed enough to stop trying their stuff – even their flagship products. It’s a shame because I’ve heard good things about them.

Studio One, Windows, RME UFX, Yamaha MSP7

[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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