Abbey Road Orchestra: Violas Professional

Abbey Road Orchestra: Violas Professional Reviews

A product’s star rating is calculated as the average of all its reviews.


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13.2K Reviews

4.3

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Product details

Brand: Spitfire Audio

Celebrating the exquisite sound of a Viola section captured at Abbey Road Studios, this virtual instrument offers a comprehensive collection of long and short articulations. With eight technologically advanced legato techniques, including extended velocity-triggered patches (portamento and detaché), and a massive sampling depth, it provides unparalleled realism and expression. Featuring 16 curated mix signals, with two hand-crafted by GRAMMY® award winner Simon Rhodes, this library sets a new standard for violin sound in the digital age. Experience the warmth and authenticity of a masterfully recorded instrument, designed to elevate your compositions. This is a remarkably authentic Viola sound that embodies the timeless essence of one of the most renowned recording spaces in the world: Abbey Road Studio One. Capturing your orchestral vision with ultimate realism. Combine the 2nd Violins/Violas with the rest of the Abbey Road Orchestra: Symphonic Strings Professional collection for the ultimate virtual string section. Only after the basics? Check out Core.

All reviews


Rated 3 out of 5 stars

The library sounds very good overall, and there are definitely strengths — especially the shorts, which I find very usable and musical. They layer well with other libraries and have a clear, defined character. However, the RAM usage is extremely high, which makes it difficult to integrate efficiently into a professional template. In large orchestral setups, this becomes a serious limitation. I also feel that the articulation set is not as complete as expected at this price point, and the legatos are not always convincing enough for exposed melodic writing. They work in context, but often require layering with other libraries to achieve the desired realism and expressiveness. I initially purchased the Core version, but found it too wet for my workflow, so I upgraded to the Pro version. While the Pro version is very expensive, I do appreciate the additional microphone options — especially the Close and Tree mics, which are essential for flexibility and integration into my template. Overall, it is a good library with some strong qualities, but given the price, performance demands, and limitations in articulations and legato realism, I believe there is still room for improvement.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

The library itself is excellent. The legato is flawless. The problem lies with the sampler or other components. The entire library is poorly optimized. My computer specs are an Intel Core i9-13900K, 128GB RAM, and a WD_850X 4TB SSD. I use Nuendo as my DAW. Even with this setup, I still encounter problems running this library. When I play back tracks, the project frequently stutters and pops. This persists even after applying so-called “optimized” settings to certain parameters. It significantly impacts my actual workflow experience.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

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Rated 2 out of 5 stars

I would like to emphasize that the "sound "is great. I'll try to use this strings in my works despite of these cons below. It's too heavy to load. and has insanely vast memory consumption. As regarded in Other Media Revies, you need to wait for a lot of time even when you load a single mic position stored in a WD Black PCIe 4 super fast SSD. Spitfire Symphony Orchestra is as fast as reasonable, but this product is far from comfortable. Many producers may avoid this product not only because the problem, but also because the slowness in playing. Even only a single track performance of Vn1 Performance Legato(Extended), you'll find it has a plenty of latency and you can hear the sound chopped when you play fast passage (of course, it happens even when you use only a single mic position). It's painstaking experience to use this instrument by Spitfire original engine. Though I'm using a windows machine with Core i9 13900K and 128GB RAM, these troubles insist to occur. What kind of enviroment can play this well, I doubt. I miss you, KONTAKT engine.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Would be great if it worked.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

I like work with the PRO series, which in my opinion is one of the best in the field.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

Incredible to write with