Great product.
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Product details
Brand: Spitfire Audio
Now with 36GB of extra content.
An industry standard, universal starting point for composers and music creators of every level, this all-in-one sample library features strings, brass, woodwind and percussion performed by the world-renowned BBC Symphony Orchestra — captured at London’s famous Maida Vale Studios — host to The Beatles, Hendrix and Bowie, and countless film scores.
This definitive collection of orchestral instruments captures a musical synergy from a collective of astoundingly accomplished players with over 90 years of heritage – made playable by all via our award-winning plugin designed by UsTwo. Start scoring with a wide range of articulations for each instrument, captured at the highest quality with a stunning selection of professionally mixed signals.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra series has something for everyone, available in three editions ( Discover, Core and Professional).
Now available through Rent-to-Own on Splice’s platform. Learn more
All reviews
I wasn't sure I was going to upgrade from Core, but am glad I did. The added instruments were the big draw, but also just having everything that was meant to be for the BBCSO means a lot too. I am looking forward to the hours and hours I know I will be spending with this library.
Been using Core for a while but kept looking at Pro. I really don't need the myriad microphone positions but I did want the solo instruments and the beautiful cor anglais finally pushed me into it!
It sounds natural and real.
It is a huge library having almost everything you can use when composing symphonic music, but there are a few hiccups. 1. Spitfire Audio app sometimes crashes when you click on "Not Installed" in My Products. 2. For me in Canada downloading this library took 4 (four!!!) days. And I have the fastest Internet in the country. 3. About BBC SO Pro pros: - rich and complete library with soloists in every section including strings - a very, very rich set of different microphone set and positions, what allows for not only choosing the nature of sound but also for better balancing of instruments within sections - a very interesting and helpful function for velocity setup. It can be a Full Velocity Range considered a natural option where volume is controlled by velocity and CC#11, Velocity Mapped to Dynamics that allows for controlling velocity with CC#1, Velocity Compressed High very useful for instruments having weak low registers like celesta or glockenspiel, where velocity range is narrowed to high ranges and the volume is controlled more by CC#11 and CC#1 than velocity itself, and finally, Velocity Compressed Low working in the opposite direction. 4. About BBC SO Pro cons: - in most instruments there are observable loudness differences between articulations, but the most dramatic are for strings. F.e. switching from "long" to "staccato" on the level of forte often makes long sound like mezzoforte and staccato like fff or even ffff. This is particularly prominent when the option of mapping velocity to dynamics is activated. Altogether this hiccup makes writing music under Dorico or Sibelius a bit too difficult. And I found no way to balance it unless I use a player per articulation, which defies purpose of having smart key switching. - legato in all instruments has a serious hiccup, i.e. the beginning of a note has an extra attack. So, if there is a legato passage with notes slightly overlapping, the fist note sounds heavily accented while the rest sound correct, but if we have 3 passages of 4 quivers under individual slurs we will have 3 accented notes. This sounds badly, especially when using string leader slow legato patches. - Spitfire claims that these libraries are also "stand alone", but it is not entirely true. To play any instrument you need a host. The situation is partially helped by the library following NKS standard, what allows opening it under Komplete Kontrol, but not everybody has it. Interesting is why there is no a standalone player? Witold PS I would give the library 3.5 stars, but as there is no such option 4 stars seem more justified.
A Fantastic product. I am delighted I upgraded from BBCSO Core to BBCSO Pro.
Great orchestra :)
Covers pretty much everything you would need in an orchestra. Great library of instruments and articulations with so may different microphone locations you're bound to find what you're looking for. The sound quality is never thin and is one of the most realistic ones out there. I've upgraded from Core and already found the single instruments worth the upgrade price alone.
Great product
I really love it! It gives my sound a completely different body
Quite an impressive product to be fair. I'm in love with this lib, you guy did an amazing job that change my life literally. I'v use It to design content for a Piano application (I can send you a monthly invite if you want) So far, there is tow part where I can see some improvement 1 - The microphone section. The UI in the mixer signal panel do not tell me if a mic is "available or not", or if he doesn't work, I need the product to expiante to me so I can understand why. I feel like you could, with some alpha tricks or colours code around the microphone slider for exemple could do the job for me. 2 - Make it more like me : personalisation I would love to be able to personalise my panel view (techniques, signal mixer, Fx's). I work for an app publisher and I produce and integrate content. Most of the time in need to be very quick and efficient. I need to find tune my tools for match exactly my needs in a specific context. I'm using your product for 3 weeks now and i'm often switching between the techniques and the Fx's for doing multiple automations. The big slider is not suffisent for me so I really switch into the Fx's view. In the context of this specific missions, I never used the right side (cf photo un pj) of the techniques panel (for now) and I would love to switch this panel with the fx panel and have both (techniques and fx's) right on one spot. You could have some mic that you prefer on the same panel the the techniques ou Fx's. It's just about give use personalisation. So far, It's my best acquisition of the 3 last years and top 3 all time of all my gears and music VST, love your product. Thank you guy's, keep it up. Best regards
Game changer, productions taken to a new different level of reality an feeling
What an amazing library! After only a few days of working with it I'm already floored by the possibilities. Highly recommended.
Great! Good quality sounds, very simple and intuitive to use... Perfect!!
I dreamed of it, Spitfire did it.
Good stuff. Thank you. I would love some more Cinematic style perc. though.
Great sound. Lots of options. I could have more legatos and a convolution reverb of the room where it was recorded but it's a great plug-in.
Having spent maybe 20 hours or so with it since purchase there is an *awful* lot here. I reckon it'll be ten times that long before I really know the software and sounds. Some wonderful articulations and the flexibility of the mic positions and dynamic/expression controls mean there's a lot of control available if you have the patience. It would be really lovely if the more commonly used "long" articulations all had the natural legato switching (flautando in particular) as that can break the suspension of disbelief (just what I can hear so far.) I am finding the switch to not using velocity for said long articulations awkward but I do see why this is so, could the two approaches work together? The fact (at least I) could only get it to work when all installed on to one ssd is annoying (much data shuffling took place!) and it is very memory hungry (I've managed to top out 32gb system ram just on strings!) This is a product that could be built upon even further (and I hope it is!) with more layers and even more malleable articulations/note transitions (more vibrato options, slur, gliss etc) but, after my first week or so I am not disappointed. So far it appears to work reasonably well as well (Pc; Win 10, Ryzen 5 system, cubase 10.5 host DAW) which is a pleasant change from some other plug ins. Tuition videos are helpful. Expensive, but it seems mostly good overall and worth the money.
Great orchestral sounds! Helps me a lot in my work.
Phenomenal library that is being used in each of my compositions, and is an absolute joy to use.