Strings are very warm and the swells are gorgeous for this kind of library. Pretty close to a real performance.
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Product details
Brand: Spitfire Audio
Infuse your music with more passion than ever before with the best-sounding, most alive string legato sound available today. Ushering in the next generation of highly-detailed string legatos, Spitfire Appassionata Strings has been recorded using our new "Impulse Legato" technique – the culmination of years of intensive research and development at Spitfire Audio HQ. Delivering flowing and emotive lines, these new legatos offer perfectly balanced vibrato, enabling composers to intuitively write in a beautiful, soaring melodic style in stunning detail. Referencing the aesthetic of classic melodies from the scores of composers like John Williams and Thomas Newman, this medium-sized string band (8,6,6,6,4) delivers a highly sought-after style of performance, with stunningly-realistic rebowing. Crafted from years of sampling experience, Spitfire Appassionata Strings is your ultimate companion for writing with intention, emotion and – most of all – passion.
All reviews
I was hoping to get this library for couple months now, so I waited for the summer sales and jump on the purchase. I like this library very much, it's very smooth. I immediately added it to my new Template.
These legatos are unsurpassed.
Wonderful samples! I only hoped for the library to have a separate vibrato option. Other than that - it's an incredible tool to have in your arsenal, and sounds fantastic in combination with symphonic strings!
In the SAS (Spitfire Appassionata Strings) I very much like the violins 1 and 2, especially in combination with Microphone mix 2. I like them more than the violins 1 and 2 from BBCSO Core. I also like the noise floor option which adds to a more natural environment sound (when carefully used). About the articulations, the hairpin options and 'glancing attack', until so far they do not work for me, and I'd rather have seen a tremolo articulation instead, when talking about usefulness. Or a con sordino articulation. Spicato and pizzicato are also not available in the articulations. It's a choice, I understand, but it somehow limits the usefulness of the SAS. About the legato options, these are limited to an octave (as far as I noticed) which in most case is not disturbing as jumps bigger than an octave do not occur much, but alas, I notice it. Another remark I make is, there are in some cases portamento (or portamento like) options for the violins (and another instrument, I forgot which) with a velocity floor of 120, which is rather high. And in normal playing you miss this option. Without the manual (advised) and the demonstration video of Paul Thomson, you won't have a clue about this option. The overall sound of the instruments is very good (and mark the beautiful violins), but this library is not for the fast work, it excels in medium and slow tempos. The versatile microphone options are certainly a plus.
Like any orchestral sample library there are flaws and technical problems in the performance, but I have to admit that this is one of the best string libraries I have on my hard drive, especially when it comes to beautiful melodic phrases. Appassionata Strings is unique!
Just beautiful..
Incredible sounds, just feeling is real passionate about film scoring
There is little passion in these strings, and the legato doesn't hold up to the promises of the marketing. Would have been good 10 years ago, but the competition is lightyears ahead.
I've spent way more than I should have on Spitfire products over the last year, they have the best sample library I know of. Here's the problem with their products: They are all great, and creative, and fun, and I feel like I'm drinking from the proverbial fire hose. There is some much here that I will need years to feel I'm good at it. Frankly, I like that kind of problem.
Excellent Library .. purchased it cause of the Legato Articulations . and its awesome
Spitfire absolutely nailed the legatos in this library! It is limited to mostly legato patches, but recorded at Air Lyndhurst, it blends nicely with the other libraries recorded there. If I had one small quibble, it would be that the release times sound a teeny bit short - they are certainly natural, but I wish I could extend them just a tad more than their proprietary player allows. Very easy to workaround with a reverb tail, though, and what an absolutely delightful sample set! These guys have really taken the library to a whole new level. Wow!
I bought this library to layer with other string libraries I own. The samples are well recorded and the overall sound is very good. However, I would like to have the possibility to control vibrato. Only the upper register allows portamento which, sometimes, can be very limiting. As a stand-alone library, I imagine I will not use it often but it blends very well with other string libraries.
Beutiful sounds, love it.
INSPIRATIONAL.... CREATIVE.....BADASS.....GORGEOUSNESS!!!
Apassionata strings is pretty great in a lot of ways. It kind of forces you to write thinking more about orchestration instead of just playing in block chords which is nice. The sound itself is good, i prefer it most at the softer dynamics. The strings have a natural "progressive vibrato" which is really musical and doesn't take any programming to implement. I did notice a few legato transitions here and there that had some weird artifacts that i hope will be fixed in updates. The longs also sound great and full. It's definitely challenging to have to think about the individual lines but it's definitely something that is worth practicing. The dynamic range is also awesome and transitions very smooth between the different layers. My two main critiques of the library are as follows. 1. Ive seen many people on line talking about the lack of re bowing when playing the same note on after another. The fact that theres round robins is great but the re bowing would really add a-lot here. 2. This might be more of a personal thing but i was disappointed that you can only access portamento slides on the highest dynamic and at the top of the range of the cello/ violin. I get what they were going for and it sounds great when its called for in the music but my favorite thing about string legatos its doing soft, subtle portamento slides up into notes and especially down into notes, it adds so much emotion. This is present in most spitfire legatos so i really thought it would be here in a library focused on legatos. I really hope this will be added because it kind of feels like a misses opportunity especially because Apassionata is do dynamic and expressive. All in all this is a really good library that works really well for getting down ideas and blends really nicely with many of spitfires other libraries. This feels like a new frontier for Spitfire and im excited to see what's coming in the future.
I was so excited to purchase this product. When it comes to programming "the big string lines", I've used East West Hollywood Strings, Diamond Edition - the long powerful system patches. I was ready for a change and something new to inspire me. Right off the bat I was frustrated at the loss of Kontakt as a player. Going down to 1 MIDI channel per instance wasn't what I was looking for. Kontakt works. It's solid. My real frustration came with the preprogrammed vibrato in the strings. The patches serve a purpose within a score, but not being able to control the vibrato renders them useless as an everyday go-to string library. It's beyond me why SF wouldn't give us, the user, control of that vibrato. This library needs to be reworked with controllable vibrato then it has the chance to become a composer's everyday legato string library.
Reply from Spitfire Audio
Sorry to read this Jared. If you have any questions about the decisions we made when developing this library or its use, please feel free to reach out to us by clicking on the "help" or "chat" widget in the bottom right corner of our website.
As a beginner I think that the learning curve is perhaps a bit steep. The greatest difficulty has been to set up a proper MIDI environment so that I could use all the nice functions included in the product. I have ended up using TouchOSC but still haven't found the proper set up.
The most beautiful tone characters and amazing legato string library I ever had
So far, I am very impressed with this product and plan to use in some of my previous recordings.