This product is only limited by my imagination! It is so well thought out and I’m so happy I got it. It fits in as a great centre ground product that I can build around. Can recommend solo strings to go with SSO too!
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Product details
Brand: Spitfire Audio
Recorded at AIR Studios with 123 world-class musicians
Spitfire Symphony Orchestra places the definitive sound of modern cinema at your fingertips. From the whisper of a solo flute to the thunder of a full symphonic brass section, command the same gold-standard palette used by the world’s most celebrated composers. A comprehensive collection of curated ensembles, strings, brass, woodwinds, harp, piano and percussion, performed by world-class musicians and recorded in breathtaking detail in the legendary acoustics of AIR Studios’ Lyndhurst Hall.
Our longest-running and bestselling orchestra, SSO has been updated twice in 2025 with the addition of Solo Strings and most recently Motif Brass: three new ensembles that deliver the bold, thematic sound at the heart of cinema’s most iconic scores, adding unmistakable power, colour, and definition to your music.
All reviews
I recently bought Spitfire Symphony Orchestra. I find both extraordinary. The expression in my work has taken a 180º turn and certainly. Value for money is the best you can find. 100% recommended !!
This library is so comprehensive I feel almost unqualified to speak for it. The sheer amount of performance articulations, variations in players and different textures is astounding. You have so much control, at every stage of writing, able to drill down into the subtle minutia of scoring. I come from a background of using the old East West libraries, where you are somewhat forced to build up your score, piece by piece, and if you're comfortable and enjoy that kind of workflow, this library is very much that in spades. The recent inclusion of the solo strings is also a game changer, making this more than just an all-rounder library, but everything including the kitchen sink and the house it came from. If I had any criticisms, it would be very minor things, some of the time I find myself wanting more power behind the performances, to go a little past forte, everything leans on the pianissimo to mezzo-forte range, outside of the horns, especially in the celli and basses, I find it difficult to get 16th staccatissimos to feel tight and responsive, and I'm willing to take the blame for not choosing good configurations, I find the attacks just a bit softer than I'd like. Nothing a little layering can't fix, though. Again, the sheer depth of this library leaves me in a position where I struggle to feel qualified to give a detailed review, and I highly recommend spending a good few days listening through examples, browsing YouTube for overviews and comparisons, but if you're after an entire orchestra and want deep, perfectionist control, this is one to definitely consider.
Oh, this one is good. I wish it was available with the Spitfire player also
The Performance's technology is really innovative, giving the fact that the most used articulations for strings in my case are staccato/spiccato and legato, with this new way to play the sample libraries will be easier and faster without using key switches which is time consuming.
Really good library!! Sound really good!!
Spitfire Symphony Orchestra 2024 is a great addition to my orchestra library, especially when it goes on sale. The best review is the walk through on the Spitfire website. I did watch several other video reviews on line. Be aware that they did not take advantage of controlling the vibrato. If you just leave the vibrato at 100% you are doing this or any other orchestral library an injustice. You must manipulate both dynamics and vibrato to get a more realistic sound. Stand outs are the solo trumpet, and Core Anglais (think English Horn) but many are great. Being a Kontakt instrument, the patches load very quickly, more so than dedicated Spitfire players (BBSO, which I have and recommend). Adding the Close mics along with the tree or other mics adds more audible legato transitions. The solo instruments have no vibrato or Molto vibrato, nothing in between. The sections instruments have no vibrato, vibrato, and Molto vibrato.
The sound quality is awesome. With this apps i dont need to setup the delay or make an adjustment at the first note i made (not like the other similar orchestra plugin). This is a game changer for me personally. Thanks for the good work.
Wonderful product. At its very worst, it's a first-rate mockup/visualization tool. At its best, it could sub for an actual orchestra. It can be a little fiddly to get the exact articulations you want with the various instruments sometimes, but the out-of-the-box experience is still incredibly solid and the tech and performance is amazing. Recommend.
The instruments sound fantastic. Because this is my first library the installation instructions weren't intuitive. However my email discusses with Josie (support) got me up and running. Thanks.
It is a very well-done library that demonstrates that all good recordings still work really well. I love the number of instruments it contains, and it may be the best starting point for orchestral mockups; it offers several options for many of the instruments – notably, the horns, which include a "solo", a 2, and a 6. In addition, it provides curated old ensembles with many pre-orchestrated options that are very useful for sketching patches, while the new performance instruments make soloing easier and are immediately ready to play. The features I miss are few but important to me: · Not all instruments within the same family have similar articulations, and the order of these articulations is not always consistent across key switches. It feels as if one must learn the key switch mappings for each instrument. Furthermore, not every instrument has a dedicated performance patch. · The performance patches lack a polyphonic option. Although they sound great—and a polyphonic setup would hardly sound like a monophonic one—I really miss it (hopefully, loading the same instrument twice is RAM-free on Kontakt, so one can record different voices on separate tracks). · In the "techniques" patches (multi-articulations), it is rather confusing—at least initially—that different articulations respond differently to key velocity.
(Windows 10, Intel i7, 16gb RAM, Studio One Pro) I've been a huge fan of Spitfire sounds and have been grateful for the free version of BBC Discover, had purchased Epic Strings and Epic Choir and used some of the "Lab" sounds. I've always wanted great orchestra sounds for my compositions but money has always been the issue. I was determined to buy BBC symphony orchestra but after watching the walkthrough of Spitfire Symphony Orchestra (SSO) and stumbling on their sale I spent the extra money. I was particularly amazed in the online walkthrough demo of the string techniques and drooling over the wonderful realism, articulations and playability of strings in the video. Nowhere was there a mention of one not being able to do everything with the free version of Kontakt but so far I have found that to be the case. First of all it freezes when loading large samples and can take up to 2 minutes to load if not crashing the DAW. I have the samples loaded on an SSD with 1050MB/s transfer capability. Next, I can never replicate the portamentos so easily shown in the video regardless of how easy the velocity and overlap of the two notes. The trigger switches for changing articulations cannot be adjusted in Free Kontakt because the "spanner" tool (wrench) is not available ...so since the trigger switches are off of the 88 note midi keyboard they have to be recorded on the virtual keyboard with a mouse or in midi piano roll view. I have been a big fan of Spitfire's interface on Discover and the other products I purchased from them and it is easy (on it) to drag the key switches into a playable range. Another issue I have with SSO is that when I associate a midi controller slider with "dynamics" (for example) in strings; when I open flutes, that same slider does not control dynamics for flute. This may not be the case in the paid version of Kontakt or it may be a quirk of the Kontakt interface. The sounds in SSO are lovely and I'll still get a lot of use out of them. I don't know if I will ever bite the bullet and spend and extra $200 for the full Kontakt ($149 crossgrade) because I don't really need the type of sounds that come with full Kontakt. ....but I feel a little cheated to not be able to do everything I want to do in SSO with the free version of Kontakt. Also, I've never had DAW lock-ups and the type of slow-down I'm experiencing while loading the sounds. Once sounds finally load, everything works fine except the afore mentioned problems. I wish Spitfire had done disclaimers about the shortcomings of using the Free Kontakt....but still there are some great sounds here that are well recorded. I'm a little disappointed though.
Excellent
Great sample quality, with an insane amount of articulations and instruments included.I would say this is probably the best start-up choice for an all-in one orchestral library(though it's been around for a while).However,I sometimes find it quite tricky to work with,because the different instrument samples vary in volume and the same goes for articulations,so you do need to spend more time fine-tuning and mixing.But other than this,I'm quite happy with it.
I’m only a few days into using SSO but I really like it. Easy installation and quality sounds.
So far Iam really loving this , only just started using it , got it on sale , I would say a must buy , Iam a hobbyiest player and it seems to fit in very well for me ,live playing , although I've only just started with it ,I'll update review later .
Absolutely blown away by the detail and complexity of this sample library! The sound quality is unmatched, allowing for the creation of truly cinematic orchestral scores with ease. Knowing it was recorded in the same studio used for countless iconic movies adds an extra layer of authenticity and inspiration. Whether you’re a professional composer or a hobbyist, this library feels like a game changer
Great sounds, great quality.
Absolutely great Orchestral Library. This Library will serve my needs for many years. So many articulations and nuances to each of the instruments. For the price, this is by far the best library for beginner and seasoned users. The performance patches are really nice and easy to use. Individual instruments along with some curated ensembles make for some nice touches to further your creative ideas.Thank you Spitfire for helping take my ideas to the next level.
SSO library inspired me to compose my orchestral music journey with high quality sounds and lots of instrument options as well.