The all-new solo accompaniment to your Symphonic and Chamber ranges
Sometimes you need the intimacy and detail of a single voice to rise above the force of an orchestra. Reach for Spitfire Solo Strings – the all-new accompaniment to your Symphonic and Chamber arsenal, featuring exceptional first-call London virtuosos.
Solo Strings is designed to stand out, but also to fit in: this entirely new library sits perfectly alongside the Spitfire orchestral ranges, utilising the same location, peerless signal chain, mic positions and range of articulations that make up the DNA of our high quality orchestral packages. Single players in the acoustic luxury of the hall at Air Lyndhurst, captured on rich sounding 2” tape.
Solo Strings
Six years ago, Spitfire released Solo Strings, one of our first ever libraries. Since then, we have clocked up over 2,500 hours of sampling experience, so we knew it was time we revisited these essential instruments. They can add individuality and definition to big string writing, as well as capture soaring solos, whether for film, games or pop music. Think of the solo violin in John Williams’ score for Schindler’s List, Fratres by Arvo Pärt, John Corigliano’s Red Violin, or the cello carrying the Game of Thrones theme.
The Artists
Soloists are exceptional players, and capturing them on a recording presented unique challenges. We needed to go beyond expectation, making each instrument versatile enough to match the emotional temperature of your music, offering a vast range of mic positions and articulations to blend perfectly with our Symphonic and Chamber collections. Our new solo violin can be played in three distinct modes and was performed by three distinctly different players: Virtuoso, 1st Desk and Progressive, each containing not only their own range of articulations, but also a range of recording locations in the hall and different styles of performance. Virtuoso, with a standing player, captures the sound of a sonata, or a featured soloist out in front of the orchestra performing in a ‘concerto’ style. 1st Desk was recorded on the front desk of the first violins, perfectly placed for adding individuality and definition to a string line, while still able to blend in with the section. Our “1st Desk” performer plays “out”, leading the orchestra. Our progressive player was recorded further away from the conductor, designed to fit into larger string sections, or offer up solo passages in a more contemporary vernacular, opening the door to a modern, filmic sound of extended techniques including “Mandolin pizzicato” and “Tremolo whispers”.
These three violins are joined by three exceptional string players on viola, cello and double bass, all with an equal attention to detail and depth of sampling. This gives us an exceptionally versatile set of tools that can create anything from a single searing cello line to multiple parts added to larger sections, providing added definition and personality and bringing together a very unique sextet of players with unprecedented control and malleability.
For Solo Strings, Spitfire had the privilege of working with a group of internationally acclaimed musicians with a goldmine of experience as first-call soloists. These players can be heard all over major Hollywood films. Featuring Jack Liebeck (violin - Virtuoso), Clio Gould (violin - 1st Desk), Thomas Gould (violin - Progressive), Max Baillie (viola), Richard Harwood (cello) and Leon Bosch (double bass), Solo Strings is a no-compromise library, recorded in an exceptionally resonant acoustic space.
As with many Spitfire libraries, we returned to the iconic Hall at Air Studios to record Solo Strings. Scores such as Dunkirk, Beauty and the Beast, Wonder Woman and Paddington 2 were recorded there recently, as well as classics such as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, The Dark Knight and Gladiator. Solo Strings was recorded by award-winning engineers, who captured each soloist using world-class equipment: priceless ribbon and valve mics through Neve Montserrat preamps, the largest 88R Neve console in the world, onto pristine 2” tape before being converted with the top-of-their-class Prism AD converters at 96k. There’s a reason that this hall has been the choice for Hollywood directors for decades.
We are proud to announce the inclusion of our brand new, highly intuitive Violin (Virtuoso) Total Performance patch, offering you the most detailed and complete solo performance for the virtuoso violin. Performed by world-renowned virtuoso concert violinist Jack Liebeck, this performance patch is our most advanced and powerful to date. It contains all the techniques you need to create a realistic solo performance — five different types of true legato: Portamento Legato, Fingered Legato, Bowed Legato, Runs and Arpeggios. It also features: spiccato, staccato, tremolo, molto vibrato, progressive vibrato and non vibrato. — all combined together to enable musical phrasing without the need for key-switching, and programmed to react to playing speed and touch. This patch is easy to play and ultra-intuitive, allowing you to focus entirely on your composition, without the need for ‘stitching’ together performances.
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