SAMPLE SOUND REVIEW: REVIEW: ABBEY ROAD ONE ORCHESTRAL FOUNDATIONS by SPITFIRE AUDIO

Spitfire Audio Abbey Road One: Orchestral Foundations is their first collaboration with Abbey Road Studios, which is the world's most celebrated recording location for movie music.

The Iconic Sound of Cinema

OVERVIEW

This is the Main GUI Interface

(TOP MENU, MAIN CONTROLS, PRESET SELECTOR, & TECHNIQUE SELECTOR)

The 2nd page of the Interface is where you will find the SIGNAL MIXER

FX Control Page

(Reverb, Tightness, Vibrato, & Release)

REVIEW

It seems like yesterday since Spitfire Audio released the great 'BBC Symphony Orchestra' at the end of last year. When I heard Spitfire Audio was releasing an orchestral library recorded at 'Studio One' at the great Abbey Road Studios got me extraordinarily excited. There have been so many great soundtracks recorded there including, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Avengers: Endgame, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Harry Potter, Gravity, and so much more. Spitfire Audio used a 90-piece symphonic orchestra to record this library that is accommodated in Spitfire Audio's own dedicated plugin, like the BBC Orchestra. Spitfire Audio claims it is their most expressive orchestra to date that comes with 69 articulations and weighs in at a massive 69GB. The library includes 10 individual mics and 2 mic signals mixed by four-time GRAMMY Award-winning engineer Simon Rhodes (Avatar, Hugo, Harry Potter) that offers a powerful cinematic level of quality. It's an important factor to note that Spitfire promises that Abbey Road One is just the beginning of a series and will feature two smaller expansion libraries in early 2021. These will include Legendary Low Strings and Sparkling Woodwinds that will contain several performance elements and Legato. One thing about Orchestral Foundations is that Spitfire promises it will continue to grow the library making this a solid investment for future growth.

Now let's look at the GUI of the Abbey Road One Orchestral Foundations Plugin. On the left side two sliders that consist of volume and dynamics. In the center, there is an assignable knob that controls parameters. At the right side of the knob there is Reverb, Tightness, Vibrato, and Release that can all be controlled by the macro knob by right clicking on each of them to be assigned.

On the second half of the interface, you'll find a variety of articulations like Long, Staccato, Swells Short, Swells Medium, and Swells Long. To be clear, there is no Legato yet, but it is coming shortly in the upcoming expansions. Above the articulations there is the Mic Mixer page and the FX section.

In the Mixer section, you'll be able to adjust the various signals and mixes to create your custom mix. The Effects page gives you several options including Reverb, Tightness, Vibrato, and Release.

So, what do you get with Abbey Road One Orchestral Foundations?

Full Orchestra, High Strings, Low Strings, Trumpets, Horns, Low Brass, High Woods, Low Woods, and Percussion (Soft Boom, 4 Bass Drums, Verdi Ensemble, Toms, Bass & Snare, Toms & Octobans, Snares, Octobans, Piccolo Snares, Piatti, Suspended Cymbals, Tam-Tam, Ribbon Crashers, Anvil, Glock, Xylophone, Timpani, Full Ensemble, Drum Ensemble, & Metals Ensemble.)

The sound of Abbey One is powerfully authentic and epic. The acoustics of Studio One at Abbey Studios is captured brilliantly by Spitfire Audio. It was an absolute satisfaction playing with Abbey Road One, and for those who purchased the full BBC Professional Orchestra or Core, I understand the financial investment already made. However, Abbey Road comes highly recommended, has a beautiful sound, and inspired me straight out of the box. If you can afford it, I highly recommend picking it up. Spitfire Audio has had many excellent releases this year, and it seems fitting to release this one near the end of this year, but make sure you have room on your hard drive.

It's very exciting to see Abbey Road One will have ongoing expansions and a life that appears long and vibrant.

If you ever dreamed about having the soul and space of Abbey Road Studios implemented in your orchestral compositions, look no more.

ABBEY ROAD ONE ORCHESTRAL FOUNDATIONS is the inception of greatness that will certainly shape the film composing universe for years to come and undoubtedly scores a

5 OUT 5 STARS!