Really, 20 other UA-cam geniuses sent us up to Logics ‘Audio Settings’ control panel to mess around with buffers and such, or ‘freezing’ tracks, and NOBODY once mentioned turning off unnecessary articulations! Simple genius, Stephen… thanks!
9:33 The Spitfire plugin shares sample memory across all instances. If you happen to load the same articulation into two tracks, those samples will only be loaded into memory once, and both instances will use that sample data. The memory usage readout in the top bar includes the _total_ sample memory BBCSO is using across _all_ instances. Only a very small amount of additional memory is used for each instance, so there really is not any huge overhead if you are using a lot of tracks.
Ah nice, that is a cool little feature update they've done there. I didn't notice that had changed. Interestingly, they haven't updated their manual, hope they will do that to reflect the change. I do love they continue to update their products to run more efficiently.
this is very important to know! So basically if I have a string quartet but each instrument with 8 instances, it would not consume 4*8 times memory but only (roughly) for 4 instruments. Correct?
@@JuanMariaSolare Correct. Each instance will consume a bit more memory for the plugin itself, but there will only be one copy of the samples loaded into memory, which is shared across all the instances.
When people say “the last tip will blow your mind..” I don’t believe them. You, sir have changed my mind. MIDI Channel Switching is going to be a game changer. Thank you!
There's a similar method I use quite often for individual notes or short parts of phrases. In Cubase (and I assume most DAWS) you can highlight the individual or groups of notes you want to articulate differently with the range tool, and then Right+click which opens a menu which provides the option to reassign the MIDI channel for that note or notes. This way, your phrase is all on one track, and you don't have to play in or draw the notes on separate tracks.
Nice! Definitely a good workflow to keep them all on the one track. I know logic can do the same, I think most DAWs should have that feature too, as you mentioned.
Whaaaa? I’ve been waiting 15 mins for each flaut and tasto to load when I could just click?? I’ll have to try it on my DAW (currently moving from ableton (stylish) to cubase (pragmatic) Buuut I use a Code 49 for input (vel sense/weighted/aftertouch sense/pads dials and faders AND an XY pad- nice midi input device idk why it disappeared from the world)
Thanks for the tips! If your using Logic Pro, build an articulation set for each instrument. It's a one time process and you will have maximum control over your articulations. Works with any library that uses key switching.
Great, I use Core and Studio one, I set up channel switching for the articulations. I put BBCSO on a track then used add tracks(+ sign). In the box I put how many channel tracks I wanted in the Count field, tick Existing instrument and select BBCSO selecting the channel starting from channel 2. Studio one then creates the tracks with sequential channels from no.2 upwards in order. In BBCSO you need to use channels other than no.1 for the articulations. Studio one lets you store these as track presets to load in any project remembering settings too.
Oh my! Just got Albion One and your video is exactly what I needed. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that does not like Key Switching haha.... Anyway, thank you for your down to earth explanation. Can't wait to try it! Thanks again!
Thanks for the interesting video. In Logic Pro you can set „Display Middle C As: C4 (Roland)“ in „Settings > Display > General“. After that the range or register for each instrument is displayed as described in the Spitfire BBC SO Manual
Indeed you can, great to mention it. I didn't want to get too deep into it in this video, but yes, that's why all the keyswitches are off in this library. Problem is, most libraries (like those built for Kontakt) use the Yamaha C3 standard, so I just keep my Logic Pro settings in default C3 for middle C and remember to offset by an octave for this library. :)
Very good video, thank you! By the way, articulations can be incorporated in Logic Pro. Once you connect the articulations from the libraries and Logic recognizes them, you can have the scores with those additional notes on the staff. It has more advantages-in the piano roll editor, you can assign articulations to each note if you want and control them in real-time from an iPad
Man, thank you so so so much for these extremely useful tips! I'm also super happy someone else had trouble with the keyswitches - I knew they were wrong but couldn't figure out the problem. Thank you!
Thank you, I just purchased BBCSO Core, and was looking for things like this. I also found in the app in settings, there is a place to set the maximum voices that can play at once. Changing that from default of 512 to 52 helped a lot, too. Great video!
Awesome, glad to have helped. Just a quick heads up, some of the BBC SO plugin settings actually affect all instances of the plugin across your DAW session. So, if you have 60 instrument tracks loaded with BBCSO, then the voice limit might be capped at 52 across all of them, meaning if they are all playing one note, 8 of them might not play anything. I'd recommend checking the manual just to make sure if the voice limit is one of these "global" settings, but if you've noticed missing notes, that might be the case.
Thanks for these tips. Have BBC Orchestra Core on a laptop. It's fast enough but is hot enough to cook on after 10 mins. Have Updated and Optimized so will give it a go again with the articulations reduced
Aside from the amazingness in sound a big reason I love Spitfire is their set-up allows you to download and easily move your plug-ins on your external hard drive and that is a charming gift!
Just made my master template before realizing the midi channel option. Welp, back to the drawing board to save RAM lol. Great video, thanks for the info!
Thank you for the tips - really helpful! The keyswitching being out by an octave seems to be a long-running midi issue. Middle C on a piano is the fourth C from the left, so C4. In the world of midi, middle C is labeled C3 (well, on a Yamaha keyboard, on a Roland it is C4). In Logic you can change at least this aspect in Preferences / Display tab. I guess Spitfire went with the real-world convention of middle C.
Thanks very much, glad you liked it! And yes, I didn't want to make the video longer with a tangent into that issue haha, but I briefly mentioned that the zero based counting of the yamaha standard was the issue. It's just interesting that Spitfire, a company that makes libraries for Kontakt where they use zero based counting and middle C is C3, chose to use the a different system for their own plugin. And both Christian and Paul seem to use Logic Pro too, which makes it an interesting decision given that C3 in Logic is middle C. It's not too much of a work around, I just remember to offset by an octave, but I'm just wondering how that came about lol.
I don't know about other DAWs, but, in Logic, if you create a multi with fewer than 16 channels, you can add more channels later. Highlight the last track and go to Track > Other > New Track with Next MIDI Channel.
There is another advantage to multi-timbral tracks; you only have one track to deal with in the score editor, so if you need to provide sheet music to musicians to play your composition you will find it much easier. All the notes are in the same track on the score automatically, without those key-switch notes to annoy you. If you use the other way of doing it you may need to produce a separate file that doesn't play correctly just to prepare the score, and if you revise your composition then you might need to prepare the scoring version of the file all over again, or try the error prone job of editing both files manually. I much prefer being able to keep just one file for recording and mixing the playback version _and_ the printable score.
This was really really helpful!! Thank you so much!! I do have 2 questions for anyone that can answer. Is there any way to get rid of the "swelling" sound at the beginning of a note for the instruments in BBC Core? I really notice it in the strings. Also, I use protools for writing (not by choice) and want to know how you can do a form of "multitimbral" in Protools? Thanks in advance!
Hey John, glad you enjoyed the video! Great questions mate. Unfortunately, the swelling isn't something that can be removed, there isn't an attack knob to my knowledge. The best suggestion I've heard is to use a "pre delay" on the midi track, essentially playing the track like 20 ms early (or a time you find works well), to account for swelling. I think it was maybe Dan Keen or Paul Thompson who showed that in a video I saw once and it works well, though is a little bit of a fiddly way of working I must admit. I am very rusty on Pro Tools Midi and multi timbre I'm afraid, but I think if I'm remembering correctly, you create an Aux track with the Multi BBCSO plugin on it and then send the MIDI tracks to each of the MIDI channels, so you would create up to 16 MIDI tracks with outputs to "BBC SO Multi" or something like that. I remember doing this with Kontakt when I used Pro Tools way back, but it may have updated since then (I think it may have been Pro Tools 8 or 10 haha).
I disabled articulations so that I’ve got a “long” and “short” version of each instrument group. Reduced load on the CPU but still allows me to have all in each group available with just one instance of the plugin
I just updated to Pro and my session has now grown to the point where it's playing slightly out of tune! Even though CPU usage per the Windows Task Manager is low (
The problem was related to changing articulations on multiple tracks on the fly, causing samples to reload constantly. The answer was: open the task manager and watch the RAM chart. I had 30gB of samples in my 64gB of RAM. Making articulation changes was causing massive memory substitutions. If I waited until the RAM graph stabilized, there were no tuning issues at all. If I attempted playback before allowing the new articulations to be fully loaded, there were tuning problems. Just needed to be more patient. It was all related to disk data transfer speed as opposed to CPU load. Once all the samples needed for the piece were in RAM, no tuning issues at all.
Hi there. I have Spitfire labs strings and chorus...however I cannot seem to assign a midi channel to each instrument. Its like if I choose "viola", Port 1 and Midi CH1. Then it plays viola on that channel in MIDI out. But I cannot now for instance select Brass and assign Midi channel 2. Changing the Midi Channel just changes it for the whole plugin. Its like I would have to add multiple versions of the plugin for each individual instrument
Hey, I'm not sure you can do that with the labs plugin I'm afraid. I don't think it can load multiple articulations at once, only one at a time. (sorry for the delayed reply)
@nacuda9 I accidentally hit "remove" instead of "reply" 🤦♂ when trying to reply to your comment, but you asked about an issue you were experiencing on the free version (discovery). There was static and clipping. I'm not sure what may be causing this, but possibly check your DAWs buffer size. If it is set low, (like 32) it might be struggling to recall the sound fast enough to play. Though this normally causes clicking and popping, rather than static. Spitfire do have a great online help desk to ask though.
Fantastic Indeed but how about the mod wheel that sadly controls ALL of them at the same time ? (Spitfire hope you're listening and fix this as well so we can blend those properly and actually use the multi option without duplicating those tracks for longs primarely ).Great video mate ;)
Thanks, and totally feel you there. That can be frustrating at times, especially after a fade out or decrescendo in the legato patch and then jumping straight back into staccato. I usually wiggle both faders before I start recording anything out of habit, just to make sure the CC's are set to the right level before the first note sounds.
Hi thank you for the great video but i feel like as a beginner i am struggling alot with using bbc vst. Is their possible to make a guide over how to use it?
Hey, thanks for checking out the video. I do want to make some videos on how to work with orchestral samples, so stay tuned, hopefully I can do those soon.
Nice vid thanks. Do you have an example of how it actually works in a piece? Are you splitting the midi and putting them on the separate midi channels/tracks? Also how do you control the volume of each articulation?
Hey, great question. I don't have a physical example at hand, however, I am essentially splitting the MIDI track up over the different articulations, and I use the expression slider to really balance the different articulations together, controlling the overall volume.
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew ahhh - ok, that sounds like a good workaround, because the expression slider is essentially another volume control, correct? it doesn't actually change the articulation, say if you had a hard stacatto but just wanted it quieter? thank you
It probably could, though I'm not familiar enough with Cubase yet to know exactly how to set it up. It might be called something different in Cubase, I'd expect.
Hey, I'm having an issue with the plugin, but maybe it is intended? So I loaded in around 16 instances of BBC Professional, with lots of chords etc. and at that point it starts to fail (random notes get muted etc.). I maxed out all the settings in the app, as much as my hardware allows (64 gigs Ram and processor gets to 5% load max). What I noticed is, that you can only allow 999 voices at a time, but this seems to include all instances of the plugin? That's really not a lot, especially when enabling extra mics doubles the voices of one instrument, which can easily end up at over 100 voices. Am I mistaken, or does the plugin have a huge hardware limitation, which forces you to render parts as your song to re-arrange them later on etc.?
Hmm, that is a really great question. I haven't come up against that before, though I rarely use more than one of the mix combinations of mics, so I'm probably not loading up as many samples as you are. It could well be a limitation, I'd advise reaching out to SA's tech support to find out. If this is the case though, it should roll off the oldest notes first, so if you are seeing newer note get muted, maybe that's not it. I'm not sure what it could be though, sorry I'm not of more help here.
In multi timbral mode can you play more than one style at the same time on the same instrument? e.g. pizz and longs at the same time on the same instrument channel (true multitimbral)
You might want to chekc your CPU since you do more instruments on one instance Logic used to to do this assigning only one core, while if you use several tracks (the old way) Logic spreads these tracks over multilple cores. But this was a few years back perhaps it has changed. But I am not seeing any benchmark tests, So I wonder... how it works out in Core distribution.
Hey Bart, great point. I have run into that issue in the past with Kontakt, loading multi's or multiple libraries into the one instance, but I haven't found that with BBC. I think it's because I'm running several articulations in one instance, but its all the same "instrument", so the load on the CPU is no different to keyswitch them (I'm just using MIDI Channels instead). I'm happy to report, no dreaded oversampling alert yet!
I found this whilst looking for how to have one plug in instance playing multi-timbrally... but different sounds not different articulations of the one instrument. Is it possible...? EG One instance with say violins on track 1, Celli on 2, perc on 3 etc? (Very useful and clearly explained btw... I've subscribed!)
Hey, glad you enjoyed the video! I haven't found a way to do that I'm afraid. I know you can easily do that within Kontakt, for example, as you can load separate libraries within a single Kontakt instance and purge unused samples. However, as the BBC plugin kind of IS the library, I don't think it's set up to run multiple "libraries" (like a violin and a cello for example) at once.
Thanks so much Stephen for your video! Maybe I didn't get it but can you also use multi timbral when wanting to use multiplie instruments and only having bbco plugin opened once? In your video you're only referring to multi articulations within one instrument. Thanks.
Hey Jim, great question, I don't think you can. You can do that in Kontakt, you could load different libraries into Kontakt and use the 16 MIDI channels and multi timbral tracks to control each one, but I think Spitfire's own app only does this for articulations, as it can't load more than one "instrument section" at a time.
Thanks for the great content. I wonder if you can answer this question. I own BBCSO Core and I downloaded the Spitfire Logic template, which has all of the articulations all on separate tracks and properly routed. I am wondering if they set their template up the way you are doing it here in this video, taking advantage of the multi-tambral midi facility. Thanks again.
Hey, great question, I haven't looked through their templates myself, but from what I've heard I think they just have each instrument on a separate track with Key Switches being used to change articulations. I'm not going to lie, setting it up how I have here takes quite a while, but once you have it and save it as a template, man it speeds things up for me!
Totally understand. It took me months to do what Spitfire then went and did for me! They also set up all of the routing and stem groups, etc. I downloaded the BBCSO Core "full articulation" template, and then it was easy to go in and just duplicate tracks to add the other library sounds that I often prefer; I get the close mics and better legatos from the Symphonic Woods and Brass, for example and I can just sit those right next to the Beeb instrument articulations, keeping all of the same routing, etc. Thanks again for the great content. @@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew
Thanks for the video! I wonder, is there any way to load multiple instruments within one Spitfire plugin, and then assign them to different MIDI tracks? Like you can do with Kontakt? And if there isn't a way to do that, is there something similar that you can do with Spitfire?
Hello! I love the tips but must admit I’m a little confused. With Key-switching, the change is auto-triggered, right? So with MIDI channels for articulations is there a trigger or do you just change tracks to call up an articulation? (I can see it being much easier than going in and out of the plugin) Thanks for the tips! Gianni❤
Hey, great question (sorry for the delay, been a bit busy currently). Yes, that's correct essentially. The MIDI channel changes are triggered by clicking on the different tracks (as each track is sending out midi data on a different channel). So, as long as the MIDI is on the staccato track, it will switch to the staccato articulation as soon as it hits the first note. I find it quite handy, as I've never liked using key switches (creates some unusual, bottom of the keyboard notes in the MIDI region that I'm always forgetting about haha).
If that works for you, more power to ya. But remember that each instance of the plugin only has ONE fader for each CC. Having that fed by multiple MIDI tracks opens up the possibility that the expression and mod wheel (not to mention dozens of other CC-controlled parameters) might get simultaneous conflicting values, causing erratic behavior. It's a trade-off.
Ah yes, there are often trade offs to everything we do in the DAW haha, this is one for me. I find that I simply trim the start and end of the regions to the first and last note and that usually does the trick,, but it catches me out some times when I've faded CC11 down on a legato and forgot to set it back to the top before the staccato section 🤦♂️
Ah no! I remember when I first loaded it on my computer, I put it onto an old spinning hard drive and my computer just crawled. If you have an SSD, you could try relocating the library there if you haven't already.
Yes /: the Spitfire team and forums have made it clear that’s the only solution. I am surprised it was totally a-ok with core and the Albions but then it’s minimum 15 mins to let it load with the pro version even with 4GHZ and 32GB. I guess I thought the SSD advice was just “must always have the newest” mindset not an actual REALITY! It’s gorgeous enough to wait for however I’ll HAVE to get an ssd after I pay for everything else!
Very good point, at the moment in those situations I load up a seperate instance in Keyswitching mode and use that for that brief passage, but it isn't ideal. I've been experimenting with Articulation Sets recently, thanks to a few suggestions here, which seem like another great way to combine the convenience of this method and the flexibility of keyswitching.
hey Stephen,i have implemented your button script to switch to another page,and the switching works fine,however,when clicking on a button,you must click again on it to deselect it,can you make it when you choose one button all the others get deselected? or is there more scripting necesarry to obtain that manipulation?
Hey Ronny, no problems, you can do that. The quickest way is to use an if statement and say when the first button is on, assign the value 0 to all the other buttons. You can do that easily with a $btn_2 := 0 for example in the if statement (hope that looks ok, UA-cam doesn't like code in its comments or descriptions). If you have a lot of buttons, that will create a lot of lines of text, so you could put all of your button variables into an array and then go through the array and use a while loop. This is honestly hard to talk through youtube comments about haha, so I think I should make a video soon and demo that while loop and array idea, but the if statement will be a quick way to do it. Hope that helps.
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew thanx Stephen,i found a solution,i simply put an $buttonname1 :=0 in all the other button groups,now if you click one all the others are de-selected,love the tutorials you give,very comprehensive,even for an oldtimer like me 😁 if every teacher would give lessons like you do there would be more people passing school,thanx again for your contribution to the music community,see you in the next one,cheers
But is this REALLY multi-timbral? I mean... It's one instrument which is being switched via midi channel triggering... it's not like longs and pizz are playing at the same time.
In a way, it is just a feature name from Logic Pro that we are using in a different way to what it was originally intended for. With samplers like Kontakt, it is true multi-timbral, as you would be able to load multiple libraries (from different developers even) into the one sampler and use MIDI channels to switch between them, which means you could use the top track to play all of them at once. At the end of the day though, the feature has to be called something ahaha.
I'd say it's almost a must for the Pro version of this library, most spinning HDDs can't spin fast enough for the sheer number of samples they have in this library haha.
You really need to use Reaper with OTR, this is really old news. Unfortunately, the Spitfire GUI doesn't support global sample purging, so it's always going to be a hog over Kontakt. Using freezing and purging, I can run many hundreds of tracks effortlessly on my 16gig i7 for 2012.
Hey, you are right, this is something that has been around for a long time, but not everyone starting music production today is going to know about it or necessarily use Reaper, so my hope is this video helps new composers find out what's possible for their own workflow.
Did you know that Logic supports Articulation sets and the BBC orchestra has the complete sets for all of their instruments for the BBC orchestra already made and you can download them. Just a fun fact... that means that you only have to selection the region of notes you want and assign the articulation you want. Simple
Thanks so much, a few people have mentioned that to me recently and it is something I am definitely checking out! I had no idea about it when doing this video, so I should probably do an update when I can.
Please don't tell me that Logic (that flagship from the marvelous world of Mac ) does not deal with expression maps (or sound variations in Studio One Pro)... LOL !
hi Steve,i have no problems with keyswitching in studio one,they are called sound variations,they also look ahead,so you dont have to place them before the note top be triggered,not many DAWs have this feature,to my notion only cubase has it too studio one is great for orchestral music,while fl studio is great for modern music,cheers ua-cam.com/video/NxvZDfra4sE/v-deo.html
@SayokadiStorme thats for sure,i'm very happy with what the guys at presonus have done with their sound variations,have not upgraded yet to version 6,but as soon as i can i will do so,again,a lot of new usable and powerful features,inclusing a multiband EQ and compressor,a great piece of music software to have indeed
Ooo, that sounds great. Studio One really has become an amazing DAW, I hear a lot about it from other composers. For me, I've always loved the separate tracks for each articulation though, something about it makes it easier for me to navigate and quickly see which sections are which, though that can create a lot of tracks and for a quick musical line that uses multiple articulations I often use keyswitches. I like this idea of "sound variations" though, lining up the note with the start note of that articulation is a way smarter way for this to work.
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew lining up the notes is not needed in SO Stephen,they have their respected track,and what is also super is that thekeyswitch notes dont show in your score or midi event track 😃
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew Logic has a similar feature called Articulation Sets. A company called Babylonwaves has Art Conductor, a pre-made database of Articulation Sets for Logic (and the similar features in other DAWs, like Expression Maps in Cubase, Sound Variations in Studio One, and Articulation Maps in Digital Performer and Cakewalk) for just about every commonly-used libraries. It makes articulation management almost effortless. Every supported library will function exactly the same for articulation switching - it doesn't matter if it is a Spitfire, OT, or whatever library.
That's OK for the multitimbral for articulations, but it is awful that one cant have different instruments on one plugin. It's like I have asked for a loaf of bread but I got a smh biscuit. Not cool on this one Spitfire.
I do agree on that one, I definitely love the fact that Kontakt for example can load a range of different instruments and have them trigger multi-timbrally. I don't think their app design lends well to that layout though, so I don't think we will see that feature any time soon.
![How to Write Music for Orchestra [with the FREE BBC SO Discover]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EPYnmtylUVM/mqdefault.jpg)
Just being able to turn off spare articulations is an absolute revelation. Thanks; really useful stuff.
No problems, my pleasure!
Really, 20 other UA-cam geniuses sent us up to Logics ‘Audio Settings’ control panel to mess around with buffers and such, or ‘freezing’ tracks, and NOBODY once mentioned turning off unnecessary articulations! Simple genius, Stephen… thanks!
9:33 The Spitfire plugin shares sample memory across all instances. If you happen to load the same articulation into two tracks, those samples will only be loaded into memory once, and both instances will use that sample data. The memory usage readout in the top bar includes the _total_ sample memory BBCSO is using across _all_ instances. Only a very small amount of additional memory is used for each instance, so there really is not any huge overhead if you are using a lot of tracks.
Nice! I did not know that 🙂
Ah nice, that is a cool little feature update they've done there. I didn't notice that had changed. Interestingly, they haven't updated their manual, hope they will do that to reflect the change. I do love they continue to update their products to run more efficiently.
this is very important to know! So basically if I have a string quartet but each instrument with 8 instances, it would not consume 4*8 times memory but only (roughly) for 4 instruments. Correct?
@@JuanMariaSolare Correct. Each instance will consume a bit more memory for the plugin itself, but there will only be one copy of the samples loaded into memory, which is shared across all the instances.
When people say “the last tip will blow your mind..” I don’t believe them. You, sir have changed my mind. MIDI Channel Switching is going to be a game changer. Thank you!
There's a similar method I use quite often for individual notes or short parts of phrases. In Cubase (and I assume most DAWS) you can highlight the individual or groups of notes you want to articulate differently with the range tool, and then Right+click which opens a menu which provides the option to reassign the MIDI channel for that note or notes. This way, your phrase is all on one track, and you don't have to play in or draw the notes on separate tracks.
Nice! Definitely a good workflow to keep them all on the one track. I know logic can do the same, I think most DAWs should have that feature too, as you mentioned.
Whaaaa? I’ve been waiting 15 mins for each flaut and tasto to load when I could just click?? I’ll have to try it on my DAW (currently moving from ableton (stylish) to cubase (pragmatic)
Buuut I use a Code 49 for input (vel sense/weighted/aftertouch sense/pads dials and faders AND an XY pad- nice midi input device idk why it disappeared from the world)
Thanks for the tips! If your using Logic Pro, build an articulation set for each instrument. It's a one time process and you will have maximum control over your articulations. Works with any library that uses key switching.
Thanks Steve, this is definitely something I'm checking out at the moment based on people's suggestions. It looks really cool indeed!
Great, I use Core and Studio one, I set up channel switching for the articulations. I put BBCSO on a track then used add tracks(+ sign). In the box I put how many channel tracks I wanted in the Count field, tick Existing instrument and select BBCSO selecting the channel starting from channel 2. Studio one then creates the tracks with sequential channels from no.2 upwards in order. In BBCSO you need to use channels other than no.1 for the articulations. Studio one lets you store these as track presets to load in any project remembering settings too.
Literally started optimizing my BBCSO Pro library right when you mentioned it. Those load times have been awwwwwful. Thanks for the tip :)
Excellent demonstration Stephen, love the midi channel switching approach. I didn't know this was an option on BBCSO, thank for sharing. 👊
Very useful, particularly the Midi Channel switching, awesome, thanks!
Oh my! Just got Albion One and your video is exactly what I needed. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that does not like Key Switching haha.... Anyway, thank you for your down to earth explanation. Can't wait to try it! Thanks again!
Thanks for the interesting video. In Logic Pro you can set „Display Middle C As: C4 (Roland)“ in „Settings > Display > General“. After that the range or register for each instrument is displayed as described in the Spitfire BBC SO Manual
Indeed you can, great to mention it. I didn't want to get too deep into it in this video, but yes, that's why all the keyswitches are off in this library. Problem is, most libraries (like those built for Kontakt) use the Yamaha C3 standard, so I just keep my Logic Pro settings in default C3 for middle C and remember to offset by an octave for this library. :)
Very good video, thank you! By the way, articulations can be incorporated in Logic Pro. Once you connect the articulations from the libraries and Logic recognizes them, you can have the scores with those additional notes on the staff. It has more advantages-in the piano roll editor, you can assign articulations to each note if you want and control them in real-time from an iPad
Oh my god! This is SO helpful!
Thank you!
Man, thank you so so so much for these extremely useful tips! I'm also super happy someone else had trouble with the keyswitches - I knew they were wrong but couldn't figure out the problem. Thank you!
Haha, it was such a head scratching moment figuring out what was up with the keyswitch numbering, glad I wasn't alone. Happy to help!
Thank you, I just purchased BBCSO Core, and was looking for things like this. I also found in the app in settings, there is a place to set the maximum voices that can play at once. Changing that from default of 512 to 52 helped a lot, too. Great video!
Awesome, glad to have helped. Just a quick heads up, some of the BBC SO plugin settings actually affect all instances of the plugin across your DAW session. So, if you have 60 instrument tracks loaded with BBCSO, then the voice limit might be capped at 52 across all of them, meaning if they are all playing one note, 8 of them might not play anything. I'd recommend checking the manual just to make sure if the voice limit is one of these "global" settings, but if you've noticed missing notes, that might be the case.
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew
I get that. It’s not likely that I will use that many tracks. I will adjust if necessary. Thanks.
Thanks for these tips. Have BBC Orchestra Core on a laptop. It's fast enough but is hot enough to cook on after 10 mins. Have Updated and Optimized so will give it a go again with the articulations reduced
Subscribed! Thank you so much
But then you have to organize the sends inside each midi file, so that they land in the correct channel, correct?
Aside from the amazingness in sound a big reason I love Spitfire is their set-up allows you to download and easily move your plug-ins on your external hard drive and that is a charming gift!
Indeed! Managing libraries can be a headache with other companies, I'm glad Spitfire streamlines it.
Just made my master template before realizing the midi channel option. Welp, back to the drawing board to save RAM lol. Great video, thanks for the info!
Really useful, thank you!
Thanks for the awesome tips! Will definitely apply them in my future projects :)
Thank you for the tips - really helpful! The keyswitching being out by an octave seems to be a long-running midi issue. Middle C on a piano is the fourth C from the left, so C4. In the world of midi, middle C is labeled C3 (well, on a Yamaha keyboard, on a Roland it is C4). In Logic you can change at least this aspect in Preferences / Display tab. I guess Spitfire went with the real-world convention of middle C.
Thanks very much, glad you liked it! And yes, I didn't want to make the video longer with a tangent into that issue haha, but I briefly mentioned that the zero based counting of the yamaha standard was the issue. It's just interesting that Spitfire, a company that makes libraries for Kontakt where they use zero based counting and middle C is C3, chose to use the a different system for their own plugin. And both Christian and Paul seem to use Logic Pro too, which makes it an interesting decision given that C3 in Logic is middle C. It's not too much of a work around, I just remember to offset by an octave, but I'm just wondering how that came about lol.
These tips are AMAZING. Thank you!!
This is so, so, useful! What a great video. Thank you so much. Subscribed!
Thank You.. I'm just about to buy the library :)
Excellent work, sir. Many thanks.
Thank you for the advice. Subscribed.
Thank you for sharing your marvelous idea!
I don't know about other DAWs, but, in Logic, if you create a multi with fewer than 16 channels, you can add more channels later. Highlight the last track and go to Track > Other > New Track with Next MIDI Channel.
🙌 Fantastic!
There is another advantage to multi-timbral tracks; you only have one track to deal with in the score editor, so if you need to provide sheet music to musicians to play your composition you will find it much easier. All the notes are in the same track on the score automatically, without those key-switch notes to annoy you.
If you use the other way of doing it you may need to produce a separate file that doesn't play correctly just to prepare the score, and if you revise your composition then you might need to prepare the scoring version of the file all over again, or try the error prone job of editing both files manually. I much prefer being able to keep just one file for recording and mixing the playback version _and_ the printable score.
This was really really helpful!! Thank you so much!!
I do have 2 questions for anyone that can answer.
Is there any way to get rid of the "swelling" sound at the beginning of a note for the instruments in BBC Core? I really notice it in the strings.
Also, I use protools for writing (not by choice) and want to know how you can do a form of "multitimbral" in Protools?
Thanks in advance!
Hey John, glad you enjoyed the video! Great questions mate. Unfortunately, the swelling isn't something that can be removed, there isn't an attack knob to my knowledge. The best suggestion I've heard is to use a "pre delay" on the midi track, essentially playing the track like 20 ms early (or a time you find works well), to account for swelling. I think it was maybe Dan Keen or Paul Thompson who showed that in a video I saw once and it works well, though is a little bit of a fiddly way of working I must admit. I am very rusty on Pro Tools Midi and multi timbre I'm afraid, but I think if I'm remembering correctly, you create an Aux track with the Multi BBCSO plugin on it and then send the MIDI tracks to each of the MIDI channels, so you would create up to 16 MIDI tracks with outputs to "BBC SO Multi" or something like that. I remember doing this with Kontakt when I used Pro Tools way back, but it may have updated since then (I think it may have been Pro Tools 8 or 10 haha).
I disabled articulations so that I’ve got a “long” and “short” version of each instrument group. Reduced load on the CPU but still allows me to have all in each group available with just one instance of the plugin
Disabling unused articulations really helps reduce strain doesn't it? Reloads the session so much faster too!
Genius. Thank you kind sir !!
I just updated to Pro and my session has now grown to the point where it's playing slightly out of tune! Even though CPU usage per the Windows Task Manager is low (
The problem was related to changing articulations on multiple tracks on the fly, causing samples to reload constantly. The answer was: open the task manager and watch the RAM chart. I had 30gB of samples in my 64gB of RAM. Making articulation changes was causing massive memory substitutions. If I waited until the RAM graph stabilized, there were no tuning issues at all. If I attempted playback before allowing the new articulations to be fully loaded, there were tuning problems. Just needed to be more patient. It was all related to disk data transfer speed as opposed to CPU load. Once all the samples needed for the piece were in RAM, no tuning issues at all.
Thank you for sharing, specifically that nbr 3 trick. 😉
Great, thank you for this info.
Hi there. I have Spitfire labs strings and chorus...however I cannot seem to assign a midi channel to each instrument. Its like if I choose "viola", Port 1 and Midi CH1. Then it plays viola on that channel in MIDI out. But I cannot now for instance select Brass and assign Midi channel 2. Changing the Midi Channel just changes it for the whole plugin. Its like I would have to add multiple versions of the plugin for each individual instrument
Hey, I'm not sure you can do that with the labs plugin I'm afraid. I don't think it can load multiple articulations at once, only one at a time. (sorry for the delayed reply)
Thank you for creating this very helpful video!
No worries! Happy to help.
EXCELLENT ! Sadly the CORE edition doesn't have the MIXER panel where we could have each multi-timbral sound output be on its on channel.
Ah that is a shame! I didn't realise that. Glad you enjoyed the video all the same though.
@nacuda9 I accidentally hit "remove" instead of "reply" 🤦♂ when trying to reply to your comment, but you asked about an issue you were experiencing on the free version (discovery). There was static and clipping. I'm not sure what may be causing this, but possibly check your DAWs buffer size. If it is set low, (like 32) it might be struggling to recall the sound fast enough to play. Though this normally causes clicking and popping, rather than static. Spitfire do have a great online help desk to ask though.
Why not turn off or articulations you won't use and then use expression maps?
Very useful thank you. Now I need to figure out how it works in Pro Tools.
Glad it was helpful!
Fantastic Indeed but how about the mod wheel that sadly controls ALL of them at the same time ? (Spitfire hope you're listening and fix this as well so we can blend those properly and actually use the multi option without duplicating those tracks for longs primarely ).Great video mate ;)
Thanks, and totally feel you there. That can be frustrating at times, especially after a fade out or decrescendo in the legato patch and then jumping straight back into staccato. I usually wiggle both faders before I start recording anything out of habit, just to make sure the CC's are set to the right level before the first note sounds.
Why not just use expression maps?
Hi thank you for the great video but i feel like as a beginner i am struggling alot with using bbc vst. Is their possible to make a guide over how to use it?
Hey, thanks for checking out the video. I do want to make some videos on how to work with orchestral samples, so stay tuned, hopefully I can do those soon.
Nice vid thanks. Do you have an example of how it actually works in a piece? Are you splitting the midi and putting them on the separate midi channels/tracks? Also how do you control the volume of each articulation?
Hey, great question. I don't have a physical example at hand, however, I am essentially splitting the MIDI track up over the different articulations, and I use the expression slider to really balance the different articulations together, controlling the overall volume.
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew ahhh - ok, that sounds like a good workaround, because the expression slider is essentially another volume control, correct? it doesn't actually change the articulation, say if you had a hard stacatto but just wanted it quieter? thank you
Can the Multi-Timbral function work inside of cubase?
It probably could, though I'm not familiar enough with Cubase yet to know exactly how to set it up. It might be called something different in Cubase, I'd expect.
Hey, I'm having an issue with the plugin, but maybe it is intended?
So I loaded in around 16 instances of BBC Professional, with lots of chords etc. and at that point it starts to fail (random notes get muted etc.). I maxed out all the settings in the app, as much as my hardware allows (64 gigs Ram and processor gets to 5% load max). What I noticed is, that you can only allow 999 voices at a time, but this seems to include all instances of the plugin? That's really not a lot, especially when enabling extra mics doubles the voices of one instrument, which can easily end up at over 100 voices. Am I mistaken, or does the plugin have a huge hardware limitation, which forces you to render parts as your song to re-arrange them later on etc.?
Hmm, that is a really great question. I haven't come up against that before, though I rarely use more than one of the mix combinations of mics, so I'm probably not loading up as many samples as you are. It could well be a limitation, I'd advise reaching out to SA's tech support to find out. If this is the case though, it should roll off the oldest notes first, so if you are seeing newer note get muted, maybe that's not it. I'm not sure what it could be though, sorry I'm not of more help here.
In multi timbral mode can you play more than one style at the same time on the same instrument? e.g. pizz and longs at the same time on the same instrument channel (true multitimbral)
Indeed you can and I use this sometimes to get a little extra bit at the start of a note, using legato and staccato together for example.
You might want to chekc your CPU since you do more instruments on one instance Logic used to to do this assigning only one core, while if you use several tracks (the old way) Logic spreads these tracks over multilple cores. But this was a few years back perhaps it has changed. But I am not seeing any benchmark tests, So I wonder... how it works out in Core distribution.
Hey Bart, great point. I have run into that issue in the past with Kontakt, loading multi's or multiple libraries into the one instance, but I haven't found that with BBC. I think it's because I'm running several articulations in one instance, but its all the same "instrument", so the load on the CPU is no different to keyswitch them (I'm just using MIDI Channels instead). I'm happy to report, no dreaded oversampling alert yet!
I found this whilst looking for how to have one plug in instance playing multi-timbrally... but different sounds not different articulations of the one instrument. Is it possible...? EG One instance with say violins on track 1, Celli on 2, perc on 3 etc? (Very useful and clearly explained btw... I've subscribed!)
Hey, glad you enjoyed the video! I haven't found a way to do that I'm afraid. I know you can easily do that within Kontakt, for example, as you can load separate libraries within a single Kontakt instance and purge unused samples. However, as the BBC plugin kind of IS the library, I don't think it's set up to run multiple "libraries" (like a violin and a cello for example) at once.
Thanks so much Stephen for your video! Maybe I didn't get it but can you also use multi timbral when wanting to use multiplie instruments and only having bbco plugin opened once? In your video you're only referring to multi articulations within one instrument. Thanks.
Hey Jim, great question, I don't think you can. You can do that in Kontakt, you could load different libraries into Kontakt and use the 16 MIDI channels and multi timbral tracks to control each one, but I think Spitfire's own app only does this for articulations, as it can't load more than one "instrument section" at a time.
Thanks for the great content. I wonder if you can answer this question. I own BBCSO Core and I downloaded the Spitfire Logic template, which has all of the articulations all on separate tracks and properly routed. I am wondering if they set their template up the way you are doing it here in this video, taking advantage of the multi-tambral midi facility. Thanks again.
Hey, great question, I haven't looked through their templates myself, but from what I've heard I think they just have each instrument on a separate track with Key Switches being used to change articulations. I'm not going to lie, setting it up how I have here takes quite a while, but once you have it and save it as a template, man it speeds things up for me!
Totally understand. It took me months to do what Spitfire then went and did for me! They also set up all of the routing and stem groups, etc. I downloaded the BBCSO Core "full articulation" template, and then it was easy to go in and just duplicate tracks to add the other library sounds that I often prefer; I get the close mics and better legatos from the Symphonic Woods and Brass, for example and I can just sit those right next to the Beeb instrument articulations, keeping all of the same routing, etc. Thanks again for the great content. @@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew
Thanks. Very useful!
Thank you for sharing.
My pleasure!
Hi, is it possible to do the midi channel switching on the BBC Discover?
Hey, great question. I'm not sure, but I don't think so. I don't think it provides the option to customise the articulations in that way. :(
Thanks for this video. Heads up for Reaper users: search for Reaticulate, which serves this same purpose.
yeah man, thanks, very useful
Thanks for the video! I wonder, is there any way to load multiple instruments within one Spitfire plugin, and then assign them to different MIDI tracks? Like you can do with Kontakt? And if there isn't a way to do that, is there something similar that you can do with Spitfire?
Ah, I'm afraid at the moment I can't see a way to do that, though I'd love that too. I miss that from Kontakt when using SA's own plugins.
Hello! I love the tips but must admit I’m a little confused. With Key-switching, the change is auto-triggered, right? So with MIDI channels for articulations is there a trigger or do you just change tracks to call up an articulation? (I can see it being much easier than going in and out of the plugin)
Thanks for the tips!
Gianni❤
Hey, great question (sorry for the delay, been a bit busy currently). Yes, that's correct essentially. The MIDI channel changes are triggered by clicking on the different tracks (as each track is sending out midi data on a different channel). So, as long as the MIDI is on the staccato track, it will switch to the staccato articulation as soon as it hits the first note. I find it quite handy, as I've never liked using key switches (creates some unusual, bottom of the keyboard notes in the MIDI region that I'm always forgetting about haha).
If that works for you, more power to ya. But remember that each instance of the plugin only has ONE fader for each CC. Having that fed by multiple MIDI tracks opens up the possibility that the expression and mod wheel (not to mention dozens of other CC-controlled parameters) might get simultaneous conflicting values, causing erratic behavior. It's a trade-off.
Ah yes, there are often trade offs to everything we do in the DAW haha, this is one for me. I find that I simply trim the start and end of the regions to the first and last note and that usually does the trick,, but it catches me out some times when I've faded CC11 down on a legato and forgot to set it back to the top before the staccato section 🤦♂️
Great tips. Thanks :-)
Very helpful. Subscribed.
Thanks and welcome!
BBCSO pro KILLED my compu!
Ah no! I remember when I first loaded it on my computer, I put it onto an old spinning hard drive and my computer just crawled. If you have an SSD, you could try relocating the library there if you haven't already.
Yes /: the Spitfire team and forums have made it clear that’s the only solution. I am surprised it was totally a-ok with core and the Albions but then it’s minimum 15 mins to let it load with the pro version even with 4GHZ and 32GB.
I guess I thought the SSD advice was just “must always have the newest” mindset not an actual
REALITY!
It’s gorgeous enough to wait for however
I’ll HAVE to get an ssd after I pay for everything else!
What if you need to change the articulation on every note?
Very good point, at the moment in those situations I load up a seperate instance in Keyswitching mode and use that for that brief passage, but it isn't ideal. I've been experimenting with Articulation Sets recently, thanks to a few suggestions here, which seem like another great way to combine the convenience of this method and the flexibility of keyswitching.
Nice!
Thanx a looooooot !!!! 😊👍
hey Stephen,i have implemented your button script to switch to another page,and the switching works fine,however,when clicking on a button,you must click again on it to deselect it,can you make it when you choose one button all the others get deselected?
or is there more scripting necesarry to obtain that manipulation?
Hey Ronny, no problems, you can do that. The quickest way is to use an if statement and say when the first button is on, assign the value 0 to all the other buttons. You can do that easily with a $btn_2 := 0 for example in the if statement (hope that looks ok, UA-cam doesn't like code in its comments or descriptions). If you have a lot of buttons, that will create a lot of lines of text, so you could put all of your button variables into an array and then go through the array and use a while loop. This is honestly hard to talk through youtube comments about haha, so I think I should make a video soon and demo that while loop and array idea, but the if statement will be a quick way to do it. Hope that helps.
I should mention as well that all of this is in an "on ui_control" callback for the button you are switching on.
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew thanx Stephen,i found a solution,i simply put an $buttonname1 :=0 in all the other button groups,now if you click one all the others are de-selected,love the tutorials you give,very comprehensive,even for an oldtimer like me 😁 if every teacher would give lessons like you do there would be more people passing school,thanx again for your contribution to the music community,see you in the next one,cheers
Awesome, glad to hear you found a solution and thanks so much for your kind comments!
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew you're very welcome Stephen
But is this REALLY multi-timbral? I mean... It's one instrument which is being switched via midi channel triggering... it's not like longs and pizz are playing at the same time.
In a way, it is just a feature name from Logic Pro that we are using in a different way to what it was originally intended for. With samplers like Kontakt, it is true multi-timbral, as you would be able to load multiple libraries (from different developers even) into the one sampler and use MIDI channels to switch between them, which means you could use the top track to play all of them at once. At the end of the day though, the feature has to be called something ahaha.
Why not just use an Logic's articulation set?
My 8 year old iMac 5k 4ghz i7 JUST about managed BBCSO Pro but boy it’s tight.
Ah I'm glad to hear it works, but yes, BBCSO Pro is a beast when it comes to computer power. I wish that was sort of listed somewhere on their site.
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew forgot to say, I have to have the low latency option on to work with it
use an SSD instead of a traditional hard disk drive
I'd say it's almost a must for the Pro version of this library, most spinning HDDs can't spin fast enough for the sheer number of samples they have in this library haha.
You really need to use Reaper with OTR, this is really old news. Unfortunately, the Spitfire GUI doesn't support global sample purging, so it's always going to be a hog over Kontakt. Using freezing and purging, I can run many hundreds of tracks effortlessly on my 16gig i7 for 2012.
Hey, you are right, this is something that has been around for a long time, but not everyone starting music production today is going to know about it or necessarily use Reaper, so my hope is this video helps new composers find out what's possible for their own workflow.
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew Well, try it then. Reaper has a 30-day demo and OTR 2 is free. It will change your life.
Did you know that Logic supports Articulation sets and the BBC orchestra has the complete sets for all of their instruments for the BBC orchestra already made and you can download them. Just a fun fact... that means that you only have to selection the region of notes you want and assign the articulation you want. Simple
Thanks so much, a few people have mentioned that to me recently and it is something I am definitely checking out! I had no idea about it when doing this video, so I should probably do an update when I can.
Please don't tell me that Logic (that flagship from the marvelous world of Mac ) does not deal with expression maps (or sound variations in Studio One Pro)... LOL !
It does, it has something called articulations which is similar to expression maps.
hi Steve,i have no problems with keyswitching in studio one,they are called sound variations,they also look ahead,so you dont have to place them before the note top be triggered,not many DAWs have this feature,to my notion only cubase has it too
studio one is great for orchestral music,while fl studio is great for modern music,cheers
ua-cam.com/video/NxvZDfra4sE/v-deo.html
@SayokadiStorme thats for sure,i'm very happy with what the guys at presonus have done with their sound variations,have not upgraded yet to version 6,but as soon as i can i will do so,again,a lot of new usable and powerful features,inclusing a multiband EQ and compressor,a great piece of music software to have indeed
Ooo, that sounds great. Studio One really has become an amazing DAW, I hear a lot about it from other composers. For me, I've always loved the separate tracks for each articulation though, something about it makes it easier for me to navigate and quickly see which sections are which, though that can create a lot of tracks and for a quick musical line that uses multiple articulations I often use keyswitches. I like this idea of "sound variations" though, lining up the note with the start note of that articulation is a way smarter way for this to work.
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew lining up the notes is not needed in SO Stephen,they have their respected track,and what is also super is that thekeyswitch notes dont show in your score or midi event track 😃
Ah, that sounds like I really need to check out Studio One some time!
@@StephenOConnellCmdShiftNew Logic has a similar feature called Articulation Sets. A company called Babylonwaves has Art Conductor, a pre-made database of Articulation Sets for Logic (and the similar features in other DAWs, like Expression Maps in Cubase, Sound Variations in Studio One, and Articulation Maps in Digital Performer and Cakewalk) for just about every commonly-used libraries.
It makes articulation management almost effortless. Every supported library will function exactly the same for articulation switching - it doesn't matter if it is a Spitfire, OT, or whatever library.
That's OK for the multitimbral for articulations, but it is awful that one cant have different instruments on one plugin. It's like I have asked for a loaf of bread but I got a smh biscuit. Not cool on this one Spitfire.
I do agree on that one, I definitely love the fact that Kontakt for example can load a range of different instruments and have them trigger multi-timbrally. I don't think their app design lends well to that layout though, so I don't think we will see that feature any time soon.