SpitfireAudio - ALBION SOLSTICE

The Albion Solstice presents itself, once again, with everything one needs to create cinematic tracks; however, in this edition the emphasis is on the traditions of popular music, in particular industrial folk and noir. 

In this library are the techniques and sounds of unwritten traditions, with musicians from all over the UK who have been brought in from Christian Henson in the CastleSound studiesof Edinburgh (Scotland), a fantastic studio and center of folk excellence. Let's move on to the examination of the different ensembles that make up Albion Solstice.  

The Solstice Orchestra   

Sextet - The Elders Traditional   

The “Elders” is the string section with a traditional ensemble and those very characteristic and evocative non-written folk playing styles. The Traditional Sextet presents four violins, a viola and a cello with distinct curves in intonation and a distinctive tone without vibrato. This musical line-up has a wider legate-lead, a sustained crescendo range of notes and a new type of articulationdeveloped by Spitfire Audio and called " cellular longs".  

This new articulation was created by performances on a fixed scale (Doric D and Doric G), each note played is completely different, presenting individual characteristics such as little flickers and "things" that happen every now and then. The sounds are recorded in their natural length or with infinite length (loop), so that they can be used with long chords. The tremolos and all the nuances that are heard in the sounds are very beautiful, with many varieties and all always very dynamic. The “flutando” version is present in two types of hot and cold (warm and cold). 

The "warm is a little fuller and rounder, while the cold it is more "slender" as a body and subtle. The harmonics are played with a lot of realism, that is, they were not recorded with a cold and perfect sound. The idea is precisely to provide harmonics that are not "perfect", to obtain some tools with a character. All these different characteristics allow a wide choice of sounds when writing a song and all these articulations with small differences between them provide a lot of colors to add to your sound "palette".     

Octet - The Elders Classic     

The Classic Octet includes 4 violins, 2 violas and 2 cellos with a decidedly natural sound. This formation is a new interpretation of the classical strings and focuses on orchestral playing styles that include all the classical articulations: legato, sustained with crescendo, trills, staccato, pizzicato, with wood but also new techniques such as circular arches, on the bridge, evolutions with cinematic plots, sustained circular (performed by moving the bow in circular movements, allowing slight shifts in intonation and timbre) and the "motors".  

Traditionally referred to as measured tremolo, motors are a new technique of playing tremoli with a different feel, producing a greater sense of depth and rhythm. We have swell and pullbackreally long that can be modeled using dynamics, or you can lower the sustain pedal and create a "cloud" of sound that comes and goes. In the " motor”There are also some triplets, very useful for building soundscapes and are played in an intimate way but with a lot of character.   

The Callers (Brass & Winds)   

It is the brass and woodwind section but it comes with a very unusual combination of instruments. There are a couple of Sax, then we have the brass and traditional winds. The Callers features all the standard articulations, legato, sustained notes, short notes but is enhanced with Celtic styles, including short pitch bends on the attack of notes, long sounds with slow-moving or over-the-top tones with natural distortion. The presets "scattered tremolos”, A technique that offers incredible realism. Here too, using the legato, you get some nice long effects, particular is the almost multiphonic style obtained by playing and singing at the same time. 

We find a fantastic collection of evo (6 types) characterized by the names of emotions: pain, divided, turbulent (2), cacophony, meandering and shaking. The sound is really cool and it's something that's really hard to program with MIDI.   

The Mystics   

It is a collection of Celtic flutes and whistles, very intimate and somewhat mysterious sound. The pairing of Celtic flutes with flutes more commonly associated with the classical tradition allows for a sharper timbre and wider sound diffusion due to the variations in tone between the styles. There are traditional articulations and also the well-known Celtic pitch-bend on the attack of the notes.    

The Blaggards (Band)   

This group contains instruments from similar historical moments, but from different popular musical traditions, with a sound recorded to suit well modern film scores. We find accordion, low harmonica, nyckelharpa, hurdy gurdy (hurdy gurdy), harmonium and clàrsach (Celtic harps). As this is the most diverse collection of instruments, the documentation states that attention has been paid to recording them as an ensemble and as a duo, allowing for greater control over the performances.      

The Hosts (Choir)    

Here we have six Celtic singers from a variety of different traditions some with high voices others low, which combine in this very evocative sound. There are presets where the singer sings for as long as possible; therefore, the sound stops at some point, and so we get the natural end instead of the infinite loop. The “glissando female” preset is very “horror” and then we have the drones.   

The Generator Trio (Electric Guitars)   

This is the only amplified instrument ensemble, with two electric guitars and electric bass. We find textures obtained by playing with finger picking and strumming. We even use the ebow. So you might be wondering at this point, what does this group have to do with this library? The intent is to include a group of modern folk instruments, therefore with sounds that include distortion, reverb and delay. Also in this section we find the “evo” (pads with optimized effects), motors (ie notes repeated in a loop), useful tools for creating textures.   

The Gut Circle (Acoustic Guitars)   

This section consists of nylon and steel string guitars, ukulele groups and mandolins. Very natural in sound are the motors in this section, which offers more acoustic presets. All based on the "swarm”, That is to have multiple musicians playing notes together with different durations to create a realistic sound wave. A kind of acoustic "pad" where we can use the chords to create sound textures.   

The Nursery (Bells & Mallets)   

In this section we have a collection of percussions, the group that plays them is based on four musicians who use tuned percussion: celeste, dulcitone, glockenspiel, bicycle bells, hand drums and various elements of percussion. Musicians who play simultaneously by adding a "latency" design which adds realism and nuance.   

The Marauders (Percussion) 

A percussion ensemble with performances recorded as a loop, to be used as starting blocks and modified later. This section is organized into four distinctive sets:  

* The Main Kit: A unique drum kit paired with percussion and bodhrán 

*  The Snake Kit: A more traditional drum kit expanded with dynamic hits and percussion 

*  Grooves: 36 grooves all recorded at both 90BPM and 110BPM  

* The Visitor: 11 different kits and 12 grooves, created by Andy Gray and Christian Henson  

Many elements that make up the grooves can be used as stems, allowing individual control over the elements for further customization.     

The Drone Grid   

The Drone Grid allows you to create drone and texturethat evolve over time (briefly called "ages"). The sounds always come from the Solstice and are managed through a grid: on the axis Ythere are the starting notes "note center" while on the axis of Xthere are the Evo. They have been registered 12 separate samplesin perfect fourths for every age on the keyboard, in order to create an asymmetry along the octaves. The use is simple: in the grid there are switches, which once pressed will automatically disable the relative line on the X or Y axis. We have different colors that represent different groups of instruments (they are those of the Solstice library), for example yellow represents the stringed instruments and the celestial are the brass and flutes and whistles. 

You can also use the expression and dynamics faders to give even more movement, because the evos (evolutions) are considerably longer than the "long" sounds found in the library and change, mutate to return to their original state at the end of the loop. . Each evolution was intentionally recorded with a different time, so when you activate a different Evo on the grid the "different" evolution will start to "sway". By clicking on the dice icon you can create something completely random and several options are available, which allow you to "control" the generation, for example by limiting the switches to those shown on the screen. You can also play with theADSR for example to have a slightly harder attack or a slower attack. There is also a reverb, a delay and a tape saturation all in a very intuitive interface, created to get good starting ideas right away.                                         

The Cassette Orchestra       

This part of the library was born in the studio of Christian Henson, where the Solstice sounds were processed using vintage players, speakers, tape delays, a modular Eurorack and guitar effects pedals. All presets are customizable using the eDNA engine by Spitfire Audio, which is essentially a complex sample player. Let's see below to schematize (and I hope to simplify) the operation of Edna.   

An eDNA instrument is made up of two sounds loaded into two "Sound Bay"Sayings A e B. Each sound is then sent to the "Wobble ", which are none other than gods LFO (low frequency oscillators) linked to volume, pitch and filter. The chain continues with Filter and Envelope and passes to the Mixer where the crossfade of the two Sound bays occurs, the result of which ends up in the Gate Sequencer, which is used to rhythmically muting the two sound bays. The last step is the FX and the Motor page. If we complete the previous scheme, we can see that eDNA has five effect stages.       

MasterFX   

This is the last step and is applied to the whole sound (i.e. the whole mix) as a whole. Here we will find mainly mastering effects and some modulators (Flanger, Phaser, etc ...) Layer FX A & B. These FX apply independently to bay A or B. The effects between the two bays are different, this is a product philosophy because it is believed that different effects stages produce a more beautiful and interesting result, as well as offer more choice of effects.   

AUX FX   

Inside the Master FX there is an effect called “SEND”, which will route the signal to the AUX FX rack. In this way it is possible to add a separate send and return to each bay.    

Motor FX   

The MotorFX Bay is slightly different from the other four FX Bays. You can select where in the signal path you want it to sound and assign certain parameters to either of the two motors using the buttons below each parameter. These parameters can be assigned to either of the two motors at the top of the page which are essentially complex low frequency oscillators. Instead of a single LFO like the Wobbles, the motors have a main LFO which is in turn controlled by a second sub-LFO. Both intensity and frequency can be adjusted independently.     

Presets   

Four banks of presets, actually there are 700 instruments unique in this library, with 150 lead sounds but also rhythmic patches, then guitars, pianos and many others. There are long sounds where not only the low pass filter is controlled but also the tape saturation. You can assign functions to the modulation wheel of the keyboard, for example you can control the wooble.   

Subdivision of presets  

Type 1 - the sounds have been processed with a vintage cassette recorder and lowered in pitch, in this way the sounds have retained fundamental elements of the source material. 

Hysteresis - sounds processed with Christian's personal pedalboard, very gritty, with very elaborate and very distorted effects. 

descant - sounds created using two Fairfield Circuitry Shallow Water (stereo) guitar pedals achieving stop effects, random pitch peaks and chorus modulations with colorful sound and natural character. 

Decay - Sounds treated through a series of three characteristic reverbs, including Strymon Nightsky, OTO Machines BAM Space Generator, and Chase Bliss Audio Automaton CXM 1978. 

No Bias / Low IPS - every sound was passed through Christian's modular Eurorack, resulting in vintage instruments similar to those on tape of the past, but with volume drops, instability and signal interruptions. 

RE301 - The sound of two tape delays, including classic vintage Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo and his heir theEcho Fix EF-X2. It produces a pure and colorful stereo effect, achieved by recording each sound from both machines, with a single delay repeat and a physical pass on tape that adds subtle imperfections in tone and volume.       

Conclusions   

An imposing library, in fact made up of 3 projects, with a truly vast variety of instruments and articulations. Recorded in a sublime way, the library contains a multitude of uncommon sounds, with even little-used instruments that however have sounds that go well with any images for the cinema. Solstice joins the Albion series by occupying a unique and original place in this series.

Umberto Sorbo