Contemporary Drama Toolkit (CDT from here on out) is one of the more recent offerings from British sample developer Spitfire. The library will appeal to media composers who favor a minimalistic, ambient-driven approach to their work. While many of Spitfire’s past products have focused on orchestral and acoustic sample instruments, CDT. This library works brilliantly with British Drama Toolkit, use the two libraries together in one pass for even more detailed performances. We have also been enjoying it alongside any of the Air Recordings such as Albion Neo or any of the libraries recorded at our drier London sound stage such as London Contemporary Orchestra Strings. British drama toolkit. 最初の1音目から「british drama toolkit」は生きています。spitfire audio の専用ステージで収録された小規模なストリングスと木管だけで構成されていますが、作曲家が鍵盤に手をかざすとこのライブラリはテレパシーを始めます。. British Drama Toolkit British Drama Toolkit comes to life on your first play. We can tell you that it consists of a small string and woodwind section, recorded in our purpose-built dry stage at Spitfire HQ, but only once the library is under your fingers does the telepathy begin. Ensembles are mapped across the full length of the keyboard.
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British Drama Toolkit is a unique and well-conceived library from Spitfire Audio designed in collaboration with composer Samuel Sim. It features a small string and woodwind ensemble and “presents a unique way of interacting with the players” that sets it apart from other Spitfire instruments.
My first interactions with it were surprisingly satisfying and I was creating lush well-balanced textures almost immediately using the Main setting. The underlying premise is velocity-driven orchestration in which one note may trigger various instruments or a blend of sounds based on the velocity range.
The player is able to quickly produce a cue with flowing variations in emotion potentially in one pass, making it a perfect tool for projects demanding a lot of material with tight deadlines. It’s as if the instrument is capable of orchestrating on-the-fly based on the harmony, melody and dynamics the composer creates in real time.
Organization
The instruments are divided by individual instruments and articulations, as well as being grouped in several ensemble configurations. The Accented category contains sounds which start off loud and then subside into the texture. Beside the usual long and short variety, there are some interesting and usable textural effects such as Chatter, sort of randomized chirping that works nicely with winds especially, and Chiffs, which are short bursts of air specific to the flute and piccolo. Articulations are programmable and key switchable.
Those familiar with other Spitfire libraries will notice significant changes in the GUI that reflect the velocity-based approach. The Velocity Layer view can range from Loud to Soft to Texture, and notes are visualized as you play. The visual feedback definitely enhances the experience and helps you to quickly grasp the effect of velocity for a given instrument configuration.
The General Overview window provides basic mic mix settings (close and “Decca” tree), reverb, CC information and expression settings.
The Expert View gives you additional control over stereo width, panning, round robin settings, and transposition.
Many of the settings you’ll find under the hood mirror those in the other Spitfire products I’ve reviewed in the past such as:
Although other Spitfire libraries may be more feature-rich or comprehensive, the British Drama Toolkit is unique in terms of the ease and speed at which you can generate well balanced orchestrated textures. The visually intuitive interface and velocity-based design make it an extremely playable device that keeps you thinking about the music and emotional impact, rather than wrestling with the technology.
Walkthrough: British Drama Toolkit
British Drama Toolkit is a unique and well-conceived library from Spitfire Audio designed in collaboration with composer Samuel Sim. It features a small string and woodwind ensemble and “presents a unique way of interacting with the players” that sets it apart from other Spitfire instruments. My fir
FREE EBOOK DOWNLOAD ►Spitfire Audio is proud to announce availability of British Drama Toolkit — created in close collaboration with award-winning British composer, musician, record producer, and songwriter Samuel Sim (famed for his quality, gritty, and deep television and film drama scores) as an inimitable instrument featuring an ensemble dedicated to capturing the emotionally potent sound he is lauded for, but also presenting a unique way of interacting with the players involved to allow users to compose, arrange, and complete a cue in one pass, thereby setting it apart from anything the high-quality virtual instruments- and sample libraries- creating company has produced to date — as of July 26...
Pursuing originality in music is one thing; trying to be constantly original in the pressured world of episodic television scoring is something else entirely. By brilliantly achieving both of those traits, talented composer Samuel Sim has won multiple awards as a writer of quality, gritty, and deep television and film drama scores. So, having previously worked with Spitfire Audio to realise his namesake SAMUEL SIM - CHRYSALIS library — launching a unique and inspirational sound set centred around a stunning, deep sampled studio harp, but bent into a collection of fresh sonic tools to critical acclaim in 2015, it is hardly surprising that he (re)turned to Spitfire Audio when wanting to create an instrument that put up no roadblocks between musical ideas and their realisation as ready-to-go cues.
Cue British Drama Toolkit — or British Drama Toolkit with Samuel Sim, to give it its full, highly-appropriate appellation... an instant scoring instrument in the true sense of the word, which provides the most instinctive, immediate, and intense connection to the heart of its user’s composition while helping them find their musical voice in the process. Playing styles that have not been sampled before, with bespoke bowing techniques and breathing patterns, converge to create textures full of dramatic movement. Meanwhile, those same notes, played at a different intensity, switch to characterful lead lines, passing from instrument to instrument in an ensemble that shifts dynamically as the user explores the radical results of this close collaboration.
Comprising a small string and woodwind section recorded in the purpose-built dry stage at Spitfire Audio’s London-based HQ, British Drama Toolkit clearly comes to life from the moment it is first played. Put it this way: when this library is at anyone’s fingertips then telepathy of sorts starts in earnest. Ensembles are mapped across the full length of the keyboard, and the playing styles are tied to velocity — from whispered textures through to bold solos. Saying that, British Drama Toolkit truly demonstrates an innate understanding of the fact that the difference between playing softly and loudly is not just simply down to volume, but also about character and emotion, enabling users to compose, arrange, and complete a cue in one pass. With an eye firmly fixed on the drama rather than the computer, and with one patch capable of such wide-ranging expression, users can respond instinctively to the story rather than getting sucked in to what Samuel Sim semi-seriously terms “...the vortex of the computer.”
Clearly no stranger to the musical joy of working with emotive ensembles as a working composer himself, who better to provide some serious closing commentary as to the virtues of working with British Drama Toolkit, then, than Spitfire Audio Director Paul Thomson: “This is one of the ways that you can convince your director, for example, to spend the money on real musicians, because what you’re hearing here are these incredibly talented musicians playing in a really unique, stylistic, and unusual way, and what better than to have the real live players sitting, performing, and reacting to your music in real time while they do this. But if your budget doesn’t stretch to a full band of musicians, and you can only afford a few musicians, then that’s still going to give you a great result, and you're going to have these instruments to fill in the gaps, and while your ear is drawn to the live player, you have these beautiful textures floating in the background to help give your music much more depth.”
Director Christian Henson, fellow co-founder of Spitfire Audio, adds, “I’m incredibly excited about the British Drama Toolkit, which is designed by a drama media composer, Sam Sim, for us fellow media composers. It really is an amazing, inspiring, time-saving tool that can be used on a variety of different applications, but it has that kind of gritty, very emotional British drama feel to it. Basically, it’s a bunch of ensembles — some strings, some woodwinds — recorded here on our dry stage, but, instead of using controllers, it’s very much a two-handed thing, whereby different velocities give you different kind of degrees of intensity and movement.”
Musically speaking, the honesty and rawness of British dramatic scoring is ingrained in the British Drama Toolkit library. Lest we forget, though, this is not just a library that plays a composer’s music, but rather helps them compose it. Indeed, all it takes is ideas. Originality, of course, is optional, yet highly recommended... just ask its award-winning designer, Samuel Sim!
British Drama Toolkit can be purchased and digitally downloaded for a time-limited introductory promo price of £149.00 GBP (inc. VAT)/$149.00 USD/€149.00 EUR (inc. VAT) until August 9, 2018 — rising thereafter to a RRP of £199.00 GBP (inc. VAT)/$199.00 USD/€199 EUR (inc. VAT) — from here: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/british-drama-toolkit/
British Drama Toolkit needs Native Instruments’ free KONTAKT PLAYER (5.6.8 or higher) — included in the purchase — to run as a fully NKS (NATIVE KONTROL STANDARD®) supporting plug-in instrument for Mac (OS X 10.10, 10.11, or macOS 10.12 — latest update) or Windows (7, 8, or 10 — latest Service Pack, 32/64-bit), while Spitfire Audio’s free Download Manager application allows anyone to buy now and download anytime.
For more in-depth information, including some superb-sounding audio demos, please visit the dedicated British Drama Toolkit webpage here: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/british-drama-toolkit/
Spitfire Audio British Drama Toolkit Review
Watch Spitfire Audio Director Paul Thomson’s ‘traditional’ video walkthrough of British Drama Toolkit here: https://youtu.be/irH7w4dv-F0
Watch fellow Spitfire Audio Director Christian Henson’s helpful British Drama Toolkit contextual video here: https://youtu.be/VwH4Knt8bsY
Watch Spitfire Audio’s touching trailer video for British Drama Toolkit here: https://youtu.be/aSeBoJ6XXmM
About Spitfire Audio (www.spitfireaudio.com)
Spitfire Audio British Drama Toolkit
Spitfire Audio is a British music technology company producing high-quality virtual instruments and sample libraries.The company collaborates with the world’s best composers, producers, engineers, and studios to create detailed and realistic recordings of instruments and sounds for use in computer-based music production. Prominent collaborators include Hans Zimmer, AIR Studios, Eric Whitacre, and many more.
Spitfire Audio British Drama Toolkit
© 2018 Spitfire Audio Holdings Limited
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