Spitfire SCS Chamber Strings Essentials Software User Manual

SPITFIRE
CHAMBER STRINGS
ESSENTIALS
USER MANUAL

INTRODUCTION

A detailed and versatile classic
This new streamlined edition of a Spitfire classic offers instant access to world-class scoring sound quality to enhance your film, TV and game scores and pop records. Discover a range of 53 essential techniques performed by 16 of the world’s best string players, featuring both Section and Ensemble patches for instant playability and inspiration. Expertly recorded at London’s AIR Studios, the home of countless blockbuster scores including Harry Potter, The Dark Knight and Dunkirk, this smaller section offers more detail and focus than our Symphonic ranges, featuring both Close and Tree mic signals — while still capturing the unique resonance of the hall.

QUICK SPECS

Size – 28GB
Free Kontakt Player incuded
Kontakt Player 6.5.3 or higher
For system requirements please refer to the Native
Instruments website:
https://www.native- instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-7-player/specifications/

WELCOME

Intimacy & Detail
The word ‘chamber’ describes any ensemble smaller than a symphony orchestra — anything from a quartet to 40 players. Our aim was to create the definitive chamber strings project, giving you that highly sought-after widescreen blockbuster sound, with detail and intimacy — hard to achieve with larger- sized string sample libraries.
We give you 16 world-class players: four 1st violins, three 2nd violins, three violas, three cellos & three basses, expertly sampled at AIR Studios. Choose from over 35 techniques, including Longs, Shorts, Trills & Trems, and expertly crafted Legato patches, as well as versatile Close and Tree mic signals and multiple dynamic layers. In addition to each Individual section, the techniques are presented in Ensemble format, designed to sound instantly realistic and musical to enhance your sketching, composition and production process, while also blending perfectly with larger ensembles.
“This new lightweight edition of our hugely popular Chamber Strings range sounds stunning straight out of the box, offering all the techniques you reach for 95% of the time when scoring to picture, or writing for pop with strings — an instant classic.”
— Award-winning composer & Spitfire Audio co-founder Paul Thomson

DOWNLOADING & INSTALLING

Thank you for buying Spitfire Chamber Strings Essentials. If you are new to Spitfire Audio you can get up to speed here: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/about/
First though, grab the ‘Spitfire Audio App’ from this link, this app will enable you to download the library: http://www.spitfireaudio.com/info /library-manager/

THE SPITFIRE AUDIO APP
When you launch the app you will be prompted to login using the same details you use at our site. Then you’ll see the page pictured below:

1. TABS the default tab is My Products, which shows all of the libraries on your Spitfire Account. Downloads will show currently downloading products.
2. FILTERS Clicking these filters will quickly display products you’ve yet to install, those already installed, and any available updates. Clicking again will remove the filter.
3.  LIBRARY All libraries and plugins in your collection will appear with their artwork on the My Products tab. Clicking this artwork will open the product page. This is a great place to find information such as system requirements and instructions as well as Reset and Repair options.
4. INSTALL/UPDATE buttons allow you to quickly start a download directly from the My Products tab, instead of clicking through to the Library. Next to the button the size of the download is shown.

THE SPITFIRE APP PREFERENCES

If this is your first time using the Spitfire Audio App for a download you may wish to first navigate to the Settings tab. Here you can set the Default Content location for where you wish to download your libraries.
You can also you can set the default VST2 install location to the folder where your DAW expects to find VST files.
Here you can also enable Auto Login to save time in future.

Once you are happy with your preferences, click the Install button for the library. This is either directly on My Products tab under the library artwork, or it can be found by clicking on the library image and clicking the install button on the page that appears.
Clicking either of these will prompt you for a location, the default content location in your preferences will be suggested but you can select any suitable location. If installing from a hard drive, ensure that you choose the drive as the location.
Once you are happy with the location click Download.

After clicking install you will be directed to the Downloads tab where you can watch the progress if you like. You can of course leave the Downloads tab and start other downloads but at this point you should leave the Spitfire App open until the download completes.

REGISTERING WITH KONTAKT PLAYER

If you have never used one of our libraries before and you don’t own a copy of Native Instruments Kontakt, you’ll need to download the free “Kontakt Player” here:

https://www.native- instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-7-player/

To find out more about the differences between Kontakt and Kontakt Player, go to Appendix A.

1.  Install Kontakt Player (skip this step if you already have it)

2.  Open the player (or Kontakt 6 full version if you have that) and click Manage Libraries in the library browser window, then click Launch Native Access in the window that opens:

3. Once you have opened Native Access, click Add Serial in the top left of the window.

4.  Enter the serial number in this format:

…It can be found in your ‘ready to download’ email and at the following link:
https://www.spitfireaudio.com/my-account/seri-al-numbers

5. You will then be prompted to navigate to the not installed products in Native Access. From here, add library for Spitfire Chamber Strings Essentials. Browse for your downloaded Spitfire Chamber Strings Essentials folder and select this to complete the authorisation.

6. Your library is authorised.
   If you have never used Kontakt before we wholeheartedly recommend that you familiarise yourself with the basics of patch (or instrument) loading, multi management,  outputtingand midi routing detailed in the Kontakt user-manual and native instruments website:
   https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-7/
   If you are an established Kontakt user please make sure you absolutely have the latest version of it downloaded via NATIVE ACCESS apps.
   For more information about NKS and integration with Native Instruments hardware controllers and keyboards please checkout their online instructions:

FOLDER STRUCTURE

When you open the main folder of Spitfire Chamber Strings Essentials you will find 6 individual instruments.

OPENING YOUR FIRST INSTRUMENT.

Simply double click an ‘nki’ file (this is Native Instruments’ file extension for a Kontakt instrument) to load, or drag the instrument (it’ll have the little keyboard icon and the suffix .nki) from the left pane into the right pane.
If you can’t hear anything double check first that the midi channel you are transmitting on with your keyboard is the same as the one in the Kontakt Instrument!

QUICK LOOK

This library was recorded via priceless ribbon and valve mics via Neve Montserrat pre amps, the largest 88R Neve console in the world and onto pristine 2” tape before being converted with the top-of-their-class Prism AD converters at 96k. The orchestra is presented in carefully orchestrated sections, sometimes in unison across the entire orchestral range sometimes in high low and middle sections. Alongside many ‘work horse’ long and short articulations are expertly prepared legato patches; a menu of effects and a huge selection of string runs. There are two mic positions (close, and tree,) to load and mix to suit the type of music you’re writing and the scale you want to achieve.
When you first load up a Spitfire Orchestral preset you’ll be greeted with this GUI. This is one of 3 pages that you can switch between using the panel switcher…
ASSIGNING CONTROLS IN KONTAKT
All GUI controls can be assigned a unique controller number so you can automate or adjust via an external controller (vital when playing in virtual Orchestral parts). To un-assign, assign or just to see what CC number is assigned to any control RIGHT or CTRL
CLICK.
You can then alter the controller parameters in the “Automation pane” if you want your mod wheel to go all the way from top to bottom but the control to have restricted bandwidth change default of 0-127 to 20-100 say. Or if you want the controller to make the GUI control in the reverse direction change from default 0-127 to 127-0.

Click on these to switch views or pages:

1. General Overview (the view shown above)
2.  Expert View
3. Ostinatum.

All of which ore discussed in more detail over the next few chapters…

THE ‘GENERAL OVERVIEW’ PANEL

1. ARTICULATION SWITCHER
   The notes denote key articulations, display the current articulation playing and act as switches between them (alongside their associated keyswitches at the bottom of your keyboard).
   If what you’re playing stutters, or feels delayed or cuts out make sure everything is loaded, as some of these articulations are very deep sampled.
   LOAD STATUS:

   ---

Make sure Kontakt displays the instrument load status as pictured. If the left hand bar is illuminated and red it’s in a queue and hasn’t started loading yet, if the middle bar is lit and yellow the instrument is still loading up. If you try to play before it’s loaded it may not be nice!
ARTICULATIONS – Click on these notes to select the different articulations, whatever articulation is live is displayed in the yellow sidebar on the left. You can also select different articulations by hitting key switches, you can do this whilst you’re playing so if you want to say switch from a “long” articulation to a short, hit the key whilst you’re playing your last long and the next note will be a short. For details of articulations recorded go to Appendix A.

2.   SIDE BAR
   Tells you what articulation you’re playing.

3. EASY MIX
   The orchestra was recorded with several different mic perspectives. Move this slider up or down to change the perceivable distance from the band. NB: the first time you use this it will need to load in the samples, so give it a moment!

4. EXPRESSIVE CONTROLLERS
   Dynamics – probably the most important controller you have. This crossfades between the different dynamic layers recorded.
   Vibrato – where appropriate this crossfades from no (or senza) to lots (molto) vibrato.
   Release – allows you to change the amounts of release trigger you and your listener hears.
   Speed – the start of a note is often not the start of the ‘sound’ of the instrument. This cuts further into the note to make it tighter. But does detract from realism. Worth tightening up when playing in, then loosening and putting a negative delay into your DAW to compensate for ultimate reality!
   Expression – ostensibly instrument trim (CC11), so this adjusts the volume within the instrument volume (CC7) great when used in conjunction with expression.

INSTRUMENTS

Welcome to the wonderful world of orchestral strings. Here’s a quick crib sheet of the instruments that we’ve recorded with some quick facts. We’ve curated ranges that fit within the reasonable demands of professional players in London. If you’re looking for further reference sources for string writing we recommend ‘Orchestration’ by Walter Piston and ‘The Study Of Orchestration’ by Samuel Adler which both have a very easy “at a glance” approach to taking you through the orchestra.

WHICH CLEF?

Violins read from the treble clef (A.), violas from the ‘viola’ (C.)or ‘alto’ clef (where the middle line is middle C). Cellos play from the bass clef (B.) as do the basses. However the basses sound an octave lower than written. Want cellos and basses to play in unison octaves? Give them both the same music and it will happen!

ARTICULATIONS

The following is an explanation of all of the terms used when naming our ‘articulations’ in the library. (An Articulation is basically a way of playing the instrument, captured as a standalone ‘patch’ like you might have on a synth.)
LONG (NORMALE)
This is the most vanilla of the ‘long notes’ we have recorded. The basic standard playing style, recorded with and without vibrato, and sometimes with ‘molto vibrato’ or a lot of vibrato! Occasionally you’ll see ‘senza vib’ which means ‘without vibrato’. You’ll sometimes see ‘dolce’ which means ‘sweetly’ and this refers to a tasteful amount of vibrato. You can use the Modwheel, or a slider set to CC1, to control the ‘dynamic’ of the sound, this smoothly crossfades between very soft (or ‘pp’) recordings, through to very loud (or ‘ff’). Also you can use a slider set to CC21 to control the amount of vibrato, smoothly crossfading between no vibrato all the way up to the maximum vibrato.
LONG HARMONICS
If the player holds down lightly on the string a perfect 4th interval up from the note they are fingering, you hear what is called an ‘artificial harmonic’ sound – two octaves up from the note being fingered. This is called ‘artificial’ to distinguish it from the natural harmonic series of the open string. These ‘natural’ harmonics can be heard by moving the finger up and down the string lightly while bowing.
SPICCATO
Spiccato techniques can create extremely heated discussions! For Spitfire, we define our Spiccs as having a nice very tight sound, with the bow bouncing on the string. This creates a sound that can be used either as a nice short staccatissimo, but also as part of a sequence of fast short notes.
PIZZICATO
Plucking the strings with the finger.
STACCATO
Staccato in notation refers to a ‘shortened and detached’ style of playing. In the case of samples, this usually refers to a single but defined short note.
TRILL (TRILL Minor 2nd, Major 2nd)
A Trill is where the player alternates between two notes with the left hand very quickly, we’ve recorded a number of options for this interval. These can be used as accented performance embellishments, or you can play them very softly and create a lovely ‘cloud’
texture with them.
TREMOLO (UNMEASURED)
This Tremolo is where the player rapidly moves the bow while keeping the left hand fingering a single note. The effect is a shimmering one when played softly, and a very aggressive one when played loud.
LEGATO
Legato in the context of a sample instrument refers to a technique of capturing the sound of an instrument moving from one note to the next. Capturing this detail gives a lot of added realism, but means that you need to play monophonically (one note at a time). To ‘trigger’ the in-between sounds, you must make sure that you hold down the first note while pressing the key of the second note. As long as you overlap the notes in this way, the engine will know that you want to trigger what we call a ‘legato transition’.

THE EXPERT VIEW

1. SIDE BAR
   On the ‘General Overview’ page this simply displays the articulation being played. In the ‘Expert View’ there are some additional functions:
   1a. THE COG – a. The Cog – Awesome tool for fine tuning & tweaking your presets.

• HOW SHOULD WE TWEAK? – Then your last note played will be displayed, if this is correct get tweaking.
• SKIP THIS RR – Will simply make it always jump along to the next round robin in the cycle.
• ADJUST TUNE/ VOL – Will adjust the tuning and or volume of the last played note.
• ADJUST RELEASE – This will alter the level of the release trigger (which will effect the perceived decay of that note).
• SAMPLE START – If it feels loose adjust to the right, tight adjust to the left (NB this is only available in full “cog” patches).
• REMOVE ALL NOTE TWEAKS – This removes all custom changes you have made with the Cog. 1b. “KEYBOARD SHIMMIER” – This shifts your bank of keyswitches left or right to suit your needs, preference or performance. Simply click on the icon and drag your cursor left or right and you’ll see the pink bank of keyswitches follow! Wherever you stop, those will be the new keyswitches.1c. “KEYSWITCH TO CC SELECTOR” – Use this to assign a CC controller to act as articulation/ keyswitcher. Click on “CC” and you’ll be prompted to move the controller you wish to use in order for the instrument to “learn” how you’d like to select articulations.
d. “ARTICULATION LOCKER” – We all like to select articulations and use our templates in different ways. Many composers like to have a single articulation loaded to each instance of an instrument for example. So it’s worth locking off the articulation switching once you’ve selected one so you don’t have sounds disappearing from slaves way off in your machine rooms!
Unlocked Artic’ – Is the standard setting, select articulations via the front panel or associated keyswitch.
Locked Artic’ – This locks your articulation so it doesn’t change either via front panel or keyswitch.
Locked Keyswitch – This locks your articulation via keyswitch but you’re free to switch via the front panel.
Locked to UACC – This is a new standard being developed by Spitfire and detailed in appendix E. The default controller channel is #32 but this can be changed by right/ CTRL clicking on the padlock.
Locked to UACC KS – The functionality of UACC with the flexibility of a keyswitch. When activated, a single keyswitch is available. Pressing this key at varying velocities (according to UACC standards) changes articulation. Shared Keyswitches – In larger libraries, this setting allows you to spread keyswitches across multiple palettes of articulations.

2. ARTICULATION SWITCHER
   This works the same as it does in the ‘General Overview’ panel, with the addition of ‘load chips’ beneath each articulations. These load them in and out of memory as you wish… Remember before playing an articulation you’ve loaded in make sure it’s fully loaded!
   LOAD STATUS

LAYERING ARTICULATIONS – To layer sounds within the articulation set simply ‘SHIFT’ click on your next articulation. Rather than introducing a multitude of more confusing ‘layered articulation’ options, the front panel shows (and edits) only the most recently layered articulation.
TRIGGERING – For triggering options CTRL or COMMAND click on the articulation icon:

“By CC Range” – This will allow you to use a single controller channel to switch between artics. This allows you to fine tune on your MIDI event list, or to use a midi controller fader or indeed button with a single range assigned to select your desired artic’. Our  default setting is guided by our UACC protocol.
“By KS” – The default setting. BML is scripted so it won’t switch mid note but wait ‘til the next note-on event before switching. This means you’re able to play the key switch say whilst playing a long note and have it switch to a staccato on your next note.
“By Velocity Range” – This is great for designing intelligent staccato patches that say become stac- catissimo when you hit the keyboard really hard. A second menu will open up giving you options for this function.
“By MIDI Channel” – Ingeniously turns your single instance of BML into a multi timbral instrument. MIDI channel lets the instrument change articulation based on the incoming MIDI channel. To use, pop the instrument Midi Ch. to ‘Omni’ mode in Kontakt. The single instance can now be configured to play based on the incoming MIDI channel. For example. Set staccatos to channel 1, longs to channel 2 , legato to channel 3.
“By Speed Of Playing” – A revolutionary new function that allows you to switch articulations based on the playing speed of your performance. When selected, it provides options to specify a triggering time-range in milliseconds. (See right hand menu above). For example, you could specify that ‘fast legato’ should be activated if the time between playing each interval is between 0 and 250ms (pic- tured above). Fully configurable to suit the user’s playing style and needs and can be deactivated by unchecking ‘Enabled’ (or if not in the artic switching screen, simply holding ALT/MENU and clicking the articulation icon on the stanza).
When an articulation has a ‘trigger’ assigned to it, it shows a little short- cut icon above to let you know that it has been customised.

Holding down ALT/MENU (PC/MAC) and clicking an articulation with this short- cut above it will toggle the trigger between enabled and disabled.

It’s a handy way to quickly turn off legato speed/ velocity switching if the user doesn’t want it.

TRIGGER PANEL – Reset will clear the trigger for this articulation, allowing you to set it to a different type or disable it permanently. Legato intervals will only activate this trigger if the notes played are legato intervals. Ignore if purged means that this trigger will only occur if the articulation is not purged.
Group allows you to group together triggers. When set, the trigger only occurs when an articulation in the same group is currently active. For example, use this if you wanted to set up speed triggers on legato articulations, but don’t want them to trigger if you have staccatos/marc/shorts selected.
OTHER WAYS TO SWITCH ARTICULATIONS:
Alongside switching your articulations manually by hand, via keyswitch or via the advanced methods mentioned above you may also want to try a new system we’ve dubbed UACC (universal articulation controller channel). Whereby each and every possible style of articulation has been given a unique CC data number. Simply use CC#32 and the table found in Appendix E to see how this can work for you.
POWER TIP : Whilst there are many ways to switch between articulations, many pros still prefer to have a different articulation in a single instance per track on their DAW. This enables them to assign different reverb levels and bake helpful stems that can be used in conjunction with live instruments (to work like this it’s best to load up artics from the individual articulations sub folder).

3. MICROPHONE MIXER
   Giving you greater control over the blends of microphone positions for your work.
   Use the chips beneath the faders to load & unload different microphones and the faders above to tweak the balance of them.
   Turning a fader all the way down will also unload the mics, conversely turning the fader back up will reload. Left click on the faders to assign CC controllers so you can mix these live for fantastic shifts in the spacial nature of the samples. Right / Ctrl click on the mic letters to change Kontakt channel/output assignment.
   On the top right of the mixer controller section are some deeper mixing options.

3a VELOCITY RESPONSE

Pick from 4 different velocity curves to suit your controller.
3b CLOSE PAN MIC COLLAPSER

The close mics are a stereo mix and this collapser allows you to refine how the stereo image is handled. All our musicians are recorded in-situ, ie. where they would be seated on a standard scoring session, giving you a fantastic spectral spread when putting all the elements together, which helps define the detail. This panning tool helps you to manage and tweak this to your own tastes/ needs.
STEREO WIDTH – Allows you to control how far the stereo image reaches. All the way to the right would be like having your two pan pots panned hard. All the way to the left would be like having both pots centre,
STEREO PAN – Then allows you to control where in the pan field the centre of this image is placed.
3c MIC MIX TO ARTICULATION LINKER
The small notation symbol locks the microphone mix or tweak you’ve made to the articulation selected. This means if you want to boost any perceived inconsistencies in volume between say pizzicato and col legno you can. Or indeed if you want to roll off some of the hall ambience for a short versus the long articulations this is how to fine tune.
3d MIXER PRESETS
A new way to transfer mixer settings between patches, or save and load presets to disk.
AUTOMATING MIXER FADERS – Each mixer fader has a dedicated #CC. To change this to suit your MIDI controller or surface, simply right click (on PC) or command click (on Mac) on the fader itself to “learn” the new controller.
ROUTING MIC MIXES – To route each mic mixer channel to unique Kontakt channels simply click on the Mic acronym. Great for putting your ambient mics in the surround for example. Also good for tracklaying individual mics for your engineer to control in your final mix sessions.

4. GENERAL CONTROLS
   OPTIONS
   PRESETS – This allows you to load predetermined sets of articulations affectionately called articulation sets (see General Overview Panel) quickly and easily to optimise your system quickly for essential articulations or to start building templates using empty “shells”.
   PURGE UNUSED – This control keeps unloading any samples you are not using to keep your memory usage as low as possible. TRANSPOSE – Toggle this on and tweak the number to the right to transpose your instrument. Note this is not the same as tuning, the instrument will actually offset the samples to the selected pitch. A great way to “track up” BML and make it sound bigger!
   CC MAPPED VEL(OCITY) – Click this to control note velocity with the Dynamics slider. If a user has customer the dynamics slider, that same customised CC will control velocity now.
   ROUND ROBINS & LEGATO
   NO EXTRA FUNCTIONALITY(NEIGHBOURING ZONES)- Next to this lies a pop-down menu with some amazing new functions: er settings between
   • “No extra Functionality” – Is the standard default where round robins are used as they were intended.
   • “Neighbouring Zones” – pulls from neighbouring zones, so for an ‘8RR’ instrument, you effectively cycle through up to 24 different sounding notes when pressing a key. It’s still just playing the one RR at a time, though giving you more of them. In legato mode this also alternates between 3 legato intervals to give a fake round robin.
   • “2x Round Robin With Skip” – plays two RR simultaneously, so you get a thicker sound, it’s the equivalent of plopping two notes on top of each other in your DAW (and it drops the overall volume ~6db so that the levels remain the same but it just sounds thicker). NB THIS IS NOT AVAILABLE TO LEGATO TRANSITIONS. This plays the pairs and moves ahead by 2 RR. In this mode RR is effectively halved. eg, if you press a note it would play RR1/ RR2 then RR3/RR4 ,etc.
   • “Layer 2x Round Robins With No Skip” – As above but this plays a pair but doesn’t move ahead by 2 so that RR isn’t halved. So if you press a note it would play RR1/RR2, then RR2/RR3, then RR3/RR4.
   ROUND ROBINS – This refers to the number of round robins (multiple recordings of the same notes that cycle around as you repeatedly play a note) your instrument uses, the number can be dragged up and down (1-8) to save you memory.
   RESET FROM F0 – This enables you to control the round robin cycle (so it sounds identical every time you play) toggle on & play the key selected (default F0) to reset.
   RESET ON TRANSPORT – As above but resets every time you press play! Genius!
   SHORT ARTICULATIONS RT – This new option allows you to toggle whether staccato/tenuto/marcato notes have a release trigger that plays on release. This lets you tighten up staccatos or end marcatos/tenutos earlier than they were recorded.

5. EXPRESSION CONTROLS
   We curated some of these for the general controls view, here is the full complement, dial these cc’s into your midi controller for an infinite choice of emotional and human responses.
   DYNAMICS – CC#1 This slider displays and controls which dynamic layer is live. Also controlled via the modulation wheel.
   VIBRATO – CC#21 This mixes between vibrato and non, or senza vibrato.
   SPEED – CC#16 Controls legato interval speed. Great to use when playing the lines into your DAW for more responsive less laggy control. Dial back on playback for greater realism.
   INTENSITY – CC#15 This is a great way to vary and humanise the legato articulations. Dial it all the way up for a more pronounced emotional start to each note, dial it back for a more transparent transition.
   RELEASE – CC#17 Dialled in all the way, this helps blur the transitions when using long articulations in slow passages in a natural and musical way. Dial back for more focus and detail..
   TIGHTNESS – CC#18 We proudly cut our samples from the true beginning of the note, as the bow engages the string and the rosin begins to weave its magic. The net effect of this is laggy and sometimes very small inconsistencies in timing. Which we love! It Sounds real! But it’s not to everyone’s taste. This ingenious device allows you to tighten and loosen to your heart’s content. An excellent use of this is to dial it all the way to the right in order to play your part in. Once you’re happy, adjust to taste and put a negative delay in the track header of your DAW which is the same amount as the Tightness setting.
   EXPRESSION – CC#11 Displays the overall instrument volume (0-100%). Remember you can also trim your instrument volume with CC#7.

THE OSTINATUM

1. SETTINGS
   MODE – Selects how the Ostinatum will interpret your playing. Ostinatum will sequence a maximum of 10 notes (one for each of your fingers). It needs to arrange them into a note order “1-10” and this determines how it does that.
   OFF – The default position Ostinatum remains dormant.
   ORDER PRESSED – This will organise the notes in the order you pressed them.
   ASCENDING – From bottom to top.
   DESCENDING – From top to bottom.
   CONTROL KEYSWITCHES – Allows you to set up a section of the keyboard that controls the state of the ostinatum. These keyswitch let you turn it off, or set the Mode.
   SOLO KEYSWITCHES – Allows you to dedicate a section of the keyboard to keyswitches that solo each ostinatum track. The first keyswitch turns all tracks on, the following keyswitches solo each individual track.
   CHORD MODE – This ignores any note order and simply plays everything polyphonically, great for measured trem style effects.

2. RHYTHM COMPUTER
   NOTE MENU – Click these to place a note into the computer at the length you desire. Click the trash can to delete, or choose a preset from the drop down on the right. The cog allows you further fine tuning and configuration tools.
   LENGTH – This displays the note lengths in sequence that you have selected from the Note Menu. Drag down here to create rest versions of the note length.
   KEY – Under each note you can then select which key (displayed in real time in the Transport) this note is attached to. Scroll up and down to select.
   LEVEL – Adjust these bars up and down to adjust the velocity levels of each notes, this will bring your rhythm sequence to life and provide you with all sorts of surprising syncopated accents.
   LOAD/ SAVE – Allows you to store your previously made Ostinati.

3. PATTERN SELECTOR
   With the Ostinatum machine, there’s a dropdown on the rhythm computer allowing you to switch between (and create) up to 8 different patterns.
   By default these layer on top of each other, but you can also configure them to be solo using either the Ostinatum track options:

Or using the ‘solo keyswitch’ option. With Solo Keyswitch, 9 new (customisable) keyswitches are added to the keyboard:

The very first one unmutes all tracks so that they play together. The next eight solo each individual track respectively. When you press them, everything but that keyswitch’s track is muted.
The second image shows how you could programme crazy 16ths on track 1, lazy halves on track 2, and then keyswitch between them in your DAW.

KONTAKT VS KONTAKT PLAYER

Kontakt Player is a free version of the Kontakt sample playback engine available to download:
https://www.native- instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-7-player/
It works with libraries that the developer has paid a license fee for. Essentially, you’ve bought this playback engine along with your library.
The Kontakt player gives you full access to all the sounds and all the editable parameters on the front panel. Also, unlike non-Player libraries, these libraries will also have a banner that appears on the Kontakt Libraries pane.
If you want to go deeper into editing you’ll need a full version. As you will already own the free Kontakt player and have bought one of our ‘player’ libraries you will be eligible for a discount upgrade to Kontakt via the NI website. See here for more details:
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/samplers/kontakt-6 /pricing-kontakt-5/crossgrade-offer/
If the library you want to use is NOT a ‘Player’ library then you need to buy the full retail version of Kontakt.
Then you can also load ‘non-Player’ libraries like some of our other ranges, Harp, Piano, Harpsichord, etc.
Please note that non-Player library instruments will not appear on the Kontakt libraries pane and so can’t be added as a library as Player libraries need to be. Instead, these libraries will simply need to be loaded via the Kontakt files browser or you can add the library as a favourite to the Kontakt Quick Load window.

FAQS AND TROUBLESHOOTING

Q: WHAT ARE THE SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS?

MAC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Mac OS X 10.13 - OS 12 Minimum: 2.8GHz i5 (quad-core), 8GB RAM Recommended: 2.8GHz i7 (six-core), 16GB RAM PC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows 11. (latest Service Pack, 64-bit) Minimum: Intel Core 2.8GHz i5 (quad-core) orAMD Ryzen 5, 8GB RAM Recommended: Intel 2.8GHzi7 (six-core) or AMD R7 2700, 16GB RAM

Q: CAN I INSTALL ON MORE THAN ONE COMPUTER?

With our products you have two licenses. This means that you are allowed to download and install on two computers you own, say your main rig and your mobile rig. If you have purchased the library on a hard drive, you should copy the contents of the drive on to the destination machine before completing the download with the Spitfire App. If you downloaded Spitfire Chamber Strings Essentials, you can copy the library folder over to the second machine and then use the “Repair” feature in Native Access.

Q: I CAN’T SEE THIS IN THE PLUGINS SECTION OF MY DAW?

This library is a Kontakt Player library so it does not have its own standalone plugin. Instead you will find the library in the Kontakt or Kontakt Player plugin.

Q: HOW DO I AUTHORIZE SPITFIRE CHAMBER STRINGS ESSENTIALS ON A MACHINE NOT CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET?

It not possible to authorise Spitfire Chamber Strings Essentials on a machine not connected to the internet. Authorisation is done through the Spitfire Audio App and Native Access, and an internet connection is required.

Q: HOW CAN I REDOWNLOAD A PRODUCT?

This can easily be done via your Spitfire Audio App. To reset both your entire library download or the latest update; • Open up the Spitfire Audio App and log in with your account email and password. • Select the product artwork you wish to redownload • On this page is a “cog wheel”. Select this, choose “reset” from the menu. Then “Reset Entire Download” (for a full download) or (Latest Update) for the latest update. This will reset your latest update ready for install again. You can repeat this process for any of the libraries you own. Note that there is a limit to how many times you can reset your downloads in a certain time frame. If you do exceed your reset limit please get in touch.

Q: HOW DO I DOWNLOAD PRODUCTS ON MAC OSX 10.9?

The version of the Spitfire App needed to install Spitfire Chamber Strings Essentials only supports Mac OSX 10.13 and upwards.

Q: DIFFICULTIES IN DOWNLOADING / INSTALLING

Customers may find that they have some difficulties in the downloading process. If youfind that you are having some trouble, pleasecheck the list below for possible causes: • The formatting of your drive, if it is FAT32 this will cause errors, because there is a maximum file size with this format of 4GB and our download files will exceed this limit. To solve this problem, reformat your drive or use a different drive. We recommend NTFS on PC and Mac OS Extended on Mac. Other possible issues: • Spitfire App freezes in the “Extracting” stage for hours. This may be because our libraries are often very large files, and this is the stage where the compressed files are extracted and placed in their final locations on the hard drive. There could be hundreds of GB of content to unpack, so it really can take hours. If you’re unsure whether it has crashed or is extracting files, visit the installation folder you chose when you started the install. If everything is working normally you’ll see various files appearing in the folder (or one of its sub-folders). • If your download gets stuck and is continually cycling and not resuming, please get in touch with us, giving us as much detailas possible about your set up. It would be helpful if you can tell us your operating system, where you are downloading from (your country, and also whether you’re at home or work), your ISP, and whether there are any proxy servers or firewalls between your computer and the internet.

Q: I HAVE FAST INTERNET, WHY IS MY DOWNLOAD SLOW?

We have no direct influence on your actual download speeds, our libraries are hosted on Amazon S3 servers which are normally very quick but it may well be that at certain times of the day when traffic is particularly busy, your ISP may throttle your connection speeds.We would advise you to leave your download running overnight as speeds should ramp up at less busy times. Our Spitfire App downloader aims to use as much of the available bandwidth as possible to give you the quickest possible speeds, and may take several minutes to reach its peak.

Q: CAN I TRY BEFORE I BUY?

No - it is not currently possible to demo our products. If you go to our Youtube channel you’ll see many walkthroughs containing detailed info about all our products -- you can hear them being played in real time with no smoke and mirrors!

Q: MY LIBRARIES ARE NOT SHOWING UP IN MY SPITFIRE APP

A handful of customers may find that when they log into their Spitfire App, some of their previously purchased products do not show up in the ‘Installed’ section or in the ‘Download Ready’ section either. It may be that you have purchased these under another email address. Checking other possible email addresses for your previous purchases may help to find these missing products. If this is not the case, and these missing products were purchased a few years ago, please create a support ticket telling us your account email address, and any serial numbers you may have to go with these missing products. Our support team can also merge one or more accounts together if you’d like to consolidate all your purchases in one place. The more information we have, the quicker we can get you back up and running!

Q: HOW DO I UPDATE MY PRODUCTS?

The main premise of downloading our products is that our Spitfire App downloads into the folder you choose, so it is important to choose the folder above where you want the download to go. The best file path for our products is something very simple, a long file path will cause errors as there is a character limit on how far the Spitfire App can read. We advise a file path of somethingalong the lines of: Samples Drive > Spitfire Audio When it comes to downloading / updating - if you have a folder called ‘Spitfire Audio’ always point the Spitfire App to the folder Spitfire Audio - never go into this folder and choose the actual library in question.

Q: HOW DO I REDOWNLOAD THE LATEST UPDATE?

With the continuous improvements to our Spitfire Audio App, we have incorporated the ability to reset your own downloads. This can easily be done via your Spitfire Audio App. Open up the Spitfire Audio App and log in with your account email and password. • Select the product artwork you wish to redownload • On this page is a “cog wheel”. Select this, choose “reset” from the menu. Then “Reset Entire Download” (for a full download) or (Latest Update) for the latest update. • This will reset your latest update ready for install again. You can repeat this process for any other updates you wish. If you do not see the option to reset your download in your Spitfire Audio App, we would advise to download the latest version of the Spitfire App from spitfireaudio.com/ info/library-manager/.

Q: I’VE BEEN WAITING AGES FOR MY DOWNLOAD LINKS?

We run all our orders through a fraud checking process. The automatic fraud check takes 20 minutes (but can take up to an hour during a very busy period, eg. Black Friday) If your order gets caught at this stage, we run a manual order check, and this can delay the processing of your order for up to 24 hours. You should however receive an order confirmation email IMMEDIATELY upon placing your order. This confirms that your order has successfully been logged in our system and that your payment was successfully taken. Please check your junk folders before contacting our support.

Q: CAN I DOWNLOAD ON A PC, THEN TRANSFER TO A MAC OR VICE VERSA?

Yes, you can copy the library folder and plugin files over to the second machine and then use the “Repair” and “Locate Library” features in the Spitfire Audio App. Please note that although the majority of the download can be done on a separate machine, you will always need an internet connection to finish the authorisation process.

Q: I HAVE FOUND A BUG

In some cases we can’t squash them all and bugs shamefully make their way through. If you think you have found a bug, please contact us with all the relevant information; • A description of the bug you have found • A screencast (video) of the bug happening, or an audio example • The exact preset name (or presets) in question and also the library giving us as much detail as possible will help us get to the bottom of the issue.

Q: WHAT IS YOUR REFUNDS / RETURNS POLICY?

If you have NOT completed the download / installation process, and bought within 14 days then we CAN refund / return your product, please contact support with your account email address and order number so we can handle this quickly. If you HAVE completed the installation process (even if you’ve not yet registered your serial number), please see our EULA in regards to why we do not accept refunds and returns. We can refund hard drive orders up until the point when the drive is dispatched from our office. This is usually 1-2 days after you order.

Q: I’VE FORGOTTEN MY PASSWORD?

If you have forgotten your password, please see this link spitfireaudio.com /my-account/ login/, and click ‘Forgotten Password’. If at some point in the past you asked us to merge two or more accounts but have since forgotten, you MAY find that the forgotten password isn’t working for the email address you asked us to merge FROM. In this case, please contact support with your name, and any email addresses you think we might know about, and we’ll work out what has happened.

TECHNIQUES/MICS/MIXES

INSTRUMENTS:

• VIOLINS 1
• VIOLINS 2
•  VIOLAS
• CELLI
• BASSES
• ENSEMBLES

MIC MIXES:

• C – Close mics, a selection of valve mics placed for optimum focus close to the instruments. This mic control is great to add in for added definition and at times a bit of “rounding of sound”, in isolation it can be a way of achieving a more intimate or pop-music style sound.
•  T – Tree. This refers to the “Decca” tree of three mics placed above the conductors podium. In the case of Sable; 3 priceless vintage Neumann M50s. These are placed to give the ultimate sound of the band, the hall and are the default mic position that loads in with each patch.

DEFAULT CC MAPPINGS

© SPITFIRE AUDIO HOLDINGS LTD
MMXXII

References

• Spitfire Audio
• Sign in — Spitfire Audio
• Spitfire Audio app — Spitfire Audio
• OVERVIEW Full Catalog of All Products | Native Instruments
• Native Instruments
• Kontakt 7 Player: Free sample player
• About Spitfire Audio — Spitfire Audio

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