Spitfire Audio Albion Solstice Review - Hauntingly Beautiful Sounds

Albion Solstice from Spitfire Audio is a library I was particularly excited about. I've always loved this more experimental side of Spitfire. Some of my favorite libraries include Albion Tundra, London Contemporary Orchestra Textures, the British and Contemporary Drama Toolkits and all of the collaborations with Olafur Arnalds. Not to mention the huge selection of unique free instruments in Labs.

It's clear that Albion Solstice is a real passion project for Christian Henson and it's contagious to see his excitement in the very entertaining walkthrough videos. I couldn't wait to dive into the world of Solstice myself and see what it's all about.

Modern sounds inspired by the past

The main theme of Albion Solstice is modern cinematic folk noir. So this is not really a library with all kinds of traditional solo instruments to recreate the music of the past. Instead you are getting carefully curated ensembles with all kinds of interesting textures and sounds that are inspired by past traditions.

These textures were created with a mixture of modern and heritage instruments, more to that later. As with all of the Albions the focus is to give you all the tools you need, to make modern cinematic music. Of course you can use these sounds for a wide range of genres, it doesn't have to be just soundtracks or more experimental music.

Especially if you sprinkle in some of Albion Solstice's sounds into your tracks you can instantly make dull passages much more interesting and add some unique character to your music.

So let's take a look at what you are actually getting here.

Albion Solstice comes with a huge amount of content and it is very easy to spend hours just playing around with the sounds, which is one of my favorite things to do. 

The library is divided into three main sections, The Solstice Orchestra, The Cassette Orchestra and The Drone Grid.

The Solstice Orchestra

Here you will find all of the main instrument sections. You get 10 ensembles and one solo bass. All of them come with really cool names that get you excited for the sounds you are about to discover. To give you a quick overview, here is what you can expect:

The Elders

The Elders are basically the string section of this library but of course they don't really sound like typical strings. With lots of unique articulations the sounds always feel like they are constantly moving and evolving over time, so you are instantly getting very inspiring textures.

The strings are further divided into three subcategories, a classic octet, a traditional sextet and a solo bass. Additionally you get three different microphone positions and a curated mix.

Due to the nice legato patches they are also easily playable and can be used for more traditional string writing as well. Just keep in mind that the Albions are all about ensembles, so you are not getting separate patches for violins, violas, and celli, The Elders Bass is the only solo instrument in Albion Solstice.

The Callers

Next on the list is an ensemble of brass and woodwind instruments. Mostly you would have separate sections for these, but the blend of instruments works really well here. 

The Callers are made up of saxophones, trombones, tuba, euphonium, contrabass, and clarinet. For these you also get unique evolving articulations and Celtic playing styles.

The Mystics

A high woodwind section of flutes and Celtic flutes and whistles. The combination of classical concert flutes and Celtic flutes gives this section a very interesting and mysterious sound.

The Blaggards

Now that we have the string, woodwind and brass sections covered, I was really curious to see where Albion Solstice would go next. The Blaggards takes us deeper into the soundworlds of the past with a stunning ensemble of accordion, nyckelharpa, bass harmonica, harmonium, hurdy-gurdy, and clàrsach (Celtic harps).

This diverse selection was carefully curated into a cohesive and easily playable ensemble patch. There are also articulations that focus on certain instruments to give you a bit more control.  

The Hosts

An ensemble of female singers with 6 different high voices and one low voice. I've always loved the beautiful sound of female choirs, but there is something particularly haunting about The Hosts. All kinds of traditional vocal techniques and interesting details make these a joy to play with and instantly deliver extremely beautiful textures. 

The Generator Trio

The biggest surprise in Albion Solstice! The Generator Trio is an ensemble of two electric guitars and an electric bass. Normally you wouldn't expect to find electric guitars in this library, but this shows again that Albion Solstice is all about mixing old and modern sounds to create new and original music.

You can choose between various plucked, strummed and e-bowed techniques, which makes it very easy to create gritty and captivating textures, which surprisingly blend really well with the rest of the library.

The Gut Circle

The Gut Circle gives you more guitars, but this time all acoustic in nature. This collection includes steel and nylon string guitars, ukuleles and mandolins. Just like before you get lots of options for different strumming patterns, which sound very natural and are fun to work with.

The Nursery

In The Nursery you will find a nice selection of tuned percussion including celestes, vibes, glockenspiel, dulcitone, hand drums, bike bells and more. These are stunningly beautiful and can be used in all kinds of arrangements.

The Marauders

And the final section is all about untuned percussion. This part of the library is surprisingly comprehensive with different kinds of drum kits and lots of recorded performances. These grooves were recorded in 90BPM and 110BPM and automatically sync to the tempo in your DAW. There's a lot to discover in this section and it's very easy to build interesting rhythms, which can also be a nice starting point for composing your next track.

The Cassette Orchestra

With the Cassette Orchestra Albion Solstice really takes the raw orchestral recordings to the next level. Fans of Spitfire Audio will be already familiar with their eDNA engine.

eDNA is like a special synthesizer that lets you warp between two different sources and add all kinds of effects and manipulate the sounds as much as you want. You can go really crazy here and it's just a lot of fun to mess around with the original material.

Christian Henson has personally curated a huge list of 750 sounds to choose from with his large collection of fx pedals, modular rigs and all kinds of other effects.

Of course you don't have to do all of the work by yourself, there are 150 awesome presets waiting to be discovered by you.

I've always loved the Stephenson's Steam Band sections in the other Albions and The Cassette Orchestra is certainly one of the most unique and inspiring collection of sounds I have heard so far. If you are not careful, you can easily lose track of time here. 

The Drone Grid

And in the third and final section of Albion Solstice we have The Drone Grid. If you have used any of the Evo Libraries from Spitfire Audio before, you will be very familiar with the interface here.

It works like this, there is a grid with all kinds of dots and each vertical line represents a long evolving sample. You can move the dots around to different spots to layer different evolutions across your keyboard.

Most of the main sections are represented here and can be distinguished by the individual colors. You can also map all the dots to the same evo simply by holding down the control key while clicking somewhere on the grid.

Very useful is the randomize function here. Just flip everything around and try playing some chords. You will be amazed by all of the incredible soundscapes you can create like that. There are almost endless possibilities and combinations here, which makes this a super valuable tool.

Final thoughts

Albion Solstice is amazing, it's one of the most inspiring and unique libraries I know. Even though I love this kind of folk noir sound, I was not sure how useful this library would be for other types of genres and for a more general use.

Luckily I can say that Albion Solstice is incredibly versatile and is by no means limited to just dark, experimental folk songs and horror. It can do these things really well, but there is also a great amount of beauty in here that can really shine in a lot of settings.

It really depends on what you are doing with these sounds. You can also use Albion Solstice to add some character to your usual arrangements, I think it works really well to layer it with other libraries like that. 

What's different from the other Albions is that this library was actually not recorded at the famous Lyndhurst Hall and has a much drier, more intimate sound. This suits the sound of Solstice really well and also makes it easy to add your own effects and mix it with other instruments.

The amount of content in here is really astonishing and you can spend hours just exploring all of the sounds. I think the 10 ensembles sound fantastic and the Cassette Orchestra and Drone Grid offer endless amounts of fascinating textures and inspiration. Especially when you are stuck or need some new ideas, these can be very helpful.

With so many VST instruments out there now, it is rare to come across something really unique, but Albion Solstice is truly special. It's not simply another product, I think this library deserves to be called art by itself and you can feel all of the passion behind it.

Positives:

+ Incredibly unique and beautiful sounds

+ Tons of content

+ Cassette Orchestra and Drone Grid offer almost limitless possibilities

+ Unique combination of traditional, modern, acoustic and electrical sounds

+ Instant source for inspiration

Negatives:

- I really can't think of anything

Albion Solstice size: 73 GB

Current price: 449 $

You can get it here: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/albion-solstice/

If you are still not sure if this library is for you, take a look at the walkthroughs from Paul, Christian and Homay.