Spitfire Originals Intimate Strings - The Best Strings VST on a Budget?
Spitfire Originals Intimate Strings is an ensemble strings VST for just 29$. Considering how expensive most of the bigger string libraries are, you might be skeptical about the quality of such an affordable package.
To go straight to the point, Intimate Strings sounds incredibly beautiful. As the name suggests, you get a very delicate and detailed string sound that is perfect for softer compositions.
The reason for this amazing sound is that Intimate Strings actually uses samples from an older Spitfire library called Albion Loegria, which was a full premium library at the time with lots of content. Albion Loegria is now retired and not available anymore, but many people really loved the beautiful sound of it, so I think it was a very smart move from Spitfire to release the string section of Loegria separately for a very affordable price.
This gives upcoming composers the opportunity to use these stunning samples right at the beginning of their journey without spending all of their savings. I know that is really tough to start from nothing, so I really appreciate what Spitfire is doing for the community.
Another advantage is that Intimate Strings comes in it's own dedicated plugin, so you don't need Kontakt, which can often get in the way of using a lot of other cheaper libraries.
The installation process is very easy too. You can find all of your purchased libraries in the Spitfire Audio app. Just choose your preferred folder location, click download and then open it in your DAW.
When you open the plugin, you will see a very modern and smooth interface that I like a lot.
The String section here is made up of 25 players, which is a really nice chamber size. It's not too big, but not too small either. So you can hear a lot of the details and still get a pretty epic and lush sound. There are 8 first Violins, 6 second Violins, 4 Violas, 4 Celli and 3 Basses.
Intimate Strings was recorded in the Lyndhurst Hall at Air Studios. This is a huge hall, which gives the string sound a really lush, natural reverb that would be hard to replicate with plugins.
You get 9 articulations in total, which you can choose from the upper menu. Long, Long CS, Flautando, Harmonics, Long Half Section, Short, Short CS, Pizzicato, Col Legno. So 5 long and 4 short articulations.
All of these are mapped across the full Keyboard and can be played with two hands, which makes them perfect to sketch out ideas quickly.
CS stands for Con Sordino, which means that the players are using a mute on the strings, which produces a softer sound. Flautando means "flute like" - this is one of the articulations that Spitfire really made famous with Loegria and countless libraries that followed later. Flautandos sound really delicate and emotional and are perfect to add some heart to your compositions.
With the standard longs you can get a really lush and full sound, which sounds really epic in an emotional way. The half section is a lot more detailed and even more intimate, which is really useful as well. I also love to combine the Harmonics and Flautandos together, which just sounds amazing.
And then there are all of the short articulations, which sound really lovely too. The normal Short one has a bit more bite and has that fantastic reverb tail from the big hall. With the Short CS patch you get a bit of a looser and softer sound.
Pizzicato is when the players pluck their strings with their fingers and Col Legno is a technique, where the players hit the strings with their bow.
With all of these combined you can write really beautiful string arrangements. Don't forget to use the Dynamics and Expression sliders left to the big circle on the interface to add realism and movement to your compositions. The first one is expression, which is basically a volume control. Besides that is the Dynamics slider, which controls how loud or soft the players are performing. Using both of these together gives you a lot of control over your arrangement.
There are also three mic positions at the bottom. A close mic to add detail, a tree mic, which gives you a wider and fuller sound, and a vintage mic, which was processed with some effects to add some character. You can mix these to taste, but the default mix also sounds great right away.
On the right side you also have three more controls. You can add more reverb, change the release time and adjust the tightness of the short articulations. If you increase the tightness the start of the sample will be cut to allow for faster and more responsive ostinatos. Be careful though because it will sound a bit less realistic if you cut too much of the start of the sample.
What are the limitations?
Of course you cannot expect to get a complete package for every situation for under 30 dollars. The biggest drawback here is that you get no legato to write faster melodies and most of the articulations have a fairly long attack. You can work around this a bit by combining the short and long patches, but it won't be as smooth as a dedicated legato library. For slower moving melodies it works well though, just be aware that Intimate Strings is not the right library to write fast runs and virtuoso passages.
Final thoughts
All in all, I think Intimate Strings is by far the best sounding strings VST in that price range. Combined with Spitfire's free Labs Catalogue and their free BBC Orchestra Discover you get plenty of tools to start your composer journey.
Intimate Strings
Price: 29$
Size: 3.4GB
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