Abbey Road One: Vibrant Reeds

Name: Abbey Road One: Vibrant Reeds
Price: 49 USD
Author: Spitfire Audio

by Spitfire Audio · Instrument · Reed section library

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Abbey Road One: Vibrant Reeds by Spitfire Audio

Vibrant Reeds is a single-section library recorded at Abbey Road Studio One by Grammy-winning engineer Simon Rhodes, with oboes, clarinets and cor anglais.

It has two mixes and ten mic signals, and costs $49.

Best for: Acoustic Instruments. Genres: Ambient & Cinematic, Jazz, Acoustic & Classical.

Keywords: film & game audio, woodwinds, monophonic, electric piano, arpeggiator, cinematic, sample-based, thick, vintage.

What it does

Vibrant Reeds is one of the Abbey Road One selections: a pre-orchestrated reed library sold on its own, aimed at bringing "brilliance and colour" to film-style writing. It pairs two oboes with two clarinets in octaves, and oboes with cor anglais, in the manner of scores like E.T. and Harry Potter.

Standard articulations: legato, long and staccato.
Vibrant articulations: Vibrant Legato, Vibrant Long and Vibrant Staccato; Sound On Sound heard these as slightly chorused, thicker and more complex.
Mordents: four mordent patches (minor 2nd, major 2nd, minor 3rd and major 3rd) for swirling ornaments and arpeggio-like runs.
Recording: London session players in Abbey Road Studio One, engineered by Simon Rhodes.
Mixes and mics: two ready-made mixes plus ten mic positions: Vintage 1 and 2, Pop Close, Pop Room, Close, Tree 1 and 2, Ambient, Outriggers and Spill.
Works with Abbey Road One: it stands alone, but works alongside Orchestral Foundations if you own it.

There is a 40% student discount; no trial is listed.

Source: Spitfire Audio product page

When to use it

Vibrant Reeds is for bright, lively reed melodies you can play from one patch, with ornaments built in. Compared with Mysterious Reeds, its sister selection, it is lighter and more colourful, and it adds the Vibrant variants and four mordent patches that Mysterious Reeds lacks. Against Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition or BBC Symphony Orchestra Core it is narrow: no solo woodwinds and a small articulation set, but the blended Abbey Road sound arrives ready to use. It works best as a colour add-on to a full orchestral library.

Best for: sparkling reed melodies, octave doublings and mordent flourishes in film, TV and fantasy scores.
Genres: cinematic, orchestral and family/adventure scoring.
Look elsewhere if: you need individual woodwind players or detailed articulations (BBC Symphony Orchestra Core, Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition), or darker reed colours (Mysterious Reeds).
Tip: use the mordent patches for the swirling, arpeggio-like effects Sound On Sound highlighted.

What producers say

Well received as an affordable, instantly usable colour library, with some doubts about Spitfire's legato.

Sound On Sound (Dave Stewart, 4 out of 5) praised the "exotic, pure-sounding octaves" and a "stellar set of mordents", calling the selections instant orchestral colour at a modest price.
VI-Control thread some users rated the legato among Spitfire's best so far and liked how the selections combine for a John Williams-style sound.
Criticisms: other VI-Control users felt Spitfire's legato lags behind competitors, and one could hear overlap and doubling in the legato transitions.

Where to buy

Spitfire Audio: $49
PluginFox: $49

Tutorials and reviews

Walkthrough — Abbey Road One: Vibrant Reeds

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