Woodwind Evolutions

Name: Woodwind Evolutions
Price: 299 USD
Author: Spitfire Audio

by Spitfire Audio · Instrument · Evolving woodwind library

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A woodwind library of 48 evolving textures recorded dry at Air Edel Studios in London, played on a grid inspired by the EMS VCS3 synth.

It has woods and reeds bands, 19 presets and several stretched signals, for $299.

Best for: Acoustic Instruments, Sound Design. Genres: Ambient & Cinematic.

Keywords: woodwinds, textures, evolving, cinematic, dark, eerie, film & game audio, vintage, warm, analog, British console, gentle, hardware emulation, 70s, ensemble, inspired by, randomize, sample-based, simple, sound design, strings, subtractive, tight.

What it does

Woodwind Evolutions is a texture library of woodwind ensembles playing phrases that change over time, played from Spitfire's Evo Grid, a matrix interface based on the EMS VCS3 synthesizer's patch pins. Spitfire pitches it at "ultra-minimal, realistic" writing, from dark to soaring.

Band A, Woods: flutes, alto, bass and contrabass flute, Bb clarinets and bass clarinets, giving a breathier, "flutey" colour.
Band B, Reeds: oboes, cor anglais, clarinets, bass clarinet, baritone sax and bassoons, for a "reedy" colour.
Evolutions: 48 evolutions across 12 intervals, sorted into Light Woods, Pitch Woods, Light Reeds and Pitch Reeds. The Light sets move gently into trills and flutter-tongue; the Pitch sets move towards dissonance.
Evo Grid: a 12 x 48 grid where you place which evolution plays on which note, with a "Feeling Lucky" button that randomises the layout.
Presets: 19 presets by Stanley Gabriel, 12 Simple and 7 Intense, added when the library moved to its own plugin.
Signals: Close (tight and dry), Tweaked (compressed, with glitches), Ambient (reverberant) and Distorted, plus time-stretched x2 and x8 versions.
Recording: recorded dry at Air Edel Studios in London by Nick Taylor, through vintage microphones, Neve preamps and a Cadac console.

Students and educators get 40% off. The page mentions no demo.

Source: Spitfire Audio product page

When to use it

Woodwind Evolutions is the pick when you want woodwinds as a moving texture rather than as written parts. Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition and BBC Symphony Orchestra Core give far more control over woodwind lines and articulations, but they can't produce these pre-recorded swells, trills and clusters by holding one chord. It shares its Evo Grid with Fragile String Evolutions, so the two layer well and work the same way. Because players breathe, its evolutions move faster than the string versions, so it suits gentle tension less than Fragile String Evolutions does. It is also expensive for a single-purpose texture tool.

Best for: warm or eerie woodwind beds under film and TV scenes, game underscore and trailers, and human-sounding layers under synths.
Genres: cinematic, ambient, minimalist and trailer music.
Look elsewhere if: you need solo woodwind lines or standard articulations; Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition or BBC Symphony Orchestra Core suit that.
Tip: Sample Library Review singled out the Movement Pad preset as a good example of layering subtle and radical evolutions.

What producers say

Reviewers rated it among the most useful texture libraries they own, with only small doubts about how quickly the evolutions move.

Sample Library Review called it one of the best libraries in the reviewer's collection, praising the Light and Pitch categories and the intimate key-click textures, but noted woodwinds "seem to evolve quicker" than strings.
SonicScoop praised its "range and warmth", from dark and moody to epic, welcomed the saxophone, and felt the new presets and time-stretching justify the price.

Where to buy

Spitfire Audio: $299
PluginFox: $299

Tutorials and reviews

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