Spitfire Audio London Contemporary Orchestra Textures

Expand Your Sound Palette

The second collaborative venture with the internationally-acclaimed London Contemporary Orchestra took Spitfire to an awe-inspiring aircraft hangar for a recording process like no other.

Together they have created a completely unique, never-before-sampled sound palette - a sophisticated collection of constantly evolving organic textures, formed by layering unexpected combinations of instruments.

In applying the signature workshopping, performance styles and innovative techniques that have made the LCO so sought after, Spitfire have produced textures made up of indefinable, fascinating sounds.

The need for unparalleled acoustics led them to the most unconventional recording space in Spitfire's eleven year sampling history, a cavernous hangar with a remarkably long reverb tail, adding incredible resonance to each note.

Enhanced with the unique Evo Grid, we give you access to a cutting edge, inspiring collection of instantly playable, spellbinding textures which will add incredible depth and colour to your composition.

Behind The Samples

Following the continued popularity of London Contemporary Orchestra Strings, the next collaboration with the LCO had to be something even more extraordinary.

The collective ambition was to achieve something that no one in the sampling world had done before - partly inspired by the orchestra's recent studio collaborations, including "Suspiria" with Thom Yorke, "The Innocents" with Carly Paradis, "American Animals" with Anne Nikitin, and "You Were Never Really Here" with Jonny Greenwood.

Spitfire took familiar, pre-existing organic instruments and combined them in unique ways to create indefinable, expressive and modern sounds and textures - much like an artist using an array of disparate colors to create a new, multi-tonal palette - marrying together the LCO's world class performers and ten years of experience in contemporary classical music and the film world, and Spitfire's sampling expertise and pioneering Evo Grid technology.

Through the power of sampling, Spitfire have created new instruments you would never be able to recreate outside a sampler - making the impossible possible.

The resulting sounds are often haunting, beautiful and frequently shocking in their uniqueness, capable of coaxing inspiration on the driest of creative days.

A New Sound Palette

From conception to recording, the process was curated and orchestrated in intricate detail.

In selecting the instrumentation for each group of textures, Spitfire focused on the idea that every musical sound can be broken down into three distinct areas - the hit at the front, the sustain in the middle, and the decay or release at the end.

They then chose a select instrument or ensemble to inhabit each one of these areas, blended together and lengthened by the resonance of the vast space.

They managed to retain the intimacy and expression of each sound by keeping the ensemble small and only recording up to five combinations of sounds at a time.

They split these combinations of instruments into four groups - Ethereal, Mercurial, Quantum and Astral - named according to the soundscapes evoked by each bespoke combination.

Each are distinct in orchestration, techniques and evolutionary style, but are also designed to complement each other when layered together.

Inside The Hangar

To achieve this stunning, spacious sound, Spitfire needed to find a uniquely vast space, which led us to Old Jet, a decommissioned aircraft hangar in Suffolk, England.

Originally built to test American fighter planes, its soundproof quality and 10 second reverb tail made it the perfect setting to blend and bring to life these multifaceted, otherworldly textures.

Expertly recorded by the Spitfire team, led by producer Harry Wilson, we were in close collaboration with the LCO every step of the way.

In such an extraordinary live space, the recording process required much attention to detail, as the smallest sound could disturb a recording in what is meant to be a controlled environment.