Spitfire Audio Abbey Road Two: Iconic Strings Professional £449 PC MAC

Adopting an intimate persona, Spitfire’s latest sample-based suite pops iconic strings right inside legendary surroundings

Enter into discussion with anyone with an interest in studio history, and the mention of Abbey Road probably won’t take long to arise. The recording studio’s iconic status was sealed many years ago, thanks to a certain band-of-four from Liverpool, but despite the long-time association with the Beatles, as well as an enormous wealth of musical talent from many other musical circles, Abbey Road has also always been associated with film and media scoring. And while many fine scores, such as Star Wars, were recorded next door in Studio One, the smaller surrounding of Studio Two provides the latest home for Spitfire’s newest string library.

Acoustically speaking

While the ethos for this library feels more intimate, Studio Two is still quite a large space, and more than capable of housing a small orchestra. Today, though, we’re talking about a string quintet; think of a string quartet of two violins, viola and cello, but add a double bass! This welcome extension deepens the bottom end register nicely.

Iconic Strings Professional operates within Spitfire’s very own player; it adopts a view that we’ve seen before, but with an altered colour and branding to reflect the library. Most seem to agree that the player continues to look inviting, but it does still feel like a lot of space is wasted. You can adapt the plugin’s visual construct, to make the space work for you, and even resize the window, but there’s still a sense that it occupies more screen estate than necessary.