Spitfire Audio makes one of the best-sounding and professional VST plugins. They have a huge plugin collection for different instruments and music genres.
The collection of Spitfire Audio instruments includes pianos, drums, woodwinds, strings, and other orchestral instruments. They are used in professional studios.
Some plugins require Native Instruments Kontakt to work but most plugins work independently.
Some plugins may be expensive for you but I highly recommend Spitfire Audio instrument plugins to everyone.
What’s The Best Spitfire Audio Plugin?
I chose ten great instrument plugins from Spitfire from different collections. This list includes plugins for drums, pianos, strings, woodwinds, and different orchestral instruments.
1. BBC Symphony Orchestra Core
If you are looking for a professional and high-quality orchestral VST plugin, stop looking. BBC Symphony Orchestra Core by Spitfire Audio is the best one. Samples were recorded in BBC Studios by professional players. The plugin includes 40+ instruments, and 340+ techniques, and sounds amazing.
It doesn’t require Kontakt to work and has a dedicated plugin. The interface is simple but has many options. You can choose an instrument and control volume, reverb, and choose the style of playing. It can play staccato, legato, marcato, and other playing techniques.
Features:
- 40+ instruments
- 340+ playing techniques
- Professional sound quality
2. Appassionata Strings
Appassionata Strings is a collection of breathtaking-sounding instruments. With this Spitfire plugin, you can create melodies that sound professional and beautiful. Recorded by professional musicians in a professional studio it’s a go-to instruments plugin for composers. Comes with a size of 82 GB and a dedicated plugin. No Kontakt is required.
The plugin has a feature of dynamics and 4 round-robin impulse attacks. The sound is captured with high-quality mics and from different positions and distances. Has a simple interface with features such as reverb, volume, legato, sustain, and others. The collection of instruments includes violins, pianos, cellos, etc.
Features:
- Different dynamic levels
- Huge library
- Professional sound
3. Orchestral Swarm
Orchestral Swarm is a huge sample library for orchestral instruments. The library includes more than 25 000 high-quality samples which can be used for film scores, corporate music, or in any song. Files are in WAV format and the size is over 50 GB which is huge.
This Spitfire VST works with NI Kontakt and has a very simple interface yet powerful features. When you choose an instrument you can control things like microphones, dynamics, expressions, add reverbs, and more. Also, you can choose variations of each instrument.
Features:
- Huge collection of samples
- Very high-quality sound
- Works with Kontakt Player
4. Woodwind Evolutions
Woodwind Evolutions is one of my favorite instrument plugins from Spitfire Audio. It doesn’t require a Kontakt to work and includes over 3300 high-quality samples. Like all Spitfire plugins, it has a simple interface. You can choose different settings like gain, warmth, delay, reverb, and more.
The collection of instruments in Woodwind Evolutions includes flutes, clarinets, oboes, sax, and more. And the sound is really cool. This plugin is great for dark and haunting sounds. It’s one of the best plugins to add sound texture to any track. If you create sounds for movies or videos in general, this is a great plugin for you.
Features:
- 3300+ samples
- Huge instruments collection
- Deep, dark, and haunting texture sounds
5. Hans Zimmer Strings
Hans Zimmer Strings is created in with the collaboration of famous composer Hans Zimmer. This is a professional quality instrument VST plugin to create beautiful melodies for movies, corporate tracks, or simple videos. It comes with 360 000+ samples, 150 playing techniques, and 240+ presets.
The Hans Zimmer Strings Spitfire VST doesn’t need Kontakt and has a native Spitfire Audio interface. Samples were recorded with 300+ professional musicians and includes violins, cellos, and basses in different mic positions. You can choose the key, round robins, and playing styles such as legato, tremolo, long flautando, and more. Really great plugin from an amazing composer.
Features:
- 360 000+ instrument samples
- Different mic positions
- 150 playing techniques
6. Heirloom
Spitfire Audio Heirloom is a relatively new plugin with beautiful sound quality. Recorded in a professional studio by various professional musicians and instrumentalists. The huge collection includes different types of pianos and orchestral instruments. Also, it has quite a few guitar samples.
With a dedicated plugin, it’s very easy to choose the desired instrument, change its setting, and record it in your favorite DAW. The sound of the instruments is very high quality, professional, and clean. It almost doesn’t need any mixing. You can use eight instruments with its plugin – violins, violas, cellos, bass, clarinet, pianos, tubax, and a guitar.
Features:
- Beautiful and clean sound
- Various instruments
- Dedicated plugin
7. Felt Piano
Spitfire Felt Piano is a very popular and also affordable piano VST plugin. Very smooth and beautiful-sounding piano samples. It can be used in any song whether it’s a pop song or a film score. The samples are recorded at Spitfire Studios by Gwilym Simcock.
The size of the samples is about 3 GB and you have different sound options to choose from. The piano samples include dry sounds, close sounds, reverbs, and pad-like piano sounds. One of the best Spitfire VST plugins to record amazing piano tracks in a home studio.
Features:
- Various piano sounds
- Affordable
- Simple to use
8. Union Chapel Organ
Union Chapel Organ by Spitfire Audio is a very special plugin. The organ was built in 1877 and is one of the finest organs in the world. Spitfire captured its sound very well and transformed it into a plugin. It has a very wide range of tones and can add a gorgeous flavor to any track.
This plugin works with a full version of Kontakt and includes over 3000 samples. You can choose different settings like dynamics, expression, mix microphones, or choose presets. A great thing about this organ plugin is the ability to control choir, swell, and other useful settings.
Features:
- Simple interface
- 3000+ samples
- Very customizable
9. Hammers
Spitfire Audio Hammers could be the best percussion VST plugin ever. It sounds excellent and offers various different percussion or drum samples. In total, it consists of 118 000+ samples and 50 different drums with loops, very detailed hits, and ensembles.
This plugin is a great solution for film scores, especially for drama, action, and horror genres. Very deep and rich sounds come out from Hammers. With a dedicated plugin from Spitfire Audio, you can change myriad mic settings, stereo width, reverb, and compression. Also, you can choose loops based on BPM.
Features:
- Over 118 000 drum samples
- 50 different drums
- Loops and ensembles
10. The Grange
The Grange plugin is heaven for rock musicians. This is a great-sounding rock drum VST plugin with great features where you can control dynamics and expression. The sound samples are recorded by three famous rock drummers – Andy Gangadeen, Chad Smith, and legendary Roger Taylor.
Works with Kontakt Player and includes more than 38 000 drum samples. The samples are very diverse and dynamic, including drum loops, and patterns. And the mix is really good. When you mix drums recorded with this plugin, you will have to do very few tweaks. One of the best drum VST plugins for home recording.
Features:
- Amazing drum samples and loops
- Recorded by famous drummers
- Great for rock tracks
How To Install Spitfire Plugins
If you want to download and use Spitfire plugins, it’s a little different from standard VST plugin installation.
First, you need to register on the Spitfire Audio website and download the application. After installation, open the app and you will see the tabs like installed, library, etc.
You can navigate to the app settings and tweak it to your liking. Choose where the downloaded plugins will be stored on your hard drive and thing like that.
Spitfire has a free plugin collection called LABS and you can download all the plugins from the app.
But if you want to download any premium plugin, first you need to buy them and it will appear on the app. Then you simply download it on your computer.
Some Spitfire Audio plugins work only with Kontakt which can be downloaded from the Native Instruments website.
Kontakt Player 6 is a free plugin but some Spitfire instrument plugins need a premium version. So, you need to buy the full version of Kontakt if you buy plugins that require it.
You can download, delete, or update any Spitfire instrument plugins from the dedicated app.
Conclusion
Spitfire Audio has some of the best-sounding and professional VST instrument plugins. Their instrument collection is huge. All the plugins listed here have amazing sound and can be used for film scores, corporate music, videos, or any genre of music.