Woodwinds and brass - orchestral tools or cinesamples

[Kolstad]

I'm working on my orchestral template, and in the market for woodwinds (and maybe brass). As far as I can tell both cinesamples and orchestral tools could be an option for good quality samples. I especially need solo Oboe and English Horn, and some nice Brass singles (not sections).

More in the classical genre than epic. I'm looking for samples that are flexible and can be tweaked to use in different types of compositions and mixes.

Anybody tried the stuff from these two manufacturers, or have other suggestions?

[kclements]

I'm not a fan of Cinesamples. I have their Cinebrass pro and core and we do not get along very well. That may just be me, but I find them hard to work with and hard to get a good sound from. I do have their Hollywood Winds which I like very much but that's the section or not solo instruments. I do not own orchestral tools.

For solo woodwinds I still like the Westgate instruments. I have their solo flute, clarinet, oboe, and bassoon, and use them quite a bit. They are a bit older, but I still think they hold up. I know a lot of people like the 8dio products a lot so you may want to check them out. And I also really like Spitfire Audio instruments.

Cheers
kc

[jonnybutter]

If you are on a tight budget (as I usually am!) you could consider buying individual VSL starter libraries as you can afford them. They are generally about $100 each. You don't get all the articulations, nor do you generally get ensembles, and the Vienna samples are on the old side, but they still sound very good, IMO.

Interesting to hear that you have problems with Cinebrass, Kayle. I use that library a lot and find it to be touch and go. Sometimes it is easy to get what i'm after, and sometimes it's impossible! Glad I have it, but also glad I have others (like VSL, actually).

[Len911]

The demos I have heard of various samples, they all sound good, it's mostly about context and articulations. The name cinesamples implies "cinema", probably not the best for classical orchestra, but shine for films or well, cinema.lol!

Garritan orchestra doesn't seem near the quality of most other orchestra packages, however, the jazz and big band package is probably one of the few options available for big band anyway, and would work a lot better than say, cinesamples or vsl.

It might very well be possible to manipulate samples and in essence make your own instrument, but much much easier and efficient to not, and buy a set of articulations you will be primarily using. That's my 2 cents.

[Kolstad]

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

It's funny, when I hear the demos, I can't find any that I really, really love the tone of. I find them all to be lacking in one department or another. If there are none that really shines, I might as well go with Westgate, which seems quite reasonable.

I know that sample libraries can't be perfect, demos can be somewhat misguiding, and all libraries need some work depending on the musical context, but that's also why I'm interested in your experiences with the libraries out there. They at least need to be tweakable, allthough I tend not to use things that needs too much tweaking. I like natural sounding libraries.

I asked specifically about these two, because they have the specific instruments I need in their libraries within my budget range. 8Dio don't have it all in their Claire series, and Project Sam requires me to get several of their libraries to cover what I need and are a bit on the Epic side (allthough I find Lumina attractive for what I want to do, but still doesn't cover what I need, and then I blow the budget). Vienna also meets the specs, but I've read that their Special Editions are the same samples that are covered in NI Kontakt, just + more articulations. And I already have Kontakt, and don't need the articulations for now, so I've written them off. Question is, is the Westgate samples a step above the Vienna solo woodwinds and brass in Kontakt 5?

And have any of you tried the things from orchestral tools?

[andygabrys]

haven't tried orchestral tools.

i have cinebrass and it works fine for me and i think it sounds good - its easy to play / program with the short / long articulations synced to playing velocity and using CC#1 for expression (breath pressure though - not expression as in CC11 or CC7 = volume).

I used it the other year on these: http://www.pacificamusic.com/#!explorer ... e%20sports so either these sound decent or terrible to your ears. lol. or not.

I know the Cinewinds are programmed in the same fashion.

like Kayle I have the Cinesamples Hollywoodwinds and they are cool.

i also have the VSL SE and SE+ packages (or that is what they used to be called) and the woodwinds are fairly well done in VSL. With these packages there are quite a range or articulations and as woodwinds are usually solo or duo or trio in larger ensembles the basically dry samples work well as you can effect the way you want.

this: https://soundcloud.com/andy-gabrys-musi ... -christmas has a mix of the VSL ww's and the Cinesamples Hollywoodwinds

and there is all the other stuff that was mentioned above.

[jonnybutter]

Re: Cinebrass: The sometimes problem I have is inconsistent behaviour. For example, sometimes a bank gets stuck on high-velocity=short, even when I change it to low velocity= short. Or it's one way one moment, and the other way the next. Pretty sure it's not the controllers I'm using.
That being said, they are generally very useful and sound pretty great for what they're made for.

Don't know about the VSL samples being the same as NI samples, since I don;'t use the latter. The VSL player and instruments are well designed and work well for me.

[edit] All of your tracks sound good Andy, including the cinebrass ones!

[Kolstad]

Thanks Andy & Jonny,

Appreciate the experiences. The tracks sounds great, Andy. I really liked the sound of those VSL instruments. The VSL brass I have in Kontakt does not sound that great (hmm). Wish I had your producer chops. Do you think the breath controller is key to make woodwinds and brass libraries sound great, more than the samples?

I'm going for classical sounding solo instruments that can work in a pretty simple mix, like reality/ comedy cues.

[andygabrys]

Thanks Andy & Jonny,

Appreciate the experiences. The tracks sounds great, Andy. I really liked the sound of those VSL instruments. The VSL brass I have in Kontakt does not sound that great (hmm). Wish I had your producer chops. Do you think the breath controller is key to make woodwinds and brass libraries sound great, more than the samples?

I'm going for classical sounding solo instruments that can work in a pretty simple mix, like reality/ comedy cues.

thanks Magne.

Hmmm good question - I don't use the VSL samples within Kontakt - I use the ones from the Special edition bundle. I agree, the best sounding stuff in the VSL bits are the Woodwinds. I don't think the brass sound that great, and the strings are better than some, but not as great or as flexible as some others. Of course for those with pockets of Gold, VSL now has the Dimension Brass, the Dimension strings etc which are pretty impressive in the way they are programmed within the Vienna Instruments Pro player.

Re: Kontakt - I don't know which controllers can be mapped to the Kontakt ones, maybe I should find out. But in the SE bundle, you have CC#2 (breath controller which crossfades between the 3-5 samples per patch blowing piano to triple Forte so you get the range of actual instrument timbres from the typical soft and dark low register and the bright and cutting high register) and CC#11 for regular expression, and then CC7 if you want to mess with that instead of just setting the volume on the track in your mixer.

Its the CC2 (or the equivalent in other libraries) that I think is the #1 thing to have some handle on. And I am not sure if a breath controller is really necessary. I suppose if I had one, I would be all into it and be the poster child for that much automation - but I don't and I have to strike a balance between being really OCD over the automation rides and just trying to make the piece work. You can also just use a slider on your keyboard mapped to CC2 or CC1 which is more common as the "breath" or "instrument" timbre controller. Like Cinebrass and LASS use CC1 for example.

I know that for the reality / comedy / dramedy stuff, Mazz and others have invested heavily in the Sample modeling instruments - as the company started with the big band instrumentation but now have winds and brass for classical stuff too. Its supposed to be great (although programming intensive) and the demos on the site are pretty impressive - especially the live performances on keyboard of the sax etc - but I suppose if you can play like that in the first place you can make a kazoo sound great

I don't have any of those yet. one day....maybe.

[kclements]

Andy-

Are you using breath control CC for Cinebrass? I haven't, so maybe that's why Cinebrass and I haven't gotten along?

I'll look into it tomorrow.

Cheers
kc