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Afflatus Brass? - Strezov "The Adventure Continues"

At first glance, it looks quite comprehensive, and like it can take on the heavy lifting of the brass section in a template. More comprehensive than Afflatus Strings, which is more a set of very useful supplemental libraries than bread and butter. I'm most curious to see how well the curated ensembles work, since I've yet to find a really good playable brass section. They always feel compromised in one way or another.
 
I'm probably gonna hold on for ARO Brass, but this still has a chance to spark my interest. It would be cool to hear more of the core library (not the fx/ensemble stuff) if we can get any more info during the pre-order period. Those matrix swells are neat, but at this price I'm only interested in it if the core library is something that could upstage CSB in my template. I'd like to hear more of isolated instruments doing dynamic crossfading, interchangeable shorts, and of course legatos.

They have a pretty good lineup of solos + ensembles, plus mutes for all of them. So on paper, this is actually really promising.

Screen Shot 2023-10-25 at 9.06.28 AM.png Screen Shot 2023-10-25 at 9.06.35 AM.png

But the real question is the # of dynamic layers on the core articulations - the manual doesn't say, and Afflatus I was three dynamic layers for much of the core artics!
 
jbuhler said:
At first glance, it looks quite comprehensive, and like it can take on the heavy lifting of the brass section in a template. More comprehensive than Afflatus Strings, which is more a set of very useful supplemental libraries than bread and butter. I'm most curious to see how well the curated ensembles work, since I've yet to find a really good playable brass section. They always feel compromised in one way or another.
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This is a good and valid assessment for how Afflatus Strings are used here - additive/complimentary (but does it well). Hoping the brass is more 'bread and butter'.
 
Wunderhorn said:
I bet it will be a good one, but 700 Euros for a brass library in 2023? Good luck!
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Berlin Brass, Tom Holkenborg Brass and Synchron Brass have entered the chat.

Evans said:
Take Cinematic Studio Brass, for example. It's a well respected product but is four years old, still $399 USD, with ~50% fewer standard patches, has a room/mic'ing that people gripe about, and does not have the "curated ensembles."

That does not mean one of these products is of high quality and the other not. I imagine them both to be pretty darn great.

But when making sweeping statements like "good luck" on the pricing, perhaps Afflatus Ch 2 is appropriately priced after all.
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It's easy from the outside looking in to see the price tag and write off the library as overpriced. My posting history alone is proof of that. :laugh:

Truth of the matter is these higher priced libraries are far more deeply sampled (i.e. more recording and editing time involved) and typically are far more flexible than their cheaper counterparts and that is reflected in the disk space size. Sometimes it means more articulations or microphones (which could be viewed as bloat past a certain point), other times it means a metric ton of dynamic layers, round robins or instrument breakouts.

There's also something to be said for brass libraries that are recorded in a space that is flattering to brass across the entire range. Tons of developers put out great sounding trumpets and french horns. Very few have good sounding trombones, tubas and other low brass.

CSB seems like a great value until you realize that the trumpets sound great, the horns are average and everything else sounds like ass compared to the competition. When the only good part of a $400 library is the upper half of the brass family, it's no longer a great value.
 
ALittleNightMusic said:
Are they releasing a walkthrough or demos before the preorder ends?
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I really hope so, I only saw the announcement video? This seems more workhorse than the strings. I'm not yet sure how I feel about that yet as I already have enough bread-and-butter brass and I really loved the flavours and "quirky characters" from the string version - this set them apart from the norm. That said I am particularly excited about the muted/stopped sections + nice to see they still retained a few of the unique flavours in there. I'm also curious to see how the trombones fare - this is one area I don't feel sampled instruments have truly nailed properly yet. The demos were all great.
 
Trash Panda said:
CSB seems like a great value until you realize that the trumpets sound great, the horns are average and everything else sounds like ass compared to the competition.
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Nah, the trumpets sound like ass, horns are cloggy but the trombones are okey. And the room sucks. :P But yeah, unfortunately not a big fan of CSB either here.
 
If you have Afflatus Strings (As a Thank you we would hereby like to give you a 100 € discount code which stacks on top of the Pre-Order and Intro Price bringing this gigantic collection down to just 379 Euros.
 
Satorious said:
I really hope so, I only saw the announcement video? This seems more workhorse than the strings. I'm not yet sure how I feel about that yet as I already have enough bread-and-butter brass and I really loved the flavours and "quirky characters" from the string version - this set them apart from the norm. That said I am particularly excited about the muted/stopped sections + nice to see they still retained a few of the unique flavours in there. I'm also curious to see how the trombones fare - this is one area I don't feel sampled instruments have truly nailed properly yet. The demos were all great.
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Yes it seems pretty comprehensive on first glance. I was holding off on any more bread and butter stuff outside of ARO though - but given the price point and violins 1, I’m not sure they will necessarily be the leap forward the price point would demand. So maybe this will be a more flexible library to fill in gaps. I wonder how it would tackle the Olympic Fanfare by Williams (given I started that mockup thread a while back and it had a lot of different libraries take a shot).
 
I also love the idea of the SusToFlutter articulations if they are done well. Basically this one all hinges on the walk-through video or videos - Strezov rarely disappoints in this regard so I better start to budget things accordingly!
 
Sounds good so far, as you'd expect from strezov. Way out of my budget with the ever tanking dollar in my country right now, but if that loyalty code doesn't expire, I'd like to use it someday.

I feel that after constant disappointments and workarounds, I'm holding out for that mystical brass library where the crossfading isn't painfully obvious between f and fff, and where there's more to play with in the quieter dynamics
 
Not a fan of the hall Strezov normally uses (refering to the choirs here) . Wonder how well it would suit brass or whether they'd provide some in depth mixing tips to get the brass to sound like the demos.

Also Afflatus 1 seemed a little light on paper in terms of dynamics and RRs for the asking price.

With the current economy and my personal situation, its a no for me but still excited to hear more!
 
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