# Best woodwinds library



## Jophus (Jul 5, 2020)

i feel like theres somewhat of a lack of info out there regarding the most quality and versatile woodwinds libraries compared to others. anyone have any advice? last thing i need before having a somewhat all around quality template. I have been thinking about some spitfire stuff, berlin, maybe cinewinds. any opinions appreciated.


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## Casiquire (Jul 5, 2020)

The most popular two here are VSL and Berlin. I have the VSL and swear by them but I'm considering trying Berlin too based on how loved they are


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## ned3000 (Jul 5, 2020)

Berlin Woodwinds is probably the most highly regarded, but I've personally not had the best of luck with it. Recently picked up Infinite Woodwinds and really liking that.


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## CT (Jul 5, 2020)

There aren't a ton of great choices when it comes to standalone woodwinds. 

VSL, SSW, and BWW are the main competitors. SSW comes with the AIR sound. BWW has individual players, but the dynamics are fairly limited. 

I think if you're building an orchestra from the ground up and not sticking to any one developer for consistency, VSL may be the best choice. Their woodwinds have always been what they got the most right, and the Synchronized version seems like a nice deal.


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## CT (Jul 5, 2020)

CSW should be perfect for that.


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## purple (Jul 5, 2020)

None of them are good yet... We must wait for CSW...

But I think if all you need is fairly simple legato solo stuff, the berlin woodwinds EXP B library is the only clear choice.

For ensemble woodwinds, the full version of berlin woodwinds is the best, but expensive.

Everyone says "VSL" but I think they sound awfully sterile and weak in general.


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## jbuhler (Jul 5, 2020)

This is tailor-made for N.


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## José Herring (Jul 5, 2020)

edit: Sorry for typos. I'm in hurry and had a lot to say. 

Man, I don't have too many woodwind libraries so I'll preface everything with that.

Imo, just based upon hours and hours and hours of woodwind demos to try and figure out which one I finally wanted to decide on, I have to say that WW is severely lagging behind the rest of the field.

I think mostly because Woodwinds aren't straight forward. It really takes a great deal of knowledge of both a woodwind and sampling to get a decent result.

I think part of the reason that The Herring Clarinet was such a success, and believe me I'm not tooting my own horn or trying boast in any way, it was a success because from the very, very first note I recorded I knew what I wanted it be in the end users hands. Luckily Embertone was somehow in sync and we came up with a decent instrument.

Before that project though I was whining and complaining hard about woodwind libraries. I don't do it much any more because it wouldn't be appropriate with a product with my name on it in circulation. Also, I'm a lot older now and being a baby doesn't suit a 240 6'2" black dude in his 50's.

But, I will say this. Almost all commercial woodwind libraries suffer from the same thing. An sufficient wobble for lack of a better term in the attack and sustain phase of the sample. They suffer from a a "legato" effect that isn't really legato. Legato in a woodwind term is actually a rearticulation of the note, that is an interruption of the air stream done subtlety enough that the sound doesn't get disconnected. Samplist one for one seem to mistake this for slurring it isn't.

Slurring on the other hand is often way over exaggerated in woodwind libraries. We try to minimize the slur as it's considered a flaw rather than something to be flaunted as a selling point. So a woodwind player that can't go smoothly between notes without the slop in between is considered a hack or amateur player.

What does this all mean? It means a lot. But, it's all summed up to you have to use different woodwind libraries for different purposes almost more so than just about any other instrument group. Honestly in my quest for the best woodwind library I've narrowed my search down to 10 that I will have to get.

1) Vsl-- actually a great all rounder. I used an older version of their woodwinds for years about 15 years ago. I've since moved on to using a smattering of mostly personal stuff but it's good. It suffers from too static of attacks and too static of sustains. While the silent stage was a kiss of death for strings and brass, it's actually okay for woodwinds. I never figured out why.

2) Berlin -- best sonically. Their solo series can be used for lyrical passages and their regular series covers a lot of ground. I personally like the sound of these a lot but the price tag to get a fully set is ridiculous for me at this stage.

3) EWQLSO woodwind sections -- don't laugh. They work 

4) SstWW -- love them to pieces. My next purchase. Priced right.

5) BBCSO -- love them. Great tone. Clunky for all the demos I've heard. Never figured out why.

6) Fluffy Audio -- always overlooked. They are really good.

7) Aaron Venture stuff -- kind of weird sounding to me but very flexible. What it loses in sonic quality it seems to make up for in musicality.

8) Sofia Winds -- Hot damn! Gets like zero attention and yet sound really good to me. Maybe the player sucks, Don't know.

9) Auddict -- My favorites. Gets no attention at all. Are they buggy?

10) Iconica - sounds good. Too static attacks. Halion

I listed these but if any of you have any experience especially with Auddict woodwinds. Let me know. Those are the ones I'm leaning towards right now.


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## Rory (Jul 5, 2020)

Hi @josejherring,

Thanks very much for taking the time to write that. I will fully understand if you decline to respond to a question that I have, which I hesitate to even ask. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Herring clarinet in relation to other libraries that are available in 2020? It's certainly attractively priced.


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## mducharme (Jul 5, 2020)

VSL Synchron-ized Woodwinds


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## José Herring (Jul 5, 2020)

mducharme said:


> VSL Synchron-ized Woodwinds


Not fully sold. Can't place my finger on it but seems like the space is just stuck onto the samples in an unnatural way. I actually prefer what Woodwinds I sounds like to be honest.


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## Jophus (Jul 5, 2020)

i think i might be leaning towards potentially getting SSW alongside the soloist expansions of Berlin. Does anyone use this combo who can chime in?


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## mducharme (Jul 5, 2020)

josejherring said:


> Not fully sold. Can't place my finger on it but seems like the space is just stuck onto the samples in an unnatural way. I actually prefer what Woodwinds I sounds like to be honest.


Oh, I don't use the space. I turn off the reverb in the Synchron players, then it is the same old dry samples as in Woodwinds I, just better edited when it comes to the transitions between velocity layers. The reverb is not baked into the samples in the Synchron-ized winds, it is just added on top as an effect that you can turn off. So if you like the sound of Woodwinds I, it is the same if you turn off the reverb (except the better programming).


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## Jophus (Jul 5, 2020)

josejherring said:


> edit: Sorry for typos. I'm in hurry and had a lot to say.
> 
> Man, I don't have too many woodwind libraries so I'll preface everything with that.
> 
> ...


thank you so much for writing this out! really appreciate it


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## coprhead6 (Jul 5, 2020)

Jophus said:


> i think i might be leaning towards potentially getting SSW alongside the soloist expansions of Berlin. Does anyone use this combo who can chime in?



I’m doing something similar, but with the 8dio Claire bundle as my soloists. The Spitfire stuff sounds fabulous until you want a soft lyrical solo in certain instruments and in certain ranges. The legato transitions are simply too harsh. Also, very fast legato can get way too blurry with certain instruments. 

The Claire woodwinds fill these weaknesses very nicely and offer more phrasing options than the Berlin EXP’s with their “arc” system + separate recordings for lyrical/strong performances. 

Also, the Claire Alto flute is hands down better than the Berlin EXP’s. Also, Claire has a really wonderful piccolo soloist. 

8dio just had a sale on the Claire stuff that ended unfortunately. You can’t go wrong with Berlin though.


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## José Herring (Jul 5, 2020)

Rory said:


> Hi @josejherring,
> 
> 
> Thanks very much for taking the time to write that. I will fully understand if you decline to respond to a question that I have, which I hesitate to even ask. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Herring clarinet in relation to other libraries that are available in 2020? It's certainly attractively priced.




Edit: This time I tried to correct as may typos as I could but I'm still in a hurry so forgive 

I so hesitate to answer. so I will answer in a way that gives you information. 

I went on a long explanation a while back that really nailed the Herring clarinet so I won't repeat all of that. But, I will say this.

The Herring clarinet is actually in a weird almost freaky way a reflection of my personality. I recorded each note with the idea that I was playing a sonata so each note has a begging, middle and an end to it. Each note including the short notes were phrased. The Herring Clarinet at the time was an experiment to solve a problem. I was being an ass at the time before I recorded the library but I went on a long rant of which I would be embarrassed about now how companies tend to short shift woodwind libraries.

There's a legato tongue articulation which is really useful for playing realistic phrases. Two different kinds of stacc. Stopped tongue and stopped breath. Done in a way that I figured out unique to me. When I recorded the slurs, I made sure that my fingers moved usually fast so as to minimize the effect because I knew that it would get exaggerated a long the process of creating samples. I took the time to get as clean of a slur as I could. So the clarinet came out surprisingly agile.

In the end, though I trained to be a classical clarinetist, I landed somewhere in the middle between jazz and classical. So I started to call myself the "enduro" clarinetist. Enduro was a motorcycle when I was growing up that was both street and dirt bike. So in my mind it just means in between two purposes.

In the end, I would never rely on The Herring Clarinet as my only clarinet. But, it is good. It's versatile. And, it covers a lot of ground. Takes a lot of ram though. Best suited as I am for solo and chamber applications but it can also do orchestral but it's going to poke out at you in that context. The main reason why I didn't do orchestra professionally. It wasn't an easy fit for me.

In the end. I'm actually surprised it is as successful as it is. I run across youtube videos of people talking it up like crazy. I'm like whoa. For me it was always and experiment. The experiment was, could a sample woodwind instrument be made that actually had the soul of the player in it. As corny as that sounds that was my purpose. In some weird way it started a whole new wave of expressive sampling. Many people that are breaking new ground in expressive sampling technique contact me after my rant back then. Embertone was one and 3 years later i think we finally had something.

Now adays there are a few that can do what it can do. But, I must admit that The Herring clarinet was the first of its kind. It was one where Embertone actually listened to demos of me playing and tried to mimic my style in their scripting. So it responds the way I play which still blows my mind man!!!! I play it and I'm freaking out. So much so that instead of programming it I'll usually just record the part myself.


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## José Herring (Jul 5, 2020)

mducharme said:


> Oh, I don't use the space. I turn off the reverb in the Synchron players, then it is the same old dry samples as in Woodwinds I, just better edited when it comes to the transitions between velocity layers. The reverb is not baked into the samples in the Synchron-ized winds, it is just added on top as an effect that you can turn off. So if you like the sound of Woodwinds I, it is the same if you turn off the reverb (except the better programming).


If that can be done they'd probably be up there with me and I'll take a good look at them again.


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## mducharme (Jul 5, 2020)

josejherring said:


> If that can be done they'd probably be up there with me and I'll take a good look at them again.



Yes - the menu options are a bit buried in the interface, but they are there. Switch off all of the reverbs etc. and the sound is absolutely identical to Woodwinds I, but gone are the awkward "bumps" that you get when you move from one velocity layer to another. I used to have to add expression changes to smooth over those sudden transitions but with the Synchron-ized winds I don't have to anymore - I can just use the modwheel and get a nice smooth cresc./dim., so it is very playable.

Like you, I don't like the sound of the built in Synchron reverb - it makes the woodwinds a bit too wet and changes their tone in an unappealing way. Instead, I run the totally dry VSL Synchron-ized Winds through individual EAReverb 2 instances to position them in the space, which also does my positioning for Sample Modeling and SWAM. EAReverb 2 puts them back in the space naturally without affecting their tone - sortof like MIR I guess, but much, much cheaper.


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## Rory (Jul 5, 2020)

josejherring said:


> Edit: This time I tried to correct as may typos as I could but I'm still in a hurry so forgive
> 
> I so hesitate to answer. so I will answer in a way that gives you information.
> 
> ...




Thanks very much. I just came across this post of yours, from December, which I also really enjoyed: https://vi-control.net/community/th...te-clarinet-sample-library.87760/post-4474262


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## Casiquire (Jul 5, 2020)

josejherring said:


> Not fully sold. Can't place my finger on it but seems like the space is just stuck onto the samples in an unnatural way. I actually prefer what Woodwinds I sounds like to be honest.



My understanding is you can disable the reverb in the Synchronized version and just work with the dry samples. But it comes with more instruments than Woodwinds 1


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## Inventio (Jul 5, 2020)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> I would like to hear some opinions about which woodwind library would sound best on this cue I saw the other day.


I think bar 133 is where most libraries will fail.


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## jaketanner (Jul 5, 2020)

I find it a bit sad that no one has mentioned Cinewinds. I have had my eye on it for a while, but not sure.


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## T-LeffoH (Jul 5, 2020)

mducharme said:


> VSL Synchron-ized Woodwinds



I second this.

I'd been using the original VSL woodwinds for a long time before finally upgrading to the Synchron-ized Woodwinds and love them.

None of the legato sampling in other woodwind libraries I use has ever seemed to come close to VSL.


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## mducharme (Jul 5, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> I find it a bit sad that no one has mentioned Cinewinds. I have had my eye on it for a while, but not sure.



I tried Cinewinds before with the hope to replace my old VSL VI Woodwinds with it (due to the problematic crossfades). Although the Cinewinds demos etc sounded good, direct comparison left me disappointed compared to the amazingly detailed VSL recordings, and after trying to integrate parts of it into my workflow (ex. using staccatos from Cinewinds and VSL for legato), I wound up going back to the VSL VI Woodwinds wholesale for everything and never use Cinewinds anymore. Completely wasted purchase for me, unfortunately. I might have liked it if it were not for VSL, but VSL spoiled me. I looked at other wind libraries but was worried that I would just waste my money if I bought it only to not use it and go back to VSL.

Synchron-ized winds for me was perfect, because it fixed the one major issue with the old VSL VI that made me look for alternatives in the first place, and it has the same sound as the old VSL VI when you turn off the reverb.

I have no interest in VSL brass, strings, etc. I have never really found them super convincing. But the woodwinds, as Jose mentioned, are for some reason a completely different beast and do not suffer at all from the silent stage dry recording. It is probably due to the fact that woodwinds have so much character in the details of the sound (compared to the uniformity of the strings for instance) and too many libraries lose that, making the oboe less nasal and the clarinet brighter, making them unnaturally similar in timbre. I would rather have the oboe be as nasal as nature intended and do EQ to make it a bit less so, rather than not have those elements in the sound to begin with. An oboe really should not sound like a clarinet, and in Cinewinds they sounded way too similar (I mean obviously you can distinguish them still, but it felt like they were trying to adjust them to remove their "quirks" to make them blend better).


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## Geomir (Jul 5, 2020)

mducharme said:


> VSL Synchron-ized Woodwinds


+1

And another +1 for the fact that you can disable the IR and the algo reverbs and get the dry sound.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 5, 2020)

josejherring said:


> 7) Aaron Venture stuff -- kind of weird sounding to me but very flexible. What it loses in sonic quality it seems to make up for in musicality.


I second this. Infinite Woodwinds will likely improve drastically in tone when Aaron bumps it up to v1.2 (free for all users). The recent Brass update was a revelation. Great plonkability is its buggest selling point, but the tone will absolutely improve some more. Over in the AV thread Aaron mentioned the update has passed the halfway point and the saxophones and flutes are the ones still left to work on / improve. I’m guessing v1.2 will see a fall 2020 release then. Thanks for mentioning these, very cool.

Oh and btw: Embertone Herring Clarinet is my favorite woodwind sample by FAR! <3


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## jaketanner (Jul 5, 2020)

mducharme said:


> I tried Cinewinds before with the hope to replace my old VSL VI Woodwinds with it (due to the problematic crossfades). Although the Cinewinds demos etc sounded good, direct comparison left me disappointed compared to the amazingly detailed VSL recordings, and after trying to integrate parts of it into my workflow (ex. using staccatos from Cinewinds and VSL for legato), I wound up going back to the VSL VI Woodwinds wholesale for everything and never use Cinewinds anymore. Completely wasted purchase for me, unfortunately. I might have liked it if it were not for VSL, but VSL spoiled me. I looked at other wind libraries but was worried that I would just waste my money if I bought it only to not use it and go back to VSL.
> 
> Synchron-ized winds for me was perfect, because it fixed the one major issue with the old VSL VI that made me look for alternatives in the first place, and it has the same sound as the old VSL VI when you turn off the reverb.
> 
> I have no interest in VSL brass, strings, etc. I have never really found them super convincing. But the woodwinds, as Jose mentioned, are for some reason a completely different beast and do not suffer at all from the silent stage dry recording. It is probably due to the fact that woodwinds have so much character in the details of the sound (compared to the uniformity of the strings for instance) and too many libraries lose that, making the oboe less nasal and the clarinet brighter, making them unnaturally similar in timbre. I would rather have the oboe be as nasal as nature intended and do EQ to make it a bit less so, rather than not have those elements in the sound to begin with. An oboe really should not sound like a clarinet, and in Cinewinds they sounded way too similar (I mean obviously you can distinguish them still, but it felt like they were trying to adjust them to remove their "quirks" to make them blend better).


I've recently bought into the VSL thing...Synchron Strings 1 and a few of the BBO brass. I would like to get the WW, but fear the the new Synchron Winds are going to be so much better. Even the BBO recordings are great!...maybe they will include winds next...might hold off. If all else fails, then yes I may go for VSL also. Wondering ow the SE libraries fair compared to the winds only library...are they the same samples just more limited?


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## CT (Jul 5, 2020)

mducharme said:


> I have no interest in VSL brass, strings, etc. I have never really found them super convincing. But the woodwinds, as Jose mentioned, are for some reason a completely different beast and do not suffer at all from the silent stage dry recording.



Agreed completely. The winds are excellent. The rest is... well, you know.

I think the main reason why the woodwinds work with the silent stage approach is that they are the instruments that excite the room the least to begin with, and which rely on that excitement for their tone the least as well. You don't lose all that much characteristic woodwind sound by taking that space away.

I'm sure some woodwind players will be along to interpret that as meaning their instruments have the best natural sound....


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## jaketanner (Jul 6, 2020)

So then for VSL, which woodwind library to start? I see several to choose from. Any suggestions?


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## Cathbad (Jul 6, 2020)

I have a mix and match woodwind section

Flute and oboe are from Fluffy, plus Herring clarinet and Popelka bassoon from Embertone. 

I try to stick to double woodwind, but I also have the 8Dio Clare piccolo and Cor Anglais. Bass clarinet and contra bassoon I take from the kontakt library if I need them. They're very limited instruments, but their parts should usually be simple so it doesn't matter. And the basic sound is great so they do just fine. 

I've yet to feel the urge to write for alto flute or Eb clarinet...


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## mducharme (Jul 6, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> I've recently bought into the VSo thing...Synchron Strings 1 and a few of the BBO brass. I would like to get the WW, but fear the the new Synchron Winds are going to be so much better. Even the BBO recordings are great!...maybe they will include winds next...might hold off. If all else fails, then yes I may go for VSL also. Wondering ow the SE libraries fair compared to the winds only library...are they the same samples just more limited?



"new Synchron Winds"? I haven't heard about such a thing, although I am not always following all sample library developments/announcements. I doubt they would have released the original winds as a "Synchron-ized" version if they intend to come out with a completely new woodwind library soon also using the Synchron player, to replace the Synchron-ized version. Unless someone has said that such a thing is coming, I think you should be fairly safe buying the "Synchron-ized" version without worry that something new is coming right around the corner from VSL to replace it.

The SE has fewer dynamic layers. I certainly would not recommend getting a VI version in the modern day for reasons of playability - you have these modwheel crossfade spots where suddenly going from modwheel at 60 to modwheel at 61 is a huge jump and then you have to adjust CC11 to try to compensate so that the levels don't unnaturally jump. The Synchron-ized editions are much, much better in this regard.


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## T-LeffoH (Jul 6, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> So then for VSL, which woodwind library to start? I see several to choose from. Any suggestions?



I would suggest Synchron-ized Woodwinds over the VI Series, but that's just my preference.

The Synchron WW doesn't include ensemble patches like the VI series - at least for the time being - but having used the VI interface with other VSL products, I much prefer the Synchron interface.


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## Artemi (Jul 6, 2020)

any thoughts on the Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds?
I really love how the individual instruments sound, not much mic positions though, if comparing to the BerlinWW


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## rottoy (Jul 6, 2020)

I'm a happy user of CineWinds.
Here's a few bars of Waltz of the Flowers played with CineWinds Core.
(Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon)

All Close mic, with some ValhallaRoom reverb on top.


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## Supremo (Jul 6, 2020)

Artemi said:


> any thoughts on the Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds?
> I really love how the individual instruments sound, not much mic positions though, if comparing to the BerlinWW



From what I know, the library sounds extremely wet and some of the release samples contain artifacts produced during actual recording.


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## Supremo (Jul 6, 2020)

rottoy said:


> I'm a happy user of CineWinds.
> Here's a few bars of Waltz of the Flowers played with CineWinds Core.
> (Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon)
> 
> All Close mic, with some ValhallaRoom reverb on top.


Is it just me, or does it feel like legato transitions are a bit too exposed in CineWinds?


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## rottoy (Jul 6, 2020)

Supremo said:


> Is it just me, or does it feel like legato transitions are a bit too exposed in CineWinds?







These are the legato settings I used. 
The speed knob defaults to 12 o'clock, but I've never liked how much it eats into the legato transitions.


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## Casiquire (Jul 6, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> So then for VSL, which woodwind library to start? I see several to choose from. Any suggestions?



I started with Woodwinds 1 which is your basic set of instruments, but Synchronized seems like an even better way to start. You could always buy a single instrument or Special Edition to get a feel for things at a lower cost


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## David Kudell (Jul 6, 2020)

Besides the dedicated woodwind libraries, the woodwind sections in the Metropolis Arks deserve a mention. For times when you’re scoring something dark or loud and it’s hard to fit woodwinds in, these sections of low woodwinds, bass flutes, etc can add a lot of texture.


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## jaketanner (Jul 6, 2020)

mducharme said:


> "new Synchron Winds"? I haven't heard about such a thing, although I am not always following all sample library developments/announcements. I doubt they would have released the original winds as a "Synchron-ized" version if they intend to come out with a completely new woodwind library soon also using the Synchron player, to replace the Synchron-ized version. Unless someone has said that such a thing is coming, I think you should be fairly safe buying the "Synchron-ized" version without worry that something new is coming right around the corner from VSL to replace it.


Seems that I am confused about the VSL wind selections. On their site, they have older Non-Synchronized winds that seems much more complete than the Synchronized winds they currently have, and it's only in standard, no full version with all the extra mics (or is this only for "true" Synchron series?), anyway...Why then not just Synchronize their entire winds line? Just confused about it.

And I would have to assume that if they did a Synchron percussion, Synchron Strings 1, and piano...they're going to finish with brass and winds at the new Synchron stage...Makes sense to me, but never know.

Maybe @Ben can help? Thanks.


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## Ben (Jul 6, 2020)

SYNCHRON-ized -> From original recordings of sampling sessions in the Silent Stage Vienna remastered and re-edited + matched to the other Synchron installments via volume matching, panning, reverb and character presets. Always in Stereo. No "Full" libraries available.

Synchron -> Recordings in Synchron Stage Vienna, multi-mic, Full-Library adding additional mic positions.



jaketanner said:


> Why then not just Synchronize their entire winds line? Just confused about it.


Will probably happen eventually. It's a lot of work, and SYNCHRON-izing the Woodwinds took a very long time to take full advantage of our new sample player (like some have already mentioned, especially with crossfades and release samples).


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## jaketanner (Jul 6, 2020)

Ben said:


> SYNCHRON-ized -> From original recordings of sampling sessions in the Silent Stage Vienna remastered and re-edited + matched to the other Synchron installments via volume matching, panning, reverb and character presets. Always in Stereo. No "Full" libraries available.
> 
> Synchron -> Recordings in Synchron Stage Vienna, multi-mic, Full-Library adding additional mic positions.
> 
> ...


So you’re saying there will NOT be a true Synchron Winds? Or Brass I suppose because it’s also Synchronized. 

May strongly have to consider the SY-ized winds, even though missing some instruments. I do like the sound.


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## Ben (Jul 6, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> So you’re saying there will NOT be a true Synchron Winds? Or Brass I suppose because it’s also Synchronized.


No.


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## Erik (Jul 6, 2020)

Dear woodwinds players and aficionados, what about this one? Sonivox ww, customized. Although there isn't any real or scripted legato (it can be faked a tiny bit), imho the sound is gorgeous and these winds are very expressive. Herewith a small fragment from an arrangement I once made of a piece of Alberto Ginastera, Danza de la moza donosa for wind quintet. To be honest, I don't get this result with many other libs on my HD, but that maybe is on my part. Eager to know our findings here.


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## mducharme (Jul 6, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> So you’re saying there will NOT be a true Synchron Winds? Or Brass I suppose because it’s also Synchronized.
> 
> May strongly have to consider the SY-ized winds, even though missing some instruments. I do like the sound.



He said "will probably happen eventually", which I would take to mean that, if it is coming, it is probably 3-4 years away at least, not near term. IMO, they wouldn't have bothered putting in all the work on Synchron-ized winds and releasing it so recently if they intended to replace it right away.


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## jaketanner (Jul 6, 2020)

mducharme said:


> He said "will probably happen eventually", which I would take to mean that, if it is coming, it is probably 3-4 years away at least, not near term. IMO, they wouldn't have bothered putting in all the work on Synchron-ized winds and releasing it so recently if they intended to replace it right away.


I am imagining then, that they figured the difference in rooms wasn't worth messing with what already was a good recording. Maybe for winds it doesn't make that much of a difference...no biggie. I'll see which way I want to go with winds. Thanks.


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## muziksculp (Jul 6, 2020)

I really like the VI-Pro version of VSL Woodwinds. They sound very good, just add your reverb of choice. I'm not a fan of the Synchronized VSL Libraries, I would rather wait for the real thing. Hopefully VSL will release REAL Synchron Woodwinds, not make believe ones in the near future.


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## decredis (Jul 6, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> I really like the VI-Pro version of VSL Woodwinds. They sound very good, just add your reverb of choice. I'm not a fan of the Synchronized VSL Libraries, I would rather wait for the real thing. Hopefully VSL will release REAL Synchron Woodwinds, not make believe ones in the near future.


I'm interested to know why you don't like the Synchronized? My only experience of VSL so far is the VI Solo Flute 1 Standard, and I love the tone, although the velocity layers are bumpy;

as I understand it the Synchronized have improved editing and scripting but otherwise are a subset of the original samples from the corresponding VI Full... is it the lack of some of the original articulations, or have the Synchronized libraries lost some of the tone of the originals they're based on?


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## muziksculp (Jul 6, 2020)

decredis said:


> I'm interested to know why you don't like the Synchronized? My only experience of VSL so far is the VI Solo Flute 1 Standard, and I love the tone, although the velocity layers are bumpy;
> 
> as I understand it the Synchronized have improved editing and scripting but otherwise are a subset of the original samples from the corresponding VI Full... is it the lack of some of the original articulations, or have the Synchronized libraries lost some of the tone of the originals they're based on?



I don't dislike them, but I didn't bother buying them, I would rather wait for their real Synchron Woodwinds release.


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## decredis (Jul 6, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> I don't dislike them, but I didn't bother buying them, I would rather wait for their real Synchron Woodwinds release.


Oh I see, sorry, I misunderstood!


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## jaketanner (Jul 6, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> Hopefully VSL will release REAL Synchron Woodwinds, not make believe ones in the near future


why are they make believe? You mean not true Synchron Stage? Aren't the recordings good? Because the more I think about it, recording on the Synchron stage might not be much different in sound. Not when most winds are meant to have a lot of reverb to sit back in the mix...the room tone might not matter...unless the room didn't do them justice in the recording like in the SFA Studio series winds...that room definitely didn't do the winds any justice at all.


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## jaketanner (Jul 6, 2020)

Erik said:


> Dear woodwinds players and aficionados, what about this one? Sonivox ww, customized. Although there isn't any real or scripted legato (it can be faked a tiny bit), imho the sound is gorgeous and these winds are very expressive. Herewith a small fragment from an arrangement I once made of a piece of Alberto Ginastera, Danza de la moza donosa for wind quintet. To be honest, I don't get this result with many other libs on my HD, but that maybe is on my part. Eager to know our findings here.


After listening to your demo, it seems that they don't sound very dynamic. I had forgotten that I had purchased them a while back...didn't bother installing them until today, but there were some crash issues with Pro Tools and decided not worth the trouble so I deleted them. As good as they may be, I would bet they pale in comparison to VSL or Berlin winds.


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## muziksculp (Jul 6, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> why are they make believe? You mean not true Synchron Stage? Aren't the recordings good? Because the more I think about it, recording on the Synchron stage might not be much different in sound. Not when most winds are meant to have a lot of reverb to sit back in the mix...the room tone might not matter...unless the room didn't do them justice in the recording like in the SFA Studio series winds...that room definitely didn't do the winds any justice at all.



They are Synchornized Woodwinds, Not Synchron Woodwinds.

The Synchronized Woodwinds have not been physically recorded in the Synchron Stage, but have been re-sampled from the original Silent Stage Recordings, with the Synchron IR in a surgical manner. Hence... (make believe Synchron Woodwinds)  .


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## jaketanner (Jul 6, 2020)

muziksculp said:


> They are Synchornized Woodwinds, Not Synchron Woodwinds.
> 
> The Synchronized Woodwinds have not been physically recorded in the Synchron Stage, but have been re-sampled with the Synchron IR in a surgical manner. Hence... (make believe Synchron Woodwinds)  .


I figured, just wanted to make sure that's what it was.


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## Ben (Jul 6, 2020)

decredis said:


> as I understand it the Synchronized have improved editing and scripting but otherwise are a subset of the original samples from the corresponding VI Full... is it the lack of some of the original articulations,


This was already officially confirmed by our "secretary": there will eventually be an update for these that add the missing articulations.


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## rottoy (Jul 7, 2020)

rottoy said:


> I'm a happy user of CineWinds.
> Here's a few bars of Waltz of the Flowers played with CineWinds Core.
> (Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon)
> 
> All Close mic, with some ValhallaRoom reverb on top.


I revised the excerpt above, turning the Intensity knob of the legato all the way down to match the Speed. An improvement, I feel.


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## ned3000 (Jul 7, 2020)

rottoy said:


> I revised the excerpt above, turning the Intensity knob of the legato all the way down to match the Speed. An improvement, I feel.



Yeah, I think that does sound better. A lot of the Cinesamples stuff sounds great, but their controls always seem a bit ... quirky to me.


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## Mark Schmieder (Jul 8, 2020)

Not sure why a new thread already? The questions being asked on this page were just answered and discussed quite recently, in extreme detail. Including the opinions about SYNCHRON-ized vs. not, specific to the Woodwinds library. VSL kindly and patiently wrote a new reply anyway, and it is good to know that a more complete version of the Woodwinds might be available at some point (and that it isn't the top priority, which is understandable).

As for which woodwind to buy first, that's a funny one. I often end up using a different woodwind that I expected to, just because one reacts a bit better than another one in the context of a piece. But I'm a non-conformist; I do not subscribe to the notion that the most traditional members of each instrument family ALWAYS have to be the first choice and have to "own" the primary melodic lines.

So, for example, I often use the little-known Cembasso on brass parts. And for woodwinds, I am appropriately enough in love with the Oboe d'Amore. For solo work, I think I use it more than either Oboe (I or II) or English Horn (I or II). Even the Heckelphone gets some use now and then.

I use the flute by far the most, as for me it takes less work to get sounding great and I like to use flute in everything I write anyway. I can't pick I vs. II as a first choice, as I probably use them equally; whereas for English Horn and Oboe I have a super-strong preference for II vs. I in both cases. Somehow they seem to react with more emotion and dynamic range overall, and I get better solo phrasing.

I stick with I vs. II for Bassoon and Clarinet; their timbre sounds more realistic to me overall.


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## studioj (Jul 8, 2020)

Ben said:


> This was already officially confirmed by our "secretary": there will eventually be an update for these that add the missing articulations.


Excellent! This is why I haven't upgraded my VIP Winds to Synchronized yet. I love all those extra dynamic articulations and such.


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## IdealSequenceG (Jul 12, 2020)

Embertone - Herring Clarinet Test


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## Kevin Thurman (Jul 13, 2020)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> What is that at 8 seconds?


Sounds like a synth string patch overdub to me!


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

Erik said:


> Dear woodwinds players and aficionados, what about this one? Sonivox ww, customized. Although there isn't any real or scripted legato (it can be faked a tiny bit), imho the sound is gorgeous and these winds are very expressive. Herewith a small fragment from an arrangement I once made of a piece of Alberto Ginastera, Danza de la moza donosa for wind quintet. To be honest, I don't get this result with many other libs on my HD, but that maybe is on my part. Eager to know our findings here.


Sounds good!


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## IdealSequenceG (Jul 13, 2020)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> What is that at 8 seconds?


It was my manipulation mistake to make a swell arc.


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Ben said:


> This was already officially confirmed by our "secretary": there will eventually be an update for these that add the missing articulations.


If I get the Synchronized Winds now, will the update be free? I was comparing wind libraries on your site and made my head spin...LOL There is SO much content that is all separate and then you have Synchronized Winds, but no ensembles, but more instruments than Winds I.

So my question is, what would the upgrade path be if I got Winds 1 FULL now, and then upgraded to the Synchronized winds once it's more complete? I am deciding on a wind library and want either Synchronized winds or winds 1 full...which would you recommend as the smarter and more cost effective purchase? Just a bit confusing with all the variations on your site. 

Thanks and sorry for the winded (LOL) question.


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## Ben (Jul 13, 2020)

Sorry, I don't know.


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Ben said:


> Sorry, I don't know.


all good. But you can see how confusing a purchase would be given all the choices..new and old.


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## Mark Schmieder (Jul 13, 2020)

I wouldn't get too concerned about the ensembles, as they aren't as generally useful for woodwinds as for brass. In fact, many of us rarely if ever write unison parts for woodwind sections (vs. harmony parts). My understanding is that this is fairly widespread practice, but I could be wrong.

I think one exception might be bassoons. But a lot of modern composers are more likely to take advantage of the wide variety within each woodwind family than to use exact doubling. There's no Dimension Woodwinds library, and I think this might be why.


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Mark Schmieder said:


> I wouldn't get too concerned about the ensembles, as they aren't as generally useful for woodwinds as for brass. In fact, many of us rarely if ever write unison parts for woodwind sections (vs. harmony parts). My understanding is that this is fairly widespread practice, but I could be wrong.
> 
> I think one exception might be bassoons. But a lot of modern composers are more likely to take advantage of the wide variety within each woodwind family than to use exact doubling. There's no Dimension Woodwinds library, and I think this might be why.


Yes, I agree...was mostly pointing out the lack thereof, but I think adding more solo instruments was a smarter choice...youre right. I also don't use unison winds much. But struggling to figure out what to sacrifice in terms of getting the older winds, or the newer synchronized winds.


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## Geomir (Jul 13, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> Yes, I agree...was mostly pointing out the lack thereof, but I think adding more solo instruments was a smarter choice...youre right. I also don't use unison winds much. But struggling to figure out what to sacrifice in terms of getting the older winds, or the newer synchronized winds.


As @Mark Schmieder mentioned, I also think that woodwind ensembles are not a necessity. The solo woodwinds of VSL sound fantastic, and I would choose the Synchron Player anytime over some older player. Plus they are made to fit perfectly with the BBO series and all the Synchron / Syncronized products.

So if you want to invest in the future, and if you want some of the most beautifully-sounding solo woodwinds, perfectly balanced with each other, your choice is not so difficult in the end.


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## Geomir (Jul 13, 2020)

@Ben:
Is there any chance to include the Oboe d'Amore in the Synchronized Woodwinds version as an update in the future? Such a beautiful romantic emotional instrument, one of my VSL favorites!


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## CT (Jul 13, 2020)

Looking over representative scores (old and new) it's pretty clear that there's justification for having a2 patches (or separate players) for all of the woodwinds. It's not at all an uncommon thing.


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## Michael Antrum (Jul 13, 2020)

Geomir said:


> @Ben:
> Is there any chance to include the Oboe d'Amore in the Synchronized Woodwinds version as an update in the future? Such a beautiful romantic emotional instrument, one of my VSL favorites!



The Oboe d'Amore and the Cornet are two of my very favourite VST's - I can noodle with them for hours on end. I have the Oboe d'Amore from the special editions and Epic Orchestra, but was surprised it wasn't in the Synchronized Woodwinds...


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Geomir said:


> As @Mark Schmieder mentioned, I also think that woodwind ensembles are not a necessity. The solo woodwinds of VSL sound fantastic, and I would choose the Synchron Player anytime over some older player. Plus they are made to fit perfectly with the BBO series and all the Synchron / Syncronized products.
> 
> So if you want to invest in the future, and if you want some of the most beautifully-sounding solo woodwinds, perfectly balanced with each other, your choice is not so difficult in the end.


True...I do like the Synchron Player, and I have a few BBO and also Synchron Strings 1...


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## José Herring (Jul 13, 2020)

Erik said:


> Dear woodwinds players and aficionados, what about this one? Sonivox ww, customized. Although there isn't any real or scripted legato (it can be faked a tiny bit), imho the sound is gorgeous and these winds are very expressive. Herewith a small fragment from an arrangement I once made of a piece of Alberto Ginastera, Danza de la moza donosa for wind quintet. To be honest, I don't get this result with many other libs on my HD, but that maybe is on my part. Eager to know our findings here.


Imo these Sonic Implants now Sonivox woodwinds always had the best sound. Boston in the past had a really specific woodwind style of playing. New England style in my mind great for pastoral type pieces. They really captured that tone in these libraries. It's too bad that Sonivox ended up just abandoning all orchestral sampling some years ago. With the right team they could rival any of the major players.


Also, the old Dan Dean Woodwinds never fully got the attention they deserved. Maybe because they were always expensive. Also, Dan Dean was a really nice dude.
Check out the Brahms 3 demo.


dandeanpro.com


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## Geomir (Jul 13, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> The Oboe d'Amore and the Cornet are two of my very favourite VST's - I can noodle with them for hours on end. I have the Oboe d'Amore from the special editions and Epic Orchestra, but was surprised it wasn't in the Synchronized Woodwinds...


Me too! I also love it and I was surprised by the lack of oboe d'amore. Maybe they include it only in the Synchronized Special Editions as a "bonus", but I think it rightfully "belongs" also in Synchronized Woodwinds as well!  

Cornet is included in historic winds, right? Or you bought it as a separate solo purchase? Would you put as high as the oboe d'amore?


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Geomir said:


> Me too! I also love it and I was surprised by the lack of oboe d'amore. Maybe they include it only in the Synchronized Special Editions as a "bonus", but I think it rightfully "belongs" also in Synchronized Woodwinds as well!
> 
> Cornet is included in historic winds, right? Or you bought it as a separate solo purchase? Would you put as high as the oboe d'amore?


This is the part that has me a bit reserved in getting Synchronized winds. I know there are updates coming, but which ones, and are they going to be free updates or paid? Seems that not even Ben knows anything and that's also a bit concerning. I want to get Sy Winds, but wish we knew more about their plans for updates.


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## Geomir (Jul 13, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> This is the part that has me a bit reserved in getting Synchronized winds. I know there are updates coming, but which ones, and are they going to be free updates or paid? Seems that not even Ben knows anything and that's also a bit concerning. I want to get Sy Winds, but wish we knew more about their plans for updates.


The problem is that - realistically - no one can ever tell you about updates that are not even announced. I mean I don't think Ben (or even the owner of VSL) could give you more info!

The lack of oboe d'amore is not a reason to hold you back, I mean there are already many solo woodwinds offered in VSL Synchronized Woodwinds (including 2 different oboes, which is not always the case, and 1 Eng. Horn).

But I understand that you want to plan very carefully before you buy, because these toys are the very opposite of cheap!


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> Isn’t the amore oboe in the Epic Orchestra 2.0 that comes with VEpro7?


In which case I have it. I’ll check


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Geomir said:


> The problem is that - realistically - no one can ever tell you about updates that are not even announced. I mean I don't think Ben (or even the owner of VSL) could give you more info!
> 
> The lack of oboe d'amore is not a reason to hold you back, I mean there are already many solo woodwinds offered in VSL Synchronized Woodwinds (including 2 different oboes, which is not always the case, and 1 Eng. Horn).
> 
> But I understand that you want to plan very carefully before you buy, because these toys are the very opposite of cheap!


The one oboe won’t hold me up. I have a few other solo oboes that are quite good as well that I can supplement. But yes, it’s not cheap and I’d love to be able to get the full versions of these libraries.


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## Ben (Jul 13, 2020)

Compared to a few years ago the SYNCHRON-ized Woodwinds are really affordable, especially considering the quality, content and value of these. And if you own the SYNCHRON-ized SEs I suggest to check your personal upgrade price.

As said, there will be an update adding the missing articulations eventually. 
There will be more SYNCHRON-ized libraries coming, and I think at some point you will also see a collection with the mentioned instruments. 
Until then you will get a few articulations of these instruments in the SYNCHRON-ized SEs as well as the Epic Orchestra 2.0.

Like always we don't talk about future plans, simply to avoid disappointment and over-hype. We do our best to create the best libraries possible, and when something is ready we will release it and talk about it. 
All I can say is there are more libraries in the pipeline for this year, and I can't wait to get my hands on these and share the news with you guys


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Ben said:


> Compared to a few years ago the SYNCHRON-ized Woodwinds are really affordable, especially considering the quality, content and value of these. And if you own the SYNCHRON-ized SEs I suggest to check your personal upgrade price.
> 
> As said, there will be an update adding the missing articulations eventually.
> There will be more SYNCHRON-ized libraries coming, and I think at some point you will also see a collection with the mentioned instruments.
> ...


Are the SE versions dynamically less? Or just less articulations?


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## Geomir (Jul 13, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> Are the SE versions dynamically less? Or just less articulations?


As far as I know, both! But still they offer several dynamic layers, and all the woodwinds are so playable out of the box! There are some very nice YT walkthroughs. I think @Ben can answer more precisely your question.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

josejherring said:


> Imo these Sonic Implants now Sonivox woodwinds always had the best sound. Boston in the past had a really specific woodwind style of playing. New England style in my mind great for pastoral type pieces. They really captured that tone in these libraries. It's too bad that Sonivox ended up just abandoning all orchestral sampling some years ago. With the right team they could rival any of the major players.
> 
> 
> Also, the old Dan Dean Woodwinds never fully got the attention they deserved. Maybe because they were always expensive. Also, Dan Dean was a really nice dude.
> ...





josejherring said:


> Imo these Sonic Implants now Sonivox woodwinds always had the best sound. Boston in the past had a really specific woodwind style of playing. New England style in my mind great for pastoral type pieces. They really captured that tone in these libraries. It's too bad that Sonivox ended up just abandoning all orchestral sampling some years ago. With the right team they could rival any of the major players.
> 
> 
> Also, the old Dan Dean Woodwinds never fully got the attention they deserved. Maybe because they were always expensive. Also, Dan Dean was a really nice dude.
> ...


Jose, thanks for mentioning the Sonivox library - I think I have that one but never gave it much attention, but now I definitely will.

Also, don’t know if this developer was ever mentioned:


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## Ben (Jul 13, 2020)

@jaketanner @Geomir The SEs have whole-tone instead of half-tone sampling, less dynamic layers and repetitions and less articulations. Still, imo there are not many "Full" libraries out there that offer the amount of articulations, dynamic layers and repetitions that the SEs have.


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## Mark Schmieder (Jul 13, 2020)

It's funny you should mention Boston as I studied under their second seat clarinet player Roger Avedision, an amazing person and teacher (and a phenomenal player). The woman (Jennifer Hruska) who recorded the Sonic Implants stuff was a housemate of a close friend/co-worker. I don't really know her well anymore, but I greatly respect the groundbreaking work she did with that library. She went back for a PhD in Music Composition and I think is still getting work as a Mallet Percussionist.


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## Mark Schmieder (Jul 13, 2020)

Westgate Modular Series used to get a lot of mention -- especially for woodwinds -- and I even have a friend who recently got into computer-based musical mock-ups for the very first time and surprised me by choosing Westgate (I just don't hear it mentioned anymore). I almost went for it, before VSL came along as a Kontakt choice (I had trouble jumping through hoops to get Gigasampler working on macOS way back, but Sonic Implants didn't come to Kontakt right away either).


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## Geomir (Jul 13, 2020)

Ben said:


> @jaketanner @Geomir The SEs have whole-tone instead of half-tone sampling, less dynamic layers and repetitions and less articulations. Still, imo there are not many "Full" libraries out there that offer the amount of articulations, dynamic layers and repetitions that the SEs have.


Couldn't agree more! It's interesting (and impressive!) how VSL "Starter Editions" are bigger in size, number of instruments, articulations, detail, and quality than other full libraries! Even the synchron concert grand piano offered in the SE Vol 1 is bigger and more detailed than full pianos of many other companies!


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Ben said:


> @jaketanner @Geomir The SEs have whole-tone instead of half-tone sampling, less dynamic layers and repetitions and less articulations. Still, imo there are not many "Full" libraries out there that offer the amount of articulations, dynamic layers and repetitions that the SEs have.


Been toying with just getting SE 1 Synchronized of course. Seems like it covers a good amount of ground.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

Mark Schmieder said:


> It's funny you should mention Boston as I studied under their second seat clarinet player Roger Avedision, an amazing person and teacher (and a phenomenal player). The woman (Jennifer Hruska) who recorded the Sonic Implants stuff was a housemate of a close friend/co-worker. I don't really know her well anymore, but I greatly respect the groundbreaking work she did with that library. She went back for a PhD in Music Composition and I think is still getting work as a Mallet Percussionist.


Just so I understand Jose (and you) correctly; the Sonic Implants Woodwinds are now called Sonivox. Are these the same woodwinds that are included in the Sonivox Film Scoring Companion library (also containing strings and brass, and their Eighty-Eight sampled piano)?


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Jose, thanks for mentioning the Sonivox library - I think I have that one but never gave it much attention, but now I definitely will.


I have this also..never installed it because when I tried, it crashed my PT sessions. There was no way to install the library other than my internal drive, so after install I moved them to my external, and seems like it can't be done that way..then crashes...so I just deleted it.


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## Geomir (Jul 13, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Just so I understand Jose (and you) correctly; the Sonic Implants Woodwinds are now called Sonivox. Are these the same woodwinds that are included in the Sonivox Film Scoring Companion library (also containing strings and brass, and their Eighty-Eight sampled piano)?


I was going to ask the exact same question!!

Please someone tell me that we are NOT comparing here Sonivox Woodwinds companion with VSL Woodwinds. I mean, it's unfair for Sonivox...


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

Geomir said:


> I was going to ask the exact same question!!
> 
> Please someone tell me that we are NOT comparing here Sonivox Woodwinds companion with VSL Woodwinds. I mean, it's unfair for Sonivox...


I will not let any lack of love for a brand influence my judgment, as soon as people like mister Herring give me information that very much hints that I may have been (very) wrong. I mean, the Herring Clarinet IS my favorite woodwind sample


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> I have this also..never installed it because when I tried, it crashed my PT sessions. There was no way to install the library other than my internal drive, so after install I moved them to my external, and seems like it can't be done that way..then crashes...so I just deleted it.


I must admit that a certain amount of snobism combined with the fact that I paid $15 for like all Sonivox instruments on the market, may have wrongly prompted me to test this for like 3 minutes and then just move on...


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

By the way, those 8dio Intimate Woodwinds are pretty damn good.
I got them yesterday and I can totally see myself using these. I quite like my samples (very) dry and dial in EAReverb 2 and Cinematic Rooms.


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## Mark Schmieder (Jul 13, 2020)

I can't even remember if I sold my SONiVOX stuff yet (as a bundle) as I've been so busy working, ever since losing my job.  I'll probably have to check my own ad here, to see. My recollection though, is that there were some slight articulation cleanups in the Film Score Companion editions, but they never included the percussion or the harp, and I also had never gotten around to those in the Kontakt editions.

It's a more fair comparison to put SONiVOX up against the current version of Miroslav. Both are amongst the best-recorded overall, but a bit small and lacking in articulations compared to the big guns. Also quite cheap, so it's a reasonable comparison. Even so, Vienna Special Editions are pretty affordable.


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## CT (Jul 13, 2020)

josejherring said:


> Also, the old Dan Dean Woodwinds never fully got the attention they deserved. Maybe because they were always expensive. Also, Dan Dean was a really nice dude.
> Check out the Brahms 3 demo.
> dandeanpro.com



Man, these sound so nice! I wish some of these older gem libraries were available in more current formats.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

Mark Schmieder said:


> I can't even remember if I sold my SONiVOX stuff yet (as a bundle) as I've bee so busy working, ever since losing my job.  I'll probably have to check my own ad here, to see. My recollection though, is that there were some slight articulation cleanups in the Film Score Companion editions, but they never included the percussion or the harp, and I also had never gotten around to those in the Kontakt editions.
> 
> It's a more fair comparison to put SONiVOX up against the current version of Miroslav. Both are amongst the best-recorded overall, but a bit small and lacking in articulations compared to the big guns. Also quite cheap, so it's a reasonable comparison. Even so, Vienna Special Editions are pretty affordable.


Agreed, as far as Miroslav is concerned. I love that one, including its woodwinds. If Sonivox stuff is in that ballpark I will reinstall it immediately.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

Mike T said:


> Man, these sound so nice! I wish some of these older gem libraries were available in more current formats.


What format were these originally released for?


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## CT (Jul 13, 2020)

Looks like Giga/Akai.

It's too bad there aren't many (any?) current developers with the same philosophy of these older collections. Chromatically sampled and with such a high dynamic range, done with modern methods and to modern standards, is a weird hole in the current market. No bells and whistles, just the fundamentals of the instruments done to great depth.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

Mike T said:


> Looks like Giga/Akai.


Ah from the good old days. Reminds me of my rig with an Esi 32 and Emu 5000. And tons of scsi (ZIP) disks hehe


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## Mark Schmieder (Jul 13, 2020)

I especially loved the bassoon in Miroslav (I uninstalled my copy last year to free up space).

I have some Dan Dean stuff but can't remember which. Nice dude for sure, but ancient material.

Westgate was especially known for its oboe as I recall.

SONiVOX had great strings and brass for its time.


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## Geomir (Jul 13, 2020)

For less than 20 EUR. anyone interested can buy the whole Sonivox Film Score Companion:





VST Plugins, Synth Presets, Effects, Virtual Instruments, Music


VST Plugins, Synth Presets, Effects, Virtual Instruments, Music Plugins from Pluginboutique




www.pluginboutique.com





Maybe it was very good at its time, but judging from the demos that I tried myself (and now they will not get way from my iLok account!) I don't like the sound, the programming, the interface, the realism, etc...

I believe that Miroslav has aged much better, and I agree that there are some very beautiful and expressive instruments in that library!

I almost pulled the trigger when it was sold for 99 instead of 499 (yes I am talking about the full version of Miro 2!) but in the end I resisted, because I already owned more "modern" libraries.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

Mark Schmieder said:


> I especially loved the bassoon in Miroslav (I uninstalled my copy last year to free up space).
> 
> I have some Dan Dean stuff but can't remember which. Nice dude for sure, but ancient material.
> 
> ...


That’s it. I am reinstalling Sonivox and will spend some actual time with the samples this time. I quite like smaller lesser known libraries, with their own dedicated players. Unlike @jaketanner I don’t have any recollections of Sonivox crashing my DAW


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

Geomir said:


> For less than 20 EUR. anyone interested can buy the whole Sonivox Film Score Companion:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Totally get what you’re saying and agree. But sometimes fooling around with Miroslav Philharmonik 2 just inspires me more somehow than loading up all the quality Spitfire stuff I have 

But I’m a hobbyist so I can afford just fooling around with stuff because I feel like it 

Kidding aside, I do like playing ensemble patches in the dedicated IK Multimedia Miroslav “player” and sometimes prefer that in stead of loading up a multitude of Kontakt instances. One day @Geomir I will convert to the VSL elite hahaha


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> That’s it. I am reinstalling Sonivox and will spend some actual time with the samples this time. I quite like smaller lesser know libraries, with their own dedicated players. Unlike @jaketanner I don’t have any recollections of Sonivox crashing my DAW


I use PT...so maybe. or it could be that I moved the install sample folder...but I simply do not want it to live on my internal drive.. Were you able to place it on an external?


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> I use PT...so maybe. or it could be that I moved the install sample folder...but I simply do not want it to live on my internal drive.. Were you able to place it on an external?


Yes, I remember using this on my laptop, with the library on an external spinning drive even. Will check though!


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Yes, I remember using this on my laptop, with the library on an external spinning drive even. Will check though!


That would be great if you can figure out how you moved the library. Thanks


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> That would be great if you can figure out how you moved the library. Thanks


Will do. Maybe even update this thread with some actual findings pertaining to Sonivox woodwinds qualities, strengths and weaknesses


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## Rob (Jul 13, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> That’s it. I am reinstalling Sonivox and will spend some actual time with the samples this time. I quite like smaller lesser known libraries, with their own dedicated players. Unlike @jaketanner I don’t have any recollections of Sonivox crashing my DAW


The recordings were very well done, and they sampled very good players... the problem is the Sonivox player. One limitation in particular I find unbearable... there's no way to change the velocity to volume ratio. This means that the piano/pianissimo layers will always sound at a very low volume, since to get the pp layer you have to use the lowest velocities. So, if you're trying to control volume with cc11, as it should be with woodwinds, they fade into an inaudible pppp. Tried to use a compressor with mediocre results... best option would be to resample them and build custom Kontakt instruments, so to be able to apply sips legato.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

Man, that sounds frustrating. But what a revelation that we are now actually discussing an old Sonivox library in a thread titled “Best woodwinds” hahaha. I do like it guys. This is one of the reasons I love this forum.


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Ben said:


> Sorry, I don't know.


Ben, can you tell me if there was any modeling to the EQ within Synchron Player or is it just generic? Wondering as to the quality compared to using an external. I’d rather use the built in one to be honest. Easier to save presets. Thanks.


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## Ben (Jul 13, 2020)

I'm not sure, but my guess would be that it is the same codebase as for the Vienna Suite PRO


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Ben said:


> I'm not sure, but my guess would be that it is the same codebase as for the Vienna Suite PRO


Is that considered a higher end code? Is it part of MIR you mean?


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## Ben (Jul 13, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> Is that considered a higher end code? Is it part of MIR you mean?


It's our professional grade FX plugin collection. You can click on the link I've posted and see what it is capable of.


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## jaketanner (Jul 13, 2020)

Ben said:


> It's our professional grade FX plugin collection. You can click on the link I've posted and see what it is capable of.


Awesome. Makes choosing VSL a lot easier with this level of C.S. Thanks Ben.


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## Mark Schmieder (Jul 13, 2020)

That's good to know; I have sometimes turned off the internal EQ under the assumption it is not as of high quality as my Vienna Suite Pro stuff (still my go-to effects suite), but I seem to recall doing a couple of quick comparisons using the same settings and not hearing much difference.

My rule of thumb at this point is to use the internal EQ when I have a bunch of mics in play, and they need some work to play together as well as possible. Whereas downstream EQ is for the mixed mics, as I don't output them separately from Synchron Player.


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## Lee Blaske (Jul 13, 2020)

I think the choice is going to depend on the part. I really like VSL. It's reliable and responsive under your fingers. I also like Berlin. The 8Dio libraries have a distinctive sound if they work in the context of what you're doing. Sometimes, though, when a lot of agility is required, AudioModeling instruments will get the job done where other libraries fail (especially for really agile, and/or jazzy playing).

To me, there seems to be a wider variation in the actual sound of the instrument(s) for woodwinds than with other orchestral sections. For instance, there's a character to VSL's Bassoon I that's perfect for playful writing that's hard to get out of other libraries (especially the short articulations).


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## mducharme (Jul 13, 2020)

Mark Schmieder said:


> Westgate Modular Series used to get a lot of mention -- especially for woodwinds -- and I even have a friend who recently got into computer-based musical mock-ups for the very first time and surprised me by choosing Westgate (I just don't hear it mentioned anymore). I almost went for it, before VSL came along as a Kontakt choice (I had trouble jumping through hoops to get Gigasampler working on macOS way back, but Sonic Implants didn't come to Kontakt right away either).



I have and used to use Westgate Modular Series on GigaStudio 3. It is pretty good, a dry recording like VSL. I think it does not quite compare with VSL however. I don't know how they mic'ed it but it is a different close micing method than VSL used. For some reason, Westgate picks up all this instrument noise that you would normally only hear if you were extremely close to the instrument, much closer than the audience would be. The problem is that when you try to throw that instrument back in the hall, the noise is there too, and in reality it would be inaudible if it were that far away, so the overall effect is a little strange - all this air noise and key noise that you should not hear. The way VSL mic'ed them, they are dry but at least you don't hear the noises that would typically be inaudible for the audience.

I also used Sonic Implants Symphonic Orchestra for strings/winds/brass, and the woodwinds ended up being the last part of the library that I phased out because I was generally pretty happy with the tone. The lack of legato wound up being the reason I replaced it with VSL winds.


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## Mark Schmieder (Jul 13, 2020)

Ah yes, you have reminded of why I didn't buy into Westgate. I do now remember the strange noises and super-close miking.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

Do any of you Sonic Implants (now Sonivox) users have any demo compositions showcasing their woodwind sections? I’m very curious at this point!


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## mducharme (Jul 13, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Do any of you Sonic Implants (now Sonivox) users have any demo compositions showcasing their woodwind sections? I’m very curious at this point!



This is from 2012, so I would have done this with Sonic Implants winds (switched to VSL in 2015):


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## IdealSequenceG (Jul 13, 2020)

For Woodwinds for combo, Spitfire Audio original Albion 1 (known as Albion Legacy) was also good.

Unfortunately, no legato samples in the present Albion One legacy.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 13, 2020)

IdealSequenceG said:


> For Woodwinds for combo, Spitfire Audio original Albion 1 (known as Albion Legacy) was also good.
> 
> Unfortunately, no legato samples in the present Albion One legacy.



Did some of these patches end up in their current $29 Original Woodwinds & Brass offering? Homay did a pretty cool composition the other day, just with the Originals stuff.


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## IdealSequenceG (Jul 13, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Did some of these patches end up in their current $29 Original Woodwinds & Brass offering? Homay did a pretty cool composition the other day, just with the Originals stuff.


The Original is simply a series with only Long and Short from Legacy Albion.


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Jul 13, 2020)

Berlin Legacy Woodwinds give me the least amount of headaches.

(Perhaps important to note, I also own BWW Revive)


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## Michael Antrum (Jul 13, 2020)

Stephen Limbaugh said:


> Isn’t the amore oboe in the Epic Orchestra 2.0 that comes with VEpro7?


 
Yes it comes with Epic Orchestra 2.0, however, when I load the instrument from the Special Editions goupr in Synchron Player it has more articulations available. 

I can't tell you which exactly SE edition it is as I am not at home at the moment, but its in 1-5 as those are the ones I have.



Geomir said:


> Cornet is included in historic winds, right? Or you bought it as a separate solo purchase? Would you put as high as the oboe d'amore?



The cornet I have is in Epic Orchestra 2.0 that I got free with VePro...


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## NeonMediaKJT (Jul 14, 2020)

Ben said:


> Compared to a few years ago the SYNCHRON-ized Woodwinds are really affordable, especially considering the quality, content and value of these. And if you own the SYNCHRON-ized SEs I suggest to check your personal upgrade price.
> 
> As said, there will be an update adding the missing articulations eventually.
> There will be more SYNCHRON-ized libraries coming, and I think at some point you will also see a collection with the mentioned instruments.
> ...





Ben said:


> Compared to a few years ago the SYNCHRON-ized Woodwinds are really affordable, especially considering the quality, content and value of these. And if you own the SYNCHRON-ized SEs I suggest to check your personal upgrade price.
> 
> As said, there will be an update adding the missing articulations eventually.
> There will be more SYNCHRON-ized libraries coming, and I think at some point you will also see a collection with the mentioned instruments.
> ...




How different are the Synchron Woodwinds SE to the old Woodwind SE collection? Do the Synchron ones have more dynamic layers? I have the old Vienna player one but find it difficult to use because it feel like the dynamics shift from quiet to really loud almost immediately.


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## Ben (Jul 14, 2020)

They don't have more velocity layers, but the crossfading system is completely re-worked in the Synchron Player to provide super-smooth transitions, preventing bumps and jumps in volume.
Besides that you will get additional articulations for some instruments as well as some new instruments (including a lite version of the SY Concert D Piano).


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## Jophus (Jul 14, 2020)

has anyone here ever layered berlin soloist with spitfire symphonic woodwinds?


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## Michael Antrum (Jul 14, 2020)

Ben said:


> They don't have more velocity layers, but the crossfading system is completely re-worked in the Synchron Player to provide super-smooth transitions, preventing bumps and jumps in volume.
> Besides that you will get additional articulations for some instruments as well as some new instruments (including a lite version of the SY Concert D Piano).



Under no circumstances should you get the lite version of the Synchron Steinway D274 piano. 

I did, and it ended up costing me a bloody fortune as I had to get the rest of them.....


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## Ben (Jul 14, 2020)

Michael Antrum said:


> Under no circumstances should you get the lite version of the Synchron Steinway D274 piano.
> 
> I did, and it ended up costing me a bloody fortune as I had to get the rest of them.....


You got me in the first half, not gonna lie


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## BradHoyt (Jul 14, 2020)

Here's a track I recorded back in 2016. It features the flute and oboe from Berlin Woodwinds Expansion B (and VirHarmonic's version 1 Bohemian Violin). I have Berlin Woodwinds, Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds and some of 8dio's old Claire series woodwinds, and from what I have, I've been most happy with BBW Exp B when it comes to solo expressiveness.


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## jaketanner (Jul 14, 2020)

BradHoyt said:


> Here's a track I recorded back in 2016. It features the flute and oboe from Berlin Woodwinds Expansion B (and VirHarmonic's version 1 Bohemian Violin). I have Berlin Woodwinds, Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds and some of 8dio's old Claire series woodwinds, and from what I have, I've been most happy with BBW Exp B when it comes to solo expressiveness.



the violin is excellent.. Love the sound and I have JB...but I really like that dirty grit.

EDIT: With the flute, I am hearing some weird pan issues...with headphones sounds like it's on the right then on the left...very strange...I know some string libraries have this issue like the old 8dio stuff...but surprised that BWW does as well.


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## Geomir (Jul 14, 2020)

BradHoyt said:


> Here's a track I recorded back in 2016. It features the flute and oboe from Berlin Woodwinds Expansion B (and VirHarmonic's version 1 Bohemian Violin). I have Berlin Woodwinds, Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds and some of 8dio's old Claire series woodwinds, and from what I have, I've been most happy with BBW Exp B when it comes to solo expressiveness.



Couldn't agree more with @jaketanner !

Yes this thread is about woodwinds, you posted your song because it includes some woodwinds, but this amazing violin got my full attention! Very beautiful emotional song as well!


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## Jophus (Jul 14, 2020)

BradHoyt said:


> Here's a track I recorded back in 2016. It features the flute and oboe from Berlin Woodwinds Expansion B (and VirHarmonic's version 1 Bohemian Violin). I have Berlin Woodwinds, Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds and some of 8dio's old Claire series woodwinds, and from what I have, I've been most happy with BBW Exp B when it comes to solo expressiveness.


damn that violin sounds incredible!!! what is that?? i was thinking about getting a solo string library next week haha. debating between berlin first chairs and csss.


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## jeremyr (Jul 14, 2020)

BradHoyt said:


> Here's a track I recorded back in 2016. It features the flute and oboe from Berlin Woodwinds Expansion B (and VirHarmonic's version 1 Bohemian Violin). I have Berlin Woodwinds, Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds and some of 8dio's old Claire series woodwinds, and from what I have, I've been most happy with BBW Exp B when it comes to solo expressiveness.



Great piece! I really like the sound of that tremolo guitar (mandolin?) Is that from a sample library?


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## BradHoyt (Jul 15, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> the violin is excellent.. Love the sound and I have JB...but I really like that dirty grit.
> 
> EDIT: With the flute, I am hearing some weird pan issues...with headphones sounds like it's on the right then on the left...very strange...I know some string libraries have this issue like the old 8dio stuff...but surprised that BWW does as well.


Wow... you're right! Now that I'm specifically listening for it, I do hear that slightly weird panning. I'd have to dig up that old project and see what's going on. I'm not sure if I had a plugin on it or not. Good ears.


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## BradHoyt (Jul 15, 2020)

Geomir said:


> Couldn't agree more with @jaketanner !
> 
> Yes this thread is about woodwinds, you posted your song because it includes some woodwinds, but this amazing violin got my full attention! Very beautiful emotional song as well!


Thanks! Yeah, the VirHarmonic Bohemian Violin is very effective in this context.


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## BradHoyt (Jul 15, 2020)

Jophus said:


> damn that violin sounds incredible!!! what is that?? i was thinking about getting a solo string library next week haha. debating between berlin first chairs and csss.


It's the VirHarmonic Bohemian Violin. Their violin and cello libraries work really well when it comes to slow detailed passages.


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## BradHoyt (Jul 15, 2020)

jeremyr said:


> Great piece! I really like the sound of that tremolo guitar (mandolin?) Is that from a sample library?


Thanks! You are hearing Spitfire's "Mandolin Swarm" which is actually a mix of mandolins, small guitars, and ukes.


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## jaketanner (Jul 15, 2020)

BradHoyt said:


> Wow... you're right! Now that I'm specifically listening for it, I do hear that slightly weird panning. I'd have to dig up that old project and see what's going on. I'm not sure if I had a plugin on it or not. Good ears.


well glad I wasn't hearing things then.. LOL


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## jaketanner (Jul 15, 2020)

BradHoyt said:


> Thanks! Yeah, the VirHarmonic Bohemian Violin is very effective in this context.


Do you have JB violin also, or just Bohemian? I love JB, but wondering just how different Bohemian is in terms of sound. I think both are very playable, so in this case it's a sound issue.


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## BradHoyt (Jul 15, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> Do you have JB violin also, or just Bohemian? I love JB, but wondering just how different Bohemian is in terms of sound. I think both are very playable, so in this case it's a sound issue.


I have both. The most versatile violin is definitely JB. It's extremely well done, very playable and can handle fast passages with ease really... The Bohemian violin actually comes with two different violins. The first one is the one you hear in the recording, It's great for expressive playing that's built into the samples, but doesn't handle legato like JB does. The second Bohemian violin approaches the versatility of JB and sounds great. As someone who has both, if I encounter a piece that needs a solo violin, I'll try both and it can be a toss up which one I'd go with. Not sure how much that helps. lol Both are great and worth getting. I have no real desire to get another solo violin at this point. The new NI violin looks similar in quality to JB. If I had to choose between those two, I'm not sure which one I'd pick.


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## barteredbride (Jul 15, 2020)

Jophus said:


> i feel like theres somewhat of a lack of info out there regarding the most quality and versatile woodwinds libraries compared to others....



This is like discussed on these forums almost daily  and each thread for the last 3 years has ended..."so let´s all wait for Cinematic Studio Woodwinds to come out"


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## jaketanner (Jul 15, 2020)

BradHoyt said:


> I have both. The most versatile violin is definitely JB. It's extremely well done, very playable and can handle fast passages with ease really... The Bohemian violin actually comes with two different violins. The first one is the one you hear in the recording, It's great for expressive playing that's built into the samples, but doesn't handle legato like JB does. The second Bohemian violin approaches the versatility of JB and sounds great. As someone who has both, if I encounter a piece that needs a solo violin, I'll try both and it can be a toss up which one I'd go with. Not sure how much that helps. lol Both are great and worth getting. I have no real desire to get another solo violin at this point. The new NI violin looks similar in quality to JB. If I had to choose between those two, I'm not sure which one I'd pick.


Cool man, thanks. I didn't mean to derail the thread, but just needed to know...I'm quite happy with JB for sure, and used it for some ethnic style pieces and was great. Might just save the extra $200 or so for some other library that's gonna come out.. LOL. Thanks again.


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## barteredbride (Jul 15, 2020)

josejherring said:


> The Herring clarinet is actually in a weird almost freaky way a reflection of my personality. I recorded each note with the idea...



What...wait...

Mind blown. You are THE herring from the Herring Clarinet?!

That´s you playing ! ? 

Awesome. Sorry to not know this, hope you´re not offended!

I love it. 

It must be weird (and cool) listening to yourself playing a clarinet, when others post examples of the Herring Clarinet library playing you through a midi keyboard.


----------



## José Herring (Jul 15, 2020)

barteredbride said:


> What...wait...
> 
> Mind blown. You are THE herring from the Herring Clarinet?!
> 
> ...


It's only weird because out of habit I immediately start thinking of ways that it could be played better.


----------



## José Herring (Jul 15, 2020)

The only other weird thing is that on Youtube The Herring clarinet is more recognized than I am.


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## Jophus (Jul 15, 2020)

Do you need the entire BWW initial library in order to run the expansions?


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## BradHoyt (Jul 15, 2020)

Jophus said:


> Do you need the entire BWW initial library in order to run the expansions?


Nope. The expansions are stand alone.


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## axb312 (Jul 16, 2020)

@Jophus A search could have helped you...





__





Best/ Your favourite Woodwinds Lib Poll,Please vote


Looking for the Best Woodwinds Lib in an orchestral context (solo/ ensemble) - roles are interchangeable in a real orchestra per my understanding.... There is another thread with the same topic. Thought the poll would be helpful to potential buyers...




vi-control.net


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## VHCMusic (Jul 16, 2020)

I have Berlin Woodwinds plus the soloists expansions. I just can say that I love everything in them. Really beautiful sound, "easy" to use for get good results. The soloists are amazing. Specially oboe. 

If you own the rest of Berlin series, they work really well together. It's expensive, but you will use it for years and for me, their libraries worth its price. You are buying top quality


----------



## NoOneKnowsAnything (Jul 16, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> So you’re saying there will NOT be a true Synchron Winds? Or Brass I suppose because it’s also Synchronized.
> 
> May strongly have to consider the SY-ized winds, even though missing some instruments. I do like the sound.


I’m sure there will be a Synchron Brass I and II and Synchron Winds I and II at some point. They are a software developer so there is no such thing as this is there final product. There will also probably be additional instrument collections as well for brass and winds like Synchron Historic Brass or Synchron Ethnic Winds. Look at how many more titles they came out with after the Symphonic Cube. No clue when this comes out but I’m sure they will complete the full Synchron Orchestra. I’m guessing we see more Synchron percussion titles too. Maybe 10 years from now when they have completely played out the Synchron series we will see something totally new. Who knows...


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## jaketanner (Jul 16, 2020)

NoOneKnowsAnything said:


> I’m sure there will be a Synchron Brass I and II and Synchron Winds I and II at some point. They are a software developer so there is no such thing as this is there final product. There will also probably be additional instrument collections as well for brass and winds like Synchron Historic Brass or Synchron Ethnic Winds. Look at how many more titles they came out with after the Symphonic Cube. No clue when this comes out but I’m sure they will complete the full Synchron Orchestra. I’m guessing we see more Synchron percussion titles too. Maybe 10 years from now when they have completely played out the Synchron series we will see something totally new. Who knows...


I might be dead in 10 years.. LOL. That's the thing though...as far as I know, the BBCS is the only complete library on that scale that was released all together. There is no waiting around for additional instruments, but comes at a price of sloppy scripting and bugs. It's great if VSL decides to eventually release all others, but unless they're released within a year or two, people move on...it's the same debate as CSW...how long are people expected to wait to get a decent winds library before they have to move on to another developer...and then what, buy CSW anyway? I know that is what we ALL do... LOL But such a waste of money...I wish I was smarter with my library choices, but that can only come from experience, and now that I have it, I "try" not to buy just for the sake of it...Instead of looking at what's great about a library, I look at what is wrong with it and that's an easy way for me to stop myself from buying unnecessary libraries. Take Areia for instance, and I know Im going off on a tangent here, but at first it seems so great...then comes out that it has no portamento, then no true NV legato and with no actual 2nd violins all of a sudden the impulse to buy is less and less...now not even a consideration. LOL 

I have a messed up mind...because I am desperately trying to save and hold off so that I can assess NCS when it's released, but secretly hoping that it's not as great as I think so that I can buy the VSL winds.. LOL now that's sick.. LOL


----------



## NoOneKnowsAnything (Jul 16, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> I might be dead in 10 years.. LOL. That's the thing though...as far as I know, the BBCS is the only complete library on that scale that was released all together. There is no waiting around for additional instruments, but comes at a price of sloppy scripting and bugs. It's great if VSL decides to eventually release all others, but unless they're released within a year or two, people move on...it's the same debate as CSW...how long are people expected to wait to get a decent winds library before they have to move on to another developer...and then what, buy CSW anyway? I know that is what we ALL do... LOL But such a waste of money...I wish I was smarter with my library choices, but that can only come from experience, and now that I have it, I "try" not to buy just for the sake of it...Instead of looking at what's great about a library, I look at what is wrong with it and that's an easy way for me to stop myself from buying unnecessary libraries. Take Areia for instance, and I know Im going off on a tangent here, but at first it seems so great...then comes out that it has no portamento, then no true NV legato and with no actual 2nd violins all of a sudden the impulse to buy is less and less...now not even a consideration. LOL
> 
> I have a messed up mind...because I am desperately trying to save and hold off so that I can assess NCS when it's released, but secretly hoping that it's not as great as I think so that I can buy the VSL winds.. LOL now that's sick.. LOL


Sadly, this is not really in anyone’s control when libraries get released. I got to think it takes a lot of time releasing each title and the developers need to make money to keep surviving and thriving. So, yes, CSW will eventually come out and a ton of people will buy it regardless of the prior purchases they made to make due till then 😞


----------



## jaketanner (Jul 16, 2020)

NoOneKnowsAnything said:


> Sadly, this is not really in anyone’s control when libraries get released. I got to think it takes a lot of time releasing each title and the developers need to make money to keep surviving and thriving. So, yes, CSW will eventually come out and a ton of people will buy it regardless of the prior purchases they made to make due till then 😞


I often wish developers would record...at least record the entire line, then all they need to do is script and their own magic. I know it's a ton more money this way upfront, but I think in the long run it's also cheaper to have everyone done within a month or so, rather than call people back in to the studio over years times...locking out studio space is far cheaper...but wishful thinking. Anyway...LOL Back to deciding on my next library. 

BTW, do you have BBC at all? I am now thinking that because I like the string sound so much, I may just get core...it's going to be priced the same if not cheaper than most dedicated string libraries...and also then I'll have the winds if they're any good.


----------



## NoOneKnowsAnything (Jul 16, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> I often wish developers would record...at least record the entire line, then all they need to do is script and their own magic. I know it's a ton more money this way upfront, but I think in the long run it's also cheaper to have everyone done within a month or so, rather than call people back in to the studio over years times...locking out studio space is far cheaper...but wishful thinking. Anyway...LOL Back to deciding on my next library.
> 
> BTW, do you have BBC at all? I am now thinking that because I like the string sound so much, I may just get core...it's going to be priced the same if not cheaper than most dedicated string libraries...and also then I'll have the winds if they're any good.


I have BBCSO Pro, I guess that’s just the full version. Get Core and see if you love it before you upgrade to the full version.


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## jaketanner (Jul 16, 2020)

NoOneKnowsAnything said:


> I have BBCSO Pro, I guess that’s just the full version. Get Core and see if you love it before you upgrade to the full version.


I wouldn't get the full version...most likely anyway since I am set with all other libraries and can't see spending $700 on it to not take full advantage of the entire thing. Gotta think more about it then.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 25, 2020)

I still miss this guy... One of the greatest fretless bass players who started out as a woodwind guy and always combined those two. My love for woodwinds started here:









I hope some of you find this to be inspiring. If so, definitely check out this great artist.


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## Mark Schmieder (Jul 25, 2020)

Mick Karn is one of my heroes, as someone who also started on woodwinds and then picked up bass. I was just listening to the Japan albums a few weeks ago and was reminded of how sublime his playing was; never too much and never too little. No matter the project, he always played exactly what it needed.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 25, 2020)

Mark Schmieder said:


> Mick Karn is one of my heroes, as someone who also started on woodwinds and then picked up bass. I was just listening to the Japan albums a few weeks ago and was reminded of how sublime his playing was; never too much and never too little. No matter the project, he always played exactly what it needed.


Absolutely. Gorgeous sounds and phrases out of that WAL and his incredibly creative mind. I listened to Tin Drum the other night, and was equally impressed for the n-th time. His bass lines on tracks like Talking Drum and Cantonese Boy are so restrained yet melodic. I’ve never heard anything like that.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 25, 2020)

Sorry for the off topic, but bear with me...

Here’s Talking Drum. Excellent blend of early eighties techno fusion and an obsession for China. That bass guitar is out of this world. As a matter of fact, so are Steven Jansen’s drumming and Sylvian/Barbieri’s OB-X and Prophet5 programming. Ring modulation rules!

Anyway... Karn plays a dida on this track. Aka a Chinese derivative of a sorna. Which is a double-reed. Which makes this on topic. Sort of anyway. Thanks for indulging me haha.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 27, 2020)

Fluffy Audio are having a sale right now (through August 2020)









Solo Woodwinds Complete Bundle


Visit the post for more.




www.fluffyaudio.com





For those interested in the woodwinds bundle: it’s EUR 189.


----------



## doctoremmet (Aug 11, 2020)

José Herring said:


> I listed these but if any of you have any experience especially with Auddict woodwinds. Let me know. Those are the ones I'm leaning towards right now.


Hi José. I am doing a lot of research (again) on woodwinds. Someone mentioned yesterday VSTBuzz have hinted a sale on a 48 Gb woodwind library. My guess is Auddict will be on sale, starting tomorrow. Last time they were $99. So if that’s the case, grab them. I believe after your PC building endeavours, you are now in the “VI acquisition stage”, yes?

Edit:

- apparently the sale will be on tomorrow, August 12th

- you asked earlier whether the Auddict winds are buggy. Can’t confirm or deny this, but their Master Brass library has (had) a lot of problems and there are a couple of threads in this forum about Auddict that have not exactly instilled a whole lot of faith in me, so to speak. 

- I recently interacted with a forum member who had these on sale. Apparently they do allow this, however they want you to copy the files via Google Drive, Dropbox or whatever. This seems very sketchy / unprofessional to me. I wouldn’t even know for sure whether I actually owned the stuff or whether I merely copied some pirated stuff. Mind you: not implying in any way the forum member I talked with was offering pirated software. He was equally amazed this was their “official” way of transferring a license


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## José Herring (Aug 11, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Hi José. I am doing a lot of research (again) on woodwinds. Someone mentioned yesterday VSTBuzz have hinted a sale on a 48 Gb woodwind library. My guess is Auddict will be on sale, starting tomorrow. Last time they were $99. So if that’s the case, grab them. I believe after your PC building endeavours, you are now in the “VI acquisition stage”, yes?
> 
> Edit:
> 
> ...


I'll keep an eye out. Yes, I'm in the sample acquisition stage. I'm curious about all libraries right now. I've even tweeted to Danny Elfman at 2am to ask what libraries he likes to use so you know I'm taking it seriously!


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## doctoremmet (Aug 11, 2020)

José Herring said:


> I'll keep an eye out. Yes, I'm in the sample acquisition stage. I'm curious about all libraries right now. I've even tweeted to Danny Elfman at 2am to ask what libraries he likes to use so you know I'm taking it seriously!


Dude, I know you’re serious! Let us know once you are a (temporarily) happy owner of all the samples you need, so I can tweet you which ones to get 

_Runs off to Twitter to follow Danny Elfman and José Herring._


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## doctoremmet (Aug 11, 2020)

José Herring said:


> I'll keep an eye out. Yes, I'm in the sample acquisition stage. I'm curious about all libraries right now. I've even tweeted to Danny Elfman at 2am to ask what libraries he likes to use so you know I'm taking it seriously!


I am also still eyeing the XSample winds. Got the Contemporary Solo Strings a couple of weeks ago, and they are excellent. No true legato, but very tight and dry set of samples. I bet the woodwinds are as good as in the demos. The A clarinet is not included in the bundle, should you need that one. As a clarinet player, I bet you own the real thing anyway?

In the XSample Complete range there is now a 20% discount when you put more than one “Part” in the basket. Effectively lowering the price from €249 to €199 for each part. As soon as you want three parts (€598) you might as well get ALL parts, because the Complete bundle is also €599.

Does anyone know of any “regular” sales (BF or maybe German holidays?) over at XSample? I am tempted to get everything, but still am not informed about the differences between Part 4 Solo Strings and the Contemporary Solo Strings, other than the latter being newer.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 11, 2020)

José Herring said:


> 8) Sofia Winds -- Hot damn! Gets like zero attention and yet sound really good to me. Maybe the player sucks, Don't know.


Any users of these out there? This one showed up in another thread yesterday (because the developer brought them up). Would love to hear some real world experiences. The HISE player intrigues me - having followed some of the more technical threads on it. Also they do sound good in the demos. Apparently also on sale (€177). The developer mentioned Sofia Brass will see a release shortly, and he is in the process of recording Strings.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 11, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> apparently the sale will be on tomorrow, August 12th







__





Only 3 Days Left! - VSTBuzz: 82% off “Master Solo Woodwinds Bundle” by Auddict - Normally €440 Now Only €79!


Deal: 82% off “Master Solo Woodwinds Bundle” by Auddict Value: €440 Discount: 82% Price: €79 Grab the deal now on www.vstbuzz.com/deals/82-off-master-solo-woodwinds-bundle-by-auddict! The “Master Solo Woodwind Bundle” is a dazzling collection of 5 solo orchestral woodwind instruments with an...




vi-control.net


----------



## doctoremmet (Aug 11, 2020)

So: $80 for 46 Gb of Auddict Winds.

Edit: EUR 80, not $!


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## IdealSequenceG (Aug 17, 2020)

Auddict Audio Master Solo Woodwinds - Solo Clarinet Test


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## ProfoundSilence (Aug 17, 2020)

José Herring said:


> I'll keep an eye out. Yes, I'm in the sample acquisition stage. I'm curious about all libraries right now. I've even tweeted to Danny Elfman at 2am to ask what libraries he likes to use so you know I'm taking it seriously!


doesnt elfman use VSL?


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## doctoremmet (Aug 17, 2020)

ProfoundSilence said:


> doesnt elfman use VSL?


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## Crowe (Aug 17, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


>



Mandela effect in full... Well effect.

I'm pretty sure he actually has an army of funky skeletons that play an assortment of bone-based instruments and, for some reason, brass.

On topic, I'm very partial to the Sonokinetic Woodwinds, which really don't get the recognition they deserve.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 17, 2020)

Shiirai said:


> Mandela effect in full... Well effect.
> 
> I'm pretty sure he actually has an army of funky skeletons that play an assortment of bone-based instruments and, for some reason, brass.
> 
> On topic, I'm very partial to the Sonokinetic Woodwinds, which really don't get the recognition they deserve.


Hahaha. I wonder who actually suffers from the Mandela effect.

Sonokinetic winds are ensembles yeah? I remember seeing some reviews when they released those, but they’re hardly mentioned ever. Do you have some pieces where you’ve employed them?


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## Crowe (Aug 17, 2020)

Nothing I consider fit for for sharing .


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## VSriHarsha (Aug 17, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Hahaha. I wonder who actually suffers from the Mandela effect.
> 
> Sonokinetic winds are ensembles yeah? I remember seeing some reviews when they released those, but they’re hardly mentioned ever. Do you have some pieces where you’ve employed them?


But do these have True Legatos?
Sonokinetics got like the State of the Art sampling right? I always wanted to look that up I forget.


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## doctoremmet (Aug 17, 2020)

VSriHarsha said:


> But do these have True Legatos?
> Sonokinetics got like the State of the Art sampling right? I always wanted to look that up I forget.


Nah. They specialize in phrase based libraries, which is not my thing and I’d say that hardly involves any legato scripting. IIRC they have released two
libraries with actual playable instruments, these woodwind ensembles and Da Capo. Most of their stuff is revered by people that are into orchestral phrases I guess. Not saying their legato is not good though - I simply don’t know. But it is not their speciality.


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## VSriHarsha (Aug 17, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Nah. They specialize in phrase based libraries, which is not my thing and I’d say that hardly involves any legato scripting. IIRC they have released two
> libraries with actual playable instruments, these woodwind ensembles and Da Capo. Most of their stuff is revered by people that are into orchestral phrases I guess. Not saying their legato is not good though - I simply don’t know. But it is not their speciality.


Yea that’s what I thought so too. Although I saw the walkthrus & some other videos of Da Capo on YT, I totally backed out. I liked the sound of it & yet, no.


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## timestudios (Aug 30, 2020)

Casiquire said:


> The most popular two here are VSL and Berlin. I have the VSL and swear by them but I'm considering trying Berlin too based on how loved they are


Hi. I have Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds which is very comprehensive. Lots of articulations and instruments for the money but I find 8dio Claire Woodwinds to be the most expressive for exposed parts. There are a variety of vibrato styles for the legotos from mild to strong and the legato arcs are amazing. I've attached two pieces. One features their alto flute and the other their clarinet. All the best! 


Jophus said:


> i feel like theres somewhat of a lack of info out there regarding the most quality and versatile woodwinds libraries compared to others. anyone have any advice? last thing i need before having a somewhat all around quality template. I have been thinking about some spitfire stuff, berlin, maybe cinewinds. any opinions appreciated.


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## Casiquire (Aug 30, 2020)

I want to quickly mention that Sonokinetic has some really wonderful non-phrase-based gems as well. Their music box and celesta are fantastic. Bare-bones but the price makes them a no brainier. They have a lot of character


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## ism (Aug 30, 2020)

timestudios said:


> Hi. I have Spitfire Symphonic Woodwinds which is very comprehensive. Lots of articulations and instruments for the money but I find 8dio Claire Woodwinds to be the most expressive for exposed parts. There are a variety of vibrato styles for the legotos from mild to strong and the legato arcs are amazing. I've attached two pieces. One features their alto flute and the other their clarinet. All the best!


These are wonderful compositions, and easily my favourite demos of the Claire instruments at their best.


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## Johnny (Aug 31, 2020)

Anyone using HW Orchestral Woodwinds? I hear more negative talk than positive however, I'm still using EWSO winds  Holding off for Century Woodwinds, but I would be interested to hear anyone's thoughts on HW Orchestral woodwinds? : )


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## awaey (Aug 31, 2020)

Anyone using HW Orchestral Woodwinds? I hear more negative talk than positive however, I'm still using EWSO winds  Holding off for Century Woodwinds, but I would be interested to hear anyone's thoughts on HW Orchestral woodwinds? : )
[/QUOTE]
Very good Complete Collection WoodWind section Spatially if you have HO String ,Brass,Pircation , sound and playability very good better to use in Orchestra Not for solo, I am very happy with it... I recommend


----------



## Beans (Aug 31, 2020)

nawzadhaji said:


> better to use in Orchestra Not for solo



This is a pretty accurate, extremely short review of EWHO Woodwinds.

There are other libraries that will give you a much stronger exposed melody, but the mix with the rest of the orchestra here is highly valuable.

I was listening to "Whispering Winds" from The Land Before Time last night, and I don't think you could coax that out of EWHO's oboe. But they blend well, and Diamond does make a positive difference on the overall feel and "workability" of the library (by that, I mean sit in context without great effort).


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## Utkarsh (Aug 31, 2020)

José Herring said:


> Edit: This time I tried to correct as may typos as I could but I'm still in a hurry so forgive
> 
> I so hesitate to answer. so I will answer in a way that gives you information.
> 
> ...


thank You so much for this explanation. I instantly went and purchased it from the Embertone website. ❤️ (Although turns out software required to unzip the file is yet to be upgraded for MacOS High Sierra, so I don’t know When I’ll get to play it.) but I really wanted to thank you for the post. 🙏🏼


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## Utkarsh (Aug 31, 2020)

David Kudell said:


> Besides the dedicated woodwind libraries, the woodwind sections in the Metropolis Arks deserve a mention. For times when you’re scoring something dark or loud and it’s hard to fit woodwinds in, these sections of low woodwinds, bass flutes, etc can add a lot of texture.


+1


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## Johnny (Sep 1, 2020)

nawzadhaji said:


> Anyone using HW Orchestral Woodwinds? I hear more negative talk than positive however, I'm still using EWSO winds  Holding off for Century Woodwinds, but I would be interested to hear anyone's thoughts on HW Orchestral woodwinds? : )


Very good Complete Collection WoodWind section Spatially if you have HO String ,Brass,Pircation , sound and playability very good better to use in Orchestra Not for solo, I am very happy with it... I recommend
[/QUOTE]
Thank you! Great to hear!


----------



## markleake (Sep 11, 2020)

Casiquire said:


> I want to quickly mention that Sonokinetic has some really wonderful non-phrase-based gems as well. Their music box and celesta are fantastic. Bare-bones but the price makes them a no brainier. They have a lot of character


Not to mention their ensemble woowinds are top notch. I often use them over other WW libs. Very underrated.


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## I like music (Sep 11, 2020)

Beans said:


> This is a pretty accurate, extremely short review of EWHO Woodwinds.
> 
> There are other libraries that will give you a much stronger exposed melody, but the mix with the rest of the orchestra here is highly valuable.
> 
> I was listening to "Whispering Winds" from The Land Before Time last night, and I don't think you could coax that out of EWHO's oboe. But they blend well, and Diamond does make a positive difference on the overall feel and "workability" of the library (by that, I mean sit in context without great effort).



Oh man, such a good oboe line isn't it?


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## robgb (Sep 11, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Nah. They specialize in phrase based libraries, which is not my thing and I’d say that hardly involves any legato scripting. IIRC they have released two
> libraries with actual playable instruments, these woodwind ensembles and Da Capo. Most of their stuff is revered by people that are into orchestral phrases I guess. Not saying their legato is not good though - I simply don’t know. But it is not their speciality.


I got their Ostinato Woodwinds for free during a Christmas giveaway and I've tried using them maybe three times in as many years. Not my cup of tea.


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## Cormast (Sep 11, 2020)

Johnny said:


> Very good Complete Collection WoodWind section Spatially if you have HO String ,Brass,Pircation , sound and playability very good better to use in Orchestra Not for solo, I am very happy with it... I recommend


Thank you! Great to hear! 
[/QUOTE]
Wait for the update : Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition at fall, Woodwinds should be more than fine.


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## Rtomproductions (Sep 11, 2020)

I like the SSO woodwinds when mixed with orchestra, but the actual players weren't very expressive (in another life I was a full time woodwind session player).

The oboist and bassoonist had a very shallow vibrato that is emotionally quite flat. Flute is ok, but the legato is a bit "jumpy." The English horn is also ok. Clarinet and bass clarinet sound good, but that's not too difficult as they don't usually use vibrato in a symphonic context anyway. The bassoon from EW's HOW is actually pretty good; solid legato and very expressive.

I absolutely adore the flute from Lumina, which surprised me greatly. Talk about expressive...

And no, I usually don't take the time to record myself unless it's super important. That and it's time-consuming to make a woodwind recorded in a studio sit in the mix with the rest of an orchestra recorded in a hall.


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## Beans (Sep 11, 2020)

Rtomproductions said:


> I absolutely adore the flute from Lumina, which surprised me greatly. Talk about expressive...



I removed Lumina from my hard drive many years ago to make room for "newer" libraries, but every so often struggle with the idea of making space for it again. Truly, some lovely instruments.


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## markleake (Sep 11, 2020)

robgb said:


> I got their Ostinato Woodwinds for free during a Christmas giveaway and I've tried using them maybe three times in as many years. Not my cup of tea.


If they allowed transfers, I could take them off your hands!!


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## Johnny (Sep 11, 2020)

Cormast said:


> Thank you! Great to hear!


Wait for the update : Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition at fall, Woodwinds should be more than fine.
[/QUOTE]
I'm hanging on for dear life  Really looking forward to this one! Been using EWSO woodwinds ~est 2006


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## IdealSequenceG (Sep 11, 2020)

8Dio - Claire Alto Flute Virtuoso

My favorite instrument in the Claire series.


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## markleake (Sep 11, 2020)

Speaking of woodwinds, has anyone looked at the VSL BBO ensemble woodwinds (Neptune & Orion)?

I downloaded the demos, and to me they sound fantastic. Probably the best sounding part of the BBO series so far. (Well, apart from the Quasar and Neptune percussion, which is really a cut down version of the existing Synchron Percussion libs and are amazing deals).

Looking at their BBO woods walkthrough videos on YT, they only have a few hundred views. So I wonder if woods have much interest for people overall?

The BBO woods are not exactly cheap, but they aren't expensive either, kind of middle of the road for what you get. But they're good value still in the few days remaining with their intro price (ends 15th Sept I think), considering their quality and the overall tone of them.

They are missing a few features, like no legato for the full ensemble, so maybe they don't quite compare to libraries like the original Albion 1 ensembles for instance. And compared to the SK wood ensembles and Albion ensembles they don't have as good dynamics, in that they don't play as soft, especially with the shorts, so don't do "soft and tender" as well as them. SK have far more articulations and a fuller sound, and I think on sale are a better deal than BBO in terms of what you get for the $$.

But still, the BBO woods cover most bases. They have an awesome clear sound with quality players, have the typical meticulous VSL sampling quality, there's loads of mics, and they're very agile and usable for typical woodwind work in orchestral tracks, from my experience with the demos. I'm surprised there isn't more comment on them outside the commercial thread.

If VSL recorded wood ensembles, what's the bet solos are coming at some point for the full Synchron series?


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## jononotbono (Sep 11, 2020)

I don’t know what the best is but O do love using Berlin and SSW. Very good libraries.


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## markleake (Sep 11, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Nah. They specialize in phrase based libraries, which is not my thing and I’d say that hardly involves any legato scripting. IIRC they have released two
> libraries with actual playable instruments, these woodwind ensembles and Da Capo. Most of their stuff is revered by people that are into orchestral phrases I guess. Not saying their legato is not good though - I simply don’t know. But it is not their speciality.


I think this is underestimating SK's expertise. If you look at their ensemble woods for example, it is exceptionally well scripted/programmed, and offers a lot of control/tweakability. 

It even has poly legato, which works very well. Most lib manufacturers don't offer that.

I absolutely love their woodwinds (and I'm a woodwind player, so automatically critical!). I'm a bit of a fanboi.


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## doctoremmet (Sep 11, 2020)

markleake said:


> I think this is underestimating SK's expertise. If you look at their ensemble woods for example, it is exceptionally well scripted/programmed, and offers a lot of control/tweakability.
> 
> It even has poly legato, which works very well. Most lib manufacturers don't offer that.
> 
> I absolutely love their woodwinds (and I'm a woodwind player, so automatically critical!). I'm a bit of a fanboi.


My post was a reaction to a question, but reading it now it does seem I am underestimating Sonokinetics’ qualities. I did not intend to do that, but wanted to point out their actual speciality. However, thanks for your post - it is obvious that I don’t own nor use any of their libraries.


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## jaketanner (Sep 11, 2020)

markleake said:


> They are missing a few features, like no legato for the full ensemble


I think it would be very difficult to incorporate legato for multiple instruments since they react differently. The ensemble patches of the single instruments all have legato.


----------



## ProfoundSilence (Sep 11, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> I think it would be very difficult to incorporate legato for multiple instruments since they react differently. The ensemble patches of the single instruments all have legato.


I *dont* think it's an issue - plenty of ensembles have been recorded with legato - including different instrument combinations.

Infact Ark 4 has tones of these

edit: left out the word dont


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## markleake (Sep 11, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> I think it would be very difficult to incorporate legato for multiple instruments since they react differently. The ensemble patches of the single instruments all have legato.


Why wouldn't you be able to record legato that way? There's a large number of developers that have libraries that do this.

I'm confused.


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## jaketanner (Sep 11, 2020)

markleake said:


> Why wouldn't you be able to record legato that way? There's a large number of developers that have libraries that do this.
> 
> I'm confused.


We are talking about combining flutes, oboes and clarinets into the same legato structure right? I mean, sure it's possible, but I would imagine that there has to be some sort of a drawback there. I believe that's what he meant, and not like an a3 ensemble.


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## markleake (Sep 11, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> We are talking about combining flutes, oboes and clarinets into the same legato structure right? I mean, sure it's possible, but I would imagine that there has to be some sort of a drawback there. I believe that's what he meant, and not like an a3 ensemble.


"He"?

Surely you'd just record the natural sound of the legatos like you would with any other combination of instruments? Why would woodwinds be different in this regard?

All of the major developers do this kind of thing regularly, including VSL. And other developers have done it specifically for woods, to good effect.


----------



## ProfoundSilence (Sep 11, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> We are talking about combining flutes, oboes and clarinets into the same legato structure right? I mean, sure it's possible, but I would imagine that there has to be some sort of a drawback there. I believe that's what he meant, and not like an a3 ensemble.




ark 4 flute, oboe, clarinet is an actual instrument


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## Robo Rivard (Sep 11, 2020)

I bought VSL BBO ensemble woodwinds (Neptune & Orion) when I was drunk, but when I played around with the libraries the next day, I realized that they were the best "drunken purchase" I made in my entire life. Can't wait to see how they will sound along with CSWW.


----------



## jaketanner (Sep 11, 2020)

ProfoundSilence said:


> ark 4 flute, oboe, clarinet is an actual instrument



I don't doubt that it's possible...actually just checked my Albion One that has some blended legatos..just thought they would require different legato scripts...just seems like something has to give there. 

I'm sure it was a cost issue or not the focus of the library for VSL to leave it out. I have Neptune and Orion.


----------



## markleake (Sep 11, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> I don't doubt that it's possible...actually just checked my Albion One that has some blended legatos..just thought they would require different legato scripts...just seems like something has to give there.
> 
> I'm sure it was a cost issue or not the focus of the library for VSL to leave it out. I have Neptune and Orion.


Ahh... so, wait... Albion has them?! Why didn't anyone say??  

But yes, now that we've all caught up, it's a shame Neptune doesn't have legato. That makes it not stand up to the likes of the Albions unfortunately, like I said. I think legatos for woods are pretty important, particularly because some key competition has it. The good thing is the shorts are pretty agile, and layering with Orion will help, if you have that library also.


----------



## jaketanner (Sep 11, 2020)

markleake said:


> "He"?
> 
> Surely you'd just record the natural sound of the legatos like you would with any other combination of instruments? Why would woodwinds be different in this regard?
> 
> All of the major developers do this kind of thing regularly, including VSL. And other developers have done it specifically for woods, to good effect.


Only wind library I have that does combination wind legatos is Albion One. Never really used it.
Is this common in an orchestral wind library? What dedicated libraries have all winds in unison and legato?


----------



## ProfoundSilence (Sep 11, 2020)

FWIW missing legato on ensembles is less of an issue. Some libraries I actually prefer using the sustain patch even for single lines.


----------



## markleake (Sep 12, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> Only wind library I have that does combination wind legatos is Albion One. Never really used it.
> Is this common in an orchestral wind library? What dedicated libraries have all winds in unison and legato?


It's more important for high woods than low woods, IMO.

For a low wood mixed ensemble, I don't care so much if they have legato or not. An exposed part, for low woods, with legato, wanting a full ensemble -- yeah, that is pretty rare for me the way I write.

High woods is a different matter. Often high woods do a lot of runs, trills, quick movements and flourishes to add decoration, so legato is more important. In order of importance, I'd say: solo instruments, then a2/a3 ensembles, then full ensemble. This is if you use woods a lot in what you write, that is. Now-days people seem to forget them a bit.

Examples I have with LOW woods legato mixed ensembles:
- CineSamples Monster Low Winds
- Iceni
- Bernard Herman Composer Toolkit*
- Albion 1 and One
- Berlin Inspire (-ish, it's bassoon & I assume Bb clarinet)

Examples I have with HIGH woods legato mixed ensembles:
- Bernard Herman Composer Toolkit*
- Albion 1 and One
- Berlin Inspire

*BHCT tends to have combos with other instruments also. I can't remember how many of them are legato, but a few are.

As you can see, there are a fair few, and this is what I have only. They come in various varieties of mixtures, and not always unison, it may be octaves. There're other examples also, like @ProfoundSilence pointed out.

My comment about legato is more a general statement though. @ProfoundSilence is right, it's not the end of the world... like him I find shorts and sustains a bit undervalued sometimes.


----------



## markleake (Sep 12, 2020)

Robo Rivard said:


> I bought VSL BBO ensemble woodwinds (Neptune & Orion) when I was drunk, but when I played around with the libraries the next day, I realized that they were the best "drunken purchase" I made in my entire life. Can't wait to see how they will sound along with CSWW.


Best way to buy libraries, I'd say.


----------



## I like music (Sep 12, 2020)

markleake said:


> Best way to buy libraries, I'd say.



I genuinely believe there are people on this forum who have purchased a library while being so drunk, that when they woke up, they had forgotten they ever bought the library.

It probably never got downloaded or used.


----------



## Robo Rivard (Sep 12, 2020)

All the libraries that I bought drunk or sober are my legitimate children, and I love them equally.


----------



## ProfoundSilence (Sep 12, 2020)

I like music said:


> I genuinely believe there are people on this forum who have purchased a library while being so drunk, that when they woke up, they had forgotten they ever bought the library.
> 
> It probably never got downloaded or used.


I don't drink at all, and I've bought libraries on sale - went to download and saw the (1) next to the zip. 

Infact I think there is one particular library I either bought 3 times, or almost bought a 3rd time. Definately has happened with waves plugins because of their atrocious system.


----------



## I like music (Sep 12, 2020)

ProfoundSilence said:


> I don't drink at all, and I've bought libraries on sale - went to download and saw the (1) next to the zip.
> 
> Infact I think there is one particular library I either bought 3 times, or almost bought a 3rd time. Definately has happened with waves plugins because of their atrocious system.



(1) Damn!
(2) What am I doing with my life?
Actually, I have redownloaded a massive library twice because I forgot I already had it on my machine.

What about Waves? Briefly considered a couple of their plugins but never used one so curious about that!

Back on track. Berlin woodwinds = excellent for me. But quite pricey, at times inconsistent but generally superb.

IW also work well for me in exposed context, jsut because of hte control. That said, tone work needed.


----------



## MSutherlandComp (Sep 12, 2020)

Berlin Woodwinds is probably the best happy middle ground.

Most versatile, I would say CH Winds, but I find the tone lacking for one reason or another.

Best sounding? I'm probably biased (since I bought it recently) but to my ears, VSL has the sweetest tone, and sings pretty easily. Pretty functional, too. I would say 8DIO Claire is a very close second, even better for some things (for example, if you want more of a raw-sounding piccolo trill, Claire is great).

Have yet to use VSL in any mockups (in the writing phase for a large project right now), but I'll try to drop a track or two in here once I break them in a bit - assuming I remember .

Edit: Forgot about ethnic winds. This one is interesting. CineWinds Pro and Embertone have great tin whistles; Tarilonte is king for Accordions (II) and bagpipes (though there are also some good ones in CW Pro); ISW Ventus series is great (bansuri, shakuhachi, something else that I can't recall); Sonica's shakuhachi is really versatile, but takes some programming (really looking forward to the _eventual _release of their hichiriki); I still use a Sound Canvas for panflute.


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## jaketanner (Sep 12, 2020)

markleake said:


> As you can see, there are a fair few, and this is what I have only.


I can see the legato mixture in these types of libraries, but I don't see it as part of any dedicated wind library...maybe I missed it, but the all wind mix ensemble legato seems to be left out of wind libraries.


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## Geoff Grace (Sep 12, 2020)

For what it's worth, when I started gigging with bands professionally many years ago, one of the first rules I learned was, "When in doubt, lay out."

I found that by applying that rule to my purchasing habits, I saved some money over the years. As a result, I've rarely made duplicate purchases, despite my increasing tendency to have those middle-aged "senior moments." 

Of course, YMMV. Like I said, I'm just putting it out there for what it's worth. 

Best,

Geoff


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## Petrucci (Sep 12, 2020)

I like CineWinds a lot (as well as Cinesamples Solo Strings) - they are very inspiring to play for me and Denis Sands mixes are awesome IMHO.


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## jaketanner (Sep 12, 2020)

Petrucci said:


> as well as Cinesamples Solo Strings) - they are very inspiring to play for me and Denis Sands mixes are awesome IMHO.


I agree with you here...I wish they would have revisited their Corestrings to match the cleanliness of the solo strings. I've used the solo violin with great success...Love the sound.


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## Sunny Schramm (Sep 12, 2020)

hope not mentioned before  dont own it - but woodwinds on sale...


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## markleake (Sep 12, 2020)

jaketanner said:


> I can see the legato mixture in these types of libraries, but I don't see it as part of any dedicated wind library...maybe I missed it, but the all wind mix ensemble legato seems to be left out of wind libraries.


Correct. Most developers will keep their wood libs focused on solos/a2/a3, which makes good sense. It leaves room for their ensemble & themed libs to put these kind of patches in. e.g. OT/SF/CS.


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## Jos Wylin (Sep 17, 2020)

mducharme said:


> I tried Cinewinds before with the hope to replace my old VSL VI Woodwinds with it (due to the problematic crossfades). Although the Cinewinds demos etc sounded good, direct comparison left me disappointed compared to the amazingly detailed VSL recordings, and after trying to integrate parts of it into my workflow (ex. using staccatos from Cinewinds and VSL for legato), I wound up going back to the VSL VI Woodwinds wholesale for everything and never use Cinewinds anymore. Completely wasted purchase for me, unfortunately. I might have liked it if it were not for VSL, but VSL spoiled me. I looked at other wind libraries but was worried that I would just waste my money if I bought it only to not use it and go back to VSL.
> 
> Synchron-ized winds for me was perfect, because it fixed the one major issue with the old VSL VI that made me look for alternatives in the first place, and it has the same sound as the old VSL VI when you turn off the reverb.
> 
> I have no interest in VSL brass, strings, etc. I have never really found them super convincing. But the woodwinds, as Jose mentioned, are for some reason a completely different beast and do not suffer at all from the silent stage dry recording. It is probably due to the fact that woodwinds have so much character in the details of the sound (compared to the uniformity of the strings for instance) and too many libraries lose that, making the oboe less nasal and the clarinet brighter, making them unnaturally similar in timbre. I would rather have the oboe be as nasal as nature intended and do EQ to make it a bit less so, rather than not have those elements in the sound to begin with. An oboe really should not sound like a clarinet, and in Cinewinds they sounded way too similar (I mean obviously you can distinguish them still, but it felt like they were trying to adjust them to remove their "quirks" to make them blend better).



I own both the full Woodwinds I and some Synchron(ized) Woodwinds. I've tried very hard to work with the SWWs, but I've never reached the same level. And you're right on the crossfades. There I use the same trick with the expression fader to overcome those bumps (as you call them). It works in most cases. However, I don't understand you using the SWWs without their major aim (the ease of acoustic placement in a 'natural' environment (being the Synchron Hall)). I would call that 'wasted money'. I bought some woodwinds to experiment with, but I won't purchase the whole lot, since they don't offer the result and sound I expect to hear. When using them dry, they are exactly the same as the WWs-I, so why investing in these rather expensive libraries to obtain the same result? You explained the crossfade problem, but is only that worth the while? Of course it's your choice and if you're pleased with it, it's fine.


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## ProfoundSilence (Sep 17, 2020)

Trying to figure out what about VSL winds sound excessively... midi... to me. 

I'm not sure if it's just like pitch correction, or what - but both the new synchron stage stuff and the ole' VSL winds(synchronized or not) sounds remarkably.... midi?


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## Casiquire (Sep 17, 2020)

Jos Wylin said:


> I own both the full Woodwinds I and some Synchron(ized) Woodwinds. I've tried very hard to work with the SWWs, but I've never reached the same level. And you're right on the crossfades. There I use the same trick with the expression fader to overcome those bumps (as you call them). It works in most cases. However, I don't understand you using the SWWs without their major aim (the ease of acoustic placement in a 'natural' environment (being the Synchron Hall)). I would call that 'wasted money'. I bought some woodwinds to experiment with, but I won't purchase the whole lot, since they don't offer the result and sound I expect to hear. When using them dry, they are exactly the same as the WWs-I, so why investing in these rather expensive libraries to obtain the same result? You explained the crossfade problem, but is only that worth the while? Of course it's your choice and if you're pleased with it, it's fine.


My understanding is that they're not in fact identical to the VI series when used dry, but still have reworked legatos and crossfades and everything has been remastered and edited, with adjusted dynamics to balance more naturally with other woods, etc


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## mducharme (Oct 16, 2020)

Jos Wylin said:


> When using them dry, they are exactly the same as the WWs-I, so why investing in these rather expensive libraries to obtain the same result? You explained the crossfade problem, but is only that worth the while? Of course it's your choice and if you're pleased with it, it's fine.



I didn't own the full Woodwinds I, only the SE Winds. I was looking at upgrading to Woodwinds I full if it fixed the crossfades (and more dynamic layers was nice too), but others told me it didn't, so I never bothered. As a result, for me, it was more of a no-brainer to buy the Synchron-ized Winds. There really wasn't much price difference involved upgrading from VI SE Winds to Synchron-ized vs upgrading to Woodwinds I. Also, I have a really strong dislike of the UI of the Vienna Instruments player - I hate the matrices. The Synchron player seems a lot more logical to me, as someone who is only an occasional user of VSL products, and mostly use Kontakt or Play libraries. I really don't care about the "Synchron Hall" - it is basically just a bundled IR, and the default sound is much too wet for my tastes.


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## composingkeys (Oct 16, 2020)

There are some handy mixer presets in the Synchron Player to quickly change up how distant the instrument is.


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## CT (Oct 16, 2020)

mducharme said:


> I didn't own the full Woodwinds I, only the SE Winds. I was looking at upgrading to Woodwinds I full if it fixed the crossfades (and more dynamic layers was nice too), but others told me it didn't, so I never bothered. As a result, for me, it was more of a no-brainer to buy the Synchron-ized Winds. There really wasn't much price difference involved upgrading from VI SE Winds to Synchron-ized vs upgrading to Woodwinds I. Also, I have a really strong dislike of the UI of the Vienna Instruments player - I hate the matrices. The Synchron player seems a lot more logical to me, as someone who is only an occasional user of VSL products, and mostly use Kontakt or Play libraries. I really don't care about the "Synchron Hall" - it is basically just a bundled IR, and the default sound is much too wet for my tastes.



Would you say the crossfades in the Synchonized version are, in fact, improved over the originals?


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## mducharme (Oct 16, 2020)

Mike T said:


> Would you say the crossfades in the Synchonized version are, in fact, improved over the originals?



Oh yes, it is a night and day difference. I don't have to use CC11 anymore to work around sudden jumps in dynamic when going from, say CC1 value 63 to 64 on the modwheel. I can use the modwheel alone.


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## CT (Oct 16, 2020)

mducharme said:


> Oh yes, it is a night and day difference. I don't have to use CC11 anymore to work around sudden jumps in dynamic when going from, say CC1 value 63 to 64 on the modwheel. I can use the modwheel alone.



Thanks. That's encouraging to hear.


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## mducharme (Oct 16, 2020)

Mike T said:


> Thanks. That's encouraging to hear.



The only downside I would say - with the new Synchronized Winds, when I am at CC1 1 vs CC1 127, the difference in amplitude is a bit too small from CC1 1 to CC1 127 - the timbre changes but the amplitude is only a bit louder. I have to duplicate my shaping with CC11 in order to really get the instrument to behave like it normally would. However, at least it is less work (and easier to automate) than handling the crossfades. I might even be able to automate it in the Synchron player. Either way, I would take that any day over having those sudden jumps in amplitude in the VI version.


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## CT (Oct 16, 2020)

mducharme said:


> The only downside I would say - with the new Synchronized Winds, when I am at CC1 1 vs CC1 127, the difference in amplitude is a bit too small from CC1 1 to CC1 127 - the timbre changes but the amplitude is only a bit louder. I have to duplicate my shaping with CC11 in order to really get the instrument to behave like it normally would. However, at least it is less work (and easier to automate) than handling the crossfades. I might even be able to automate it in the Synchron player. Either way, I would take that any day over having those sudden jumps in amplitude in the VI version.



I find with most libraries that the dynamic range in terms of amplitude alone is not as wide as I'd like, so in most cases I have been using a Logic script (thanks to Noam L) to translate my CC1 information into a simultaneous limited range of CC11, so it doesn't drop all the way down to silence, but does add some more amplitude variation.


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## Nemoy (Oct 16, 2020)

Would love to hear some quick sketch demos if anyone has both the Berlin woodwinds and the VSL VI woodwinds/Synchronizd woodwinds that demonstrates the tone, legato, dynamics, and playability of the various instruments.


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## Ben (Oct 17, 2020)

mducharme said:


> I might even be able to automate it in the Synchron player.



If you want the Expression slider to move exactly like the VelXF slider you can simply set it to the same CC 






And you can also fine-tune how the faders react to CC changes seperately


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## Piano Pete (Oct 17, 2020)

After watching the Hagrid walkthrough by Erik, I'm surprised that I have not heard more about Synchronized Woodwinds, and I have never been captivated by the sound of the original VSL libraries.

Definitely interested in seeing a side-by-side of OT and Synchronized Winds, if someone has the time. 

I think most people in this forum can agree, the goal is to be able to write nimble passages without them sounding like a synth.


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## Ben (Oct 17, 2020)

Here a link to the video mentioned by @Piano Pete (I've posted it in the current SY-ized Woodwinds + VI sales thread):


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## axb312 (Oct 17, 2020)

Ben said:


> Here a link to the video mentioned by @Piano Pete (I've posted it in the current SY-ized Woodwinds + VI sales thread):



Does VSL still need a dongle?


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## Zanshin (Oct 17, 2020)

axb312 said:


> Does VSL still need a dongle?


Yes, same dongle required by Cubase for example.


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## Nando Florestan (Oct 17, 2020)

Supremo said:


> Is it just me, or does it feel like legato transitions are a bit too exposed in CineWinds?



You can say that again. Further, there's a knob to turn them down, but it doesn't go anywhere deep enough. Well it does for the oboe but certainly not for the clarinet. Refurther, *release samples are often louder than the note* they are releasing. Profurther, in an update they actually removed a knob that could duck the legato release samples. So on one hand you got beeeeautiful recording and mixing, on the other hand, some bad programming and design decisions from *CineSamples*.

Why don't I tell you my long history with woodwind sample libraries. I will start with the worst in my point of view and make my way to the best. This will condense in a few paragraphs years and years of searching.

I am a composer who likes to compose sounds instead of being composed by them. Therefore, I dislike the *8dio* approach. Their demos sound absolutely beautiful, but the lack of programming makes them extremely superficial -- you cannot give them a different expression. They will take your money but give you no leeway to actually compose. In fact, the pitch range is usually extremely short, but nobody talks about this!

*Chris Hein* -- I got excited by the features, bought the winds, used them for months, and dropped every one of them as soon as I acquired CineWinds, because let's be honest, the sound is not the greatest, and the GUI design is sketchy at best. I am not talking about beauty, I am talking about usability. Further, the clarinet has a glitch on the note C5 that I remember even today, I hate it so much.

However, part of the problem was my lack of mixing skills back then. Today I tried the Chris Hein oboe again after years without opening it, and I realize it can sound better than many if treated right. For instance, it's certainly better than the 8dioboe. Not sure about the flutes and the clarinet, will have to try them again also.

I never bought any *Spitfire* winds, afraid that I was of their unequal programming, their allergy to sampling the fortissimo, and their lack of profundity in dimensions (e. g. you get legato but not if it's flautando or sul tasto or sul ponticello or con sordino), and their tendency to solve every problem except the ones I have. Again, beautiful demos, different reality when you are behind the wheel.

Both Spitfire and Chris Hein will do this to you: give you a note that is out of tune or glitchy, zero alternative notes, never fix the problem, and say it is not a bug, it's a feature, because it makes the thing more human...

A friend let me test *Berlin Woodwinds*. I was really enjoying them, but heard 2 instruments while crossfading, so I gave it up. I wonder if this has been sorted out -- please let me know.

I saw Cory Pelizzari's video about the old *Westgate* woodwinds. He links to patches developed by someone in the community which update the old programming with legato etc. so I bought the flute and bassoon. I was using these together with CineWinds until the final event I am going to talk about soon. The staccato samples are way too loud in proportion to the sustains and legatos, but one can fix that.

I tried a Reaktor modeled clarinet (forget its name now) that sounds very good but wastes too much CPU -- you need an entire core for it, so I was forced to drop it. The issue is with Reaktor itself, really. It can do a lot, but not quickly.

The *Herring* clarinet sounds beautiful, but maybe unequal in volume across the pitch range, which may or may not annoy you. I think it's certainly workable and a great alternative for people looking for an extra clarinet.

I am one of those people who think VSL tends to sound very synthy, very MIDI-like, even in their own demos, however I understand the woodwinds should probably be an exception to that rule, and very complete, and sounding very good. But I don't like their copy protection, I have managed to stay without a dongle up to now, so I passed.

I bought *CineWinds* and they became my workhorse. However, I was always aware of the programming that insists on very loud legato and loud release samples. By the way, the 8dio oboe also suffers from _legatitis_ -- the inflammation of legato samples --, which sounds nothing like the real thing, as if every new pitch had to scream OK, ME NOW!

I am actually preparing a video about the extent to which one can fix the CineWinds troubles, while support slowly sends me non-solutions in the ticket I opened about it. Long story short, one can probably duck all the loud releases, but the legato issue can only be mitigated a little, because if you duck a legato sample by any significant amount, well it's a long sample (it lasts for something like a second) which crossfades into the actual note, so you could hurt this crossfade. Any real solution would require actual programming and I know CineSamples is not good at that, otherwise they wouldn't have a string library that consumes an entire core to play a single voice and is incapable of a firm attack in its legato patch.

Recently I bought *Auddict Master Woodwinds* based on their demos without reading forums -- please never do what I did. I expected beautiful samples, but I am disappointed. For instance, the low octave of the oboe sounds rough, like an accordeon. It gives you 2 legato alternatives. The legato one sounds like molto vibratissimo, I consider it unusable. The non-legato one can be animated with fake vibrato but this was not very well programmed. The clarinet seems to have a bit of a bump in the body of the sound when you go up from ppp. All the close mics have questionable sound.

Finally, something wonderful has happened: *Aaron Venture's Infinite Woodwinds 2.0* has been released this month. It's a free upgrade to every owner, but it's all new samples! It fixes all the worst problems the library used to have. It beats all the other libraries in playability, in consistency, in playing fast, in CPU usage, in memory consumption, in programming, in the number of instruments included, in lack of bugs and leaks, and in ease of use out of the box. As a result, right now I am dropping the CineWinds piccolo, clarinets and bassoons, don't need them anymore because the Infinite ones sound very good and are much more flexible in what they can do. I am probably keeping CineWinds oboe and english horn as secondary alternatives when I want a specific sound. I can try them out when I have the time -- but Infinite virtual instruments are now good enough sonically and better in every other aspect than all of the competition. The only real competition would be *Sample Modeling*, which hasn't made any woodwinds.

For instance, the CineWinds oboe has an appropriately realistic honking sound in its bottom notes, which (I feel) are too civilized in Infinite. The CineWinds english horn has a beautiful lyrical sonority that the Infinite one still does not match. At the same time, I will never be able to un-hear the excessive legato in CineWinds, so it's always a tradeoff.

I will update this post about the other instruments as I discover what they are like, but today I would advise anyone to start with Infinite Winds and then complement them with what's out there as needed. Did I mention there's no copy protection, no DRM, and there's a promise of eternal free upgrades? Take a look at the Infinite topics, you'll see a lot of enthusiastic and satisfied users. Occasionally, someone interested in buying but doubting the sonority, which has been fair until this release, but you know what, the sonority is not the only concern you have as a composer. Ordinary people already couldn't tell the difference between a fake and a real orchestra 15 years ago. The only people worried about that are us, composers. Expression is more important than the sound.

Adding expression doesn't have to be difficult. Because vibrato amount is often related to dynamics in musical practice, one can bind vibrato intensity and vibrato speed to a fraction of the dynamics controller. This way you can move only one controller and have vibrato automatically animated. I enjoy the Infinite oboes and english horn when I do this.

"You don't like how your runs sound? Here, pay for these pre-recorded runs", they used to say. That era is over! What do you mean, pre-recorded runs. I am the composer here -- me! You do as I tell you!

Times have changed -- all developers will need to improve their *programming*. This is probably why they abandon Kontakt when they can: the Kontakt scripting language is woefully inadequate for the development of these complex scripts. I wonder how someone like Sample Modeling has the balls to develop such complex programs using such a feeble tool, and actually sell the product thinking it just might work for everyone...

EDIT: Since I wrote the above, I have found that the AudDict MSW flute is one of the best. Still dislike the other woods. Also bought Cinematic Studio Woodwinds -- the Cor Anglais is the best one I have, the others don't capture the real timbre of the instrument, this one does -- but I do make an effort to stay out of the crossfading regions which are very audible.


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## mducharme (Oct 17, 2020)

Ben said:


> If you want the Expression slider to move exactly like the VelXF slider you can simply set it to the same CC



Thanks! That's a nice way of handling it. I'll have to enable that in my template.


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## ALittleNightMusic (Nov 2, 2020)

Anybody know why OT stopped selling the Revive crossgrade? They say they will offer it again at some point in the future - quite a strange / silly thing to do it would seem. Unless they are going to release the SINE version soon.


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## doctoremmet (Nov 24, 2020)

Just dropping this here:


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## Land of Missing Parts (Nov 24, 2020)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Anybody know why OT stopped selling the Revive crossgrade? They say they will offer it again at some point in the future - quite a strange / silly thing to do it would seem. Unless they are going to release the SINE version soon.


Maybe drop a message to OT Tobias.


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## Minsky (Nov 24, 2020)

José Herring said:


> edit: Sorry for typos. I'm in hurry and had a lot to say.
> 
> Man, I don't have too many woodwind libraries so I'll preface everything with that.
> 
> ...



Sorry if it's obvious... what's 'SSt Woodwinds?'


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## José Herring (Nov 24, 2020)

Minsky said:


> Sorry if it's obvious... what's 'SSt Woodwinds?'











Spitfire Audio — Spitfire Studio Woodwinds


Spitfire Studio Woodwinds offers a wide range of instruments from the section – from the guttural depths of the bassoon to the gleaming sounds of the piccolo



www.spitfireaudio.com


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## doctoremmet (Nov 24, 2020)

Minsky said:


> Sorry if it's obvious... what's 'SSt Woodwinds?'


Spitfire Studio Woodwinds


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Nov 24, 2020)

I really like Aaron Venture Infinite Woodwinds... and it is on v2.0 now


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## Minsky (Nov 24, 2020)

José Herring said:


> Spitfire Audio — Spitfire Studio Woodwinds
> 
> 
> Spitfire Studio Woodwinds offers a wide range of instruments from the section – from the guttural depths of the bassoon to the gleaming sounds of the piccolo
> ...


Thanks Jose, Btw ..I'm grabbing the Herring Cl. It sounds amazing! Stumbled over it last week.


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## Minsky (Nov 24, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Spitfire Studio Woodwinds


Thank you sir!


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## Geomir (Nov 24, 2020)

Here is a very nice video comparing woodwinds libraries (it's mainly Berlin Woodwinds vs Cinewinds).




Berlin is the winner in this video. Both libraries sound wonderful. Value for money I would choose Cinewinds. The Flute, the 2 Oboes and the Bass Clarinet (among others) sound so beautiful and expressive. I really love the tone and the room.


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## Minsky (Nov 24, 2020)

Ben said:


> Here a link to the video mentioned by @Piano Pete (I've posted it in the current SY-ized Woodwinds + VI sales thread):




Okaaayyyy. It was this or BWW. ... I'm sold, it's this.


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## doctoremmet (Nov 24, 2020)

Minsky said:


> Thank you sir!


Thank @d.healey - oh wait, I thought you were happy with the Sofia Winds sale hehe. My mistake.


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## Minsky (Nov 24, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Thank @d.healey - oh wait, I thought you were happy with the Sofia Winds sale hehe. My mistake.


Actually I did pop over there to check it out. Sounds pretty good.


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## jbmaxwell (Dec 26, 2020)

I have the old VSL DVD Woodwinds I and II (standard) edition. It sounds like the Synchronized versions fix the super irritating velocity "bumps", but does anybody know whether they've sorted out the extremely short sustains on some of the legato transitions? I can't remember offhand which instruments/notes were particularly problematic, but I remember many frustrating times finding that certain notes only held for a second or two after a legato transition—it didn't happen a lot, but once is already too often, imho. Bizarre behaviour for such an expensive library. I've neglected it for quite a while, just to avoid the frustration.

Also, on the website Infinite Woodwinds doesn't list solo versions of the standard instruments—flute, Bb clarinet, oboe, bassoon—which all appear to be 3 players only... that seems very bizarre, to me, so maybe it's just a weird oversight on the web page? (The walkthrough video seems to be demonstrating solos, but I'd want to be sure before jumping on, obviously.)


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## Fox (Dec 26, 2020)

jbmaxwell said:


> Also, on the website Infinite Woodwinds doesn't list solo versions of the standard instruments—flute, Bb clarinet, oboe, bassoon—which all appear to be 3 players only... that seems very bizarre, to me, so maybe it's just a weird oversight on the web page? (The walkthrough video seems to be demonstrating solos, but I'd want to be sure before jumping on, obviously.)


All of the infinite instruments are solo instruments. Ensembles are built from those.


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## Ben (Dec 26, 2020)

jbmaxwell said:


> I can't remember offhand which instruments/notes were particularly problematic, but I remember many frustrating times finding that certain notes only held for a second or two after a legato transition


Some of the woodwinds have unlooped and looped legatos (looped -> leg-sus)


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## jbmaxwell (Dec 26, 2020)

Fox said:


> All of the infinite instruments are solo instruments. Ensembles are built from those.


Excellent, thanks! I just checked out the demos, which obviously use single, solo versions of the standard winds. The "Instrument List" is a little confusing, when you're used to seeing sample libraries listing, for example, "3 Flutes" and really meaning they've sampled 3 flutes played unison. So thanks for clearing that up.

I'm a bit baffled by how they've managed this so efficiently... Kind of amazing. Very curious to hear the Infinite Strings when they arrive.


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## jbmaxwell (Dec 26, 2020)

Ben said:


> Some of the woodwinds have unlooped and looped legatos (looped -> leg-sus)


Okay, great, thanks. I am curious about upgrading to the Synchronized winds... will look into it further.


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## VSriHarsha (Dec 26, 2020)

I am thinking of buying some woodwinds under $70 but in Jan. I don’t know if it’s possible to get few.


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## doctoremmet (Dec 27, 2020)

VSriHarsha said:


> I am thinking of buying some woodwinds under $70 but in Jan. I don’t know if it’s possible to get few.


Embertone Popelka Bassoon is a nice one. Maybe get that? 8dio Intimate Woodwinds is $98 right now, but it doesn’t have a bassoon.


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## VSriHarsha (Dec 27, 2020)

Yea I checked Embertone’s Bassoon. The ISWW yea I checked the walkthru by Troels. I am not quite sure but he mentioned that it has just one patch & it’s possible to disable or mute the instruments. It just seems like it takes a very high RAM foot print coz it’s all in one patch. May be if anyone used it, most welcome to share your experience.

Other than that, yea, I don’t think I have any qualms with 8Dio but am also checking other devs. On the other hand, it surely IS tempting to check the woodwinds from the Inspires but these instruments have just one mic positions which is pretty limited to me so yea, I’ll see.


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## Tremendouz (Dec 27, 2020)

VSriHarsha said:


> It just seems like it takes a very high RAM foot print coz it’s all in one patch


If you can disable the other instruments it'll probably purge the samples. If not, kontakt has excellent purging options so even if you have a 2GB RAM patch with all the articulations included, if you only use legatos you can probably reduce the RAM usage by more than 90%.

For example I needed CSS for just a simple legato line. After purge the patch went from 0.6GB to less than 100MB


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## IdealSequenceG (Jan 22, 2021)

Fluffy Audio - Stefania Maratti Solo Flute


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## IdealSequenceG (Jan 23, 2021)

One more.


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