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Broadway Big Band update soon?

Hey Brendon! I have the full version of BBB but I bought it more like a collector's thing (I'm weird like that) as I continually keep using Warp IV, Chris Hein, Sample Modeling for my stuff. But with BBB, it was touted as the best of the "all in one" package and that's just it, I've never heard or seen anything of BBB where the mock-up was all or mostly, BBB. Now don't get me wrong, this is not a criticism. I love BBB, (sheepishly) just never used it. I mean if you go to Chris' site or Warp IV, there's a ton of demos that I feel is a great way to get familiar with what the library can do. With BBB, there's just a smattering of demos. And I just don't get it. With that kind of price tag, I thought it was like the best for big band like Miraslov, at the time or maybe still is, was for strings and everybody wishing they had it. I did however always thought it was a marketing flaw, for Yuval, at the time to not offer various packages like just the brass or just the saxes, whatever. But you know what I'm saying? With so few demos, even from Yuval, I get the sense even he doesn't like to use BBB! Just being silly there. The demos or other people's work inspire me and/or give me incentive to do even better than I am (I fault a competitive music streak). And I'm not losing sleep over this or the upgrade, BBB, and why we paid so much money for it is a mystery to me. Well, let me walk some of this back. I remembered very briefly trying out the trumpet with a WX5 controller and I was like Wow! And I thought, BBB must be good, but then why doesn't anybody use it? Maybe they're too busy making money? - Rich
 
Hi Rich,

Most of the official demos, as well as most of the user demos of Broadway Big Band on the Fable Sounds website are indeed either exclusively made with Broadway Big Band, or almost exclusively using Broadway Big Band (there are details regarding each demo and its instrumentation).

Most of the users we are aware of, who are using Broadway Big Band on a daily basis, are doing so in high-profile projects, which they can't share online, since the rights for the master belong to the client (usually a TV network or a major movie studio), which is why so few of those tracks surface online as demos.

Regardless, you already have the product, why not give it a try? Most of our users who have both Broadway and the other products you mentioned, told us they pretty much stopped using the other products once the started using Broadway, even if their initial intention was to mix and match, because of the significant gaps in quality. I am not making my own judgement here, but rather conveying what I was told my a multitude of users.

To answer your "who's using it?" question:

Broadway Big Band and Broadway Lites users have have been and/or are using it on many many projects including:

TV (very partial list):
The CONAN show
Saturday Night Live
Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!
Ape Escape

Movies (very partial list):
Despicable Me 2
The Smurfs 2
It's Complicated
Unbeatable Harold
High-School Musical 3

Live concerts and tours (very partial list):
Alicia Keys
The Commodores
Barry Manilow
Bobby Kimball
Dr. Lonnie Smith
Paul McCartney
Paul Simon

Musical theater and other theatrical shows (very partial list):
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Broadway national tour)
Fiddler On The Roof (award winning Israeli production)
Cirque Du Soleil (France)

And these are just a few of the ones that I'm personally aware of.

I hope this answers your question....

Best,

Yuval Shrem
Fable Sounds


P.S.

Expect official announcements about 2.0 in the next 24 hours...
 
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Hi Yuval,

Alright! There's the man! Good to see you here. You wrote:

"Regardless, you already have the product, why not give it a try?"

That's a good question. The answer is simple and somewhat embarrassing, just not enough time. I'm not organized like I would like to be. Plus I'm just now getting more proficient at mixing than I was previously. In a way it's a blessing I didn't experiment with BBB before just cause my mixes wouldn't have sounded very good and I would have blamed the library. I used to think I couldn't get a better sound than I got out of the midi.

But through it all I'm better suited now to experiment with libraries than I was before. I'll be getting the update or experimenting with BBB shortly as I'm closing in on getting caught up.


Rich
 
Make it beyond fabulous, retail it for under a grand and all sins of late deliverance will be forgiven. (Well, at least by me, a potential but not present client. :) )

Make it $2500 again, good luck with the launch!
 
Fable Sounds said:
You're in luck!

Check THIS out!
Click to expand...
Well, I agree that it's a ton better than $2500-just not quite under 1k. You've had BBB on sale for $1k at least once in the past, I believe.

The fabulous new and improved BBB is a bit of a joker, and the time frame- honestly, because of past history I have to put it in the TBD category. Still, I agree, a step in the right direction.
 
Fable Sounds said:
Regardless, you already have the product, why not give it a try? Most of our users who have both Broadway and the other products you mentioned, told us they pretty much stopped using the other products once the started using Broadway, even if their initial intention was to mix and match, because of the significant gaps in quality.
Click to expand...


I am using BBB Lites on every jazz/big band project i get. Its a great library overall but the xfades between layers when using CC are just not good enough. That makes it very very hard to use as a main brass library, cause you know..its all about the swells. You can use the swell aritculations but they are locked in time so they almost never never fit in.

For this reason, i mainly use other brass libraries (Samplemodelling or even Session horns Pro) and use BBB to complement the other.


I do wish the new update inlcudes better xfade between dynamic layers. I think just that would make the library stand out against competitors. Go Fable!
 
I could be interested, but I don't like rushed decisions for buying something in that price range ... Maybe you could give a somewhat larger timeframe for the discount and make some walkthroughs with v2 before the offer ends, Yuval? I find the current sale price rather ok for the content provided, but as for its usual sale price I have to admit it seems a little bit against the trend how libraries are priced these days.
 
Even through we did so a few times in the past, this time we are not going to extend the time-frame of this 48-hours special, so if you are interested in this special price you may need to make a decision rather quickly. That said, I am finalizing a walk-through video of the 2.0 main new features, and will try to release it before the end of this offer, so you hopefully this should help you make your purchasing decision.

We are well aware of the pricing trends of the market, and are pricing our upcoming products accordingly, however, this product was priced a while ago, and has not really lost any of its value since. Frankly, it hasn't slowed down in sales either. It is a product that is a true long-term investment. Many of the newer lower-priced products that have been coming out lately, are unfortunately also a part of a trend of products that haven't been developed as deeply and carefully, and end up having much shorter shelf-lives. Broadway Big Band is a work-horse that you will keep coming back to for many years to come, sometimes not even just for its wind instruments, but for its rhythm section instruments. There's a wealth of content in this library that is hard to fully realize until you really start to dig in, and I'm confident that if you make music for a living, it will be an investment that pays for itself rather quickly.

Best,

Yuval Shrem
Fable Sounds
 
It's silly to argue pricing, as each product manufacturer decides their own and if it works for you, I'm pleased. Speaking only for myself, I've always admired your product but found it a bit richly priced. Like FriFlo, I don't like nailbiting pressurized sales, but again, your marketing is up to you. I don't know if I could call my participation in the music game "a living" these days, but my big band vocalist songs and smaller horn quartets and quintets have been and are presently on television quite a bit using some "lower priced products" so I guess it's possible.

Maybe your walkthrough will make me lose the will to resist! :)
 
I only have BBB Lite, but I'm loving the sound and the concept (KS is komplex, but I found it surprisingly fast to learn, and the possibilities are nearly endless...).
What I do not like:
- not enough velocity layers/no top notch x-fade programming (Trombone for ex.: amazing sound, but the velocity programming is killing me)
- the pricing strategy is like Apple's: 10% more value for 100% higher price...
- the gap between Lite and Full. There should be 1-2 medium sized products with all winds/brass, nothing else. Upgrade from Lite <<500$
 
HardyP said:
I only have BBB Lite, but I'm loving the sound and the concept (KS is komplex, but I found it surprisingly fast to learn, and the possibilities are nearly endless...).
What I do not like:
- not enough velocity layers/no top notch x-fade programming (Trombone for ex.: amazing sound, but the velocity programming is killing me)
- the pricing strategy is like Apple's: 10% more value for 100% higher price...
- the gap between Lite and Full. There should be 1-2 medium sized products with all winds/brass, nothing else. Upgrade from Lite <<500$
Click to expand...


Hi Hardy,

I'd like to respond to some of your observations:

The velocity of the trombone is "killing you" because the dynamic range of a trombone is far wider than that of a midi keyboard. This is addressed in the user manual, where we recommend either using the mod-wheel only mode, where dynamics can be safely controlled by the modulation wheel (or any other midi controller you choose), or using midi compressor in your DAW on the trombone track. That is definitely NOT due to lack of dynamic layers, but rather the inclusion of the naturally very wide dynamic range of the sampled instrument.

As a user of Broadway Lites only, I'm not sure you're in a perfect position to make a fair judgement call about the differences between Broadway Big Band and Broadway Lites. Broadway Lites offers 15GB of audio content in 8 legato instruments. Broadway Big Band offers 100GB of audio content (that's 8 times more content for less than 5 times the price) and includes many more instruments and much more sonic flexibility, which makes a very big difference in music production. Broadway Lites is very capable, but the price difference does accurately reflect the difference in value. To claim that it's a 10% improvement is not an observation based on reality. Frankly, I'm not sure what that observation is based on, but it simply isn't true.

There are not going to be products in the Broadway series, positioned between Broadway Big Band and Broadway Lites. This is just not going to happen. There is however, one more product in the series, which is specifically aimed at live-show keyboardists on a budget. That upcoming product will offer less content for a lower price, and is very task-specific. More on that in the near future...

For now, if you'd like to expand Broadway Lites, and get more articulations, more instruments and more sonic flexibility, as well as early access to the 2.0 public beta, you have 24 hours to get it for 48% discount.

Cheers,

Yuval Shrem
Fable Sounds
 
Yuval,

Thanks for all the detailed answers you are giving on this thread. I think you are making some pretty valid points.


You havent mentioned anything about the xfade issues though. You suggest using modwheel only in the trombone but if you ever tried this, you'd agree with me that is not usable at all. Layers come in and out in a strange fashion, not natural. Its definitely not a phase issue here and there, but something bigger.

You have the layers so its just about fine tunning the crossfades, putting a bit of time into this, not KSP programming involved...i honestly dont think its that hard to fix (i think i'd have done it myself if i had the wrench button available in kontakt).

So, letme ask you straight: Is there a plan for improving the xfades in this update?

Thanks a lot
 
vicontrolu said:
Yuval,

Thanks for all the detailed answers you are giving on this thread. I think you are making some pretty valid points.


You havent mentioned anything about the xfade issues though. You suggest using modwheel only in the trombone but if you ever tried this, you'd agree with me that is not usable at all. Layers come in and out in a strange fashion, not natural. Its definitely not a phase issue here and there, but something bigger.

You have the layers so its just about fine tunning the crossfades, putting a bit of time into this, not KSP programming involved...i honestly dont think its that hard to fix (i think i'd have done it myself if i had the wrench button available in kontakt).

So, letme ask you straight: Is there a plan for improving the xfades in this update?

Thanks a lot
Click to expand...

I would not at all agree with you when you say that "it is not usable at all". Frankly, it sounds to me a lot like you are using it incorrectly. To switch to mod-wheel only, you need to either click the "Midi CC only" button, or use the key switch on A-1. If you try to use the mod-wheel for dynamics otherwise, you'll get a lot of out-of-control cross-fades. Personally, I play the parts in normally and edit the velocity later in the DAW. If I want to more easily play in a specific portion of the range throughout an entire part, I engage a Midi compressor as a midi plug-in, which makes it easy to play using the keyboard velocity in a more controlled manner. In the rare occasion I use the "Midi CC only" mode, I can control the dynamics with precision without worrying about hitting the right dynamics through the keyboard velocity or needing to edit it later or using it in a DAW.

As for crescendo and diminuendo cross-fades, some of them are better than other, and many of them are being improved with the 2.0 update. That said, as a heavy user of Broadway Big Band myself, I can tell you I rarely need to use those. I always try to use the pre-recorded crescendos when possible, and other various articulations for diminuendo purposes, before I even touch the modulation wheel. In Broadway Big Band there are often better ways to achieve the effect without resorting to cross-fade manipulation, through pre-recorded articulations that convey the changes in dynamics, which are much more realistic and musically expressive.

It is a really good idea to read the manual for details.

Best,

Yuval Shrem
 
I have been using the library since it came out and the first thing i did was reading the manual, specially with those multikey press keyswitches. But thanks for the suggestion anyway.

I agree with you that its always best to find a pre recorded articulation whenever its possible but decent CC xfades are needed and not there currently imho. I think i remember trombones were the least good, but i might be wrong.

I'll add a simple example when i am in front of the computer.

Thanks for the quick aswer!
 
vicontrolu said:
I have been using the library since it came out and the first thing i did was reading the manual, specially with those multikey press keyswitches. But thanks for the suggestion anyway.

I agree with you that its always best to find a pre recorded articulation whenever its possible but decent CC xfades are needed and not there currently imho. I think i remember trombones were the least good, but i might be wrong.

I'll add a simple example when i am in front of the computer.

Thanks for the quick aswer!
Click to expand...


Hi, Thank you for being an early adapter of our product!
The Midi-CC only mode is a function we've added in Kontakt Edition, so reading the manual of the original HALion powered release wouldn't have covered it. Regardless, we know that the cross-fades aren't perfect in some cases, and we have made and are making improvements on that front as part of the upcoming 2.0 update.
 
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