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Auddict "Master Brass" - review and MAJOR discount - NOW INCLUDES UPDATE

reutunes

reutunes

Senior Member
A quick heads up for VI Controllers - Auddict's "Master Brass" is currently 75% off at VST Buzz - now just €89.99.

28GB of trumpets, trombones, french horns and tubas - with 7 mic positions and multiple legato articulations. It's perfect for epic scoring and a big-room sound.

Grab it here: https://bit.ly/2aNz2dU

I was lucky enough to be asked to present the walkthrough video for it - so since I had a copy I thought I'd do a short review too (even though The Samplecast is meant to be on holidays). Check it out:

Click to read more...
 
I am puzzled with regards to pricing and then some...

You advertise it at a regular value of 359.99 Euro, now bring it to market for 89.99 Euro, apparently including VAT. Is that right?

Do you really, I mean really really... expect to find a single customer who is willing to pay 3x the introduction price afterwards?

Another question on my mind is this statement:
Requires the FULL VERSION of Kontakt 4, or above (it will also run in Kontakt 5 perfectly)
Click to expand...

So I wonder, how old is this library? One can reasonably assume this was scripted for Kontakt 4.
 
G.R. Baumann said:
I am puzzled with regards to pricing and then some...

You advertise it at a regular value of 359.99 Euro, now bring it to market for 89.99 Euro, apparently including VAT. Is that right?

Do you really, I mean really really... expect to find a single customer who is willing to pay 3x the introduction price afterwards?

Another question on my mind is this statement:

So I wonder, how old is this library? One can reasonably assume this was scripted for Kontakt 4.
Click to expand...

Yes, incl. so far I understand.
Some companies don´t do discounts because they are not willing to displease loyal customers, like orchestral tools did and still does which I find good. In such case here the library is new from May this year, and it is a good sounding library to my ears. Still I don´t know why they do that extreme nobrainer discount as I don´t believe that this helps to break even production costs on their side. I guess their sales weren´t good because the market is already saturated I guess?
 
G.R. Baumann said:
I am puzzled with regards to pricing and then some...

You advertise it at a regular value of 359.99 Euro, now bring it to market for 89.99 Euro, apparently including VAT. Is that right?

Do you really, I mean really really... expect to find a single customer who is willing to pay 3x the introduction price afterwards?

Another question on my mind is this statement:

So I wonder, how old is this library? One can reasonably assume this was scripted for Kontakt 4.
Click to expand...

I don't think this is a product release, nor an introductory price. It's a deep flash discount offer, that VSTBuzz has regularly for various products.

The libraries aren't that old. They were all released after February 2016.
 
Personally I think it's pretty great that it's scripted for Kontakt 4 - even though it's a new library. It opens up the availability of Master Brass for those that are running on older systems and don't want to upgrade. Up until last year I was still on Snow Leopard and perfectly happy :)
 
Hey everyone

Just thought I'd answer a few questions regarding Auddict's sale that have popped up here :)

We got in touch with VSTBuzz fairly early on, and wanted to work with them, but being a new company, obviously had no "older" products to offer.

Thankfully, since our inception, people's response and interest in our products has been phenomenal and Auddict is healthier than ever, so we decided the least we can do is offer our current flagship library!

We have some even more mind boggling libraries in the works...
 
G.R. Baumann said:
So I wonder, how old is this library? One can reasonably assume this was scripted for Kontakt 4.
Click to expand...
I always script libraries to run in Kontakt 4 unless there are some specific features that are only available in K5 that the library requires. This provides the developer with a wider audience as not all customers are using the latest versions of Kontakt - some people still use K3!
 
Gentlemen,

thanks for the clarification! Ok, so it's a spanking new product.

What I heard, at a glance, was convincing enough to make me wonder about the 89,-.

Interesting thoughts about K3 and K4. I would have taken any bet that most developers don't care anymore for K4, let alone K3 compatibility on a new release.

Alexander - Yeah, I think the same, market has reached a certain saturation.

Auddict - I read the about section on your website. I understand you are somewhat new to the game, right? Perhaps consider that it is good practise to put a face to the business. There is nothing wrong with being a one man band, or a very small company. However, it might make sense to write a little more about the who is who and most of all, have your terms and conditions ready before you sell any product. Prospective clients need to know whether they are allowed to sell this library on if it is not needed anymore, etc.

Makes much more sense than:

....instruments that are designed to aid you in writing passages of music, which, before our libraries, you wouldn't have been able to convincingly create and mock up...
Click to expand...

Just a thought..... and hey, best of Luck with the current and coming releases!
 
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It's a great offer for sure, and a convincing sound as has been stated. Couldn't resist and went for it.

Annnd... I already emailed Auddict support regarding one issue. I'll outline the same stuff over here in case potential buyers are interested (or if someone can help me out on this). Indeed the sound is good, and the long articulations are very usable. However, the staccato timings sound like there's a hidden "random humanize" parameter somewhere that I just can't deactivate.

Here's a (decidely robotic, 100% straight) midi passage rendered in Albion ONE for comparison:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0y13h3wt6vyvilw/albion_comparison_stacc_straight_midi.mp3?dl=0

And here's what it sounds like with the Octohorn staccatos:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4u5zy9ku9co96fk/octohorn_stacc_straight_midi.mp3?dl=0

It's like a random swing has been applied all over the place.

Here's the same one octave lower:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/74g9s7pbzdqeh3o/albion_comparison_stacc_low_straight_midi.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1a5dzew4zjeqrow/octohorn_stacc_low_straight_midi.mp3?dl=0

It's not like I'm interested in doing straight-on-the-grid robotic timings on this thing :), but with the timings fluctuating that much for short artics, I find it quite unusable for precision work in that area, timing-wise. This isn't a computer issue, disk overload or similar. The timings are off in this manner even when using one single mic position. Also, all other libraries work without a hitch.
 
@Nokatus: Thanks very much for the audio examples. While I like the sound of Octohorns, this sounds very problematic. I would not want this in my tracks and having to manually correct the timing wouldn´t be good either. Any infos why this happens?
 
Nokatus said:
It's a great offer for sure, and a convincing sound as has been stated. Couldn't resist and went for it.

Annnd... I already emailed Auddict support regarding one issue. I'll outline the same stuff over here in case potential buyers are interested (or if someone can help me out on this). Indeed the sound is good, and the long articulations are very usable. However, the staccato timings sound like there's a hidden "random humanize" parameter somewhere that I just can't deactivate.

Here's a (decidely robotic, 100% straight) midi passage rendered in Albion ONE for comparison:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0y13h3wt6vyvilw/albion_comparison_stacc_straight_midi.mp3?dl=0

And here's what it sounds like with the Octohorn staccatos:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4u5zy9ku9co96fk/octohorn_stacc_straight_midi.mp3?dl=0

It's like a random swing has been applied all over the place.

Here's the same one octave lower:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/74g9s7pbzdqeh3o/albion_comparison_stacc_low_straight_midi.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1a5dzew4zjeqrow/octohorn_stacc_low_straight_midi.mp3?dl=0

It's not like I'm interested in doing straight-on-the-grid robotic timings on this thing :), but with the timings fluctuating that much for short artics, I find it quite unusable for precision work in that area, timing-wise. This isn't a computer issue, disk overload or similar. The timings are off in this manner even when using one single mic position. Also, all other libraries work without a hitch.
Click to expand...
I've seen this sort of thing before - it's part of the reason I don't use the spiccatos from Spitfire's Mural Strings. They're pretty badly timed and I get that swinging thing I've seen developers patch stuff up like this in the past though if I remember right so I reckon it's something they can fix.
 
Grizzlymv said:
Have you contacted them from their support email ([email protected]) about this? Seems to be a pretty bad problem.. bought it last night and haven't tried it yet but has me concerned.
Click to expand...

Yep, like I mentioned, I sent a support email, and then decided to outline the issue here as well, in case someone else is on the fence. Also, for what it's worth, the timing isn't this inconsistent in the trumpet staccs, for example. So from an orchestrational standpoint, you can reach for that precise "snap" with a trumpet layer, and keep the octohorns underneath for color. In a way one might say it sounds more live and realistic this way. I'd very much prefer dialing in the timing imperfections myself than having them so dramatically baked in, though. If it's by design and not a bug, that is.
 
Nokatus said:
Yep, like I mentioned, I sent a support email, and then decided to outline the issue here as well, in case someone else is on the fence. Also, for what it's worth, the timing isn't this inconsistent in the trumpet staccs, for example. So from an orchestrational standpoint, you can reach for that precise "snap" with a trumpet layer, and keep the octohorns underneath for color. In a way one might say it sounds more live and realistic this way. I'd very much prefer dialing in the timing imperfections myself than having them so dramatically baked in, though. If it's by design and not a bug, that is.
Click to expand...
Hello Nokatus,

Thank you for your e-mail and message - I'll answer on here for others also wondering about this. It's fairly common to see samples chopped to accomodate for tiny differences in attack length, which when playing in a sample library like this can result in a swung/off rhythm.

We opted to keep the natural attacks - but it is a fair point that this won't be fully suitable for certain passages.

We are currently putting together an nki to be included, and available to anyone who has purchased the library which you can just drop in the instruments folder, where we have set up the staccatos to be even. This way you can choose between the two staccato feels - retaining full attack length, perhaps in more sparsely used/slower parts, and the more even nki for more frequent and successive staccato passages where this will stick out more

Expecting to finish this within about two days!
 
Sigh, I apologize for what must seem like ragging on the product (which is clearly a strong package as a whole), but there's this other thing about the staccatos that makes them a chore to play: their velocity response seems unintuitive.

Instead of scaling nicely, there's a huge bump in tone and volume after a certain point. Here's a note repeated on the trombone staccs, for example. It starts at velocity 10, and then goes in increments of ten. Notice the change at 90. Instead of scaling intuitively, or even _slightlly_ more gently, you get a strict random separation of "staccatos from two different realms" when playing lines that hit on both sides of 90.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ygay0tjz4hbo6r0/trombone_stacc_velocities_10-127.mp3?dl=0
 
Auddict said:
We are currently putting together an nki to be included, and available to anyone who has purchased the library which you can just drop in the instruments folder, where we have set up the staccatos to be even.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much! For both the swift response and this added functionality to the product :)
 
This is a good idea for a new company. Get solid members of the community to try out your flagship and get a buzz going. It is sort of like testers who pay you a little for an expensive product and then create the buzz because it is so good. The demos sound good, but then so did another very popular and expensive brass library that I tried 3 years ago (I shall not mention their name since this is a negative comment). I found it difficult to use in many articulations and had to spend many hours to achieve the demo sound. It is no longer on my hard disk. Your interface is much simpler and seemingly more powerful than theirs though, so I have high hopes for it. A year and a half ago, I only had VSL Dimension Brass which I still love! Now after many blood, sweat and tears, I have all the cool brass libraries. What I find is they all excel at different things and I am pretty sure that your library will excel in things that the other ones don't and will find a place in my template. I am impressed by your library and sampling skills from the demos, so I am in. Keep moving forward. I think very soon you may become a big player in the sampling world. Thank you Auddict for the opportunity of me trying your flagship in a way that the price/risk ratio is very low.
 
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Nokatus said:
Sigh, I apologize for what must seem like ragging on the product (which is clearly a strong package as a whole), but there's this other thing about the staccatos that makes them a chore to play: their velocity response seems unintuitive.

Instead of scaling nicely, there's a huge bump in tone and volume after a certain point. Here's a note repeated on the trombone staccs, for example. It starts at velocity 10, and then goes in increments of ten. Notice the change at 90. Instead of scaling intuitively, or even _slightlly_ more gently, you get a strict random separation of "staccatos from two different realms" when playing lines that hit on both sides of 90.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ygay0tjz4hbo6r0/trombone_stacc_velocities_10-127.mp3?dl=0
Click to expand...

Thanks for being brave and diving into this deal Nokatus! You're doing God's work for the rest of us potential buyers.
 
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