Henu
Dismember
Interesting, very interesting. and what was that part? What libraries have you tried/tested?
Unfortunately I can't post it due to NDA's (it's work-related stuff) but basically 125 bpm 8th notes (with some staccatissimos included) in front of longer notes, played very freaking loud/ cuivre dynamics. Imagine this, but a bit higher and only with the horns, repeated a couple of times. I'm looking for a rather "old school sound" here, so I wanted to go with SSB first to get that honk I needed.
I tried to build a patch which utilizes staccato overlay, but that sounded even more weird. And many times within quick articulation switching, there was some serious release- bugs and whatnot in the samples, throwing the stereo picture around like a madman. So, I admitted the bitter defeat (really wanted to go with SSB here for the sound) and tried other ones.
(like SSB), Cinebrass were having troubles with the inconsistencies of articulation volumes/ attacks. But at least there was a sustained note with sharp attack. Samplemodeling was....well, samplemodeling. Maybe next time, haha! And Adventure Horns just sounds so not what I want, so I had to ditch that too even though it nailed the part articulation-wise (unsurprisingly, like the SM brass).
Strezov on the other hand, as a black horse, almost got it right. I just thought it lacked a bit punch but was ready to go with that one. After all, it also has quite an "old school" tone. But then I caved in and started to fiddle around with CSB, using all the articulations....until I realized to just hit the marcato + rep. overlay. BOOM, that one went to even more aggressive that I even needed. :D Mission accomplished in 5 minutes what took me two hours on other libraries and not even as well.
However, at the end I decided to go with the CSB solo horn layered 50/50 with the SSB Horns a6, because that was a compromise between the articulation "punch" and the sound. Which is good, because now I can finally move on to the next instruments, haha!
But way too many horn libraries just don't have a strong marcato attack on their long articulations. Even the SSB's "cuivre" patch has a swell in it, and for some reason it's sampled with a much smaller range than the rest. Maybe they thought it would be unrealistic to go that high/ low with the blasting horns, who knows.
EDIT: Just to point out, my biggest annoyement in general in sample libraries are the sustained attacks, which are almost always the thing which screams "samples!" to me when hearing mockups if they suck and swell like there's no tomorrow. For me, it's one of the most crucial part of the mockup sounding realistic. So my quest for finding libraries which have those realistic- sounding attacks is almost psychotic in a way- your mileage may naturally vary. :D
Last edited: