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Chris Hein Woodwinds disappointment

dasbin

New Member
I recently purchased the full Orchestra Woodwinds collection from another user here. Was quite excited about it. It's my first jump into Hein products.

Unfortunately I think it will be my last Hein product. I wanted to post this not to trash-talk them at all (they have a lot of good points) but just because I got them based mostly on what others have said about them (and demos/videos of course) but rarely if ever saw anyone mention their rather significant cons. So maybe this can help someone else struggling with decisions.

First, the big and obvious good points - they are meticulously edited, dynamics blend seamlessly, the legatos are nice, and the famous CH programming and interface (especially the "note-head" idea) is very powerful and unique indeed.

The problem I have with them is that the dry recorded samples just sound terrible. I wanted a dry library, and I am used to dry sounds (I am also a professional recording & mixing engineer). But if you turn off the built-in convolution reverbs, you get the naked samples, and the truth comes through. In many ranges the samples don't much sound like the instruments they're supposed to represent, but even when they do, the recordings lack huge amounts of detail (many sound like they have a low-pass filter applied or were miked with an SM57 or worse, and EQ which I thought would help is not able to bring out any more information).

Worst of all, they are all 100% mono. I think this should be marked clearly on the product webpages so people know what they are getting. When I heard the mono samples, I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. Scoured the web and found a single comment by Chris Hein saying that solo instruments don't need to be miked in stereo.

I very much disagree. Solo acoustic instruments have a physical size to them. They aren't one-dimensional theoretical points in space. They output different sounds in different directions. They interact with the space differently on their right and on their left. I would (almost) never record a featured solo instrument in mono.

This is partially alleviated by the built-in convolution reverbs, which bring back some much-needed dimension of course. But not a single one of the "Body" settings actually sounds natural or right to me. They all sound like a short slapback with a strong resonant peak applied on top of a poorly-recorded mono sample.

Most of the the demos online have a lot of reverb applied. Things generally sound quite OK if that's what you're going for. But as a dry sample set, I want to use them relatively dry, but the recordings are totally inappropriate for that. They sound cheap and one-dimensional unless covered with reverb.

So, sadly, I think I'll be selling them shortly and trying out VSL. I was previously strongly considering CH's solo string set as well, but think I will pass now. There is a very strong nasal quality to most of the solo violins and an unnatural mudiness to the lower ranges of the cellos. I thought this should be fixable with some EQ, and that the libraries have enough other strong points to make it worthwhile to do so, but I no longer think EQ will be of much help to the recordings.

I do think they could be truly great sample sets if they hired another recording engineer experienced in recording solo acoustic instruments, and maybe recorded in a space that was just slightly less anechoic to let the instruments breathe a little.
 
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I’ve never used the library so have no opinion there, but I did want to say that I and many others rarely record instruments in stereo.

I love the focused flexibility of mono. I support LCR mixing and it is incredibly easy to run a mono signal into a mono to stereo output processor. I have at least a dozen wonderful pieces of outboard gear that can do that if necessary.

Too many stereo instruments makes your mix a jumbled mess. A mono featured instrument down the center is a traditional way of making a great sounding record. It can me multed out to a stereo spread if you need reverb/delay.

I have the opposite problem in the sample world of finding myself needing to collapse sounds to mono that were tracked stereo.
 
When blending an instrument into a larger mix, I agree that mono can work quite well. But these are solo instruments. I assume that part of their use-case will be for... solo... work. Standing on their own from time to time. Rarely have I heard exposed cellos or pianos or violins recorded in mono, for example.
In any case, I find it a lot easier to collapse a (good) stereo recording to mono (or just a narrower stereo) than it is to get convincing stereo out of a mono recording. The Body convolution supplied in CH tries its best but doesn't succeed at this until also covered in general reverb, IMO.
 
VSL have also instrument in mono, no ?

Are they?
Crap, my options are narrowing by the minute :)
Still, I think they are recorded much better. Even the old VSL stuff in the Kontakt Factory Library sounds vastly superior in detail to the naked Hein samples to me, and those are also very very dry.
 
The problem I have with them is that the dry recorded samples just sound terrible.
Worst of all, they are all 100% mono.

Fully agree with both those points. (I wrote something similar here and, some years ago, did a more lengthy review of this library for TSB in which I arrived at much the same conclusion.) CH has some great ideas about how to get the most out of samples in Kontakt, but unfortunately, there is just not a lot that you can get out of his samples, not even with the cleverest Kontakt-tricks.
(This is also the reason why, in my view, his solo strings never qualified as a serious contender, despite their sophisticated Kontakt-shell: at source trapped in mono and hence that small, boxy sound, no matter what kind of reverb you add to it.)

Anyway, Pars will soon enough bring balance to this thread by telling us all how amazing the CH Woodwinds are.

(VSL's woodwinds aren't mono, by the way.)

_
 
Fully agree with both those points. (I wrote something similar here and, some years ago, did a more lengthy review of this library for TSB in which I arrived at much the same conclusion.) CH has some great ideas about how to get the most out of samples in Kontakt, but unfortunately, there is just not a lot that you can get out of his samples, not even with the cleverest Kontakt-tricks.
(This is also the reason why, in my view, his solo strings never qualified as a serious contender, despite their sophisticated Kontakt-shell: at source trapped in mono and hence that small, boxy sound, no matter what kind of reverb you add to it.)

Anyway, Pars will soon enough bring balance to this thread by telling us all how amazing the CH Woodwinds are.

(VSL's woodwinds aren't mono, by the way.)

_
Chris who?
 
This is all very interesting to me since these winds have been at the top of my wishlist as a contender. The reason why is that there were not one but multiple times I would listen to other midi composers music in the background while I was finishing my basement and some really nice sounding woodwinds would pop up in some of the music that made my head turn. I would then look into the composers notes to see what they used, expecting to see Berlin WW and lo and behold each time they were actually Chris Hein. Like I said, this happened multiple times which convinced me that this was an underrated library. Most of the time, as most of us know it's usually the brass and strings that stand out because it seems that not as much focus seems to be on woodwinds in the sampling world. I attributed this toto fact that this must be a great woodwinds library. From what I'm reading it seems perhaps most the credit should go to those composers for doing a good job mixing the CH winds rather than credit to the CH winds? Or maybe it's a little of both and the CH winds work for those who like super dry recorded mono instruments where it is completely up to the user to make them sound good or bad. I tend to fall in that camp.
Anyways, this is all good and interesting for me to read about since I have been interested in these woodwinds for a while now.
 
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Anyway, Pars will soon enough bring balance to this thread by telling us all how amazing the CH Woodwinds are.
_

LEAVE BRITTNEY ALOOOOONE

I do think it's funny that the last comment is someone suggesting audio modeling winds, which would literally just be all of the problems the OP has with CH but more playable?

there are definitely ways of creating a more stereo signal, but ultimately - I agree it's a pain. I don't even like center recorded instruments.
 
LEAVE BRITTNEY ALOOOOONE

I do think it's funny that the last comment is someone suggesting audio modeling winds, which would literally just be all of the problems the OP has with CH but more playable?

there are definitely ways of creating a more stereo signal, but ultimately - I agree it's a pain. I don't even like center recorded instruments.

There are issues that OP brings up that I doubt many libraries remedy. So if realism and flexibility of the samples is the goal, I only recommend AM because it has many subtle details like breath noise and movement that help it to sound more natural than other samples might. I don’t think there is any way to avoid convolution reverb and EQ to get any libraries to sound right but at least AM might give a more flexible starting point than others. Or maybe not, if you’re not committed to programming all the detail in, it could sounds like a synth. Woodwinds are always the section that never tends to shine in any library. Something is always lacking.
 
There are issues that OP brings up that I doubt many libraries remedy. So if realism and flexibility of the samples is the goal, I only recommend AM because it has many subtle details like breath noise and movement that help it to sound more natural than other samples might. I don’t think there is any way to avoid convolution reverb and EQ to get any libraries to sound right but at least AM might give a more flexible starting point than others. Or maybe not, if you’re not committed to programming all the detail in, it could sounds like a synth. Woodwinds are always the section that never tends to shine in any library. Something is always lacking.

It's just more or less that the specific complaint is due to the actual sound, not as much the flexibility. Infact his only complaint is just the sound, and that it's recorded in mono.

audio modeling isn't even "recorded" it uses samples as building blocks and some fancy phase alignment stuff - but you don't actually get a recording of an instrument, it's all deconstructed and then re-constructed to model the instruments.

Those instruments are great for playability - but it comes at a cost.
 
Interesting! I've been patiently waiting for CH to NKS Horns Pro. Vids convinced me it's the sound I've been looking for to supplement/replace Session Horns Pro for higher velocity samples. I took advantage of the Spitfire sale & picked up Studio Brass (& Winds) in the meantime. Haven't used them yet, but testing them out, they'll get the job done.

Still looking for saxes. I'll have to listen more closely and maybe seek out some drier demos of CHHP, though now I'm hoping to find just a "Studio Sax" library to avoid too much duplication.
 
It's just more or less that the specific complaint is due to the actual sound, not as much the flexibility. Infact his only complaint is just the sound, and that it's recorded in mono.

audio modeling isn't even "recorded" it uses samples as building blocks and some fancy phase alignment stuff - but you don't actually get a recording of an instrument, it's all deconstructed and then re-constructed to model the instruments.

Those instruments are great for playability - but it comes at a cost.

Of course, and this is where it’s a no win situation. I don’t know any library that satisfies OP’s conditions of dry samples in stereo that satisfy the need for a spacial presence without consequentially sounding wet. The expressive versatility of AM is what often impressed me because you can add in little sounds and imperfections that might sound more natural than some samples provide but AM won’t solve the other issues, and again I can’t think of many others that will. Maybe Aaron Century Infinite woodwinds might when they come out. I don’t know.

I honestly don’t know any libraries that put out woodwind libraries with any real enthusiasm. More-so an obligation to complete the orchestra. None of them ever seem to hit it completely on the nose with as much precision and quality as we find in the more competitive brass and strings sections.
 
I honestly don’t know any libraries that put out woodwind libraries with any real enthusiasm. More-so an obligation to complete the orchestra. None of them ever seem to hit it completely on the nose with as much precision and quality as we find in the more competitive brass and strings sections.

Certainly the opposite is true of the VSL Woodwinds, but these again tend to induce uncontrollable terror in the hearts of men due to their bone-chilling dryness.
 
I believe there is a misunderstanding of the different concepts of sample libraries here, leading to false expectations.
You can do a perfect (stereo) recording of a solo instrument leading to a perfect sound when playing back the recording but giving you much less or no flexibility. Best example ist the Tina Guo Cello. Wonderful lyric sound but definitely a one trick pony which makes it impossible to play the library in any other than the intended context. If you want to apply techniques like phase alignment you seem to be (for technical reasons) forced to record dry mono samples which sound quite boring on their own.
Best example (though it´s a hybrid sample/modelling instrument) is The Trumpet from SM. Wonderful instrument but listen to it naked without modulation or reverb. A pure nightmare....
Same applies for Chris´ woodwind instruments. They do sound a bit boring when playing them strip naked but why would you do this? You almost always apply some sort of room and/or reverb and you constantly modulate just like a real player does (at least in musical not technical context).
So I agree and disagree with the OP as mono samples indeed do sound boring but they enable a lot more flexibility in terms of applying modulation and room variability than stereo samples where the room is already embedded. Same problem with modelling instruments but that´s another Topic.
Best regards
Raindog
 
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