Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Afflatus Brass? - Strezov "The Adventure Continues"

Sunny Schramm said:
Click to expand...

Sounds quite good, and if it's anything like Afflatus Pt 1, it will sound even better without that damn default reverb... :)

Hmm, it looks like their tempo track is drawn in or played in somehow. Anyone know how one might accomplish this in Cubase without painstakingly drawing everything in?
 
Oh man....Just finished building the new template using OT Tom hokelborgs Brass, which I was liking quite a bit lately, and substituted CSB for me, even though I dont do that much of the big epic it seems to be more intended to.

My question, since I use afflatus strings a lot in my template, is if I'll be getting this and dumping all the work and going with this for brass.

My doubt is obviously the bigger stuff, and the 3 bass trombones that sound amazing for me for chorales in JXL Brass.

The polyphonic legat was a game changer for me, so easy and quickly sounds nice.

What do you guys think?
 
jbuhler said:
Well, lots of libraries can play it more or less credibly but the question is whether a particular library sounds suitably rich and musical at the lowest dynamic layer and indeed whether there is sufficient expression with small dynamic swells and such that it sounds musically engaging. There are a lot of potential problems: no timbral variation if the library relies only on moving the volume of a single dynamic layer sample, potential crossfade issues if the library uses multiple soft dynamic layers, etc. And soft and exposed, small issues that might get absorbed in a fuller, louder sound suddenly become much dicier. So it’s a hard problem for sample libraries.

I am most glad to have this example, as it gives me a much better sense of the soft dynamic playing than any of the other demos.
Click to expand...
What are your thoughts on the soft dynamics now?
 
maxbedroom said:
Sounds quite good, and if it's anything like Afflatus Pt 1, it will sound even better without that damn default reverb... :)

Hmm, it looks like their tempo track is drawn in or played in somehow. Anyone know how one might accomplish this in Cubase without painstakingly drawing everything in?
Click to expand...
It says in the video that apart from Afflatus Brass, only a reverb send is used, so the way I understand it, it's not the built-in reverb that you're hearing.

The tempo track looks drawn to me, using the pen tool in Cubase... There's also this functionality, but it won't get you that kind of resolution on your tempo track: https://steinberg.help/cubase_pro_a...elect MIDI > Functions > Merge Tempo,Click OK.
 
I have Symphony Series Brass, Hollywood Opus Brass, and Century Brass. I don't think I still need to purchase better copper pipes to achieve my work.
There is no longer any copper tube worth me spending $500.
Is it really necessary?
A classic symphony, its value lies in its orchestration skills, and the excellence of its sound is only one of its successful aids.
You need melody and artwork, man.
 
How do all of you like the room sound of Afflatus Brass?

My template is mostly Spitfire (Air) and Orchestral Tools, but I don't have a mighty all-purpose brass library I really like (SSB is not fullfilling for my needs...).

It's going to be either Afflatus Brass with intro and loyalty discount or (hopefully soon) a complete Berlin Brass+exp SINE bundle with nice intro discount.

I'm sure the playability of Afflatus is great and I like the extra cinematic ensembles. But somehow Berlin Brass has that dark, yet bold and majestic tone that really impresses me in the demos. The Afflatus room sounds more "flat" and small/ narrow to me, relying on external reverb. Something I don't like about CSB demos as well. For my taste, I want brass in a larger space. On the other hand Afflatus seems more cohesive and alive in the performances. Still looking forward to more demos and a walkthrough.
 
BTW, the tempo is drawn manually. I have a Masters degree in conducting and always like to emphasize certain moments with tempo - even in the DAW. This can be tricky when recording live stuff on top of it, but generally I think that music needs to breathe. Nowadays we are not only composers when standing in front of our computers, we are also conductors and the first performers of our music! Shostakovich had Mravinsky to help out with the sonic representation of our music, but we're not that lucky. As a matter of fact I'm writing this after spending about 5 hours of writing a music sequence today that will wait for the final verdict from producer and director in... about 10 minutes! Therefore I want them to hear a musical performance, not only quantized MIDI.

I got carried away a bit. Anyway, you can probably see in the MIDI of my mockup that I use only CC#1 and CC#11 to emphasize certain moments - the so-called agogic accents. Now if we take the principles of live music into account - those musicians will probably need to breathe here and there, thus expanding the concept of the 4th beat of the bar a bit (especially in a chorale scenario). This is why I drew some of those ritardandi there.

As for the default reverb - it's slightly tweaked from Afflatus, we think for the better, and there are quite some changes we introduced here - all based on stuff we learned the past few years, lots of helpful user feedback and suggestions. I use in that example Seventh Heaven -> Large hall -> Mechanics hall, which I found works best for orchestral music to my ears.

I could be wrong of course - this thing about the tempo is just my perception of musicality in the context of expressive, slow music. I remember watching a video of Alex Pfeffer who also did some subtle tempo changes here and there to make the music sound a bit more lively. Curious to hear also if other people utilize tempo that way.
 
George, also have always drawn in small tempo changes in Logic Pro to make the music breathe, but with Smart Tempo, I can now start by playing in an entire piano track freely to get a variable click to orchestrate to.

Smart Tempo has totally changed the way I often work.
 
VVEremita said:
My template is mostly Spitfire (Air) and Orchestral Tools, but I don't have a mighty all-purpose brass library I really like (SSB is not fullfilling for my needs...).
Click to expand...
I’m still deciding about this. I quite like SSB personally except the seams between dynamic layers are often quite audible and hard to work with. OT’s THB fills in some of those gaps, it has very smooth transitions between dynamic layers, and like SSB it has a credible soft layer. But neither has everything about the soft dynamics I’m really after. I’m also looking to acquire Berlin Brass whenever OT finishes porting that and offers the sale. So the question I have for Afflatus Brass is whether it offers enough in supplements to my other brass, the way the strings usefully supplement other string libraries.

Things I'm looking for in a new brass library:
  • The ability to sit with what I already have and without requiring a lot of mixing work to get it there
  • The ability to play soft better or at least differently from what I already have.
  • Lots of different shorts both for repetitions including credible double and triple tonguing and stabs but also varied shorts for light accompaniment figures.
  • A trombone section that sounds noble in soli especially in the range around middle C (think Tannhäuser Overture).
  • A trombone section that sounds like trombones in the octave below middle C even when not barking or snarling.
  • Basically honor the particularity of the tenor trombones instead of making the whole section into bass trombones.
  • Varied dynamics and lengths of trombone glissandi that are cued to what is actually possible.
  • Tempo synced crescendos and swells of different lengths and dynamic spreads. (Even with smooth dynamic layer transitions modwheel swells only get you so far.)
  • A sensible set of ensemble brass patches that can mimic the typical scoring of a brass section with the usual hand positions on a keyboard. Ideally it would recognize the chord formation and also make the sorts of tuning adjustments any brass players would make to tune the chord.
  • Stopped horn effects of the sort that are included in OT’s Modus library. It would be great to have a whole array of these.
  • A solo horn that complements my current set of solo horns.
  • A solo trumpet that complements my current set of solo trumpets.
I don’t expect Afflatus Brass will handle all of these. And it doesn’t need to for me to be convinced to buy. But I’d like to see some of the items and without a full walkthrough video it’s just difficult to assess the library’s capabilities.
 
pinki said:
What are your thoughts on the soft dynamics now?
Click to expand...
It's a useful data point but doesn't fully convince me, and if I'm honest I'm not especially happy with the tone of the library on the passage, which seems a combination of the room and the approach to playing, especially on the note fronts (legato and otherwise). (It should be noted that it is a very hard passage for sample libraries, and would likely take a library designed specifically to do this sort of thing to be close to convincing. It's fine for composition mock up tasks but in general I can't imagine wanting to listen to a sample library rendition of this as a performance.)

Nevertheless, and despite what George said about wanting the library to be able to do credible soft playing, I still feel that the sound of the soft layer(s) is designed in the first place as a repose from the loud layers rather than a goal in itself that encourages the music to linger there, and so the material always seems like it is preparatory to the fortissimo to come later. It's hard to explain, and who knows at this point since we don't have much of the library yet to evaluate, so I could easily be reading too much into it, from the few soft passages we have available.

I will say that what little I've heard of the tenor trombones in the demos and other materials where they aren't barking and snarling sounds good and characteristic. So that is hopeful.
 
@jbuhler Have you ever considered the old VSL VI Series Brass?

The instruments have a really nice tone to my ears and there’s a ton of different articulations to choose between.

Edit: Perhaps they require lots of work to sit with your other template though, not sure about that.
 
Henrik B. Jensen said:
@jbuhler Have you ever considered the old VSL VI Series Brass?

The instruments have a really nice tone to my ears and there’s a ton of different articulations to choose between.

Edit: Perhaps they require lots of work to sit with your other template though, not sure about that.
Click to expand...
I don't have any VSL instruments. It's a long story how that happened, but mostly had to do with not wanting to deal with more than one dongle and by the time VSL had moved to iLok I'd already locked in on a different sound world. Sometimes I think about testing the VSL waters though because their instruments do tend to be very rich in articulations.

I should add that other than soft brass and trombones I'm mostly happy with my brass. (And I quite like the THB solo tenor trombone so even my misgivings about tenor trombones come with caveats.) And even the soft brass I have is adequate for composing with.

I'm still wanting to hear more from Afflatus Brass because I feel I just don't have enough information yet, even on whether it will sit sonically with my template. A walkthrough will help immeasurably with that since I can drop bits from any walkthrough into the DAW and get some idea about how everything will sit. I know one thing I disliked about CSB was the positioning of the low brass. The trombones in particular seemed like they were embedded in the viola section and few mockups I've heard have managed to push them back where I feel they belong. So either no one else is bothered by this (which is fine of course, since we're talking taste in recording images) or it's not something easily remedied in mixing. In any case, it's the sort of thing that a walkthrough can help me determine.
 
This thread illustrates the uphill battle every new orchestral release will face in the years ahead. There are so many great libraries on the market already that a new one will have to be very special to earn its keep.

The original Afflatus (strings) did a great job at this by offering features no one else had and through its “scenes” that functioned as high-quality sketchpads. It’s clear that Afflatus Brass was also designed this way, with the bonus of being able to function as a "workhorse" library. However, I wonder whether adding the workhorse element is backfiring from a marketing standpoint, as it seems to have garnered the most attention while not necessarily being the most outstanding feature of Afflatus.

If Afflatus Brass can supplement my brass libraries the way Afflatus did with my strings, it will have earned its keep. If it can also replace some of my main brass instruments in traditional workflow, so much the better.

Best,

Geoff
 
Geoff Grace said:
This thread illustrates the uphill battle every new orchestral release will face in the years ahead. There are so many great libraries on the market already that a new one will have to be very special to earn its keep.

The original Afflatus (strings) did a great job at this by offering features no one else had and through its “scenes” that functioned as high-quality sketchpads. It’s clear that Afflatus Brass was also designed this way, with the bonus of being able to function as a "workhorse" library. However, I wonder whether adding the workhorse element is backfiring from a marketing standpoint, as it seems to have garnered the most attention while not necessarily being the most outstanding feature of Afflatus.

If Afflatus Brass can supplement my brass libraries the way Afflatus did with my strings, it will have earned its keep. If it can also replace some of my main brass instruments in traditional workflow, so much the better.

Best,

Geoff
Click to expand...
I think it's only an issue until they get more videos out there. The one screencast video shows only the workhorse side. I'm sure the upcoming content will be impressive, and they just got a little overwhelmed with all that goes into releasing a library before BF season.
 
Geoff Grace said:
This thread illustrates the uphill battle every new orchestral release will face in the years ahead. There are so many great libraries on the market already that a new one will have to be very special to earn its keep.

The original Afflatus (strings) did a great job at this by offering features no one else had and through its “scenes” that functioned as high-quality sketchpads. It’s clear that Afflatus Brass was also designed this way, with the bonus of being able to function as a "workhorse" library. However, I wonder whether adding the workhorse element is backfiring from a marketing standpoint, as it seems to have garnered the most attention while not necessarily being the most outstanding feature of Afflatus.

If Afflatus Brass can supplement my brass libraries the way Afflatus did with my strings, it will have earned its keep. If it can also replace some of my main brass instruments in traditional workflow, so much the better.

Best,

Geoff
Click to expand...
It would be helpful to have a walkthrough so those other aspects of the library—what's special, say, about the various curated ensembles—can be assessed.
 
Last edited:
Geoff Grace said:
This thread illustrates the uphill battle every new orchestral release will face in the years ahead. There are so many great libraries on the market already that a new one will have to be very special to earn its keep.

The original Afflatus (strings) did a great job at this by offering features no one else had and through its “scenes” that functioned as high-quality sketchpads. It’s clear that Afflatus Brass was also designed this way, with the bonus of being able to function as a "workhorse" library. However, I wonder whether adding the workhorse element is backfiring from a marketing standpoint, as it seems to have garnered the most attention while not necessarily being the most outstanding feature of Afflatus.

If Afflatus Brass can supplement my brass libraries the way Afflatus did with my strings, it will have earned its keep. If it can also replace some of my main brass instruments in traditional workflow, so much the better.

Best,

Geoff
Click to expand...
Nah. It's the lack of a video walkthrough and influencer reviews combined with pre-order only discounting and a high base cost after the pre-order period.

With all due respect to Strezov, you have to have a much stronger brand (we're talking Spitfire and Orchestral Tools level brand strength) to be able to rely on your reputation and demos alone to make a pre-order only discount on a non-refundable, high dollar purchase work. Even these bigger brands still have a walkthrough video ready when pre-orders open.

It's just an out-of-touch marketing strategy with the current market landscape and economic outlook.

Many customers also hate the whole idea of pre-orders. It holds zero benefit for the consumer when there is no appreciable limit on inventory. Sample libraries aren't the same thing as Playstation 5's and Nintendo Wii's.
 
Trash Panda said:
Nah. It's the lack of a video walkthrough and influencer reviews combined with pre-order only discounting and a high base cost after the pre-order period.

With all due respect to Strezov, you have to have a much stronger brand (we're talking Spitfire and Orchestral Tools level brand strength) to be able to rely on your reputation and demos alone to make a pre-order only discount on a non-refundable, high dollar purchase work. Even these bigger brands still have a walkthrough video ready when pre-orders open.

It's just an out-of-touch marketing strategy with the current market landscape and economic outlook.

Many customers also hate the whole idea of pre-orders. It holds zero benefit for the consumer when there is no appreciable limit on inventory. Sample libraries aren't the same thing as Playstation 5's and Nintendo Wii's.
Click to expand...
You’re totally right 👍
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom