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Audiobro Modern Scoring Brass (MSB)



Second, for fun, here is what it sounds like using trumpet trills while activating the detuning knob. Getting this involves all of two buttons. There aren't just trills (and two types: whole tone and half tone), but different lengths of trills (short, medium, long, and loop). In the brief sample below I believe all are demonstrated except the medium trills). Again, all with detune activated at about 40% strength:



The amount of control and flexibility available is staggering. In short, this is a library that I'll grow into.


Using detune is actually a very good way to induce more realism in this sample library. MSB takes it really well, i think. The Intuition instruments do, too. Nice examples.
 
I will be getting MSB in the next few days. Huge fan/user of LASS since it came out.

I'm curious if any of the current owners have tried using a breath controller yet? I love using it for all the brass and wind instruments I do. Hoping it's intuitive for MSB.
 
Mucusman, this was very interesting. Would you consider doing that same "legato speed test" with some of the other instrument sections or solos?

Here you go.

First is a solo flugelhorn. Four times (same performance each time): 1st time: legato speed dial at 50% (I played it at this setting), 2nd time at fastest (100%), 3rd time at slowest (0%), and the 4th time I manually edited the legato speed (picture below). You can hear, in the slowest example (3rd), that it is too slow for the faster transitions. What I'm learning is how subtle adjustments in this setting alone help in making a performance that much more lifelike and musical.



Flugelhorn-Legato-Speed-Image.jpg


Final two examples are from the trombones. First are two trombones, the second file is of a solo trombone. The legato settings in each go from (1) slowest, (2) medium, and (3) fastest, to finally a manually edited section using all three speeds, to my taste.



And the solo trombone. Note, this is the exact same MIDI performance; I made no edits in the content from the two trombone file. More of a comparison of tone.



I left all the warts in, to help demonstrate where things can go wrong. All effects and other MSB settings are at their default. No external or additional processing or effects. Effectively, this is out of the box sound. I didn't adjust any of the starting attacks... which would be an additional element towards realism. But this shows me the value to slowly understanding how each of these variables affect the sound.

Hope this is helpful.
 
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Here you go.

First is a solo flugelhorn. Four times (same performance each time): 1st time: legato speed dial at 50% (I played it at this setting), 2nd time at fastest (100%), 3rd time at slowest (0%), and the 4th time I manually edited the legato speed (picture below). You can hear, in the slowest example (3rd), that it is too slow for the faster transitions. What I'm learning is how subtle adjustments in this setting alone help in making a performance that much more lifelike and musical.



Flugelhorn-Legato-Speed-Image.jpg


Final two examples are from the trombones. First are two trombones, the second file is of a solo trombone. The legato settings in each go from (1) slowest, (2) medium, and (3) fastest, to finally a manually edited section using all three speeds, to my taste.



And the solo trombone. Note, this is the exact same MIDI performance; I made no edits in the content from the two trombone file. More of a comparison of tone.



I left all the warts in, to help demonstrate where things can go wrong. All effects and other MSB settings are at their default. No external or additional processing or effects. Effectively, this is out of the box sound. I didn't adjust any of the starting attacks... which would be an additional element towards realism. But this shows me the value to slowly understanding how each of these variables affect the sound.

Hope this is helpful.


You’re a true gentleman. Many thanks for doing this. Helpful indeed.
 
I will be getting MSB in the next few days. Huge fan/user of LASS since it came out.

I'm curious if any of the current owners have tried using a breath controller yet? I love using it for all the brass and wind instruments I do. Hoping it's intuitive for MSB.
I tried using a breath controller with MSB for five minutes because I didn't have enough time, but it worked pretty well. I use breath controller for mostly everything, so for me this is one of the most important aspect :)
 
One more sample, and I'll call it a day. Here is a very brief "context" cue I put together, featuring horns, tubas, piccolo trumpet, and cimbasso. These are joined by Audiobro's Genesis Children's Choir (my first Audiobro library) and some light strings from Spitfire's Albion V.



I will also add that the Intuition instruments, not featured above, which I imagine cousins to sample modeling instruments, are really great and a blast to play. When I play them I feel like somehow I am getting hundreds of dollars in other brass instruments for free, as I wasn't expecting them to be part of the package.
 
That's the thing about almost all of the comparison videos I've seen over the last couple of years that have someone pitting 2+ libraries "against" each other. Because getting the best performance out of each library involves different means; simply plugging, playing, and comparing rarely gives results that demonstrate what a library is truly capable of. So, such efforts usually only compare how each library sounds in one narrow set of specific conditions.

But I get it. Almost always, we're asked to buy on faith and spend significant amount of money on a tool that we personally cannot test before purchasing. So we look at demos and comparisons hoping to gain information that will enable us to make a wise choice. There doesn't seem to be any silver bullet to ensuring that one will make a great choice. The closest I've come to is discerning which developers tend to deliver the goods. But that's still not 100% reliable, and there are so many other variables that I've used to weigh whether I should go with choice A, B, C, D, or E (etc.).
 
I gotta vent a little. I bought LASS several years ago because I wanted something -bigger- than VSL
Strings. I thought the price was too good to be true because from the demos it has a -totally- epic sound. The demos really -are- gorgeous. But the UI is soooooooooooooooooooooooo UNBELIEVABLY CLUNKY it's RIDONCULOUS... It's just -painful- to make real music.

I used to think VSL was sooooooooooooooooooooo over-priced. I used to think they were soooooooooooooooooo arrogant. But basically, almost every other developer seems to SKIMP in -some- way or other. Either on the sample quality, the articulations or the UI to tie it together so that you can actually make human-sounding music. VSL makes the Rolls Royce experience and that's why they get away with such extortionate prices. OK, I'm done.

I -love- the MSB demos. Those Cimbassos are the sound of an Opera orchestra. After you hear it, the gap in other brass libs between t-bones and tuba sounds pathetic by comparison. And I am encouraged by the new 'engine' AudioBro has on offer. But I want to hear people talk about HOW MUCH EASIER IT IS IN DAY TO DAY USE. Because A.R.T. can be a nightmare. Or.... I'm just super thick... which is entirely possible... and never 'got it'.
 
I could be wrong - so often am - but I'd advise against it for you, Suntower. Not because it isn't excellent - it absolutely is - and not because you can't work super-quickly with it - you can. And not because the UI isn't much better than LASS - it is. But because you never found the time to make LASS work for you, and MSB, in that sense, is perhaps similar, I fear the worst in your case.

LASS is a library that requires some heavy lifting to get it set up working for you. It might be the hardest around in that regard, the ARC has some really tricky concepts to get your head around. But if you spent the time with it, getting it set up (I have a video on this somewhere) then it will pay you back massively. It will be superquick to work with in practice, because you put in the hours upfront to tailor it just to how you need it. And because their programming, editing and recording is so slick, you'll be spending a lot less time in the end working around various deficiencies.

MSB IS much simpler, and sounds gorgeous right out of the box, its totally playable and even magical on a first play. But it shares that Audiobro DNA. Some of the more advanced concepts eluded me initially, took me a while to grapple with it, they definitely have an idiosyncratic way of doing things. But there is always reason in their apparent madness. The flexibility, scope and depth is ridiculous, and the attention to detail and QC superb.

So it took me a few days to get MSB into my template. Not a few continuous days I hasten to add, but all in it was probably something like 8 hours I'd guess. The library is vast, and that's one of the reasons why it took so long, and I wanted a very specific configuration that took some time to get organised. Now its exactly how I want it at the push of a button in Cubase / VE Pro, and I adore it.

FWIW, my own head could never really get round VSL's player. The grid system still baffles me to this day, and goodness knows I've tried to get it. Eventually I can make it do what I want, but its a lot of trial and a lot of error. What is intuitive to one person is arcane to another I guess. So you absolutely have my sympathies with not getting concepts. But it sounds like the AudioBro way might not be your way.
 
For
Interesting....



The problem with this, is that he thought he had 4 horns on the audiobro sample, but in fact had 6 because he had two 2x horn patches and 2x single horn patches together.

Also, for this library he only had the close mic selected as far as i can tell. Then for other, like century, the mixed mic was used. I thought "wow century sounds better than the rest", but then i think that might just be because it is set to the mixed mic set up and the others are using just the close mic.

This doesn't create a very even comparison.

What was good to hear was the auto divisi and how much more natural playing chords was/sounds. It really highlighted the volume differences between playing a chord with the proper 6 horns rather than 12 or 18 :P.
 
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