Audiobro Modern Scoring Brass (MSB)
- Thread starter zolhof
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Guy Rowland
Senior Member
Maybe Other Guy and I should legally combine and share admin costs.
LamaRose
Gato Mighty!
Didn't realize that this had been released... this is my first taste and it sounds killer.
TeamLeader
Active Member
Any more comments positive or negative before in pull the trigger on this? It sure aint like I need any more libraries period, so any add'l int is helpful.
jaketanner
Senior Member
well why would you buy this? What is your rational? I'm gonna play devil's advocate here...what other libraries do you have that are NOT giving you the sound you are after?
sinkd
AARP Curious Member
I bought it because I knew I needed it. It does things that VSL and HB don't do in my workflow, and I know it will stay in my template because LASS has outlasted a lot of other libraries for me. I held off on Berlin, Cinesamples, and Spitfire brasses until this came out and I am glad I did.
TeamLeader
Active Member
Hey there Jake. We use LASS for all our pop and jazz strings. But have all the spitfire air lyndhurst stuff for the scoring and symphonic contracts. With the spitfire stuff we have all the cinesamples brass stuff dialed in to sit with the air lyndhurst stuff. And the sonokinetic stuff too. (Also use CHein Horns pro for pop horns along with SAJH) But of all the orch families, the brass for spitfire and cinesamples, sono, etc doesnt do well, all the things we need to do. (ie.: 'over the top' things, and fast paced phrases.) Hence my query.
maestro2be
Senior Member
Looks like you're going to need to make your decision based on what they currently have as examples. Sale ends Friday the 14th I just seen on their website.
I wonder if these brass instruments can blare with freakish power like in a Hans Zimmer score? At the same time, play a gorgeous smooth singing brass orchestra.
I have fallen victim of so many pre-sales purchases and regretted it, it's hard to commit even with the savings it offers.
I wonder if these brass instruments can blare with freakish power like in a Hans Zimmer score? At the same time, play a gorgeous smooth singing brass orchestra.
I have fallen victim of so many pre-sales purchases and regretted it, it's hard to commit even with the savings it offers.
If you're still on the fence about the library, I can't honestly say I'd recommend it unless you already have the other major players and either just want more sounds in your toolkit OR want a bunch of pretty usable and good solo instruments.
If you love to dig in and get really specific with your MIDI library, this one has a lot of buttons and features to play with.
If you are just looking for a bunch of new patches to layer or use as solo instruments - this library might be a good choice. With so many solo instruments to pick from, if you have the money to spend, it's probably worth picking up.
If you work on short deadlines - this is not the library for you. It takes so much time to get something good out of it that if you need to work quickly it simply isn't feasible with this library, and this is with quite a bit of practice now.
If you are on a budget rig - this is not the library for you. It's a resource hog, and when I say that I really mean it. It's quite slow and laggy for me on an I5 6600k overclocked to 4.0 GHz. Laggy to the point that moving a knob or fader in the MSB interface often seizes up kontakt for a couple seconds before figuring out what I did. Maybe this is just an issue for me, but it seems to not get much better despite reading through their performance tips and going to the forums. Saving a project with any MSB instruments open also takes several times longer than a large template with any of the other libraries I've used. It's not a dealbreaker for me but certainly adds to the general frustration of the library. Your mileage may vary, as always with performance of programs.
Since I bought it-pretty much at release-and have done a bunch of experimenting and working with it, I don't think any aspects of it stand out as better than any other major libraries to me (the legato is not as good as the CS stuff, it doesn't sound as good or realistic as BB or Cinebrass tone-wise, the shorts are very limited in dynamic range and overall the attacks feel very choppy and boxed-in dynamically).
A lot of people will tell you "it's dry, you just need to really work on it", but in my experience, it's simultaneously got common issues of a dry library, being that it needs some good reverb and general signal processing to get something good out it, but also feels resistant to any of that sort of processing and not very flexible on mixing. It's as if they recorded the instruments in a very live room and then tried to process it down until it was dry, causing reverb not to play so nicely but still removing the more natural sound of a room. The three different mic positions don't seem particularly useful, you won't get much better than the stock mix and changing the mix doesn't seem to have much impact on the end result as it does with other libraries' mixes. The library gets really muddy out-of-the-box, and some samples are strangely drier-sounding than others? That one's a real mystery to me, but it almost sounds like the shorts were recorded in a different space than the sustains or something. This causes a very disjointed feeling when shorts and sustains are next to eachother. This is an issue with all libraries I think, but this one seems to have it worse.
Generally, the library doesn't blend well with itself, as it gets really synthy sounding if you have more than a few instruments playing at the same time. The horns have a very artificial sheen to them, the trombones don't seem to sound all that much like trombones, the tubas and bass trombones are pretty good on their own but probably not worth the soon to be $800 price tag, the cimbassi are not much to write home about in comparison to other players but are pretty good as well, the euphoniums and trumpets I think are quite good especially as solo instruments. That's where this library really shines-is as a collection of different solo players to be layered on top of other ensembles or used alone.
If you love to dig in and get really specific with your MIDI library, this one has a lot of buttons and features to play with.
If you are just looking for a bunch of new patches to layer or use as solo instruments - this library might be a good choice. With so many solo instruments to pick from, if you have the money to spend, it's probably worth picking up.
If you work on short deadlines - this is not the library for you. It takes so much time to get something good out of it that if you need to work quickly it simply isn't feasible with this library, and this is with quite a bit of practice now.
If you are on a budget rig - this is not the library for you. It's a resource hog, and when I say that I really mean it. It's quite slow and laggy for me on an I5 6600k overclocked to 4.0 GHz. Laggy to the point that moving a knob or fader in the MSB interface often seizes up kontakt for a couple seconds before figuring out what I did. Maybe this is just an issue for me, but it seems to not get much better despite reading through their performance tips and going to the forums. Saving a project with any MSB instruments open also takes several times longer than a large template with any of the other libraries I've used. It's not a dealbreaker for me but certainly adds to the general frustration of the library. Your mileage may vary, as always with performance of programs.
Since I bought it-pretty much at release-and have done a bunch of experimenting and working with it, I don't think any aspects of it stand out as better than any other major libraries to me (the legato is not as good as the CS stuff, it doesn't sound as good or realistic as BB or Cinebrass tone-wise, the shorts are very limited in dynamic range and overall the attacks feel very choppy and boxed-in dynamically).
A lot of people will tell you "it's dry, you just need to really work on it", but in my experience, it's simultaneously got common issues of a dry library, being that it needs some good reverb and general signal processing to get something good out it, but also feels resistant to any of that sort of processing and not very flexible on mixing. It's as if they recorded the instruments in a very live room and then tried to process it down until it was dry, causing reverb not to play so nicely but still removing the more natural sound of a room. The three different mic positions don't seem particularly useful, you won't get much better than the stock mix and changing the mix doesn't seem to have much impact on the end result as it does with other libraries' mixes. The library gets really muddy out-of-the-box, and some samples are strangely drier-sounding than others? That one's a real mystery to me, but it almost sounds like the shorts were recorded in a different space than the sustains or something. This causes a very disjointed feeling when shorts and sustains are next to eachother. This is an issue with all libraries I think, but this one seems to have it worse.
Generally, the library doesn't blend well with itself, as it gets really synthy sounding if you have more than a few instruments playing at the same time. The horns have a very artificial sheen to them, the trombones don't seem to sound all that much like trombones, the tubas and bass trombones are pretty good on their own but probably not worth the soon to be $800 price tag, the cimbassi are not much to write home about in comparison to other players but are pretty good as well, the euphoniums and trumpets I think are quite good especially as solo instruments. That's where this library really shines-is as a collection of different solo players to be layered on top of other ensembles or used alone.
jaketanner
Senior Member
If you want brass for epic, then I would look at Forzo. MSB is relatively new, so there might not be many examples out there...but I also see the CSB can be quite aggressive as well. I would recommend Century brass...I love it, but it's not too "epic", but it's very natural sounding and playable.
Im with you there. I just cant decide on this one. Too many mixed reviews.It is quite a lot of money to throw away if the bad reviews are correct.
Also, i'm really quite stunned that they are ending the promo price in two days and still only have two fairly similar demos...
Living Fossil
Senior Member
If you want that instant blare sound, it's not the right library in my opinion.
Modern Scoring Brass shines when you write an arrangement that would also work when played by a real brass section.
But i wouldn't see it as a replacement for those typical Trailer-Braahm-Sounds.
jneebz
Senior Member
This was my take on this library, and honestly, it really doesn’t have powerful upper dynamics. There are a couple low patches that bite, but IMO it falls way more on the “useful for sound design” side. Actually my one Heavyocity Library that I regret buying.
TeamLeader
Active Member
Hey there Fossil. Thanks to you and to all others for your good input. Appreciated. We do indeed write arrangements as per real brass sections. So that is sort of a non issue. Just need something that can do fast bold symphonic stuff. (not meaning epic though - I guess I shouldn't have used the confusing term over the top. We don't do heavy trailers or Hans type stuff - which i enjoy, just not our sphere) I suppose am talking about, and more concerned about, the phrase shaping.
I don't think this library can even handle the nuances of pretty standard symphonic repertoire either. It's not good for epic, but it also isn't delicate or nuanced enough to actually capture the sort of energy that is expected out of the typical orchestral brass section.
prodigalson
Senior Member
In order for the bad reviews to be correct, the good reviews would have to be “incorrect” which would come as news to those who really like the library. There is no correct or incorrect
Are you talking about MSB or Forzo at this point?
Wow you really seem to hate it. From what i have heard in this thread and from the two demos, it would appear to be able to everything other libraries can do and sound convincing whilst doing it.
