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Best Woodwinds?

Here's my two cents. I own VSL, all the Spitfire BML Woods, Berlin Woodwinds, Cinewinds, and EWQLSO:

Best Piccolo: Tied between Spitfire and BWW
Best Solo Flute: VSL (BWW wins for shorts)
Best Solo Oboe: VSL (Spitfire wins for shorts)
Best Solo English Horn: Spitfire BML
Best Solo Bassoon: Spitfire BML <- my favorite BML instrument
Best Solo Clarinet: VSL (Spitfire wins for shorts & louder passages)
Best Low Winds (Contrabassoon, bass flute, alto flute, bass clarinet): Spitfire BML

Best Ensemble Flutes: Tied between Spitfire and BWW
Best Ensemble Oboes: Spitfire BML
Best Ensemble Clarinets: Spitfire BML
Best Ensemble Bassoons: Spitfire BML

Best runs overall: BWW
Best legato overall: VSL and Spitfire (certain instruments are strong and weak in each)
Best shorts overall: Spitfire - minus the flutes
Best overall sound quality: Spitfire (those outrigger mics are just so clear and wonderful)

Spitfire comes close to winning a lot of these categories, but has a few downfalls: 1: Solo Flute legato is pretty nasty. I can never get a good sound out of it. 2: Solo Oboe legato is unrefined with lots of jumpy/unclean transitions. 3: No runs patches at all. They are nimble, but they don't do realistic runs like BWW. 4: Flute shorts are okay at lower dynamics, but too overblown at louder ones.

I like BWW, but it doesn't offer a lot of choice in microphones which makes it harder to mix with Spitfire's selections (I prefer the large sound of AIR over Teldex). It's legato also isn't quite as expressive or pronounced as either Spitfire or VSL.

8Dio's Claire Flute & Clarinet have been on my watchlist for awhile but just haven't pulled the trigger. Their ARC approach is a bit too exaggerated for my taste but you can ignore those artics.
 
Don't forget the BML Bass Clarinet is one of the most beautiful, resonant sampled instruments I've ever heard. The low winds seem to especially benefit from the hall at AIR.

In fact the only BML wind I don't get along with at all is the clarinet. The legato needs to be completely redone. I usually end up not using the transitions at all and getting creative with CC1. In addition, while its tone is beautiful in the lower dynamics it gets honky fast so I usually add 6db and keep the mod wheel really low
 
+1 for the BML Bass Clarinet (which strangely enough is in BML Low Winds, not Low Reeds). When I first played it, I remember actually saying aloud (to myself) "wow, sexy."
 
Here is a demo I did featuring the Spitfire woodwinds and just a splash of the SF Orchestral Grand Piano. I hadn't heard a demo using the woodwinds as the main feature so I decided to have a bit of fun during the holidays this past season.



I also took this demo and bounced out all the mics separately for anyone who wanted to explore what the mic positions are like: https://www.dropbox.com/s/71jukuglyh2sy4a/Darkened_Whimsy_Mic_Stems.zip?dl=0
 
prodigalson said:
Don't forget the BML Bass Clarinet is one of the most beautiful, resonant sampled instruments I've ever heard. The low winds seem to especially benefit from the hall at AIR.

In fact the only BML wind I don't get along with at all is the clarinet. The legato needs to be completely redone. I usually end up not using the transitions at all and getting creative with CC1. In addition, while its tone is beautiful in the lower dynamics it gets honky fast so I usually add 6db and keep the mod wheel really low
Click to expand...

Agreed. That BML bass clarinet is beautiful. And I agree with your points on the solo clarinet as well. The louder dynamics work well for a piercing sound, but it is completely useless for softer passages. Clarinet is a touchy instrument to sample since a good clarinetist can change the timbre of the sound at most dynamics. That's why the VSL Clarinet is so nice. They sampled the lyrical side of things.

I have more trouble with the solo flute. I can't really work with it. The solo oboe is not as bad, but still has a bunch of legato transition issues (which is really too bad because the tone is wonderful).

I'm not holding my breath for an update on these instruments as Spitfire seems to be more interested in releasing new products than updating old ones these days. I'm also not convinced we're going to see Volume 2 of BML anytime soon (which is really too bad).
 
VSL is good, but not easy to mix.
Cinesampes woodwinds can be a bit limited.
Hollywood woodwinds: some of the patches are very good, others so so..
I'm curious about the Berlin Woodwinds...
 
All the libraries have their qualities but I have to admit that Orchestral Tools products are awesome.

However, I noticed that you never mentioned the Strezov Sampling Woodwinds modules. I really like them and use them a lot.. It's not exactly like the others libraries because it's sampled "a2" (there is two modules : 2 flutes and 2 bassoons) but these products are really good, even if you can't use only these modules for a complete woodwinds section.
You need some skills in mixing because like VSL products it's recorded dry.

If you want an example I recently made a demo for Strezov Sampling for these two woodwinds modules because I wanted to show what is possible to do with them.

 
Definitely no shortage of options these days. However, the price of entry can be rather high and mistakes tend to be costly. That's why this forum and the opinions (no matter what they might be) provided by the members are so valuable! They certainly have been for me. My recommendation is start with one thing based on the demos and walkthrough videos and learn it well. Over time, you will learn how to evaluate the demos and features of other libraries much better - and ask the right questions before you make additional purchases.
 
So on the low end, does anyone own the Hephaestus clarinet? (broken link removed)

It's about $10, and I really can't afford the Embertone clarinet or the 8Dio version. VSL SE sounds like it would be awesome, but I refuse to buy anything that requires an iLok.

-Scarlet Jerry
 
I was between Cinewinds Core and Pro or BWW, it as a long back and forth. At the end I compared the non-ethnic instruments that I would get in a Cinewinds bundle vs BWW exp B. I did at the end buy BWW Exp B and Cinewinds Pro.

CineWindsBWW.png
 
I adore the Hollywood bass clarinet and used it to great effect in my opera. I'll hopefully be posting examples soon.
 
This thread got so hot! :elephant: Could someone explain to me please
  1. why to master Woodwinds instruments sampling means to be "the cream of the cream"
  2. Why Native Instruments Woodwinds had a shy release and isn't commented nor only one time here
  3. Why so big expectation for Sonokinetic multisampled Woodwinds library?
 
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