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Cinematic Studio Brass?

Hi everyone - just want to say thanks for your support and patience over these many months. Really appreciate it! I know it's taken longer than we expected but I just wanted to let you know that we're almost there and CSB will be out in a few weeks. If you'd like to have a listen to a few demos we've got some info on our Studio Series website here: www.cinematicstudioseries.com/brass.html. Hope you like it! Let me know what you think.

(For more information, check out the official announcement thread in the Commercial forum here: https://vi-control.net/community/threads/cinematic-studio-brass-upcoming-release.76830/ )

~ Alex
 
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Hi everyone - just want to say thanks for your support and patience over these many months. Really appreciate it! I know it's taken longer than we expected but I just wanted to let you know that we're almost there and CSB will be out in a few weeks. If you'd like to have a listen to a few demos we've got some info on our Studio Series website here: www.cinematicstudioseries.com/brass.html. Hope you like it! Let me know what you think.

~ Alex
YAY! Welcome back Alex!
 
Have to be honest - I am not too crazy about the sound. Sounds small to my ears.

In any event, I wish Alex and co. the best of luck with this.
 
Dog vs. Cat perspective...

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Have to be honest - I am not too crazy about the sound. Sounds small to my ears.

In any event, I wish Alex and co. the best of luck with this.

Interested in hearing the legato scripting, but concerning size- I'd say it's perfect. The size of CSS wouldn't warrant any sizes bigger than Berlin Brass, and one thing that Hollywood Brass has which I think is useful is pairs of players. As a brass player I think sampling two has been a highly-needed element in a brass library. I'd assume you can find good results from transposing and layering as well as adding the soloist patches in. CSS needed it's version of Hollywood Brass to be a great compliment and if the articulation consistency is as consistent as it is for CSS, I think we're all in for a great treat!
 
I own way too many brass libraries already. Here's what STILL excites me about CSB from the demos:

"Edge of Reality" - really impressive demo. The smooth crescendo from mp to fff with no tangible "breaks" for both short and sustain articulations. Not something you can do with Hollywood Brass for instance, there's a really obvious break at 91 velocity for most of the shorts. There are many competing brass libraries released since HWB that APPEAR to have better programming but that's because their layers are close together and don't represent the full dynamic range of the instrument (had unfortunate experiences with Auddict & Orchestral Tools brass for this reason). This sounds like there may well be 4 dynamic layers sampled for all the sustains, and the 4th is a truly blasting fff that I've only heard captured by Performance Samples and Musical Sampling's Trailer Brass.

"The Long Road" - the solo tpt just seems really well recorded and fits nicely with the strings. The low brass have that really nice warm round quality that I tend to use Berlin Brass for right now.

"Vanguard" - agility & very natural switching back and forth between shorts and longs.

The general sound. Tight, controlled, sounds like a studio.

Having mutes, flz and rips in one package. There have been a few really nice libraries like Adventure Brass and Caspian that sell as "alternatives" to the main flagship brass libraries out there, but then you need to go back to HWB or Spitfire or OT for the special articulations. Century Brass was another recent library that was aiming for the all-artics-in-one library approach. This is cheaper and IMO sounds better.

Also notice, at least according to the GUI, there are two legato speeds! The biggest nuance and selling point of CSS carries over to the brass.

In the same vein, separately recorded tenor and bass trombones, nice.

So those are all great.

What I'm not excited about: Well, the design doc is finally revealed and it's NOT an individual-instruments library like Berlin, so Berlin & Chris Hein remain the sole contenders in that category if I remember correctly. Realistically, that wasn't going to be an option for CSB because this has always been a "bread and butter essentials" designed orchestra.... but a guy can dream....

Instead of the Berlin approach, this is more like Hollywood Brass - soloists and ensembles:
  • 2 Trumpets
  • Solo Trumpet
  • 4 French Horns
  • Solo French Horn
  • 2 Trombones
  • Solo Trombone
  • Bass Trombone
  • Tuba
The ensembles & soloists chosen seem reasonable, but I think choosing between 1 horn and 4 will be the biggest gap (a2 horns would have been a great addition). It's possible that a3 trumpets and a6 horns might be another itch that can't be scratched, but maybe layering the soloists with the ensembles will produce a sufficient a3 tpt and a5 horn sound.

On the other hand the low brass seems really well represented. Another place several post-HWB competing libraries cut corners is they don't give you a tuba or there's just one size of trombone ensemble. Here there's 3 low brass soloists plus the ability to make all kinds of combo ensembles.
 
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Congratulations Alex. Finally CSB is materializing :)

The demos sound very good, although, I would have added a tad more of a hall reverb to the brass which would have made them sound a bit lusher, and bigger sounding, and maybe sit better in the mix.

The timbre, and dynamics of CSB sound very good. A walkthrough video will hopefully be posted in the near future.

Cheers,
Muziksculp
 
Sounds great to me! The 2 trumpets are mixed soft sometimes in the demos to rein them in, and the lower brass is very enthusiastic, so it's a bit hard to get a full feel for everything yet, but the sizing sounds right to me to match CSS.

And they sound pretty real to me in the demos... some brass can struggle a lot with that, so in this case it seems like that isn't an issue here at all.

The bones and tubas sound very dramatic and biting, which is going to be very useful. The solo trumpet and horn sound fantastic. Not too much vibrato on the trumpet, which is good news.

The crescendos sound very good, which is a good sign too. :thumbsup:

It sounds like they all do FF very well, so here's hoping it also does a warm soft PP very well also.
 
I think maybe there's just been so much gigantic ridiculous brass released people are sometimes not used to hearing "normal" sounding brass.

I think it sounds great. More than great, in fact. Given how consistent and wonderfully programmable CSS is, I'm sure CSB will also be a joy to work with.

I'm definitely keen on it.
 
I am very curious to how the room mics sound on their own. I've never been very fond of close miced brass, so I would love to hear how much these players excite the room the library is recorded in.
 
Loving the sound of the Trumpets and French Horns.
Legatos sound great as always.
And that bite!

It would be cool if there would be walkthrough videos.
I'm also curious on how the individual mics sound.
 
This sounds amazing! True brass. I am very excited about this. The dynamic range sounds great and the ensemble sizes seem pretty flexible.
 
The ensembles & soloists chosen seem reasonable, but I think choosing between 1 horn and 4 will be the biggest gap (a2 horns would have been a great addition). It's possible that a3 trumpets and a6 horns might be another itch that can't be scratched, but maybe layering the soloists with the ensembles will produce a sufficient a3 tpt and a5 horn sound.
The beautiful thing about Alex's libraries is that everything is so incredibly consistent that you can most certainly just throw the soloists and ensembles together in one patch with the same midi data, and it will just work.
And if the transposition trick works as well as it does with CSSS (see here for example: https://vi-control.net/community/threads/customized-css-csss-violins-for-flow-and-cohesion.76530/), you can easily build your own a6 and a2 ensembles as well. :)
 
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