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Infinite Series (Aaron Venture) thread

M0rdechai

Member
Hi guys,

For someone thats looking into, you know... all this... starting to make orchestral music with plugins.. it seems that the Infinite Series gets surprisingly little attention on this forum. So much so that I'm starting to wonder if there is some post(s) that I may have missed on why this would suck...

With all the talk around - you know which library - and reading the sample talk forum regularly a lot of pro's and cons regarding 'staple template picks' have been discussed:

- does it have a bass flute (starting with the most important here)
- price
- loading times
- RAM usage
- 'sound'
- Mutes on brass
- Euphonium
- Saxophones
- Chromatic recording vs every other note (or more)
- recording each instrument on its own vs as an ensemble
- 'playability' of a library
etc...

Looking at the few posts on here that mention the Infinite Series by Aaron Venture, I see almost exclusively happy users. and yet the top contenders for a 'solid alround template' on this forum seem to always be the Cinematic Studio Series, the Berlin Series and Spitfire Audio.
And I'm not saying those aren't great. at all.. But why is there so little mention of this series?

It has every instrument recorded seperately. Includes instruments like Euphonium, bass clarinet, saxophones, etc. that other libraries wont. Recorded chromatically. Seems to be very light on performance. Seems to be consistently programmed with good legato and smooth transitions between velocities... I could go on..

So my question is; why is this mentioned so little?
Perhaps because this is quite new and most of you guys are already set with your templates and are happy users of above mentioned libs? Is it to expensive? (I do see that it is priced higher than some, but also lower than others..)
Am I simply not hearing that the sound is obviously way to ...... (insert here)?
Please help me understand, because I am seriously thinking about skipping all the CSS, Berlin Series and Spitifire stuff and chose this over it. Am I making a mistake?
 
its the best IMO. best kept secret. I can't wait for their strings library to come out. It might not be attractive to the common users here who like to complain over articulations and keyswitches and mic positions etc. its not as sexy to talk about compared to BBCSO. The only real issue is that you won't be able to write the same way you normally do with other libraries because you don't really need keyswitches. It might not be the library that satisfies all your needs, but it is a spectacular series that I wish everyone was more passionate about.
 
Each of those libraries you've mentioned are developed by companies that has been around for at least 10 years they've already established themselves and have the attention of loyal customers before their products are even available and i can assure you when they started they weren't that popular this is just how things work in this market.
Aaron is the new kid on the block(relatively) and their product is actually quite popular compared to other Devs who have been around for longer and in 5 years or so i expect them to be one of those big ones
but what difference does it make anyway if you like the sound and the workflow go for it you'll be the one using it anyway doesn't matter if it's community approved or not
 
I've wondered the same thing, I've heard some good reviews and nice demos, and the walkthroughs for the brass had a really lovely dynamic crossfade on the horns which I liked. The only thing I can think of why it's not much spoken about is that it's quite new? (correct me if I'm wrong). Also the marketing is nowhere near as big as Spitfire's for example. And another thing for me personally, and probably for many other people too is that the demos on the website are a little too classical for my ears. I don't compose that kind of music so it is not a very good representative of how it would work in my arsenal unfortunately, as great as it might sound in a classical context.
 
Hi guys,

For someone thats looking into, you know... all this... starting to make orchestral music with plugins.. it seems that the Infinite Series gets surprisingly little attention on this forum. So much so that I'm starting to wonder if there is some post(s) that I may have missed on why this would suck...

With all the talk around - you know which library - and reading the sample talk forum regularly a lot of pro's and cons regarding 'staple template picks' have been discussed:

- does it have a bass flute (starting with the most important here)
- price
- loading times
- RAM usage
- 'sound'
- Mutes on brass
- Euphonium
- Saxophones
- Chromatic recording vs every other note (or more)
- recording each instrument on its own vs as an ensemble
- 'playability' of a library
etc...

Looking at the few posts on here that mention the Infinite Series by Aaron Venture, I see almost exclusively happy users. and yet the top contenders for a 'solid alround template' on this forum seem to always be the Cinematic Studio Series, the Berlin Series and Spitfire Audio.
And I'm not saying those aren't great. at all.. But why is there so little mention of this series?

It has every instrument recorded seperately. Includes instruments like Euphonium, bass clarinet, saxophones, etc. that other libraries wont. Recorded chromatically. Seems to be very light on performance. Seems to be consistently programmed with good legato and smooth transitions between velocities... I could go on..

So my question is; why is this mentioned so little?
Perhaps because this is quite new and most of you guys are already set with your templates and are happy users of above mentioned libs? Is it to expensive? (I do see that it is priced higher than some, but also lower than others..)
Am I simply not hearing that the sound is obviously way to ...... (insert here)?
Please help me understand, because I am seriously thinking about skipping all the CSS, Berlin Series and Spitifire stuff and chose this over it. Am I making a mistake?

I try to talk about Aaron Instruments every time I can. I love them and I almost use only them in my template. I can't wait for the strings to came out to put them together with SM Strings.

Then the percussions when they will came out (I hope for ethnic too).
 
I love them. Brass and woodwinds are my primary libraries, because I can shape them exactly as I want. The phrasing is superb. Sample Modeling's brass is the only thing that might do that side as well/better, but then I don't have experience with too many libraries so please do take that into account.

I bought CSS and CSB. They now sit in my template as 'secondary' to the AV stuff because his stuff sounds good enough + is really expressive/gives you control and I can get things done without keyswitching.

That said, CSS and CSB will also stay because I love the tone.

Oh, and also, I load up every woodwind and brass instrument, and the whole lot costs me around 1.5gb in RAM total! Sooo a good space saver too. I can see what people say about the tone of libraries like BWW (which I also think is superb) and the BBCSO. There's something captured in those which is amazing. You might argue that that rawness is missing from the AV stuff, and I feel like that might be a contributor, but that preference varies substantially between people. Also AV isn't as well known yet, so there isn't that marketing/hype around the libraries. That said, super super flexible, light on the computer, a developer that is constantly reviewing and improving his product and giving 1-on-1 service/feedback, and I think you have a pretty solid set of libraries.

Strings will be super interesting!
 
The main problem with Infinite Winds for someone like me is that the only option is to buy the whole thing for $350, and Cinematic Studio Winds will likely cost less (for CSS/CSB owners) and be closer to what I want. For me, the Cinematic Series is a known quantity. I work with it constantly and it is rock solid.

If I could get just a clarinet or contrabassoon from Infinite Winds a la carte I'd give it a closer look, like I am doing with the new Embertone Bassoon.

Also, my early impression of the winds is that it's a little too "modeled" sounding and synthy. I do find the ease of use and tweak-ability to be enticing though.

The big selling point about not needing key switches--that's not as important to me since my process is heavy on programming and editing, so key switches don't bother me in the least.
 
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with them, but they are different. Both Sample Modeling and Aaron Venture does sampling quiet differently than most other devs, and both of them don't seem spend lots of money on marketing so they might be bit more "hidden" or secret. Sample Modeling (SM) and Aaron Venture (AV) uses different techniques from each other in their libraries, but i would say for the end user they are not that different.

As mentionend before; the Infinite Series, and Aaron Venture, are very new names in the game. Spitfire, Orchestral Tools, Alex from Cinematic Studio Series, 8Dio, etc, are well know names, so they often get brought up more.

The thing with Infinite Series is that it doesn't have recorded legato, it's scripted. And, if you ask me, when done as well as Aaron has done it, it doesn't bother me. It also means that it's crazy consistent across the board.

He also records the instruments rather dry (I believe) and phase aligns each sample, meaning that there's a very smooth crossfade between the dynamics layers. You don't get the usual sound of two samples fading into each other like traditional sampling, but more a sample morphing from one dynamic layer to the other; it just sounds so much better than traditional sampling.

The biggest thing tough, from a user perspective, is that both AVs and SMs libraries are like instruments, not recordings of players playing instruments. For example: traditionally samples are recordings of a person performing, the expression is already baked in; the delay of the vibrato, the speed of the vibrato, the pitch and volume fluctuations, etc. With a more modelled approach, like AV and SM, the samples are dead and you need to be the performance, you need to really play the instruments. Nothing is baked in. They are not as forgiving as traditional samples. But if you know what you're doing you can really make them sing and give them expression that is unobtainable with traditional samples, or at least close to unobtainable.
 
They are both very good libraries that deserve more attention. I try to minimize the use of key switches in my workflow, so these two libraries were a must-have for me.

Things I like:
- Excellent playability
- Little HD and RAM footprint
- Well thought out soundstage options
- Wide variety of instruments included

Things I'd love to see improvements on:
- Tone. IW Oboe and Clair sound very good. But I'd love to hear airy flutes and smoother bassoons. IB generally sound very good.
- I'd love to hear smoother, more blurred transitions on some wind instruments.
- I'd love to hear more defined and varied staccato/staccatissimo across all instruments.

With that said, these libraries are likely to be immensely useful in everyone's toolbox. Aaron is doing phenomenal work and I cannot wait for future products.
 
People mention marketing and hype, but to me the important distinction is familiarity.

I've spent a lot of time with my Orchestral Tools and Cinematic Series libraries--I know how they work. There's been years worth of talk, videos, and resources created. There's a track record and a sizeable user base. I go into the Members Compositions thread and hear what instruments people are gravitating toward, and how they sound in action.

That stuff matters. You can't write it off as just having an active marketing team.
 
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If I could get just a clarinet or contrabassoon from Infinite Winds a la carte I'd give it a closer look, like I am doing with the new Embertone Bassoon.
This. I'd buy some instruments, but can't pay for the whole Brass library. That's why I'm waiting for OT's a la carte system instead of buying anything these days. Plus I need to fill up some holes in my template with more playable or different instruments rather than buying whole libraries.
 
I love Infinite Woodwinds. It is such a fun library. Gonna get Infinite Brass sometime soon too, but I really can't wait to see what he does with the strings!
 
I already wrote in another thread that I hope for a nice Black Friday sale on the bundle.
I am following the Infinite Series since the releases and have watched all walkthroughs on Youtube several times. Also checked Google several times and there are almost no forums or reviews talking about it.

The most important part for me is that it seams be a lot of fun playing these instruments. And like said above, you really need to play them, so that is a challenge I like to accept and learn each of the instruments.
Another reason is the free life-time update. Aaron already added some more instruments for free and he said it will be continued. (This is something I only know from my main DAW FL Studio, which I once paid for 15 years ago. I always feel a little bit bad when the next free update arrives).

Maybe I am wrong, but the videos about the Infinite Series seams like they are more easy to play than the Sample Modeling stuff. I mean, more easy to get a good sounding result. But not sure about this.

Has anyone tried the Woods or Brass with a breath/bite controller yet?
 
I already wrote in another thread that I hope for a nice Black Friday sale on the bundle.
I am following the Infinite Series since the releases and have watched all walkthroughs on Youtube several times. Also checked Google several times and there are almost no forums or reviews talking about it.

The most important part for me is that it seams be a lot of fun playing these instruments. And like said above, you really need to play them, so that is a challenge I like to accept and learn each of the instruments.
Another reason is the free life-time update. Aaron already added some more instruments for free and he said it will be continued. (This is something I only know from my main DAW FL Studio, which I once paid for 15 years ago. I always feel a little bit bad when the next free update arrives).

Maybe I am wrong, but the videos about the Infinite Series seams like they are more easy to play than the Sample Modeling stuff. I mean, more easy to get a good sounding result. But not sure about this.

Has anyone tried the Woods or Brass with a breath/bite controller yet?

I hope for the black friday we will have the strings too.

I use them with a breath controller and they are great, very playable and intuitive.
Yeah the overall impression is that are easier than SM to use, and infact they are. SM and AV are both great products and I love to have them both.

And finally updating libraries with new instruments for free it is awesome, you feel like your library will grow forever (obviously it will not be but the AV approach is great).

I'd like also to rember anyone out there that if you have suggestions give them to Aaron, it will listen to them and we could all have benefits from it.
He already did great updates with brass after the first release, also based on users suggestions.
 
@mikefrommontreal, I actually think the runs sound quite good, at least better than most libraries. Maybe a little bit on the synthy side at places, but overall not extremely noticeable. This was just something Aaron whipped up very quickly to showcase some runs. With some more time and care you could probably make it sound a lot better.
 

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You forgot a very (if not the most) important point.
- Does it sound good?

Personally it's not my top choice in that regard.
That is of course subjective.
I understand SWAM and Chris Hein are both sometimes considered to have sacrificed timbral qualities for the sake of flexibility (in different ways), so I’m guessing if IW is lacking here, this is for similar reasons to SWAM especially?

Are you able (subjectively, of course) to compare how you’d say the sound of Infinite Woodwinds compares to equivalent libraries from Audiomodelling and Chris Hein?
 
This was just something Aaron whipped up very quickly to showcase some runs.
From a PR point of view, that would be an unwise move. If something's worth doing, do it properly, especially if it is meant to or seen as showcasing a product. As an excuse, it sounds weak, almost detrimental.

That said, the mp3 you posted sounds fine, if a bit exaggerated in the legato transitions, and somewhat organ-like in the joint runs, but certainly very agile.
 
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