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Spitfire Studio Brass

I think I'd recognize Valhalla anywhere. Sounds like you and I each got similarly inspired by those libraries ;)

I would like to mention how in love I am with the Mahlerian "Bells Up" in this lib; one of my favorite brass patches from any library.
Thanks for the tip! I haven't gotten around to try that yet. Will do!
 
I think I'd recognize Valhalla anywhere. Sounds like you and I each got similarly inspired by those libraries ;)

I would like to mention how in love I am with the Mahlerian "Bells Up" in this lib; one of my favorite brass patches from any library.


@Parsifal666: As i know you own and love the BHCT library: is the brass quality of the Studio series on par with the quality of the brass in BHCT, you think?
 
I'm writing this to convince myself I need to hold off on this library since I still need to upgrade my SSD storage space. Maybe next sale...
 
@Parsifal666: As i know you own and love the BHCT library: is the brass quality of the Studio series on par with the quality of the brass in BHCT, you think?
It's hard for me to say better because I had a major love affair with that 8 horn ensemble. That said, you have more options and individual instruments in Studio, and more than a few of them are damn good. One of the things that sold me on the library was seeing how easily the Studio works with the BH... Especially the Professional version. And that goes for both the woodwinds and brass BTW.
 
It's hard for me to say better because I had a major love affair with that 8 horn ensemble. That said, you have more options and individual instruments in Studio, and more than a few of them are damn good. One of the things that sold me on the library was seeing how easily the Studio works with the BH... Especially the Professional version. And that goes for both the woodwinds and brass BTW.

This is what I’ve been wanting to hear but also fearing. I love using the Studio Woodwinds with BHCT, and have been fighting the urge all week to get Studio Brass and possibly the strings to really open up my options for detail. I feel like I have so many strings already but the more I have used BHCT this past year the more that studio sound has become my go to. I really was hoping studio brass might be as enjoyable as the woodwinds for me but a lot of the negative talk has made me wonder if I should hold off. I also know that whatever I don’t get now I’ll probably cave for in the holiday sales next winter.

Do the studio strings feel as good to play as BHCT strings?
 
I'm writing this to convince myself I need to hold off on this library since I still need to upgrade my SSD storage space. Maybe next sale...
I got a 512GB for ~$55 since it wouldn't quite fit the one I had. Waiting to install till after done downloading, only 6 hours to go. So crazy that they are reasonably priced now
 
@SpitfireSupport Here's something from the solo trumpet that could be fixed. Hear the last couple of notes? I have the MT slider maxed, but no adjustment seems to fix it. It also weirds me out some that there isn't a release slider featured with this. I tried the velocity, everything. It sound even worse with the horn, which is a shame because I think the idea behind those patches is pretty killer.

P.S. the patches seem fine with SStWWs.

[AUDIOPLUS=https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/studio-brass-pro-multi-tongue-boo-boo-mp3.20078/][/AUDIOPLUS]
I'm not sure what you are trying for here, but reducing the velocity on the antepenultimate and especially the penultimate notes will get less of the flaring effect (velocity on this patch controls the the final note, and CC1 controls dynamics. Anything below velocity 60 seems to work better than the example you posted and then add a high velocity on the final note).

One problem I've always had with these multitongue patches—and this is true of SSB as well—is repetitions, say you want 6 or 9 triple tongue articulations in a row on the same note (so two or three triggers of the triple tongue note). I've never been able to get it to sound right and often go back to mixing in single articulations even though that doesn't sound quite right either. Does anyone have a good trick for this?
 
I'm not sure what you are trying for here, but reducing the velocity on the antepenultimate and especially the penultimate notes will get less of the flaring effect (velocity on this patch controls the the final note, and CC1 controls dynamics. Anything below velocity 60 seems to work better than the example you posted and then add a high velocity on the final note).

One problem I've always had with these multitongue patches—and this is true of SSB as well—is repetitions, say you want 6 or 9 triple tongue articulations in a row on the same note (so two or three triggers of the triple tongue note). I've never been able to get it to sound right and often go back to mixing in single articulations even though that doesn't sound quite right either. Does anyone have a good trick for this?
The trick is to simply use the Multi-Tongue patches as one shots versus creating a rhythmic phrase. Spitfire's approach wasn't for creating long phrases but rather pickup notes or ending phrases for Brass. Your best best it to do as you suggested by just sequencing the phrases versus relying on the Multi-Tongue patches to construct the phrase. I simply use the Multi-Tongue patch to layer over the endings of my phrases whenever I am doing multi-tongue type work. It gives me the realism on those little moments since they stick out the most when writing at high dynamics.
 
The trick is to simply use the Multi-Tongue patches as one shots versus creating a rhythmic phrase. Spitfire's approach wasn't for creating long phrases but rather pickup notes or ending phrases for Brass. Your best best it to do as you suggested by just sequencing the phrases versus relying on the Multi-Tongue patches to construct the phrase. I simply use the Multi-Tongue patch to layer over the endings of my phrases whenever I am doing multi-tongue type work. It gives me the realism on those little moments since they stick out the most when writing at high dynamics.
Thanks! Good to know I wasn't missing something, though I also wish I was doing something wrong so I could render these passages more effectively.
 
Thanks! Good to know I wasn't missing something, though I also wish I was doing something wrong so I could render these passages more effectively.
There are quite a few things that Spitfire could do to make their flagship Brass library better. One would be to add shorter staccatissimo samples to all the main lead instruments such as the Trumpets, Horns, and Trombones. The lower brass don't really need it but it's always welcome. They added these to one of the horn sections, a2 I think. These are great for using in the Ostinatum for those fast multi-tonguing phrases that you can really sequence with the current shortest articulations. The focus of these samples should be tightly edited and cut samples for the sole purpose of extremely fast tonguing. Techniques like that, which are common with Brass, just aren't very convincing or even doable with the current content in their Symphonic Brass.
 
There are quite a few things that Spitfire could do to make their flagship Brass library better. One would be to add shorter staccatissimo samples to all the main lead instruments such as the Trumpets, Horns, and Trombones. The lower brass don't really need it but it's always welcome. They added these to one of the horn sections, a2 I think. These are great for using in the Ostinatum for those fast multi-tonguing phrases that you can really sequence with the current shortest articulations. The focus of these samples should be tightly edited and cut samples for the sole purpose of extremely fast tonguing. Techniques like that, which are common with Brass, just aren't very convincing or even doable with the current content in their Symphonic Brass.
Yes, I agree.
 
Spitfire Studio Brass bounced to the top of my list last night, after finally realizing (with egg on my face) that my problems with it stemmed from not realizing that Spitfire uses the Dynamic control as the main dynamic layer switcher, as opposed to being a "limiter" for available dynamic range (as in some other products). I found the latest user manual, and it is described fairly clearly there.

Up until that pivotal moment, I was ready to bounce back to VSL Brass (and Dimension Brass), as I didn't quite get the dynamic range out of Chris Hein Orchestral Brass after a lot of work (probably ALSO user error, even though I've read that user manual in depth countless times).

Now that I know to use the Dynamic control dynamically as opposed to a static setting that I thought determined the scaling of dynamics from Note On Velocity (apparently not how Spitfire works), I found that I was able to create the widest palette of sounds of any brass ensemble library that I own (solo brass is another matter and will be dealt with separately). I am able to get a timbral range from VSL to Chris Hein and everything in between.

Furthermore, the mic blend options from Spitfire are marvelous, so until VSL does a Synchron Brass library, I think this is going to be my top choice, just as it recently took over from VSL in my primary template for Orchestral String Ensembles (especially with its divisi flexibility).

As there are now 42 pages to this thread, I don't have the time during working hours to skim back over what was written before (perhaps I even contributed to the thread earlier as well), to determine whether those who have trashed this library mercilessly, perhaps had the same misunderstanding that I did about how Spitfire uses Note On Velocity, Expression, and Dynamics (CC1) in these libraries.
 
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The next thing I plan to do, tonight or later this week, is explore the new articulation matrix that Spitfire is trying to standardize across all products and even other companies. I didn't really quite comprehend from the drop-list in the GUI what was meant by those choices, and had not previously read that part of the newer user manuals. So as long as the articulations load instantly (or can be flagged to pre-load, as in VSL Synchron Player), for real-time playing and rendering, I have even more reason to start emphasizing Spitfire in my templates and workflow.

It's interesting to watch how Spitfire and VSL are sort of converging in many ways, with the Synchron Player from VSL and the GUI evolution of Spitfire's libraries over the past few years.
 
@Parsifal666: As i know you own and love the BHCT library: is the brass quality of the Studio series on par with the quality of the brass in BHCT, you think?

I would say so, sure. It's a different tone on some patches, though. For instance, when you line up the four horns from SStB with the 8 horn patch in BHCT it doesn't sound particularly like a logical doubling up of the instruments...they both sound like the ensembles specified, however the SStBs can be more crisp and bright. That said, I suppose a somewhat darker sound is to be expected (and probably even desired) from a library with Bernard Herrmann's name on it.
 
I have played with the UACC feature tonight, and do not care for it overall. There are many reasons for this.
  1. It is nothing like a Preset for VSL or Synchron Player, in that only articulations that are loaded for a specific Spitfire preset are available, and this of course means you have to pre-load them all to see what's in them
  2. The naming conventions are inconsistent; for example staccatissimo in the GUI maps to spiccato in the UACC spec, so this leads to further disconnects and opportunity for error (i.e. no samples loaded)
  3. Unless one is working only with libraries that implement UACC, one has to start from scratch rather than quickly map key switches between different vendors when comparing and/or doubling
  4. Neither the CC32 approach, not the UACC key switch approach in conjunction with Note On Velocity, lends itself well either to live playing (lack of tactile precision) nor to quick editing in a DAW
It's an interesting concept though, and at least the Appendix E for the UACC spec in the latest user documents, does give us a quick overview of which articulations we might expect to find SOMEWHERE in each library.

I am instead going to look at advanced patches that combine different articulations that aren't in the main default patches, as this is a bit more like VSL's Matrix setups at least, so may prove useful.

Possibly the UACC approach is a substitute for offering a true equivalent to the VSL Preset or the demand-load based Synchron Player Preset, so that one doesn't have to re-map the key switches if changing to another advanced patch.
 
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