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The Orchestral Sample Library Thread


Drew

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3 hours ago, Mr. Who said:

Who is Olivia?

 

The main character from Fringe.  Maybe that was somebody else who used to have her as their avatar...

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4 hours ago, Jay said:

 

The main character from Fringe.  Maybe that was somebody else who used to have her as their avatar...

Ah I’ve never seen Fringe so that must’ve been someone else.

 

Have had the GOT one for years.

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12 hours ago, karelm said:

One important detail, are you just a hobbyist or pro?

Well, I don't earn a living from composing (although i had a couple of gigs in the past), but I would like to.

Anyway, I will see into it, and probably upgrade my RAM to the possible largest for my system.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/17/2021 at 10:56 PM, Datameister said:

the Samplemodeling brass instruments are hard to beat, particularly The Trumpet. With careful use of the CCs

I was meaning to ask you Datameister.

Do you have an expression controller, and if not, do you remap the CC11 to your modwheel?

If  that's a yes to the 2nd question how do you control vibrato then? I'm trying to figure this out.

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4 hours ago, filmmusic said:

I was meaning to ask you Datameister.

Do you have an expression controller, and if not, do you remap the CC11 to your modwheel?

If  that's a yes to the 2nd question how do you control vibrato then? I'm trying to figure this out.

 

I just map it to my modwheel, yeah. For vibrato, I'll either draw it in manually or assign it to one of the faders on my controller.

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46 minutes ago, filmmusic said:

What is this?


When you recorded an instrument track with MIDI keyboard in your sequencer, there’s usually an option to record „over“ that track, but not to replace the notes, but to input MIDI CC with your MIDI controller/keyboard, so you don’t have to paint the curves manually.

 

I use that because I’m not so good with keyboard playing that I can play and use modwheel/faders at the same time.

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2 hours ago, gkgyver said:

Manually drawing in vibrato? I did that for years, but eventually even I realized life's too short. 

Why not MIDI overdub? 

 

That's what I mean - I'll assign it to a fader's CC so I can overdub afterward.

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I think it's easier--and better--to manually mess with the dynamics and expression tools and what not. I'll record a part straight through and go back later to "sculpt" on it. It takes a little more time but I can usually get a sound that satisfies me.

 

Plus I have really shake-y hands and I find it easier to click and drag with the mouse as opposed to trying to use the right finger pressure on my knobs and faders.

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I love the samplemodeling brass. Using a fader (or mapping to modwheel) for dynamics/expression works fine, but I've found it's much more fun (and yields more "natural" curves) to use a breath controller (which also frees up your hand to input e.g. vibrato via modwheel in the same pass).

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I just write in every note and modification manually on piano roll since I'm not that great at keyboard playing. Hell, I'll have to write on paper eventually, so might as well have that mentality on lock beforehand. 

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7 hours ago, filmmusic said:

Has anyone tried Audiobro's Modern Scoring Strings?

How different it is in sound from LASS?

 

I'm eager to know too. Not that I'll be able to afford it any time soon.

 

LASS is a great library but takes a lot of time and effort to learn that I simply haven't invested.

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  • 1 month later...

So, CineBrass Core vs. CineBrass Pro? They are both the same price on sale. Which is better?

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My assumption was that CORE is a reduced version of PRO...but that seems to be only partially true as this user on the vi-control forum implies that CORE has better high brass while PRO has better low brass. That makes no sense to me. Not sure why PRO would not include everything that was in CORE, but what do I know. I don't own it. Granted this post is from 2015 so it's possible they could've upgraded them by now:

 

Quote

I have both Core and Pro, and if you are thinking about which one to purchase, I would go with Core first since it covers most of what a composer would need for everyday use. The pros of Core are the beautiful trumpet samples, horn ensemble 2 which are great for chords, and horn ensemble 6 which can produce "a rich, epic sound." The cons of Core are the low brass including the trombone ensemble which does not have true legato, are great for loud passages, but are useless for low brass soft chords, and the tuba and bass trombone are mixed together so you can not get a rich, full, warm bass sound that a tuba can produce. The cimbasso is also mixed with the bass trombone and not separate which can be a pro or con depending on who you ask. The solos in Core are both trumpet and horn and can only be used in soft, melodic passages. Both are beautiful but only reach around a mf. The trumpet solo sounds "Private Ryan-like" and the horn solo sounds "Princess Leah-like."

Pro has the inclusion of mutes, special effects, chords, solos, and if you are going for the epic whole-notes in the low brass or horns. The two epic patches are the monster low brass and horn ensemble 12. The monster brass sounds great and can even sound beautiful in low dynamics but does not include true legato and the horn ensemble 12 is perfect for the loud, bright, buzzing tone of the horn but only has short and long articulations. It does include true legato though. In Pro you have trumpet 2 solo, horn 2 solo, trombone solo, and tuba solo which cover all of the basic Cinesamples' articulations. The trumpet 2 solo is too bright for my taste in the low register and almost has a jazz-like quality to the timbre. The horn solo 2 is also brighter but perhaps more useful than the horn 1 in Core. The trombone and tuba are excellent covering a very wide range. The trombone solo blends well with other instruments. I like to combine it sometimes with Core's Horn Ensemble 2 for soft passages or even Spitfire's Bones Legato to add a little more punch in the higher dynamics. The tuba can be very warm and mixes well with woodwinds and adds a rich layer when combined with monster brass.

So to me, for high brass you need to go with Core, for low brass you need to go with Pro, but where Cinesamples has always suffered is their trombone ensemble. It can not produce the warm tone in the soft registers and does not contain true legato or glissandos in which trombones are known for. In both libraries there is also no bass trombone solo, cimbasso solo, or flugelhorn solo. Because of their trombones, I had to pick up my very first Spitfire library which was Bones Volume 1. It was a little expensive compared to other brass libraries, but I finally did get my warm, soft, beautiful passages in which I know trombones can produce. I wish CineBrass Core or Pro had an brass ensemble patch like CineSymphony Lite for sketching and layering. Also, the trumpets and horns in Core can not produce a true fff which that layer is only available in Pro.

 

EDIT: Here's a more recent post:

Quote

solo brass in core is better, core doesn't have solos for everything, nor does it have all articulations for the solos it does have.

so basically ;
core = brass ensemble + extras
pro = solo solo + extras

 

EDIT #2: Yes, it appears CORE and PRO use different recordings. That's not confusing at all.

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I would want to use it as a companion brass library for BBCSO. So IDK, maybe a stronger high brass section would be more important. But it seems that Core does not come with muted brass.

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6 hours ago, Drew said:

I would want to use it as a companion brass library for BBCSO. So IDK, maybe a stronger high brass section would be more important. But it seems that Core does not come with muted brass.

 

Yeah. It's a tough call. Personally, if they're the same price. I'd go with Pro for the extra articulations.

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13 hours ago, Drew said:

I would want to use it as a companion brass library for BBCSO. So IDK, maybe a stronger high brass section would be more important. But it seems that Core does not come with muted brass.

I, too, am about to invest in Cinebrass to supplement the BBCSO brass.

 

I don't know how you feel about certain patches but I feel like the BBCSO brass, while not satisfactory overall, has decent single patches. I don't think the low brass in BBCSO leaves anything to be desired and I feel personally that it's quite useable. I could see myself supplementing CORE's low brass patches in case I needed to give it more oomph while layering them over the BBCSO patches, but I really need that mid-to-high to reach the heights I'd want it to. So for that reason I think CORE is the one for me. Cinebrass is always doing sales. I can always pick up PRO on another go.

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Just recently got the East West Hollywood Orchestra, (not Opus Edition) and I've had very little issues with those. Great muted and unmuted brass and string stuff especially. To me it's one of the most realistic sounding libraries.

 

I remember hearing a cover of Hedwig's theme using that set, and while there were a few issues here and there, it sounded almost entirely realistic and accurate to the original recording. My only issue with the libraries is some of the legatos for woodwinds sound kind of bad because they often have an accent no matter what the modulation or expression is set to. 

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8 minutes ago, superultramegaa said:

Just recently got the East West Hollywood Orchestra, (not Opus Edition) and I've had very little issues with those. Great muted and unmuted brass and string stuff especially. To me it's one of the most realistic sounding libraries.

 

I remember hearing a cover of Hedwig's theme using that set, and while there were a few issues here and there, it sounded almost entirely realistic and accurate to the original recording. My only issue with the libraries is some of the legatos for woodwinds sound kind of bad because they often have an accent no matter what the modulation or expression is set to. 

 

From what I've heard Opus fixed most if not all of the legato issues people have been complaining about for years.

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I may have to give Opus a shot then. I've had similar positive and negative experiences with EWQL for years. Still my go to for most things, but some minor issues here and there.

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I had a nightmare trying to download the old Hollywood libraries on Composer Cloud (missing Play plugin) and then it tried to tell me that I can't use Opus Hollywood Orchestra. I want to be done with EastWest once I can unsubscribe.

 

5 hours ago, TheAvengerButton said:

I, too, am about to invest in Cinebrass to supplement the BBCSO brass.

 

I don't know how you feel about certain patches but I feel like the BBCSO brass, while not satisfactory overall, has decent single patches. I don't think the low brass in BBCSO leaves anything to be desired and I feel personally that it's quite useable. I could see myself supplementing CORE's low brass patches in case I needed to give it more oomph while layering them over the BBCSO patches, but I really need that mid-to-high to reach the heights I'd want it to. So for that reason I think CORE is the one for me. Cinebrass is always doing sales. I can always pick up PRO on another go.

 

Yeah, BBCSO brass is decent now, but nothing else. Can't decide if CineBrass supplementing low brass or high brass is more important.

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15 minutes ago, Drew said:

Yeah, BBCSO brass is decent now, but nothing else. Can't decide if CineBrass supplementing low brass or high brass is more important.

 

If I were you I'd just go for Core. For myself, I'm always using the low end as foundation and support. I don't necessarily always compose extravagantly with Tuba or Trombone or have them at the forefront often. I love to have some nice soaring high brass, so Core is kind of a no-brainer for me.

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15 minutes ago, TheAvengerButton said:

 

If I were you I'd just go for Core. For myself, I'm always using the low end as foundation and support. I don't necessarily always compose extravagantly with Tuba or Trombone or have them at the forefront often. I love to have some nice soaring high brass, so Core is kind of a no-brainer for me.

 

A custom mix in BBCSO Pro can help make the low brass sound better anyway.

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8 hours ago, Drew said:

 

A custom mix in BBCSO Pro can help make the low brass sound better anyway.

Alternatively, JunkieXL Brass has single patches you can buy, and IMO they sound just as good as Cinebrass. I'm still having an internal debate about which to go with. With JunkieXL I can focus on getting the patches that match up with the patches I want to replace in BBCSO (Trumpets a3, Horns a4, etc.) And then later get some of the more fun patches (Horns and Trombones a12, Cimbasso).

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Berlin Brass might move to SINE player this year, so then those would have single patches too at that point I believe.

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14 hours ago, Drew said:

Is so ironic that Junkie XL brass sounds way more realistic than Junkie XL's real orchestral recordings.

 

I'll second that. He seems to like to drown out his brass for the effect, but it's not very effective. But JunkieXL brass is a really fine brass library for sure, able to compete with IMO the best one, which is Cinebrass. I'm going to end up buying some of the single patches off the SINE player.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Oh wow Arcane is back? lol. I got it ages ago. I don't really use it much anymore, but it's fun. Bit of a resource hog though unfortunately.

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Coincidentally I was just resetting up all my NI instruments yesterday (I recently got a new hard drive), I have a bunch of free libraries I've gotten over the years that I'm still unable to use because I don't have the full version of Kontakt. Now at only $130 I can finally pull the trigger!

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7 hours ago, TheAvengerButton said:

How long does the sale go on for? I was going to buy another single instrument but I might get Kontakt when I get paid next.

 

I'd say just get it now. You might have to wait until Black Friday or something otherwise.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I need help making a Logic articulation set for CineBrass Core. On the "articulations" patches, the only keyswitches that show up are for double and triple tonguing. I thought there is supposed to be an easier way to figure out the articulations.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...

Big news: Orchestral Tools just ported the Berlin series to their SINE Player. This means that you can buy individual patches now! It's great option if there are a few weak links in your template then you can buy some Berlin instruments without spending a fortune.

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  • 2 months later...
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  • 2 weeks later...

Might not be entirely appropriate for this thread, but what is the best DAW for orchestral and film music? There are so many, I really have no idea which one to get, currently I still have Cakewalk but want to switch. What experience do you have with your DAWs? I've heard of FL Studio, for example, that it's more made for beats, especially since the Producer Edition doesn't even have a player for videos integrated, which is completely stupid for film music. If I have a tendency at all, then PreSonus Studio One, but no idea.

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