Have Audio Clarinet - I've tried it and looking for alternatives.

[fret_man]

I am excited to try my hand at writing some klezmer music and thought I'd try out the Have Audio Balkan Clarinet since it was designed to have that eastern European ethnic feel to it. It should have been a natural fit. However,

1. There's no way to remove the vibrato. Klezmer music rarely uses vibrato. This VI ignores the modulation wheel and CC1!
2. There's no way to get those long pitched scoops similar to what  you hear at the beginning of Rhapsody in Blue. Klezmer uses those as an special effect. This VI ignores the pitch bend control!
3. There's no way to get any squeaks or squawks. Setting velocity to max doesn't help because this VI ignores expression control and CC11!

So all you get are the canned notes and expressions, which sound good but it greatly limits its flexibility. You'll be adjusting your music to fit what it's capabilities are rather than programming it to do what you want. That could be a challenge some are willing to undertake, but not me. I'm looking to fit the instrument into what I want, not the other way around.

So, now I'm looking for a suitable clarinet VI that can do the 3 things mentioned above.  Any ideas?

[OutrageProductions]

Try to find a demo/walk-through on THIS. 

Demos on the VSL URL. Both the Bb &Eb clarinets are huge libraries & while a bunch of articulations, not much in terms of squeeks or squalks (as those are not considered 'pro-forma' for a professional player).

Edited April 17 by OutrageProductions

[Variorum]

You might want to check out these, although I'm not sure about the squeaks and squawks 🤔... Pretty good prices, though, at $38 and $20:

https://8dio.com/products/clarinet-virtouso

https://soundpaint.com/products/1967-clarinet-paris

[Starship Krupa]

IK Multimedia have recently been putting SampleTank 4 MAX on sale for $50-70. It includes Miroslav Philharmonik 2 among a crazy amount of other instruments.

It might be worth trying out the free SampleTank 4 CS to see how you like the UI, then wait and pounce the next time they drop the price.

It's pretty versatile under the hood, if you use the sounds in SampleTank rather than the Miroslav's own player, you have many ways to tweak the samples.

[msmcleod]

Mild squeaks/squawks usually come in when you overblow the clarinet, so you may find playing at maximum velocity gives you at least some of those characteristics. If it's a classical player however, you'll normally find it's a different type of squawk - more of a lower register swell than a higher pitched one.

A full on squawk though, is unlikely to be in any orchestral library.

The only sample library I know can do Klezmer style clarinet is Broadway Big Band  https://fablesounds.com/broadway-big-band/  - but at the price they're asking, you're as well using the TTS-1 clarinet for writing, printing the part out from the Staff View, and hiring a session player to re-record it!

Other options might be taking existing samples of phrases and doing a cut/paste job.  Splice has a section here that might be good for that: https://splice.com/sounds/packs/gio-israel/jewish-essentials-hasidic-woodwind/samples

Also this one: https://www.loopmasters.com/genres/145-Orchestral/products/795-World-Woodwind-Series-Clarinet

[fret_man]

6 hours ago, msmcleod said:

Other options might be taking existing samples of phrases and doing a cut/paste job.  Splice has a section here that might be good for that: https://splice.com/sounds/packs/gio-israel/jewish-essentials-hasidic-woodwind/samples

Also this one: https://www.loopmasters.com/genres/145-Orchestral/products/795-World-Woodwind-Series-Clarinet

Those sound perfect! Thank you. Except I've never manipulated loops before. That sounds even more tedious than manually drawing in MIDI like I usually do with instruments.

[kitekrazy]

On 4/19/2024 at 5:17 AM, msmcleod said:

Mild squeaks/squawks usually come in when you overblow the clarinet, so you may find playing at maximum velocity gives you at least some of those characteristics. If it's a classical player however, you'll normally find it's a different type of squawk - more of a lower register swell than a higher pitched one.

A full on squawk though, is unlikely to be in any orchestral library.

The only sample library I know can do Klezmer style clarinet is Broadway Big Band  https://fablesounds.com/broadway-big-band/  - but at the price they're asking, you're as well using the TTS-1 clarinet for writing, printing the part out from the Staff View, and hiring a session player to re-record it!

Other options might be taking existing samples of phrases and doing a cut/paste job.  Splice has a section here that might be good for that: https://splice.com/sounds/packs/gio-israel/jewish-essentials-hasidic-woodwind/samples

Also this one: https://www.loopmasters.com/genres/145-Orchestral/products/795-World-Woodwind-Series-Clarinet

I can produce that one a real clarinet without doing that.  I have a clarinet BTW.  Maybe I can create my own library called Anthology of Bad Clarinet.

It's nice to hear this style of playing.  Sometimes libraries can't substitute for the real thing no matter how hard you try.