Amicus717

One thing I've noticed in these forums - Cinesamples doesn't seem to get a lot of love from folks, aside from the Tina Guo library. In fact, I rarely see Cinesamples being talked about. On VI Control (and elsewhere) I've heard very mixed things about Cinebrass (some really like it, some really don't). Curious if anyone has ever used it?...

Thanks for the input, folks. Much appreciated. Tapsa, I had completely forgotten about the Studio Brass series from Spitfire Audio -- just watched the walkthrus on their site, and that might be exactly what I'm looking for. Really does sound great, and priced rather well for a Spitfire library. I've heard raves about the Cinematic Studios Brass, too (and their string libraries). I wish developers would release demo versions of their stuff -- even just a single instrument with a restricted range and lower sample count, or whatever -- so that it would be possible to a get a really good sense of how a library will perform and fit into a template. CSB sounds really good, though. It's $500+ (Canadian) for me to buy it, which is probably a fair price, but it would be great to be able to experiment with even a small portion of the library before dropping that much coin on it. Dirk Ehlert did a walkthru of it, so I'll have to give that a listen. Appreciate the suggestions.

Hi folks, I've never been entirely happy with my current roster of brass libraries, and am looking to expand my palette a bit. However, I'm finding it tough to figure out which direction go in, and I'm curious what other folks are using. I'm trying to find a brass library that will work with my existing template, which means it cannot be a resource hog, is highly configurable in terms of articulations, and covers the basics really well. I do old school orchestral stuff pretty much exclusively. My current set of libraries: Hollywood Brass - has some nice patches, but I am not a big fan of Play, and in general I don't find the library to be very efficient. HW Brass' various French Horns patches are its best feature, but I don't like its trumpets much. NI Symphony Series Brass -- the ensemble patch is quite decent as a quick and dirty way to add brass to a project, and the section patches have their moments. But I find the legatos unconvincing, and I don't find the sample set to be very deep - in particular, the trumpets have a couple of recurring samples that jump out as being different than their kindred and I find it really distracting. Albion ONE - love this library in general and use it a ton, but really don't like how they have distributed the instruments and ranges on their brass patches. And the trumpets sound thin and very synthy, and I really hate them. Da Capo - Adequate as a sketching tool, but not very configurable or detailed -- and no trumpets at all, which always struck me as a little weird. VSL Special Editions - very configurable, and they sound good (including the trumpets), but the Special Editions are quite limited and the full versions would be far more useful. However, I am very reluctant to get deeper into the VSL ecosystem, due to their draconian copy protection and licensing issues. Looking this list over, it seems to be all about trumpets. That is partially true; I don't have a trumpet patch or library that I like. But I'd also like some great horn and trombone patches, too. I'd be curious to know what other folks are using, and what you like, with the emphasis on a very traditional orchestral brass sound. Thanks! Rob

Anyone ever come across these folks before? Looks and sounds interesting -- physically modeled strings and their own touch controller (check out the Touché controller they offer). They are not on sale, or anything, but it looks like they have some intriguing products: https://www.expressivee.com/arche-collection

Had this exact same experience with my youngest son`s gaming computer. It had an SSD drive for the OS, and it just up and stopped working six weeks after we installed it. I was thinking I`d need to RMA the drive, but after testing it on a partly disassembled test rig I keep in my basement (for just these sort of occasions), I discovered the drive still worked perfectly. Swapped out the SATA cable on my son`s computer, and we were back in business. The drive has been running just fine for over a year now. SATA cables seem to be a bit fragile or failure prone, maybe...

Glad to help! Good luck.

I open my orchestral template, which is pretty comprehensive, and just start playing something on whichever track/instrument I happen to click on first, and see where it goes. The key thing for me, I find, is working fast. I've lately been setting a time limit, and then trying to create at a blistering pace without redos, overthinking and/or adjustments, and see what I come up with. And when I say time limit, I mean hardcore -- 20 minutes or less for a full orchestral mock-up that runs for a minute, and I stick to that limit like glue. I find that it turns off my self-critical faculties, and lets my creative side just kind of do its thing without worrying. The end product usually sounds like complete crap, but there are always (and I mean always) interesting ideas buried in there that I can build off of, including unexpected cord changes or melodic shifts that I never would have thought of had I been approaching this more deliberately. It's fun, and works pretty well, so far. And its great for breaking out of creative ruts.

You like the Caspian Brass? That is one of their libraries, in particular, that I was looking at. I'm good for strings -- I got more usable string libraries than I'll ever need, at this point -- but I'm never quite been happy with the brass libraries that I have, and am still looking for a one that sounds good and suits my workflow.

Does anyone have any of their libraries? They sound quite nice in the demos, but I no longer consider that sufficient reason to buy a product, especially from a developer who seems pretty new to the scene...

Yeah, I'm wondering if "Albion TWO" is in the works. No word on their site about that. I seem to recall last time when they retired an Albion library, they had already announced "Albion ONE", and were offering upgrades for folks who bought the retiring library.

Spitfire is retiring Albion II, and its on sale for 50% off: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/albion-ii-loegria/

Me too. I own Nimbus (best reverb in the history of reverbs, IMHO), and it is already in my izotope account.

I switched to Cubase during the bleak days when Cakewalk was drifting abandoned, and I think it's an outstanding DAW, especially for me. Completely stable, seriously rich in features. I'm virtually all midi in what I do, and Cubase's midi tools are the best I have ever used. Period. I still use Cakewalk regularly, too -- I find it comfortable and intuitive for when I'm doing final mixes on my music, and I have a serious addiction to the ProChannel and its plugins, as well as the L-Phase EQ and Multiband. All my music that has been posted in the songs forum here was built in Cubase, and then exported and -- for lack of a better word -- mastered in Cakewalk. Even if I was not still a Cakewalk user on some level, I'd be on this forum, though. Great group of people, with lots of knowledge and a pretty good sense of humor, and in Larry's case an unerring ability to make me poorer. And hey, maybe one day Cakewalk will evolve its midi tools and give Cubase a run for its money! I'd switch back full time in a heartbeat. But if that did happen, I'd probably never know without hanging around here.

I'm still trying to figure out if that is true legato I'm hearing in the demo tracks...

Boy, do I like this one. Just a great song all around -- really catchy, great playing and vocal work. Totally enjoyed it. To my ears, the refrain evoked the slightest hints of America (the band, of course), especially in the vocal work. I do agree that the storm fade-in at the beginning is rather abrupt. A more deliberate fade in might work quite nicely, here. But that's really a minor quibble. Really grade A stuff, IMHO. Rob

Composer Guy Rowland has some good walk-thrus of various ProjectSAM libraries, including the above mentioned Orchestra Essentials. Pretty good overview of what they contain and how they sound. He also covers Lumina and some of the earlier Symphobia libraries in his other videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl7d6jBTab8

And Play 6 is a definite improvement on previous versions, fwiw, although that's not saying a huge amount. I found that my total usage of EastWest libraries went way down after I got a full version of Kontakt. Access to all the Kontakt libraries was quite a game changer for me. The only EW library that I fire up on a regular basis is Hollywood Brass. HW Percussion gets a bit of use, and occasionally HW Strings (mainly to use the playable runs patches). I have a bunch of other EW libraries (EW Woodwinds, Voice of Passion, Pianos, etc), but they rarely see any use at all. But the HW Brass library is, to my ears, still a very good library. Excellent horn patches, etc, decent trumpets. I've been searching for reasonably priced NKI alternatives to the HW Brass patches, and haven't really found anything I liked, yet. The NI Symphony Series brass certainly don't sound as good, and the combination brass patches in Albion don't turn my crank either. The VSL libraries are very nice, and I like the flexibility of the VSL ensemble player, but I'm having second thoughts about getting too deep into the VSL ecosystem, with their draconian licensing issues, etc. So I'll be using Play for the foreseeable future.

So far, it's been a pretty modest roll-out of free content from the ProjectSAM catalogue, and the patches are somewhat narrow in their potential use, at least for me. So you're not really missing a whole lot, at this point. But I have to admit, all of these free samples are gorgeously recorded. And I understand that ProjectSAM's general programming and scripting is pretty solid. So I have heard, anyway. Makes me think their products are worth taking a good look at -- assuming their style of library will fit into my workflow, with their emphasis on arranged ensembles and lots of baked in sounds and ambiance, etc.

Release your inner Chuck Mangione here: http://www.cmusic.pro/product-cat/solo/solo-flugelhorn/

Available here: https://projectsam.com/library-category/the-free-orchestra/

Until March 25th: https://www.bestservice.com/deals/up_to_40_off_vienna_special_editions.html

Various drivers updates, mostly from Feb 2019... http://www.rme-audio.de/en/downloads/driver/uc.php

I've been waiting for this one to go on sale again. Anyone have it? Be curious to get some opinions...

Gotta admit -- I'm curious what the Epic Orchestra sounds like, and how good the patches are...

Until March 18th: http://www.cmusic.pro/product-cat/solo/solo-trumpet-2/