VIR2 / Mojo2 Horn Section

[Piet De Ridder]

Now available for pre-order ($399,95 - until October 24th), the new Mojo2 Horn Section from Vir2.

• 13 deeply-sampled brass & reed instruments
• Four Era presets for retro, vintage, and modern sounds
• True legato & 13 articulations for incredible realism
• Powerful and intuitive interface
• Nearly 100GB of brand-new inspiring sample content



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[Lawrence]

Good lord.

[kpc]

Looks and sounds pretty good. In the Ensemble page, you can choose number of players, but it doesn't seem to be true Divisi, correct?

[Scoredog]

Demo sounds nice but none of the soloists show any balls, it's all quite tame.

[Luciano Storti]

Not true divisi, Kyle. And yes scoredog, I feel similarly on the soloists, and overall.

[bbunker]

Can't say I've ever put the words "Divisi" and "Pop/Jazz Horn Section" together, so - especially since this is a library of 13 individual horn section instruments, I really don't know what "True Divisi" would even be??....

[kpc]

bbunker and everyone!!!

SO sorry - I made a terrible mistake and instead of quoting you, I edited your post. I didn't catch it before I hit submit and I blew over some of your comments. I apologize profusely. So sorry, is was a complete accident, and I will see if there is a way to restore your post.

Arg....

This is what I meant to post:

Can't say I've ever put the words "Divisi" and "Pop/Jazz Horn Section" together, so - especially since this is a library of 13 individual horn section instruments, I really don't know what "True Divisi" would even be??....

In the video, they show you can increase the number of players from 1 to 10. So, if you have an alto "section" playing, it is going to double (or more) your players. If I use the 4 player setting because I like that for unison lines, but then play a 4 note chord, I suddenly have a 16 piece Alto section (if I did my math correctly )

Maybe this doesn't come up a lot in Big Band and Jazz, but it would really set them apart. Since they brought up that you can adjust the number of players It would be nice to have some divisi options is all I'm saying.

[bbunker]

Ha! I didn't even realize that it'd been edited, so - apparently the restoration went well!

OK - I think I understand what you mean by "Divisi" there - but it seems like there's a lot of ways to avoid the problem. For one thing, since the doubling feature is an effect (I'm assuming they didn't record sets of increasing instruments for every instrument!) it seems like it'd be an easy thing to automate that and turn it from 4 to 1 as needed on Trumpet Soli, for example. Or to load the same thing twice with the doubler on and off? Because it's the same sample data, I can't imagine it would be prohibitively resource heavy...

[Lawrence]

I have to wonder why, in the walkthrough, the demonstrator had vibrato on at practically all times.

[Piet De Ridder]

(...) the demonstrator had vibrato on at practically all times.

The very thing I was worrying about as well. (But since they mention two types of vibrato later on in the video — real and simulated — I guess there must be samples without vibrato in there too.)
And yes, the whole thing sounds a bit on the sedated side to me too, but that might actually be an asset when you have to do accompaniment parts.

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[1gc]

I listened most of the way through the 1st demo, (couldn't finish it). Sounds like a junior high school jazz band prior to my 1st appearance as a clinician to work with them on how to play big band jazz .
It's all (Sunset?) a flatline. There were no heads on notes, no shape within phrases, no climax, no intensity or shaping of his and lows within phrases. I heard a musical and emotional monotone presented in an attempt to make me produce money.
Devs should listen to an Oliver Nelson, a Thad Jones, a Basie chart like "Whirlybird", all of which is easy to get in the Amazon, Kendor etc marketplaces, and then use the Kendor et al chart for there sequencing to get some semblance of how to orchestrate for jazz horns, and use one of these recordings as the model to replicate with there original recordings phrasing, you know , all of that stuff you'd do with an orchestral library-----and then there's the mixing--------
My experience as a lifetime jazz horn player with a little bit of performance resume in my past has been that when new "JAZZ HORN ENSEMBLE" libs show up I'm usually completely pushed away by the quality of the demos. For all of the financial endeavor, why won't devs produce professional music with there demos.
Another let down and dissapointment.
Rant done. Sorry!
g.c.

P.S.
Hate people that bitch without solutions and I just became one of them.
Mojo, if you want, send me a contact through here and I'll be glad to talk with you about how I'd approach this demo.

[Lawrence]

I don’t completely disagree, but assuming we need some sort of MIDI horns, what has been your solution? (I have mine, but I’m still curious).

[1gc]

Hi Lawrence.
I use Sam Mods, Warp iv, XSamples has some nice stuff, Vintage Horns and the 1ST CALL Horns from Big Fish. Realtone has the 1st Trumpet from Warp iv (Screamimg Trumpet). Waves factory has a nice harmon muted Trp., as does the Kontakt 5 Factory lib with the Chris Hein Harmon.
Also, I've built new nki's in Kontakt using the samples from the K5 factory, and from the XSample libs and even some of the old Garritan from Kontakt. Applying the Kontakt scripting to "customize" these nkis allows me to overcome a lot of whats lacking in the playability of some of these older libs.
I never, NEVER,NEVER, use ensemble patches for jazz, latin or r&b horn sections, or preset multis like those of Project Sams new Noir stuff.
I just cannot sequence effective phrases for jazz lines without using individual horns.
I use a TEC B.Cntlr for all of the input.
I know I'm leaving stuff out but wanted to get back to you before I leave today.
Hope this gives you a few ideas.
P.S.
I haven't looked into the old Straight Ahead libraries but their will probably be some jazz color in those samples if they are harvestable for conversion into new nki's.

[Lawrence]

Cool. So you've never delved in SampleModeling or the old Chris Hein stuff? Or BBB?

[X-bassist]

Sounds interesting, but the vibrato is so strong it's off putting. Seems like they could have recorded this with a more natural or progressive vibrato, and a stronger fff level. But otherwise the options and setup seems top notch. Can't wait for someone to get the sound just right. For now AM Saxes and PS Swing will have to do.

[1gc]

Hi again Lawrence.
Well, I do use some Sam Mod.
But on a Big Band record date from Thad Jones to a Sinatra-Nelson Riddle date you could have as diverse a range of tambors as to have a Louis Armstrong, a Jack Sheldon, a Miles and a Warren Bergeron sound in the same trumpet section.
This happens all of the time.
Completely the reverse of an Orchestral ensemble approach where matching tambors to the principal in brass sections for example will be part of the qualifier that moves an auditioner out of the opening blind audition phase (players are only heard, not seen by the judges. They are hidden behind partitions) and on to the next. With orchestral libs we can get away with using horns from the same libs for layering,etc.
But, for me, to use one library and then duplicate it 3 more times is one of the 1st steps to artificial Jazz horn sections.
In a real recording New York A band sax section within the reeds there will be metal mouthpieces, plastic mouthpieces, varying reed choices. A one size sample choice fits all destroys the diversity of colors needed.
The old Garritan got that right, with multiple choices of different players for each instrument, I think there were 6 varied Trps, 4 Altos, 4 Tenors, 2 Bari's (I still think the Garritan Bari Sax and one of the tenor saxes are the best sax sound of all the sampled libraries I've experienced. And some of the old Garritan demos were amongst the best of the Big Band demos I've heard.
The BBB demos soured me from the beginning. For me, Big Band means swing. The BBB demos don't, thus have nothing to do with jazz. I couldn't picture playing Basie with that lib. . But I have no experience with BBB or with the Hein, that must be understood about my opinions here. Its a preconceived idea predicated on how stiff and directionless the BBB demos are, and that they don't swing. If the developer can't make them swing, and doesn't understand that in the medium swinging will be the predicate by which anything you do with the library is going to be judged well---
The Hein libraries defeat me because in originally drooling over the video demos and the playing possibilities I was seeing in them, particularly the new String Quartet, I realized everything he does that I've seen is an octave off from where most other libraries are.
I sent Mr. Hein a note about sample shifting his stuff in Kontakt so I could incorporate his libs within my workflow with all of the others correctly mapped libs I own and the response was that it couldn't be done because of his scripting.
I've sent out queries occassionally to see if Hein users have solutions as to how to record Hein libs in tandem in a project with Sam Mod, VSL, et al and have never found a response.
I don't need the Bass Trombone to be playing in the Sam Mod trumpets in the Key Editor when I'm editing. Don't need the aggravation. I also print to score, and won't put work on players stands with "8 VA" & "8 Basso" instruction all over the parts.
Maybe you have a solution for me? (HOPE, HOPE)
The best--
g.c.

[Lawrence]

g.c.- no solution sadly, but thanks for your thoughts.

My problem with JABB (which I own) is that after one second or so, each sustained tone turns into a dreadful sine wave. I often wished that Gary had given it another try when RAM became less precious.

[1gc]

Yeah, about the JABB, wonder what IT would have been like if it came into development today. I have the Kontakt version, so as I wrote earlier, I can make some internal voices out of the samples using the Kontakt script engines.
I can't imagine how much effort went into making some of the JABB demos given the time frame that they were done in and the amount of massaging it must have taken.
Next time Lawrence.
g.c.