Audiobro Modern Scoring Brass: some memory tips

[Muziksculp]

Honestly, I'm more excited about seeing LASS 3 Released this year.

In general, I tend to use brass sparingly in my compositions, more for accenting or highlighting dramatic points, or melodic layering, i.e. ( using Horn Ensemble). So this library might be an overkill for me at this point. Plus I already have Spitfire Orch. Brass, OT BB, CSB, CineBrass, and some other Brass libraries. So I already have lots of options, and variety for Brass.

Although, I'm still interested in watching more tutorial/presentation videos of MSB.

[kpc]

MSB is now available in the Audiobro Store. Go get it.

[KyleJudkins]

I already bought it and have been downloading it.

audiobro website is weird, it's in the store, not on the product page.

also you register the serial to your forum account to see it in the downloader

[KyleJudkins]

Honestly, I'm more excited about seeing LASS 3 Released this year.

In general, I tend to use brass sparingly in my compositions, more for accenting or highlighting dramatic points, or melodic layering, i.e. ( using Horn Ensemble). So this library might be an overkill for me at this point. Plus I already have Spitfire Orch. Brass, OT BB, CSB, CineBrass, and some other Brass libraries. So I already have lots of options, and variety for Brass.

Although, I'm still interested in watching more tutorial/presentation videos of MSB.

divisi euphoniums though XD

I don't have CSB, but at the very least this is much ram friendlier than BB, and has auto divisi for sketching.

I can't wait to hear the different mics though, I'm actually excited that they have the decca center separated- so you can 'pan' a mono far mic.

[ZeeCount]

So I posted this on the other site, but figured you might want to see it here. Just a quick run through of the Ulricht from Mahler 2. 1 Horn patch and 1 Trumpet patch. I've included the full mix as well as all of the individual mics soloed. All internal processing is turned off (comes with an eq and ir reverb on by default).

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pfmizqmpcv57 ... 87g1a?dl=0

One thing I've already picked up on is the auto divisi engine really doesn't like it if you overlap notes in chord changes, as it tries to revoice them on the fly and causes a "clunk" sound. You can hear it happen a few times in this render.

[KyleJudkins]

noice, I saw the example you put up on VIC but I can't really... ya know.

Ive just started playing with the trumpets - oddly I wish you could get the center decca out into it's own output, but it doesn't seem like you can do that.

what you CAN do, is automate/adjust the detuning(on a per voice level) Guy. Alsoooooooo the sizzle is what's up. I use that as CC2 and ride it just like the dynamics - because it drastically increases the timbre's you can produce.

3 trumpets is a wopping 4.75 gb with all the mics loaded - and you can set the attacks types to velocity and that works/feels pretty smooth. I think when players realize they can automate the sizzle knob - they'll never look back. I naturally do this with anything I can at the moment in my template - so it's a welcome addition.

The tempo sync'ed crescendos with the drop down menu is a godsend - I'll update you guys more when I get to toy with it longer. First thing I did was go in and disable the eq and convo

[Piet De Ridder]

Thanks for posting, Count! Interesting.
(Adds another tick though, on my two-columned yes-no list, in the already well-ticked column of reasons not to buy this, )

Would it be possible, and I'd be eternally grateful if it were, to step through the dynamic range with a few of the staccato patches? Say, eight notes or so from ppp to fff? Just to hear how the mid-range dynamics fit in with the extremes, cause that's where most brass libraries slip up badly, I find. Thanks!

_

[KyleJudkins]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2bkonl5j2pfmf ... t.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5zjxnnzjmnn2w7g/16th.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b6tzbvlk42tgi70/8th.mp3?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ran4bc02a8u4o7k/4th.mp3?dl=0

There is still a glaring issue.

I simply automated a curve onto the velocity, and also threw in the "sizzle" automated(with a small amount of detune tied to it) Not sure which mic mixes I'll use, because I haven't gotten that far - so apologies if it's closer than you'd like.

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks you two. Kyle, I'm getting these chopped right off at the end, and after the first swell it seems to throttle right back - is CC1 closing immediately after the note here? Also if I'm being cheeky and begging requests, I'd love to hear a render with each note separated to hear the full tone of it. Glad to hear that there's plenty of humanisation options, hoping that there are defaults that work pretty well most of the time too, because it seems at the moment its a little too rigid.

Zee, the revoicing thing - on LASS you have chord detection controls that I always had to widen to make it usable. Is there an equivalent on MSB somewhere buried in the settings? I don't see any manual online yet, so can't be sure.

I'm going to be all ears for the next few days. I'm listening for the dynamic range, smoothness and variety, listening for what the vibrato control does, to what the ensembles sound like as they build up, humanisation options etc.

BTW, Audiobro now have a video up on patch / CPU / RAM usage: https://audiobro.com/installing-modern-scoring-brass/

[KyleJudkins]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3dhq33f0wir9r ... y.mp3?dl=0

that's playing both the mod and the sizzle(wheel)

100% random few bars of 7 part (I would hate to call it harmony) I tried to stagger the other two voices a bit.

that's playing on 1 auto divisi patch. Realistically you'd absolutely want separate patches per - but all in all - not a bad way to sketch.

vibrato definitely sounds like it's an automation(doesn't sound too bad as long as you keep it subtle)

the detune being automated is going to be amazing for bones. you can literally manually draw in the pitch fluctuations - and automate it back out.

i.e. towards forte big nasty chords - you add a bump of detune that tapers off "somewhat" after the start of the note - as players adjust. OR you have a particularly atonal/cluster chord that you want to sound extra nasty. Or the best example is just detuning towards the top note. I.e. playing the main title from SW - having them struggle on the Bb on top.

[NoamL]

Those short notes are a big problem. The dynamic levels don't feel crossfaded at all. Kyle can you confirm there's a "break" at around 70-100 velocity or so? This reminds me of Hollywood Brass.

I feel like an a-hole for saying it but with intro being "only" 25% off, I might as well wait to comparison shop between this and Junkie XL Brass at some point in the future. If ever. Right now I am keeping up with a synthestration project with tight deadlines and often quite traditional brass writing and CSB is a trooper of a library.

[KyleJudkins]

yeah theres a funky break.

[Guy Rowland]

That IS a big timbral jump, really nothing between those extremes?! Is there any variation in the key velocity on top of the CC1?

I was afraid vibrato would be an effect, and these are usually pretty yuk. Mostly that just affects the solo trumpets I guess? Likely in an ensemble you wouldn't notice especially, as the effect will be on multiple sources (of course a vibrato effect applied at the end would be ghastly, but that's not how MSB is set up). From the little they played on the demo video I figured that I wouldn't be retiring the original CineBrass solo trumpet patch any time soon.

Automating detune is good, but I'm really hoping for a good catch all setting. LASS is fantastic here, but that's largely because of the samples themselves. Some of the individual A B and C patches can sound quite wildly out of tune, but put them together and its just magic. Of course Audiobro took heat for this - "but the divisi are out of tune!". I wonder if the weakest elements of MSB are the result of when you make it too perfect. So my big question remains - how much can manual detunes and humanisation compensate? And can that be set without having to go through a fiddly process every single time?

[Guy Rowland]

(Just to add - at 4'25 on the original promo video there's a good variety of trumpet short dynamics on the little ART demo, so something more has to be possible?)

[Piet De Ridder]

Those short notes are a big problem. (...)

You can say that again. If that jump from mf to f is indeed as brusque as it sounds in Kyle’s examples — thanks very much, by the way, Kyle —, I’m done with my deliberations and ticking of lists: not for me, this MSB.

I wonder why developers keep skipping so negligently over so important a dynamic range as mf>f>ff. They all do it and they’ve been doing since I don’t know when. It bothered me big time in the first serious brass library I ever bought (Project SAM’s Orchestral Brass) and it’s been bothering me in just about every brass library I purchased since: that gaping hole in the upper mid of the dynamic range which they either cross by jumping inordinately (as MSB appears to do) or by a clumsy combination of stacking, cross-fading and filtering (which, to my ears, sounds just as bad). So strange that they’re satisfied with that.
And all it would take is one additional velocity layer (though I’d prefer two, for increased timbral accuracy) and the problem would cease to exist.

_

[Guy Rowland]

I’d just hold fire Piet - listen again to the video at the point that I mentioned in the last post. Not sure what’s happening here, very early days. I’m pretty sure they mentioned up to 9 layers.

[KyleJudkins]

I work the next two days - but ill have most of the weekend off - I'll set more of it up - and little things like that, I'll make a screencap of and post in the audiobro forums.

oddly it just almost doesn't seem like it's really cross fading, and seems to drop off a lot at full 127. Entirely possible something is screwy. Guy with the detune - each individual part of divisi has per pitch detune amounts - so you can just move the slider where ever you want.

i.e. you can set it at 5%, and when you play a note - each one will have an off tuning 5% towards a preset, per voice. So voice 1 might have perfect intonation, voice 2 might be a little flat on a C# but a little over a D. Voice 3 might be the flattest of the bunch on C# but almost on the money on D.

you don't have to automate it at all - I just think it sounds good that way.

[Piet De Ridder]

You mean this bit, Guy? Yeah, that’s better. But the worry remains as far as those patches which Kyle demoed are concerned, because I just can’t imagine him skipping over an entire velocity range doing those examples.

But as you say, with so little info, it’s difficult to evaluate and unfair to draw conclusions. And I’m not really interested in this product anyway. If I had a need for a brass library today (which my not-rapturous-but-quite-strong-nonetheless satisfaction with Berlin Brass prevents from being acute), I’d definitely go shopping Down Under.

_

[lucor]

If I understood correctly, MSB has a lot of settings for how you want to handle dynamics (with velocity, modwheel, a combination of the two etc.).
I'm pretty sure something isn't set correctly in that regard (or some other user error), because I just can't see how Audiobro would release short articulations like these.

[Guy Rowland]

You mean this bit, Guy? Yeah, that’s better. But the worry remains as far as those patches which Kyle demoed are concerned, because I just can’t imagine him skipping over an entire velocity range doing those examples.

Yes. that's the bit - that sounds like a nice broad range. We'll wait to hear what Kyle reports, but I guess its possible that the way the patch is set up responds to both key and CC1 velocity, and he was only changing CC1?

[ZeeCount]

The library defaults to "CC Scaled Velocity" mode, where both CC1 and velocity are controlling the dymaics. I've put the manual in the folder where I put my clips if you want to peruse it.

@Guy: I still haven't develed that deeply into how the Auto Divisi works, and it's easy enough to work around. The way they have programmed the library it "catches" notes for transitions, so you don't have to fully overlap them to get legato transitions anyway. If you are in tutti mode, it will always try to have all the voices playing, so if you have a three part chord, but don't release all notes at the same time, the other voices will try to jump to the last note that is left playing.

[KyleJudkins]

I had modulated CC1 with my example as well because I thought for a second that maybe it was supposed to be CC1. That said - I thought the same thing - that these shorts don't match up with the video demo, so I figured I'd try to fix it on my end first(batch resaving now that I woke up) but by the time I get this batch resaved(taking some time for some reason) and open my template - I'll probably be on the way to work.

[KyleJudkins]

The library defaults to "CC Scaled Velocity" mode, where both CC1 and velocity are controlling the dymaics. I've put the manual in the folder where I put my clips if you want to peruse it.

@Guy: I still haven't develed that deeply into how the Auto Divisi works, and it's easy enough to work around. The way they have programmed the library it "catches" notes for transitions, so you don't have to fully overlap them to get legato transitions anyway. If you are in tutti mode, it will always try to have all the voices playing, so if you have a three part chord, but don't release all notes at the same time, the other voices will try to jump to the last note that is left playing.

I was trying to figure the divisi thing out myself... maybe if the RTs are still playing it can detect it still... either way - works better than I'd expected(although I wont use it for anything but sketching)

And thanks for reminding me about the manual - ill have to throw that on my drop box and read it at work(atleast there is something I can do before I get home)

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks for the manual, Zee - terrific feature set, and looks like they have it very clean for general use with all the fiddly stuff tucked away.

No worries Kyle, when you next have some free time definitely interested in a 2nd pass at those shorts once you've played with the key velocity / CC business.

[ZeeCount]

I was trying to figure the divisi thing out myself... maybe if the RTs are still playing it can detect it still... either way - works better than I'd expected(although I wont use it for anything but sketching)

That's my thought as well. Still, it certainly speeds up the process of writing! One thing I'm a bit baffled by is they haven't provided a patch with all four solo horns as a divisi. Instead they have Horn 1, 3 and 5+6 as one patch, and Horn 2, 4 and 7+8 as the other. As far as I can tell there is no way to set up one patch with all four solo horns on it's own.