Audiobro Modern Scoring Brass: some memory tips

[riffwraith]

I agree that the HB Hn is last, but I prefer BB over MSB - for this, anyway.

Part of the issue with this MSB ex., is the mud that I hear, right around 250, and lack of hi end. Understandably, there should not be a ton of hi here, as this is a lower dyn, and the sound should be more mellow. But this almost sounds like someone butchered the sound with a filter. I am sure that's not what happened, but it sorta sounds like it.

So, I did some EQ. Rolled off some of that low mid, ran the file thorugh an outboard EQ to add back some of the body back it had lost, and added a touch of 4k. Oh, and some verb. MUCH better, IMO.

http://jeffreyhayat.com/temp/4HornsEQ.wav

Here's HY's Forzo, BTW

http://jeffreyhayat.com/temp/hntestf.wav

[Guy Rowland]

Yup, nice EQ in that example Jeff - too much verb for me, but EQ would sit it in a mix with other low instruments very nicely I'd imagine.

[Pixelpoet1985]

I'm still indecisive. Sorry to say.

Can someone post a demo (or video) of the following legato features:

– A phrase with different legato speeds.

– Rips and short trills/grace notes played with the legato patch. I know that there are dedicated patches, just wanted to know if these can be achieved.

– Short notes with the legato patch. I know it's contradictory, but with LASS you can achieve short notes if you need them occasionally without switching to staccato or spiccato.

– Same-note legato or repeated notes. Sebastian from Audiobro said that they recorded same-note legato. I'm note sure what this means, is this similar to double-tonguing? How does it sound? And how fast can it be played?

Also, concerning the attacks (smooth, accented, marcato)... are they played on every note or just the first note of a legato phrase? Hope you understand what I mean.

Many, many thanks.

[Guy Rowland]

Hello Pixel:

Somewhere in my video I played a repeated phrase with the legato speed control varying. Can't quite remember where... I'd guess towards the end of the Trumpet section.

Rips / Legato - I think there is a way to do this, but I'd need to investigate how, it involved stacking articulations... I think they have some presets somewhere.

Short notes with legato - I'll do you an example tomorrow (if my ailing memory doesn't fail me)

Same note legato - ditto. There is a repeat key for this which I forgot to demo.

Attacks - it does seem to make a difference on every note.

[Guy Rowland]

(Just to say today was full on, so didn't get round to it Pixel, tomorrow might be too - Friday or Saturday perhaps, hope that's ok)

[Guy Rowland]

Actually had half an hour this morning, Pixel. So to pick up:

Rip/Legato - there is a Rip Sustain articulation available in the key switcher - not a real articulation but a combination of the two. Sadly that's totally useless to my ears, it just lays the two right on top of each other.

Short notes on a legato patch - a quick little run through here, riding CC1 and varying the attacks with key velocity - https://www.dropbox.com/s/u5x3d8uibccnj ... y.wav?dl=0

Same note legato - a short example here https://www.dropbox.com/s/cxw1pivdb2iyp ... 1.wav?dl=0 . This is using the repeat key which is also set to attack velocity on key velocity. I can't quite see the point of this really, it doesn't seem any different to just lifting and repeating the normal key. I've been through the manual to check, and there's no other settings or tips I can find for same-note legato. Sounds pretty good to me though as a re-tonguing.

A note on the attacks - when playing monophonic legato, it seems its just the first note affected by attack velocity. In Poly I find it can make a difference, likely that's when its playing as a new note rather than a legato transition - the scripting means it might sometimes do one or the other.

[Pixelpoet1985]

Guy, thank you very much for your efforts! Very appreciated.

Hm... maybe there will be some more walkthroughs from Audiobro. I am still indecisive.

[Tanuj Tiku]

It’s on sale again for $599 - very tempting and confusing price drop but not complaining . No new demos, just the initial two.

How are you feeling about it Guy? Piet, did you get it and had a chance to work with it?

[Guy Rowland]

Still happy here Tanuj, though it so happens that in the last couple of months I've used it very little just by accident of work. Just not much call for brass here in May and June!

[Guy Rowland]

Version 1.2 has just been released:

Added: Assignable CCs available to control Trill and Crescendo menus that are unable to be directly CC learned.
Added: New Tile switcher mode with auto-populated articulations for changing tiles with or without the most often used parameter combinations.
Added: Velocity and CC Stack modes allow for easy setups when used with dedicated keyswitch controllers and/or Expression Maps / Articulation Maps.
Added: Expression Maps for Cubase users.
Added: Articulation Sets for Logic users.
Added: Ability to save a default Articulation Map setup that can be recalled across patches.
Added: Ability to save a default Mixer setup that can be recalled across patches.
Added: Ability to save default Intuition setup.
Added: Advanced user flags can be set that will automatically use default ensemble, mixer, and/or Intuition setups on patch load.
Added: Articulation Map has a sequential mode button for easy setups of keyswitch ranges, CC ranges, and preset ordering.
Added: Niente dynamics mode for Intuition allows for true 0-volume dynamic start point.
Added: X/Y for controlling pan and width for Intuition.
Added: Reverb amount slider for Intuition Series.

Improved: All MSB reverbs now available in Intuition.
Improved: Intuition signal path for better handling with X/Y placement.
Improved: Greatly reduced CPU when changing ensemble presets in realtime.
Improved: Stock legato transition speed settings across the whole library.
Improved: Horns Width in panning to 100% giving it a more spacious sound.
Improved: Worked around Kontakt bugs causing excessive CPU during tempo ramps.

Fixed: Trumpet D RTs were longer than usual.
Fixed: Horn octave rips in high range were playing wrong samples.
Fixed: Rare situation where Tutti/Per-Voice and other ens buttons could get in a bad state when keyswitching ensemble presets.
Fixed: Triple tongue random order was incorrect in a few rare cases.
Fixed: Non-sequential CC switching now behaves as expected.
Fixed: Missing Intuition mute EQs for Tubas.

Looks well worthwhile, but my dilemma is the time it would take to re-do everything in my template, though I see at least there are presets now to copy from one to another. As it is, I'll likely leave this update until long dark winter months when I have nothing better to do.

[KyleJudkins]

I think I'll revisit this library sooner or later. I think with multiple reverb sends I could come up with something good. Maybe pulling custom impulses from other libraries, ect.

[Guy Rowland]

Thought I should give a little update here for anyone interested. One thing that it took me a long time to realise about MSB is that it is VERY resource heavy. Just the purged instruments alone can take up as much as 1.2GB on a single patch - before a single mic position of a single note is loaded! This explains why my projects with MSB in got so mahoosive.

I started a thread on the Audiobro forum to find out what's what, and Sebsatian has been superb at going through all the reasons why they are so thirsty, and then advising on various techniques to get the footprint down. Here's what takes up the RAM of pretty much any Kontakt instruments:

1. Sample preload
2. Instrument map (zone data, group data, routing, mods, effects, etc.)
3. Persistent script data + UI caching and drawing

Not much to be done about (3) (keeping the GUI closed saves some). Then he helped me with (2). I'm running two nkis per instrument, I've separated everything into longs and shorts. He's walked me through how to take out the zones that Kontakt isn't using in each case, by going under the hood and using Kontakt's expert mode. It looks scary at first, but the procedure only takes a couple of minutes per nki. This got rid of about 100mb per nki. A start, but still a long way to go. How about sample preload?

I noticed that purging samples, as I normally did, had some problems in MSB. Clicking on the interface to change articulations reloads the entire sample pool into RAM, so undoes the whole lot at a stroke. However, doing the same thing via keyswitches does not. OK fine, just use keyswitches then. The next problem was that some articulations have to be loaded into RAM to sound on a first key press as they use TM Pro. So just purging causes some notes to not sound. His solution to that was brilliantly simple - purge, run my finger up and down the keys on the trills and crescendos (the only artics using TM Pro), then save. That drops the RAM use of my Horns 1 longs patch from 810mb to about 60mb.

The upshot of all this is that my Horns 1 instruments used to take up 2GB. Now they're 850mb, and play perfectly streaming from SSD. It'll take a while to go through the whole lot in my template - its a huge library - but well worth it in the long run.

If anyone needs to follow the detailed steps, they're on this thread at the Audiobro forum - http://audiobro.com/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 77&start=0