CineSamples CineBrass 12 Horns - update, new product and offer

[Guy Rowland]

The 12 Horn Ensemble is now on sale separately as a Kontakt Player library for $99, and on offer for $74 right now. Existing owners of CB Pro get it for free, and can download the new product from their user area (EDIT - useful advice from Byzantium a few posts down on this). The patches have been updated:

CineBrass Twelve Horn Ensemble CineBrass Twelve Horn Ensemble is an improved version of the classic Twelve Horn patches from our CineBrass PRO library. These patches feature the groundbreaking Cinesamples Adaptive Legato Engine from CineStrings SOLO, adding fluidity and unparalleled realism to your melodic lines. It allows you to tailor the legato response to your own playing style, and is designed to respond musically to your performance. The engine detects your playing speed and intelligently adjusts the interval speed to match. This means you can play slow, expressive lines and fast runs in a single performance, without touching the speed dial. Additionally, the intensity parameter responds to velocity.

There are also other changes, detailed here: https://cinesamples.com/product/cinebra ... n-ensemble



-----------

Have to say, I still use the 12 horn patch a lot these days. If a huge soaring horn line is required, it doesn't let me down. I'll be trying this new version tomorrow, will report back of course.

[X-bassist]

I was just hoping they would update the 6 horn patch this way (a range on legato speed like Cinestrings solo) and did notice they did this for the 12 horn. I might use it more now.

The 6 horn patch is by far my most used brass patch. I can't wait for all of Cinebrass, then Cinestrings to be updated this way.

[Luciano Storti]

Thanks for pointing this out, Guy. Jumped on this as I'm very fond of Cinebrass. Nice to see their porting their adaptive legato to this. I just tried it out on a piece in progress with mixed legato requirements, and while it's an improvement, it's doesn't quite do it for me. I'll have to spend a little more time with the settings as well, but even at the fastest legato speed, it felt sluggish for fast lines. Curious to see if you get along with it.

[byzantium]

I encountered some confusion and trouble with downloading this, so here is some info in case it helps anyone else.

For existing CB Pro owners, the new/updated 12 horns patch is not listed as a separate product in your account / user area, it is part of CB Pro Version 1.60 which was only created a few days ago. So you need to download and install version 1.6.
Version 1.6 is only new NKI and NKR files, no new samples. It places an 1.6 Instruments folder beside your 1.5 instruments folder. However, only the 12 horns patch(es) are affected by 1.6.

For mac, I had additional trouble installing the .dmg, when I clicked on it, it did nothing, no message. But it creates a mounted drive silently. So you have to go there and drag the symbol to your Applications folder, and then run it from there (and delete from there afterwards).

[Guy Rowland]

Paul, thanks hugely - I reckon you've saved me loads of time and grief there. I've added a pointer to your post in the OP.

[byzantium]

Great, thanks Guy, I'm glad it has helped someone. I did waste of bit of time on it! I must be getting dumber, but it wasn't at all clear to me. I even contacted CS support, and a couple of guys (Will Bedford himself and Zhao Shen) were very helpful on VI-C and clarified it.

Mainly, it's just not labelled well / properly (not in the email). It is all figure-out-able in theory, but you have to read the info on the main CB Pro product page, and/or notice the date on version 1.6 in the user area, and these are easy to miss / not cop).

Also, I always think the version number in the middle of the CS account / user product area is telling me what version I have, but it isn't, it is telling me the latest version that exists (it doesn't know what version I have installed).

Cheers.

[Luciano Storti]

Didn't occur to me to point that out about the installation, so thanks indeed, Paul. I'll add that once you're in Kontakt, it's not the regular 12 Horn patch you want to load, rather scroll down to a separate folder that contains the new patches.

[byzantium]

Thanks Luciano, yes indeed the new 12 horns patches will be in the '../Instruments_1_6' folder.

Didn't occur to me to point that out about the installation, so thanks indeed, Paul. I'll add that once you're in Kontakt, it's not the regular 12 Horn patch you want to load, rather scroll down to a separate folder that contains the new patches.

[Guy Rowland]

This is an odd one. I have a new folder, /Instruments_1_6 . That has all the patches in it, and indeed they all load with 1.6 clearly visible on the GUI, so it leads one to think that all the patches have been updated. I tried the Pro solo horn legato, and it could be my brain turning to mush, but it plays quite a bit better to me - I've never been keen on the pro solo instruments (not sure the "1.6" trombone sounded any better though). But there's no new articulations menu there on any of these patches, and likewise the 12 horn looks and behaves like the old one, yet that also says 1.6 in the GUI.

To add further confusion, within the 1.6 instruments folder there is a clearly labelled "Twelve Horn Ensemble Update" folder, which contains versions which don't have 1.6 in the GUI, but does have the new articulations GUI. So I don't really know what to make of anything to be honest. If anything, I think the legato feels very slightly better on the older patch, but I don't trust any of my own judgements - the differences are so marginal its hard to be sure of anything. 12 horns always sounded good, it still does.

[byzantium]

Bloomin' 'eck. I didn't even notice the 'Twelve Horn Ensemble Update' folder. I just fired up the 1.6 12 Horn to make sure it worked and then had to get back to do some work. Even more confusion from cinesamples...

I had opened a support call with them yesterday to which I shall respond with this new information. Here's is their response to my original query about 'where is this new 12 Horn Ensemble of which you speak to be found'.

"Hi Paul,

Thanks for reaching out! The 12 Horns Ensemble update for CineBrass PRO owners is packaged as a v1.6 update for the whole library. This update is for the instruments only, and does not require you to re-download any samples. At this time, the v1.6 update applies to the Twelve Horns Ensemble patches only, which are now available as a separate library. These patches are now improved with our unique Adaptive Legato scripting feature (which was introduced in CineStrings SOLO) that analyzes your playing in real time and adjusts the Speed and Intensity of legato transitions according to your performance. This allows you to play fast and slow passages in the same track without having to do extensive MIDI data editing or adjust parameters on the fly.

Keep an eye out for future announcements as we continue to add this powerful tool to our CineSymphony libraries! Please let us know if you have any further questions."

[Guy Rowland]

Yeah, see what they say... sounds like any other changes I hear in the folder are placebo though. And one more anomaly - the download is over 1GB, and it says it needs 2GB of space to install, yet there's no new samples....

My head hurts. The sun is shining, I'm going out.

[byzantium]

Support email sent, and I've included the query above about the 1GB size (which I noticed yesterday also). I'll post back. It'll probably be tomorrow when they get back. Best remedy is yes indeed enjoy the sunshine.

[X-bassist]

Yeah, see what they say... sounds like any other changes I hear in the folder are placebo though. And one more anomaly - the download is over 1GB, and it says it needs 2GB of space to install, yet there's no new samples....

My head hurts. The sun is shining, I'm going out.

After realizing (through here) the stange install procedure, I checked out the patches last night. They replace all the instruments patches, including single articulation patches, even though there seems to be no change besides the new folder of 12 horn patches (the old 12 horn patch is there in the inst folder, but the new 12 horn patch is in a folder inside of that) AND the new multis... stacked articulation patches of almost everything in single multis (not very useful IMHO). Because all the nki's are replaced (but not changed) and there are new multis, it can quickly add up - to 1GB. 2 GB of space is just to cover the download AND install.

Another note. The new 12 horn patch automatically turns OFF the speed ranges when put into poly-legato mode. Which means the speed range (and auto speed function) only works with mono legato.

Bummer! I didn't notice this on Cinestrings Solo (perhaps there is no poly-legato there) but I really like the auto legato speed function, and I'm hoping they will get it to work with poly-legato soon. Perhaps between the instrument picking which legato to attach to which note AND adjusting legato speed based on the speed of your playing puts too much strain on the system or causes too much of a delay, cause poly-legato to sound funky (?)

I'm also hoping they update the other instruments (for real) with auto legato speed.

[byzantium]

Thanks X-bassist. So you're saying there's appears to be no functional difference between the instruments in the '_1_5' folder and the instruments directly in the '_1_6' folder (with the new version of the 12 horn being in a sub-folder of '_1_6'). Seems a kinda strange way to package it (i.e. they could have just provided the new 12 horn patches). I guess the reason must be for new purchasers of CB Pro, they wanted to give them both the old and the new versions of the 12 horn...

[kpc]

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I'm not a fan of Cinebrass. I have both Core and Pro and we have never gotten along. I'm sure it must be me, because other people like it a lot. But I rarely even call it up anymore because it always leads me down a road of frustration.

And it sounds like this update is more of the same as far as the little details go. Why make it so awkward to install and then clutter things up? I guess once you have it and figure out where're instruments are deposited, if the instrument works for you it doesn't really matter.

But I'm always a little bothered by these kinds of issues where the dev didn't sweat the details.

[byzantium]

In fairness, this was the first time I was ever confused by a cinesamples release/installation, so I wouldn't put too much store by that. I think they're usually pretty good with installation videos and walkthroughs, and free updates. I love the cinebrass sound (a bit too much room in the default mix though) but I just don't like, as with many libraries, that I can't easily play a line that has short note followed by long note followed by short note etc. And there's little control over the length of the short note (the shortest might be too short, and the next shortest is too long). For me too much bloody fiddling around trying to match up the volume and the dynamics and the flow between short notes and long notes.

[kpc]

...For me too much bloody fiddling around trying to match up the volume and the dynamics and the flow between short notes and long notes.

Exactly.

[byzantium]

Which was why I bought Adventure Brass. The sound isn't as good or as broad-ranging but it's easier to play / string a line together.

[byzantium]

Got a slightly tardy but very nice response from Cinesamples Support:

Hi Paul,

Apologies for the delayed response, and for the confusion! The answers to your questions are as follows:

1. There is no functional difference in the patches between v1.6 and v1.5. The v1.6 patches are so named to establish consistency between the CineBrass CORE and PRO libraries, in advance of the future update to both libraries that will apply the Adaptive Legato to all patches. While I cannot disclose any information about when this update may become available, we encourage you to keep an eye out for announcements as we add this powerful feature to the rest of our CineSymphony libraries.

2. The 12 Horns Update patches in the new sub-folder are already improved with the Adaptive Legato scripting feature (and are the only such patches for CineBrass PRO so far). This feature analyzes your playing in real time and adjusts the Legato Speed and Intensity for each new note depending on your performance. This allows you to play fast and slow passages in a single phrase without having to adjust MIDI parameters on the fly.

3. The reason that 2GB are required for installation without any new samples is for the Documentation and Instrument files. This 2GB estimate includes the compressed files that you download initially and the installed files which should be the same size. After the update is installed, you can delete the downloaded files to save space.

Again, we apologize for the confusion. Please let us know if you have any further questions!

[Guy Rowland]

Thanks Paul, does clarify at least. Most odd...

[byzantium]

Cheers Guy, and happy belated birthday!

[Guy Rowland]

This will be nice to have....



(nb - that FB link is broken when I try it now, whereas an hour ago it was intact).

[Tatu]

That's great news!

[byzantium]

Thanks for posting. Great to see these new updates coming. I wonder how are they going to distribute them though... seeing as they created an entire 1.6 release for the 12 horns update (replicating all the existing nki instruments, creating a new sub-folder with the additional new version), I wonder are they going to do the same (i.e. creating new releases 1.7, 1.8, 1.9, 1.10 etc) for each newly updated instrument - this would be a a lot of replication and a bit of a PITA installation-wise - whereas they could wait a bit and bundle them in one release... (but maybe people want them one by one as they are completed...)

[Guy Rowland]

Yes, the 1.6 release was very odd. They've spoken before about rolling the adaptive legato across the whole range, one can only hope that they time it alongside the bones legatos to avoid a plague of revisions.