8dio - Claire Woodwinds
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Prologue
When 8dio starts a new project of such dimensions as Claire Woodwinds, it either ends up awesomely well or terribly bad, with quite uncertain middle ground. In this instance, it felt on that middle ground, still having some scars from Adagio, but with perhaps better future.

Introduction
Claire Woodwinds are among very few libraries recorded and kept in 96kHz sample rate.
96k provides higher precision at a cost of a bit more CPU and RAM usage as well as higher space requirements.
However 8dio keeps the folder structure open, so it's up to end users should they want to downsample it.
Claire woodwinds cover only the four basic woodwind groups, Clarinet, Oboe, Flute and Bassoon.
English Horn as well as Contrabassoon, Eb Clarinet, Alto or Bass flute are missing.
Which reminds me, it'd be great to see decent sampled Bass flute.

Performance
The GUI represents the 8dio standard layout introduced in Adagio strings.
On all patches you can see the main articulation groups for Legato patches.

Natural - designed for fast playing, least laggy, but very short sustain, single layer
Soft - slow attack, great for slower playing, builds into mf, single layer
Medium - medium attack, both fast and slow playing style, builds into f, single layer
Strong - fast to very fast attack, both fast and slow playing style and builds into short ff, single layer
Sus Xfade - non-looped straight notes with medium attack, three layers
Stacmo - Staccatissimo, detached, very short
Marcato - pronounced attack, then decresc.


Fig. 1 - Legato patches
All samples are non-looped, which provides some sense of realism, however all those legato types start at piano velocity, except for marcato, making Sforzando or Espressivo passages quite hard to render.
Also when legato is played at the note climax' it suddenly comes down with the legato transition, making the playing quite difficult and less realistic.


Next up is General Arts patch, carrying the basic articulations, including the trills.
All of them are non-legato based (e.g. no transitions)


Fig. 2 - General (Martial) Arts

Runs are called "Bonus", though they feature on all instruments. Just single layer, no repetitions and no tempo sync


Fig. 3 - Runs

And lastly we have the Arcs patch, or rather the 'swells' patch, which is quite self explanatory


Fig. 4 - Arcs

Now what those buttons and sliders do,
Legato turns on/off the legato transition (you guessed it!)
Rel. switches on and off release tails (again, quite easy huh?)
and the II thing?
Well that's a secret...
But I'll tell you
That my friend, triggers the neighbour samples to create an illusion of second player,
something like LASS did with it's 2nd chair players

Dynamics controls the dynamic transitions and xfades the layers which are currently playing.
If there's just one, it acts as a volume control.
Expression is just another volume control, no fancy stuff.
Leg. speed and Leg. volume adjusts the speed and volume respectively, for all legato transitions in that patch.

Sound Specifics

The sound is one of the hardest things to describe, but since we're talking music, let's at least try

Close provides the highest detail, with a sense of warmth, but lacks depth
Decca has almost the same detail as the Close one, with some Concert Hall depth in it, though the sound is quite distant
Wide is the least detailed of them all, but has depth and does not feel 'distant'

No amount of fiddling with the mics has brought me with the sound I wanted, maybe I'm doing it wrong, but for example the Berlin Woodwinds EXP B sound great right out of the box with all the realism, detail and emotion.

With Claire, I couldn't 'feel' the player's presence, all those samples are just samples, no emotion.
The Oboe sorrow is blurred and dull.
The Clarinet is sharp, though too cold.
Flute is iridescent and uncertain.
and Bassoon is not quite grounded and warm.

Drawbacks & Recommendations
Sadly, 8dio brought some problems from Adagio

• When sample ends, the legato transition is still triggered
• All legatos starts with crescendo, which can make the performance 'bounce'. No decrescendi are provided, except for marcato, but that's a different playing style
• No sforzando or tonguing, though those are basic articulations as well.
• Single RR for all long notes. They could have at least recorded the swells in two RR.
• Dull, and quite uninteresting sound, though that's a matter of taste
• The short notes tend to jump in stereo field on some occasions.
• Somewhat difficult to work with

Highlights in a nutshell

• Claire boasts with many legato styles, just like Adagio
• High resolution
• Despite the 96k resolution and three mics, the whole library is rather small, only 20GB
• Highly customizable

Auxiliary & Demonstrational Video

[media][toMorroW][/media]

Conclusion

8dio tries, and tries hard, but isn't really there yet.
With Adagio, we took a detour and listened for the first time in between tones and heard 7 different legato types.
Claire is yet another attempt to give us something no other library can hope to feature.
So many legato variations, 96k resolution, clever mic positioning and yet it trips and falls again.

Even with narrowed usage, the Claire can still shine through many recordings, probably slow paced and tender, rather than fast and energetic. But true soul of woodwinds require those missing articulations, so in most cases, Berlin Woodwinds would be a way to go. However in times when we need another player to blow our notes, Claire should be definitely among the few which gets called to our virtual orchestra pit.

Reviewer's rating:
7 out of 10 stars


PS: Sorry it took me that long, having to work 8 hours a day hit my time table with high caliber round and I actually went through crisis several times. But things get better now, hopefully I could get half-time shifts next month to make some music.

PPS: Cinestrings tomorrow, as well as vids.

 

Wow, you are faster than an SSD drive, Andrew Looking forward to it!

 

When do you find the time for all the awesomeness Andrew? That is what I want to know.

Thanks for another fine review my friend and yet another important contribution to the forums.

 

Andrew, many thanks once again for your time and for share your knowledge with us...

Excellent work *yes*

This helps alot.

 

Great Job Andrew, you know how to knock them dead

 

Precise, detailed but still not to long. This review is perfect. Thank you very much Andrew, you save us hours of research.
Let's hope that some one from 8Dio read this and take your critics in account for future updates / developments.

 

second that Oly, would be a good move for them if they would take in consideration such a great review!

Thanks Andrew, your objectivity is a life saver!

 

Thank you Andrew for yet another fine review!

It's a bit worrying that we're still far of a really good woodwinds lib with decent legato, seems like VSL and Berlin come closest.
Also, I find it really stupid of 8dio to offer samples only in 96 kHz. Perhaps the mice on the attic might appreciate it...

Hope you're doing a bit better now on the personal side. Take care!

 

Everybody actually can spam 8dio's mail with Andrew's words for the company's sake, i'm sure they'll thank us later

 

I like the higher sample rate, but that won't help the sound in this case.
Higher SR is a great addition to the sound, but it only matters as long as the "audible" range is well balanced

 

Another fine review Andrew - Thanks

 

Where can we buy Andrew's reviews ???

We have here in France reviews like "Keyboard HomeStudio", "Guitar Studio", "Boobs Homemade Studio" ,etc...

but no Andrew's reviews !!!

 

Perfect. Thank you Andrew.
This is really a hard work to do these reviews and examine
every single sound of a library. My hat is off to you.

When can we expect your review of "8Dio CAGE" ?