Hi, Im looking for a symphonic brass lib for kontakt recorded in a big hall or cathedral or church at least (not scoring stages, chambers, rooms), I found spitfire symphonic brass and sounds good for me coz you know it was recorded in air studios hall, but I want an alternative with more divisi options and a more flexible poly legato option. I checked the soundiron brass (recorded in a church) but the sound is not too lush compared to ssb.

 

Audiobro MSB ftw

Alternatively there's EWQL Hollywood Brass,
should be Brighter, but it's an older library so I don't know how they compare technically speaking..

Or ofc the good old CineBrass,
which is pretty much the standard, very capable/featured with the expansions,
and the sound/timbre/mix is excellent out of the box..


MSB is kinda more orthodox, more like what a real symphonic orchestra would be..
and it's a very modern and incredibly featured library.

CineBrass is more Cinematic, it's got a more produced sound,
but it's so good, and featured/capable it still stands in spite of its age..

I havent tried EWQL Holltwood, so I cannot comment,
but it's surely a valid option..


In contrast, Cinematic Studio Brass is probably not what you're looking for,
as it's got more of a Studio or Scoring Stage sound.. very orthodox, realist and warm,
but the type of ambience/mix is very different.

 

Last edited: Oct 9, 2021

You can check the usual suspects:

- Orchestral Tools
- Spitfire Audio
- VSL

These companies are proposing pro grade libraries and it's unlikely that you would be disapointed by any of these, the only drawback being their price.

 

Orchestral Tools libraries are indeed some of the best, most Detailed and capable that exist..

But in this case I'm not sure if Berlin Brass has the type of sound that would be adequate for the OP,
they are very Roomy indeed.. they're made on the Teldex Hall which is very Reflective, but it's not too Big/Wide,
and with a relatively a narrow ceiling.

So it's kinda like a middle term thing,
their libraries seem to sound very Alive/present and Detailed.. kinda like first person,
while being very Roomy due to the reflectivity of the room.

So yeah, as Excellent as they might be,
I don't know if this type of sound would be on the same ballpark as other like: Hollywood Brass, CineBrass, Spitfire or MSB..

 

Thank you for replies, but audiobro, cinebrass and CSB are scoring stages, berlin brass is teldex studios, a long chamber, VSL and EWQL are not for kontakt. Aside of that I checked the demos and they sound nice specially OT but not so lush. Soundiron (recorded in church) is ok as I said but not many brass instruments. It seems like spitfire SB is the only one in the market.

 

Certainly Spitfire has some the most Lush and Hall like sound..

They've got a considerably big catalog,
hard to choose/know them all..

But what about BBCSO?
The whole line seems like a Big Leap from the old Symphonic series..

Certainly different than MSB,
but I'd say it still stands as being quite Lush/Roomy, although certainly more Boxy..

 

Last edited: Oct 9, 2021

Yes, MSB sounds clear. from delicate to strong, ok well all the libs metioned above sound nice with good dynamic ranges and so, but spitfire has a "thing" a kind of warm dunno. I will try spitfire first I think, I would like a lib with a mix of spitfire samples and audiobro engine, anyway.

 

MSB is not what you want here at all. It was recorded way drier compared to many others and it has some major tone issues and various other quirks that make it hard to use for certain instruments.

Unfortunately, SSB is one of the weaker parts of the Spitfire Symphonic line, it's got various consistency issues that may make it annoying to work with.

If you're willing to forgo the "authentic" hall sound, you open up many other brass libraries that you can get.

Berlin Brass has the downside that the legato and sustain don't quite reach a loud forte level. You can alleviate this by using the marcatos and shorts, but obviously, that's not ideal. Keep this in mind depending on what kind of music you are making.

Cinematic Studio Brass isn't symphonic (per the name) but the quality of the brass on it is unparalleled I feel. It's fantastic. Toss it in a good reverb and it handles itself very well. It's much better recorded and scripted than the Spitfire and Audiobro stuff.

 

I didn't see any mention of Heavyocity FORZO. It was pretty good for many times for me.
https://heavyocity.com/product/forzo/

 

What consistency issues?

 

NI Symphony Series Brass ★★★

Junkie XL Brass ★★★★★

Spitfire Albion & Symphonic ★★★

CineBrass ★★★★

Cinematic Studio Brass ★★★+

CSB vs CineBrass

CSB vs MSB vs Angry + Caspian + Sample Modelling Brass

To Avoid - Abbey Road Grand Brass?

(and I'd rate MSB with 4,5 stars, more than 4, less than 5 )

 

Last edited: Nov 10, 2021

i quite like Audio Imperia Nucleus

 

Audio Imperia Nucleus

It sounds Great indeed,
the problem here could be the limited number of parts/articulations/details compared to other full dedicated Brass libraries..
(my guess tho, I don't know it in depth..)

 

Last edited: Oct 11, 2021

Why not just use a cathedral/church reverb on a library you already own?

 

It can be done,
and it's actually done more subtly with fully featured/miked libraries..

But adding Reverb to say the Close mics will only take you so far in terms of cohesion/realism.

Whereas if the library is properly made in the same type of Room/Hall you prefer,
the results will always be better, and you will be able to fine tune it with both its own Mics/Mix, and also with Reverbs.


If you're workin on a mockup/demo it may be less relevant,
you could probably get away with Close mics+Reverbs in certain situations, and for certain elements..

But if you work for a medium where you need the most Perfect and finalized sound (movies/trailers, games, etc),
it's very necessary/convenient to have it sound as Best as possible..

 

Yes it was a secondary option in case I couldnt find an authentic hall sound.

 

I like some parts of cinebrass (specially some hall sounds) and some of csb (the brightness)

 

So the people on the sister site who do 'close mic only' repacks are wasting their time? NoAvenger has pointed out to me in some feedback that a lot of these libraries have major phase issues with the stage and hall mics.

 

Try it, and judge for yourself

As for the minified/rollerballed libs,
some libs are not completely reduced, and include either the Full Mix, or the Close and Tree/Room mics,
and have the Amb and other secondary mics deleted..
(some libraries can have 5 or 6 mics..
Junkie XL Brass has 16 mic positions! 690GB in Samples )

So they're not shotgunned by default, but it's more sensibly done for each library,
where they choose the minimum amount of mics that let you have a result.

And there's other Practical reasons to have them, like Performance and Memory footprint,
you can use the reduced versions for composing the stuff, and since they use less memory it will use less resources, perform better,
and let you use more instruments on the long run..

Then when you're done, you can load up the full versions for the final production/mix/render..

 

Last edited: Oct 12, 2021

What libraries?