Hi everyone,

I've been searching the forum and the sister site and found no specific library of woodwinds soloist. Do you know any and please advise me?

Best

 

Personally i search on KVR and when i find something interresting, i search it on sistersite.

https://www.kvraudio.com/search/woodwinds

 

Money
https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Synchron_Package/Synchron_Woodwinds
https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Synchronized_Package/SYzd_Woodwinds
https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Starter_Editions/Synchron_Prime_Edition

Free
https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Fujara_Flute

 

Hi @Pablo Cordal
I find it very tedious to play woodwinds via e.g. Kontakt Libs but find the SWAM physical modeled Instruments more useable.

They are easy to use if one has a breath controller in conjunction with a keyboard.
But e.g. a seaboard rise or other MPE (MiDi polyphonic expression ) controllers work as well. Or even the Akai EWI 4000/5000

Already out of the box I find the instruments quite convincing , but there is still a lot of tweaking possible.
https://audiomodeling.com/

You can find them on sister site. Keywords: SWAM & Clarinets/Sax ... etc.

Breath controller: https://www.tecontrol.se/products/usb-midi-breath-controller

 

Last edited: Jun 21, 2022

Thank you!

I'm mainly guitarist, I may be wrong but may be these tools are more pianist oriented??

 

As a guitarplayer have a look on midi guitar 2 from https://www.jamorigin.com/

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 21, 2022

I haven't seen a lot of solo specific libraries either, most of the time woodwinds instruments of any orchestral library works pretty well for solos since the "ensemble" effect is not as obvious as it is with other instruments when playing one note at a time. That, or they come with solo patches inside.

Among those there's Native Instruments Woodwind, CSS woodwinds, EasWest symphonic orchestra, orchestral tools woodwinds (soloists expansions), and i'm sure some others.

 

I've checking the SWAM libraries and one doubt arises: in the string instruments, the libraries weight 5MB.. um, quite strange - may be are just updaters so I have to get the previous versions too?

 

Yeah, but you know, for me each instrument has it's own physicallity, and that's included in the sound. I prefer work a bit more in the computer to imitate that color that replace it with the guitar physical movements. Thanks anyway!

 

Any instrument from the woodwind family?

 

They are that small!
That is because they are no digitized libraries of samples, but they build the tones by physical models on the fly inside the computer.
From a technical point of view I think physical modeling is a real instrument while Kontakt is mostly a sample player.

 

Solo woodwinds for Kontakt - Best Service Chris Hein:
Chris Hein Winds Vol 1 Flutes
Chris Hein Winds Vol 2 Clarinets
Chris Hein Winds Vol 3 Oboes
Chris Hein Winds Vol 4 Bassons

They have been available on siter site but I don't find them anymore.

But they are available elsewhere. Keywords: chris hein winds

 

Last edited: Jun 21, 2022

Yes

Uau, interesting! I did not know this existed, and what's your opinion about the resulting sound compared with the sample option?

 

IMHO SWAM are wonderful solo instruments.
Only, beside the price, they're pretty difficult to setup with a proper controller.

 

It varies of course with the instrument/library. But all in all I find the SWAM instruments more convincing if you take the time to model the sound with the controls the different instruments offer.
Given one invests the same amount of time for the construction of the sound with a sample library or a SWAM instrument the latter gives IMHO the better results.

Spoiler: P.S.:

I experimented with the SWAM Saxes with a friend who plays the saxophone very well and he was quite impressed.
On the other hand I read somewhere about how two string instrument players were talking about this. They were of course of the opinion that the real instruments offer a much wider range of possibilities.
That is certainly true. But it misses the point, because instrumentalists can (still) always tell whether a real instrument is being played or a virtual one, be it Kontakt or SWAM. Who has the time and money would likely always chose an instrumentalist over a computer.

If you want to get a really convincing result down to the details for solo instruments, I would recommend getting tips from someone who can play the instrument. For example, where is growl and flutter used on a French horn?

If I got the OP right he plans to use "trials" the sister site offers.
And yes, it takes time to get into the instruments, especially if you can't play them yourself. But the Breath controller I posted above is plug & play and works quite nicely together with a MiDi keyboard.

 

Ok great guys! I'll give them a try, it still surprises me the difference in size between both systems - if all instruments were like these I would not have to buy so many hard disks!

 

Sadly, not possible without an account.

According to their home page 250 - 470MB

 

Pablo was speaking abot the Strings V2, they are around 7 MB each unpacked. (V3 are ~48MB each and the plus in size seems to be mostly graphics )

 

Last edited: Jun 21, 2022

I am the same as you. I have been looking for solo wind instruments for a long time. But everything I have found (pirate) not quite real, is deficient in various aspects. But like you, I'm also a guitarist, well I also play the piano, but it broke a long time ago. And it's true, whoever has more control over how to handle the instruments gets more realism, especially if they have controllers for this. So far the most real thing I've heard is Session Horns pro. But it brings few wind instruments, but they sound quite real compared to others. Then there is Symphobia or Spitfire but it is more oriented towards film music. there is another one that seems "regular" to me and it is Swing More! SAM project. Yesterday I heard something on the sister site that made me crazy for realism. It's from Garritan, it's quite old, you have to listen to the sound. It's called jazz ang big band (garritan). But the links are down. So I couldn't test it I only found a kontakt version elsewhere, but it doesn't sound the same. Follow your post because I am also interested in the same

Another thing I want to add is that.

I also now use midi guitar and midi bass. To play the instruments as if you had a piano. And it's better for me than writing the midi, but it's not the same as playing a piano, for example. What I want to say is:
Suppose someone who has a keyboard plays the same piano library as me. He with his keyboard and me with my guitar and emulator.
His will sound much more real, and mine will sound less real.
The other read an extremely interesting comment on this site about programs in general.
And it was something like
"The important thing is not how good the program is, but how much good the user can get out of the program."
And this seems to me to be a great truth

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 21, 2022

The links are OK here. I think this is the library you mean. I just downloaded it

I agree, I come from the guitar world and I'm soooo tired of listening to people telling you how important is the wood or the pickups, etc of the instrument... then you listen to a guy playing ANY old/broken guitar like heaven and... is not the tool, is the player.

That said, if you wanna write something for flute, you need flute sounds! : )

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jun 22, 2022