I write for a college and a semi-pro jazz ensemble (big band). Most of my music is contemporary Latin jazz and Bossa Nova.
When I listen to online demos of libraries such as Garritan, Chris Hein, Broadway Big Band, Straight Ahead, and Mojo Horn 2, it's easy to judge which sound OK and which are stronger on certain instruments. What it is NOT easy to judge is, how much tweaking went into making those demos? I want to compose and just create a quick listenable demo, not a finished background for a TV show. I want a library that will sound better than the full bundle of Notion sounds, but interface with Notion 6 for Windows as a VST in a reasonably easy way. Just connect the instruments and let my dynamics and articulation in Notion 6 do the rest. Does such a thing exist? I am happy to pay up to a thousand for it if it does. Note: I do NOT need rhythm section instruments. I use PG Music's Band-in-a-Box for that. I just need the standard trumpets, trombones, sax section and maybe flute and flugel. I DO have full Kontakt. [I also use the Spitfire Pro Studio libraries for chamber music.] If it seems like I'm ten years late asking about this, it's because I am slow getting into software MIDI sounds. I have always used a Roland Integra-7 hardware synth until recently. Your guidance is much appreciated. Thank you.
Last edited by madisonfinley on Fri Jan 21, 2022 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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You mentioned a pretty low budget in your first post and you've bumped up the amount, and you mentioned you want something easy... though for some really great sound you might want to check out WarpIV Audio - but I don't think it hits the first two check boxes.
Their focus is on horns - and I think they are incredible.
Last edited by acequantum on Sat Jan 15, 2022 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Yes, I suspected that making it seamless in Notion was a challenge.
As for budget, let's say there is no limit. Does that change anyone's answer? I do thank you for your replies, and now I'm off to listen to WarpIV Audio.
Last edited by madisonfinley on Sat Jan 15, 2022 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Now that's the first time a sax really sounded like a sax. The price of $1400 for all horns is possible.
The product seems to have stopped in 2010. I cannot find another vendor like Sweetwater that carries it, either. Prices are still what they were in 2011? I wrote to the info email to see if this is still available. |
Let me go back to Garritan Jazz and Big Band 3. I fooled with this maybe fifteen years ago and I recall they appropriated one of the MIDI controllers to make it give any sound at all. Can I use this as a VST in Notion and just play my scores? If so, it's inexpensive enough to just buy it and fool with it some more.
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You might want to check out Aaron Venture Infinite Brass and Woodwinds. Much lower price point and fairly easy to work with. They are focused on performance without much tweaking. The instruments are VERY low footprint processor-wise, so tey should work well with Notion.
There are also a LOT of instruments and deep humanization functionality so you can start to build up the thickness of a big band sound without the phasing issues that you get with other libraries, and this could be very useful with Notion as the humanization happens on the Kontakt instrument side of the equation (no tweaking of the score required). For quick sketching, you can also play the instruments in poly mode (Clarinets 1 and 2, Sax 1 and 2 for instance) and they sound reasonable.
Last edited by michaelmyers1 on Sat Jan 15, 2022 3:45 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Your problem with using a VST is that it will not respond to your notated dynamics and articulation without creating a ruleset for the library. That's where the "easy" idea falls apart. The ruleset editor is not all that difficult to use, but there's a learning curve.
If you're lucky, someone has already created a ruleset for the library you're considering. |
Out of curiosity, have you tried the jazz and extended Notion libraries? I've found that they can sound pretty good with a minimum of some effects. One thing that I've found that can really enhance the sound of the native instruments is to use a staging software like Vienna MIRPro to place the instruments carefully, and a high quality reverb.
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Yes, I do have all possible Notion sounds. At present I'm using the jazz trumpet and trombone, and all the jazz saxes. It sounds OK; I'm just wondering what could sound better as long as it works as easily.
Aaron Venture Brass and Woodwinds do sound very fine! And the price is right. I had noticed them in some of your demos but otherwise was not familiar with them. While the demos are mostly classical, there is enough in the demo of all the sounds that I think they would work well enough in a jazz ensemble big band chart. I noticed a sale last summer. Do you think a Notion Ruleset has been written for them? |
I'm going to guess you must have written a ruleset, Michael, because a search on this site found two pieces you did, including one by Holst (one of my favorite composers).
EDIT: three, including Grainger - Fisher's Boarding House. Not my favorite piece of his but a great demo of the woodwinds. I thought the horns were a bit loud and the trumpets not loud enough, but that's just me. |
Thanks for taking the time to listen. I just posted a new recording of Weill's Little Threepenny Suite.
phpBB [audio] You might find that of interest. I do have a ruleset, posting it here. It is VERY basic. I use a TEControl 2 breath controller for dynamics which adds a lot to the realism.
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Native Instruments and EW ComposerCloudX have hot horns . . .
THOUGHTS I use Hollywood Pop Brass (EW ComposerCloud X) via a monthly subscription on a yearly basis, which costs $20 USD per month . . . Hollywood Pop Brass (EW ComposerCloud X) [NOTE: This is best enjoyed when listening with studio-quality headphones like SONY MDR-7506 headphones (a personal favorite because they have good deep bass response but are sonically neutral). It features a custom stutter made with Stutter Edit 1 (iZotope), which I call it the "Elvis Stutter" . . . ] [NOTE James Brown and his Orchestra and The Famous Flames toured the Deep South when I was in high school;; and this is where I learned about horn sections. This was "pre-Bootsy", and the horn players were highly trained and very skilled, "old school" Big Band and Jazz musicians. I also listened to Big Band songs, of course, and the Dave Brubeck Quartet and Desi Arnez for Cuban flavors. I played electric bass in a nigjhtclub and our musical group had a skilled trumpet player who, like all horn players, wanted to do songs in keys that were difficult for electric guitar but made no difference for electric bass; and it was fine with the 14 year-old piano player who was vastly proficient; transposed keys easily; was married; owned a house; and owned and operated a car. In those days, driver licenses were paper; easily altered; and had no photos. The piano player looked older, but he was 14 years-old. I was one year older, and it was good money and a lot of FUN. Later when I started teaching myself electric rhythm guitar, I was a bit dumbfounded until I discovered Barre chords, at which time no horn section could defeat me. I read treble clef but not bass clef; so the piano player would provide cues with his left hand, since I knew the notes on a piano. Mostly, I keyed on the left-hand notes and improvised, which is the way "by ear" musicians do it, even when they become proficient in music notation, albeit on treble staves, which NOTION supports via Transposition specifications in NOTION Score Setup . . . ] Session Horns Pro (Native Instruments) is another possibility . . . Session Horns Pro (Native Instruments) These sound good and are correct for the various genres . . . I like Hollywood Pop Brass, because it has section presets that are nice for doing accents and adding pizazz; but for playing composed phrases with individual brass instruments, I think Session Horns Pro is the best library. . . . Lots of FUN! P. S. If these horns are used in a ReWire session where Studio One Professional is the ReWire host controller and NOTION is the ReWire helper device--start Studio One Professional first to make iit the ReWire hast controller--then you can host the VSTi virtual instruments in Studio One Professional and do the music notation in NOTION on ReWire MIDI staves . . . Done this way, you do not need to specify dynamics, articulations, playing styles, and so forth in the music notation . . . Studio One Professional lets you do things with mod wheels and other typically MIDI keyboard components; and you can control dynamics via compressor-limiter VST effects plug-in . . . If you need a few playing styles, then have a separate ReWire MIDI staff for each playing style and assign it in Studio One Professional to specific instances of the VSTi virtual instrument where the specific playing style or articulation is selected . . . If you need three different playing styles or articulations, then do it with three separate and independent instances of the VSTi virtual instrument, each loaded with the desired playing style or articulation . . . The primary advantage is that this does not require elaborate custom rulesets and complex music notation . . . Most of what one needs to do with horns is relatively simple . . . It can be made extraordinarily complex but at higher listening levels, nobody can hear all the "fancy stuff" . . . These are YouTube music videos for two of my recent songs; and they are ReWire sessions, as described above . . . [NOTE: At times I like to imagine I can sing like Elvis Presley, but the reality is that I compose songs--music and lyrics--so my YouTube music videos do not need to feature "professional" singing. Yet I think I sing as good or perhaps better than Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, so there's that . . . ] A lot can be done with three horns . . . The music notation is on ReWire MIDI staves in NOTIONl and there are no dynamics, articulations, playing styles, or anything else--just plain music notation--so the instruments sound like they do via a combination of specifying playing styles, articulations, and samples, and using VST effects plug-ins . . . Realivox Blue (RealiTone)--my favorite virtual female soprano--is the exception; and she is hosted directly in NOTION on a grand staff, since it's easier to control which phonetic scripts she sings and the way she sings, because this is specified via deep bass keyswitches, which is fabulous . . . Fabulous!
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Thank you so much! I will work through these recommendations.
So far, I am most liking Swam saxes and Swam trumpets. They play the articulation straight from Notion the way I would play a phrase. Another friend [not on this forum - not a Notion user] put me onto them. I'm very much still testing. The use of Rewire is something I had not considered. |
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