ANGRY BRASS PRO – SOLOISTS
Loud Action Toolkit
Angry Brass Pro – Soloists is a loud (ff-fff) brass overlay library, recorded in the same space as Oceania, Oceania II, Angry Brass Pro – Ensembles, Angry Woodwinds Pro, Vista, the upcoming Voyage, and more. It consists of four lean, yet energetic instruments – solo trumpet, solo horn, solo bass trombone, and solo tuba – with the capability to vary note lengths fluently from a tongued staccato to a longer marcato. The library is intended as a solo/detail overlay for other brass (ensemble) libraries, such as Caspian or Angry Brass Pro – Ensembles, but also serves as a simple, standalone brass solution.
There are several ways this library improves upon previous brass releases by Performance Samples. Firstly, the performances here are more energetic and louder than any previous brass release by Performance Samples, despite this being a solo library. A few factors contributed to this, including ample session time and the fact that the recordings were done with a Cross-Instrument Session approach, where all the musicians were playing on the same session, dividing the time to maximize resting and vibing off each other’s performances. This approach created more internal dynamic balance, less of a session-striping feel (rather, players only playing a portion of the time), and generally a more collaborative “band” environment during sessions. Another way this library improves on previous releases is through its four release speeds, which help make different note lengths more natural. Angry Brass Pro – Ensembles had two release speeds, and in that libary marcatos can sound a bit abrupt in the releases on non-staccato notes because of the faster tonguing. However with more release speeds in this case (particularly helpful for brass), things sound more natural in terms of note length flexibility – from fast tongued staccatos to marcatos. The release samples truly make up the majority of the sound on short notes.
Note: Angry Brass Pro – Soloists features 100% new recordings (nothing is reallocated sample-wise from previous products).
- Four individual soloists: solo trumpet, solo horn, solo bass trombone, and solo tuba – recorded with a Cross-Instrument Session approach to maximize energy
- Multi-functional, looped patches with up to 5 RR on the attacks and releases, featuring performances derived from phrases
- Four speeds of release samples – from fast tonguing to marcato – which react to note length
- Loud (ff-fff) dynamic, with EQ modeling on CC1/modwheel (based on recorded dynamic references)
- Recorded in a hall* with close and decca mic positions
- 48kHz / 24bit
- NCW-compressed, ~X GB total
- Built for Kontakt 5.8.1 and above – full, retail version of Kontakt required
- Download via Continuata
* the same hall as Oceania, Oceania II, Angry Brass Pro – Ensembles, and others
Patch List
Angry Brass Pro – Soloists – Solo Bass Trombone.nki
Angry Brass Pro – Soloists – Solo Horn.nki
Angry Brass Pro – Soloists – Solo Trumpet.nki
Angry Brass Pro – Soloists – Solo Tuba.nki
Sample Delay
You’ll notice some delay in the samples: 80 ms (based on close mic). Simply set your MIDI track settings to -80 ms. The sample assets are timed, so you can quantize and with -80 ms track delay it will be on the beat.
Library Limitations
- Only one dynamic (loud).
- Dynamics are EQ-modeled and inherently limited.
- Extreme ranges (including extending beyond the natural range of the instruments) are pitch-shifted and have some artifacts because of that (mainly notes that were pitched down).
- Because of the performance phrases they were edited from, the attacks (mainly on the decca mic) have some level of ambience decay before the attack.
- On some pitches, there’s a transitional cross-fade sound from the attacks to the sustains they fade into, including some phasing at times (most apparent on the close). It’s most obvious on the bass trombone and tuba.
- There is also some phasing (most obvious on the close mics) on the sustains, from grafting together different shorter sustains to create a longer one. In addition, some of the sustains, esp. in the lower registers, are pretty “dirty” sounding.