big fish audio vintage strings kontakt library

#BIG FISH AUDIO VINTAGE STRINGS KONTAKT LIBRARY SERIES#

The solo trumpet's large array of attention-grabbing big-band mannerisms (long and short falls, 'doits', leery shakes, vicious razor-sharp staccato stabs, and so on) provides a stark contrast to the inhibited delivery of most orchestral players. However, being able to keyswitch instantly between vibrato and non-vibrato notes restores some expressive potential. On the minus side, there's a big, jarringly obvious change in timbre between the alto and tenor saxes' quiet and loud notes, and the soprano and baritone instruments are single dynamic. The alto sax's intimate, breathy quiet notes are also particularly attractive. Pop brass needs good saxophone samples, and Big Fish's baritone sax is the star of the show - big, honky, and in your face, perfect for dirty low-end riffs or for punctuating Tamla bass lines. Most instruments come in a choice of solo or stereo section formats, the latter (which sound like unison duos) producing a lusher, broader sound than the mono solo instruments. This 1.5GB library's dry studio acoustic can be sweetened by adding a splash of Kontakt 's built-in reverb. Big Fish Audio aim to raise the temperature of these poor shivering souls by releasing the defiantly pop-orientated First Call Horns.

Sampled pop horns were popular during the '80s and '90s, but recently orchestral brass libraries have dominated the market, leaving those needing pop, rock, and jazz brass samples out in the cold. My only problem is that I now really want to give Vintage Horns a try.Published March 2006 Big Fish Audio First Call Horns Yes, with the right artificial reverb and a few suitable plug-ins to grunge things up a bit you probably could get your orchestral library close to the sound of Vintage Strings, but if you don’t want that hassle - and the ease of those harmonised patches sounds appealing - then Vintage Strings, while perhaps not in the casual purchase bracket, is well worth auditioning. I did experience the occasional (and minor) rough edge in the samples and, when I dialled in an octave-down harmony, managed to find myself triggering articulation keyswitches unintentionally but, on the whole, the library was a pleasure to use. The documentation suggests that BFA are very much going for a ‘non-polished’ sound here to get the vibe of the ’60s and ’70s and, on the whole, I think that has been achieved Vintage Strings certainly sounds different from an orchestral string library. A further nice touch are keyswitches to select different chord inversions. While these include fixed chords, there are also options where you can select the key and a scale type (from a number of different possibilities) and the engine then applies a little bit of musical intelligence to generate a suitable harmony based upon the one-fingered line you play. It was the various harmonised patches that you can play with a single finger that impressed me the most.

The articulations are accessed via keyswitches in the usual fashion. The user interface includes a rather nice convolution reverb with a good selection of virtual spaces (based on plates, rooms and springs but, appropriately, no concert halls), a basic EQ for colouring the tone and a subtle, but effective, tape saturation effect.

#BIG FISH AUDIO VINTAGE STRINGS KONTAKT LIBRARY SERIES#

What you get, therefore, are a series of two, six and 12 violin-section patches, multiple articulations and both ‘do it yourself’ patches (for those with more experience of writing string parts) and some ‘assisted’ patches (essentially various pre-harmonised patches where you can generate harmony lines and/or chords with just a single finger). This Kontakt library is intended to sit alongside Vintage Vibe and Vintage Horns and, like those products, uses original samples recorded in a fashion intended to replicate how it might have been done in Motown: small recording studios, small string sections and a rather gritty sound. Which is, of course, exactly where Big Fish Audio’s Vintage Strings is supposed to come in. However, in the main, those choices are from a number of different orchestral string libraries that might not be quite the right sound for ’60s and ’70s soul and funk.

When it comes to sample-based string sounds, the modern composer is spoilt for choice.

Big fish audio vintage strings kontakt library