Product Review - Orchestral Tools Berlin Woodwinds
Article Preview :: Sample Library
Reviews : Sample / Sound / Song Library
An often overlooked part of the orchestra gets the royal treatment in a new sample library.
Berlin Woodwinds’ flute ensemble: (L-R) Yasuko Fuchs, Klaus Schöpp, Silvia Careddu.
The German company Orchestral Tools first came to our attention in 2011 with their Orchestral String Runs library. Recorded by a large contingent of players from the Belarus Philharmonic, OSR (now expanded to 33.4GB) remains a go-to solution for those who need the dramatic effect of fast string section runs and figures but lack the dexterity, time or inclination to program them with single-note samples. (Read the SOS review of OSR at www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/orchestral-string-runs.htm.)
Strings and brass being the meat and potatoes of most media composers’ orchestral arrangements, one might have guessed Orchestral Tools’ next major sampling project would be a brass collection. Confounding expectation, the company have instead turned the spotlight on a less favoured section of the orchestra, namely the woodwinds (they’re the guys sitting in the middle, being drowned out by the brass, percussion and strings). Entitled Berlin Woodwinds, the new library has created quite a stir on forums: in fact, such is the level of online speculation that it’s essential for it to go under the SOS microscope without delay.
Whereas recording OSR’s string samples entailed producer Hendrik Schwarzer periodically boarding a plane to Minsk, the new library was recorded much closer to home at Berlin’s Teldex Studio. The location for hundreds of legendary Teldec Classics recordings down the years, the studio has become a leading international facility for classical music, film score and pop recording since its modernisation in 2002.
Berlin Woodwinds (BWW for short) runs on Kontakt 5 and also on the free Kontakt 5 player, which can be downloaded from Native Instruments’ site, www.native-instruments.com. Minimum system requirements and supported interfaces for Kontakt are also listed there. This large library (100GB of samples, which compress to 53.2GB on your hard drive) is available only as a download direct from Orchestral Tools’ site, in the form of 54 compressed RAR files. Buyers should be prepared for a lengthy download session!
View Over Berlin
As well as displaying the name and photo of each performer, BWW’s GUI shows the instrument’s vibrato options, velocity-to-loudness curve and the current mod wheel setting (marked in orange), the mod wheel being the default controller for dynamic cross-fading. The ‘X-Fade’ function switches to Velocity control when you click in the centre of the circle. Clicking on the Close, Room and Mix on/off buttons loads the samples for those microphone positions; selecting the Mix option will automatically unload the other two.
BWW consists of 11 solo instruments and two three-player ensembles (see the ‘Instruments & Articulations’ box). With the exception of two players who double on piccolo/third flute and second oboe/English horn, each instrument was played by a different musician, and the ensembles were recorded in real time with no overdubbing. The provision of three flautists, two oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons means that you can program realistic duo and trio performances for each of those instruments, and give them unison notes with no fear of identical samples causing phase-cancellation.
The players perform a large range of articulations, which include true legato intervals for every instrument. Solo flutes, oboes and bassoons play their long notes in a choice of vibrato and no-vibrato styles, while the flutes and oboes also have a ‘progressive vibrato’ option. Patches incorporate all of an instrument’s vibrato variants, which you can select on the fly via a MIDI controller number of your choice (the default is CC22).
As in OSR, the library also includes a large number of single- and double-octave runs, and a sizeable collection of short, tempo-sync’ed phrases (played by the flute ensemble and clarinet trio only) designed to be joined together to form custom runs and patterns. The runs and phrases are performed in all 12 keys.
The woodwinds were recorded in Teldex Studio’s large hall from two positions: the hall’s natural ambience was captured by a Decca Tree of Neumann M50 valve mics placed five or six metres back from the players, while a second stereo miking recorded the instruments close up. The Close and Room positions have their own mixer settings, and can be separately routed out of Kontakt as a front and rear pair for surround mixes. A third set of ‘Mix’ samples blends the two mic positions together, thereby halving the amount of RAM required to hear both simultaneously. Patches load with the blended mix samples in place.
|
That's the end of the trailer folks!
Option 2: Buy this SOS article in Adobe PDF format
|
I AM a Subscriber - How do I access Web content?
- Depending on your Subscription type, you may or may not have Web access included in your subscription bundle.
- If you have a Print Only or Tablet Only subscription and wish to upgrade send an email including your full name and postal address to: subs-upgrade@soundonsound.com
- All other Subscription bundles do include access to Web content but you may not have activated it by logging in. See this page for Help.
I am NOT a Subscriber
- SOS locks most recent magazine web articles for 5 months after they go online.
- Only articles older than 6 months are free to access.
- Buy a subscription now for instant access to all articles. Click here for prices.
Home |
Search |
News |
Current Issue |
Digital Editions |
Articles |
Forum |
Subscribe |
Shop |
Readers Ads
Advertise |
Information |
Links |
Privacy Policy |
Support
In this article:
information
$699 including 19 percent Euro VAT.$699.WIN Great Prizes in SOS Competitions!
Sun 19 May 2013
Sound On Sound : Est. 1985