Virtual Horns

dsealer

New member
I bought Session Horns recently but realize now it's not up to what I'm looking for. So, I'm hoping to get some feedback on an upgrade. I'm wondering if Session Horns Pro is the way to go or is there something else?
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Don.....
 
Depends on what you are after. Native Instruments have some high dollar stuff that I like , however I have also used horn sections from IK's Miroslav Philharmonic.
 
Horns are a problem - actually, woodwind is too. I have quite a few different packages that feature horns and the snag really is that there's no definition of the sound of a horn section. As a musician given the dots for the main riff in Pick Up The Pieces really wouldn't help you play it as per the original, unless you heard the original. The staccato and the swing to the rhythm changes the tone you produce. Turn the tempo down and it sounds totally different - if you speed it up just a little from the original, the sound changes yet again - Candy Dulfer plays a version and a blistering tempo and it sounds very different.

Some packages blend sax, trumpets and trombones in a combination you can change, but the recordings of the samples will have a limited success as trumpets and trombones have their version of the sax problem, as in how you play it.

The upshot is that there are just too many different sounds required, so the usual solution is to keep buying the packages. I don't believe there is a single one that does it perfectly. A few years back when sample packages were much rarer, we were recording a piece that needed a certain sound. Between us we had three really good sax players, two OK ones and three beginners (I was one of those back then). Somebody had the idea that we'd record it was all 8 of us, and us beginners would simply not play the things we couldn't manage, staying silent at that point, but when we could, we would. It worked amazingoly well, and had the thickness in the loud critical notes and the thinner twiddly bits sounded deliberate. I doubt we could recreate this now with any sample package.

I still have my old Collossus sample library working - it's 32bit, so is bridged for Cubase now, but the horns are big and warm, and I still add them in sometimes.

Session Horns Pro just adds things - the flavour is the same though, so a different package recorded somewhere else, by different players makes sense, and keep the one you have.
 
+1
+1

dsealer: It would help if, (1), you would name a specific horn section or sections that you favor and, (2), do you want an ensemble or do you want solo horns?

Paj
8^?
 
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