CMusic adds two Solo Trumpets. Compare to Chris Hein Compact

[mhschmieder]

http://www.cmusic.pro/product-cat/solo/solo-trumpet-1/

http://www.cmusic.pro/product-cat/solo/solo-trumpet-3/

Kind of surprised, as they recently did a solo alto sax but previously had focused on the full sax family in the big band or section context.

The audio demos are really short so it's kind of hard to tell that much. Might be worth it on sale (whenever). I find the saxes useful for synth-oriented projects where I don't have time to do all the articulation stuff but want a nice realistic timbre and good legato on simple slurred passages.

The two trumpets are very different from each other; more so in my view than the individual trumpets within the SampleModeling product (though not as different, of course, as SampleModeling's trumpets from the flugelhorn, cornet, etc.). Might be good on two-trumpet lines -- currently I do that via a Piccolo Trumpet in Sample Modeling, if it's just a short amount of overlap in the parts.

Not sure about the naming, and the missing "Trumpet 2" .

[mhschmieder]

Just bought it on holiday sale, and it's almost finished downloading...

In re-reading their lit sheets, they hired two different trumpet players for the two libraries. But they say nothing of the instruments sampled, so I don't know if the pictures are just for mnemonics in identifying and distinguishing the two libraries, or reflect the instruments actually played.

They used a condenser mic and a ribbon mic and blended them. I think I like the timbre quite a bit but we'll see how it plays. There are key switches and pre-recorded runs and the like. But it doesn't have wind controller friendly programming like the SampleModeling stuff.

[dbender]

Hey mhschmieder (and others too),

• re: the two new Trumpets from Cmusic —

- I already own Chris Hein Horns vol. 1 - Solo, which has a trumpet. If you (or anyone else) know that library, how does the two trumpets from Cmusic compare to the Chris Hein trumpet? I'm not totally wild about the Chris Hein trumpet sound, so am considering getting one or both of the Cmusic trumpets before their sale ends on Jan. 2.

- How good do they sound? How do they sound vis-à-vis each other, what are the differences in sound between Trumpet I and III?

- What are the differences between Trumpet I and III in terms of features, options and articulations? I looked at their manuals, and it seems that III has fewer articulations and smaller GB size and only LFO vibrato. If you only had to get one, would it be I or III, and why?


• re: Cmusic Saxaphones —

- How do you like them, and why, and how do they sound? Are any of these Cmusic saxes any better than others of their saxes?

- As mentioned above, I already have Chris Hein's saxes, and while they are very deep with many features and articulations, I'm not totally wild about the sound, so am considering the Cmusic saxes, but of course want to avoid duplication and also not getting a better sound too if I also get one or more of the Cmusic saxes. So if you know the Chris Hein saxes, how do the Cmusic saxes compare? A long time ago I downloaded and tried a couple of the Cmusic saxes, and really did not like the sound ... sounded too "synthy" and not very realistic, and their online audio demos of their saxes are pretty bad too.

[mhschmieder]

Well, like I said, I think their stuff blends well with synths, and in that setting. Not so much for jazz, where I still prefer SampleModeling by far.

It wouldn't be fair for me to make categorical statements at this point, as I haven't put as much time into CMusic's saxes and trumpets as SampleModeling's products. It appears to me from casual use and reading the manuals, that they do not offer as much flexibility -- especially with regards to dynamics control -- but I may have missed something in the controllers or keyswitches.

I like their accordion products as well, and even though Eduardo Tarilonte's Accordions product for Best Service has no superior in terms of quality of sound and features, it doesn't cover every accordion type, and even at that, I have found that the CMusic models that were sampled (and how they were recorded) is working a bit better for me in certain contexts, such as gazillion-track ethnic stuff like Cumbia.

I feel the synthy-ness of the audio demos is a limitation not of the products but of the people doing the demos. Small vendors don't necessarily get the top guns doing their demos, or have the experience or expertise to show off their products at their best.

[mhschmieder]

As for Best Service Chris Hein winds and brass -- whether orchestral or band-oriented -- I have always found the tiny subset in the main Kontakt factory set to be quite livable for early mock-ups, with realistic timbre and expression.

Given that there is currently a two-for-one promotion on Chris Hein products until early January, I am strongly considering either the orchestral winds or the compact edition of the big band library or two of the four broken-down modules from the big band set. Big band on its own ("Pro Horns" is the name, I think) is $650, which is less than years ago but still too rich for my blood after so many unexpected purchases and maintenance expenses recently.

I almost think the newer orchestral stuff might be better even for pop and jazz, based on how much Chris has grown as a VI developer in recent years and due to how flexible the new orchestral solo strings are.

And those are affordable libraries -- though full woodwinds is $400 vs. $300 for full brass. Granted he samples way more woodwinds than the mere three brass instruments in that library.

Another option is to pick just one of those libraries and do two (or just one) two-for-ones of the component libraries, getting a fairly strong effective discount on the complete suite for woodwinds for instance -- if you don't really want the brass.

[mhschmieder]

FYI the cheapest way to buy Chris Hein products (and several others) is via Best Service in Euros, if you're not a European citizen, as those prices currently in most cases match the US dollar price but at checkout time subtract the inapplicable VAT from the sale.

[mhschmieder]

Surprisingly, the Chris Hein stuff can be even slightly cheaper at Time+Space when selecting Sterling (sans VAT) and applying a customer loyalty coupon (not everyone will have one though).

I'm still debating, as I could have both Woodwinds and Brass for roughly $400 this way, but I'm just not convinced by the audio demos. It's the discussions at vi-control that have me thinking about it.

[mhschmieder]

I got nervous about the exchange rates starting to push slowly against the US Dollar post-Christmas, so went ahead and bought Chris Hein Woodwinds Complete just now for Time + Space using my voucher, and have requested the Orchestral Brass Complete as the 2-for-1 freebie -- it is less expensive, but there's no on-par library price-wise anyway and it's close enough.

[mhschmieder]

Perhaps a reboot is required, but I can't do that for another twelve hours as that's how long the last file in each Chris Hein Winds library says it will take to download.

Bad news so far: I get "encypted sample file not authorized" or something to that effect, on the Bassoon and Contra Bassoon. The Baroque Bassoon loads but is silent. This, after many retries.

Apple Mail crashed when I sent the form for the 2-for-1 but it is in my Sent folder so presumably it went out and I'll receive my codes for Brass tomorrow or the day after.

At any rate, I'm not going to contact Best service yet, as it may be a quirk that the libraries don't work after authorizing and after restarting Kontakt many times.

More to the point, I have to Force Quit on Kontakt any time I try to load one of these instruments, as I get the spinning beach ball of death when I try to empty the Multi.

I can't remember when I had problems this serious with a Kontakt instrument. Perhaps these libraries aren't compatible with the latest Kontakt updates.

[mhschmieder]

I went ahead and did the 2-for-1 for Chris Hein Horns Compact and Chris Hein Bass, in spite of misgivings about the latter, because really it may end up being worth $75 for the versatility alone -- I think this is the only contrabass library that contains samples from gut, nylon, and steel strings. And the steel string samples to sound quite good, so I may end up swapping it onto my jazz album.

The Horns Compact is certainly worth $75 as an entry fee for trying out the 54 contained instruments in limited articulations and then seeing whether it's worth upgrading to Horns Pro Complete -- hopefully that will be available at a discount at some point.

I wouldn't have splurged so much except that I've had regrets in the past when I waited too late on certain products and wasted time doing stuff over and over again because I didn't have the ideal product for the task.

A case in point is when I stuck way too long with Vienna Special Edition. I got raked over the coals when I posted my audio examples on this forum, and will never post anything here again (I should have known better, but I'm late-to-the-game when it comes to computer-based production so I still hadn't adjusted to the much higher expectations people have now for mock-ups and demos).

Anyway, I am focusing more on a revived synth-pop album at the moment, but am squeezing in some jazz production work as time allows, so am expecting that during the 3-day Martin Luther King holiday weekend I will have a chance to do a thorough shootout of all of these new solo horn and horn section libraries.

[mhschmieder]

Once everything was installed and authorized, the problems with the bassoons cleared up.

I didn't have to reboot the computer, but closing the browser (once done with the downloads) probably helped.

Even so, and with nothing else running, most of these instruments glitch, but probably I need a computer reboot at this point as MODO Bass and even Korg MS-20 were glitching like crazy regardless of whether they were the only tracks rendering and playing back.

I still don't understand why the new version of Kontakt takes eons to launch. I'm talking about the standalone version; the plug-in seems to be faster. But I always audition in standalone mode until I'm certain a new library won't cause a DP session or project to crash or get corrupted.

[mhschmieder]

The Chris Hein Orchestral Brass license was received this morning, and it is downloaded and installed. I gave it a quick trial run and can't figure out why it's the poor man of the bunch as it's actually my favourite of all that he has produced (except maybe the new solo strings).

I wasn't as thrilled with the woodwinds, but maybe I'm more picky or specific since I play all but oboe and bassoon myself (to varying degrees of professionalism).

He also has a Solo Horn library called UniqHorn that is currently only offered at his own website for some reason. Maybe he intends to extend the range of solo brass and winds, as with the strings, and is planning ahead.

[dbender]

Thank you for all this great info!

[mhschmieder]

I did some quick cues last night with the Chris Hein Horns Compact Edition trumpets and trombones, for section work using different variants for each horn, and it worked GREAT in this context.

I ran out of energy before remembering that I hadn't yet put the Trumpet 1 and Trumpet 3 from CMusic through the same paces -- I'll do that tonight.

As it stands, I think I'm likely to upgrade the Chris Hein Horns at some point to the full collection. I find the Sample Modeling stuff works best in solo mode. In spite of multiple horns, I'm pretty sure they're the same basic raw samples underneath, which Chris Hein and Cmusic aren't.

[toodamnhip]

Being a gringo that has a long history of producing latin albums, I thought the tracks and the horn sounds sucked. Hate to be negative but Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, and moving to other horns, John Coltrane, are what I like a horn to sound like. I’d be embarrassed to call those demos “horns”.
I have made albums with far inferior technology and when I hear •••• like that, to me, it’s just a lack of hard work to make things sound great.
The only caveat to this scathing critique is that I layer the •••• out of things to make them sound real and maybe the programmers wanted to use their sounds dry without added EQ, layering, recording to audio and mixing. But that sounded like rinky dink toy music to me and I am really surprised any company plans to make money with such crappy demos.
They should have hired a great MIDI programmer to make something that sounded awesome.
It sounded like someones’ “idea” of what latin music should sound like. But it has no sangre, blood or fire in it!
Of course, casio keyboards may love that type of white washed beat. yikes