Spitfire Brass vs Berlin Brass

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mhschmieder
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Re: Spitfire Brass vs Berlin Brass

Post by mhschmieder »

I'm working on some new material for once (getting a bit burnt out with the 99%/1% rule when dealing with older material), so I'll give some thought to STARTING with Spitfire so that the Spitfire Brass is trying to blend with other Spitfire libraries, and see if that makes a difference.

I exclusively use their close mics for the symphonic stuff, but do use a mic blend for their ethnic material and percussion.

After some more thought, I've decided not to invest in Berlin at this point in time, as VSL has more Dimension and Synchron stuff on the way, and I have a lot of vouchers with them so should hold off and see if Berlin still interests me after VSL's newer offerings expand further.
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Elektroakoustika
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Re: Spitfire Brass vs Berlin Brass

Post by Elektroakoustika »

I'll jump in here.

I own Berlin Brass, Spitfire Brass, a lot of VSL's line, CineBrass Core & Pro, Hollywood Brass, & Metropolis Ark I (another Orchestral Tools library w/ large brass ensembles).

Right now, my usage is 85% Berlin & MA1, 10% CineBrass, and 5% Spitfire. Berlin Brass is a wonderfully crafted library and has, by far, the best short notes of any of the libraries. The space and recordings are just right and they have tempo-synced double/triple tongued items for each one. And the legatos are terrific across all instruments

There only downside of Berlin Brass is that some of the instruments don't have true FF or FFF sustains. For these, I use either Metropolis ARK I or Spitfire's large ensembles. I also find the Tuba in Berlin Brass to be fairly weak and LOVE the CineBrass Pro Tuba.

Another consideration is that Berlin Brass uses OT's Capsule, which is extremely powerful, but also not nearly as efficient in memory usage. I am pushing the limits of my 32GB right now; so much so that I'm about to upgrade to 64GB of memory to combat this issue.

I am a huge fan of Orchestral Tools libraries and highly recommend them. I use the Berlin Woodwinds & Strings all the time too. I have Berlin Percussion as well, but I still find myself using Spitfire's Percussion because it is so efficient and, I think, sounds better in most applications.

My woodwinds are about 1/2 Spitfire, 1/2 Berlin, and I find, with a little EQ and reverb, they can blend really well together. My strings are 1/2 Berlin, 1/2 Cinematic Studio Strings.

Another library to keep an eye out for is Cinematic Studio Brass from the Alex Wallbank down in Australia. It's a continuation of his Cinematic Studio Series and is recorded at TrackDown Studios in Sydney. No release date is set, but its the next library coming from them (their Piano, Strings, and Solo Strings libraries are fantastic).

Cheers.
Last edited by Elektroakoustika on Sun Jan 14, 2018 10:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Spitfire Brass vs Berlin Brass

Post by mhschmieder »

That's very helpful feedback. For orchestral horn in particular, I am heavily influenced by Richard Strauss and thus need good articulation and note separation for fast passages, which is a real challenge with most libraries. So it's good to hear that Berlin Brass excels in this area.

For Tuba, give Sample Modeling a try, as their Tuba is the one brass instrument in their catalogue that seems pretty well adaptable for orchestral work and not just jazz, klezmer, etc. Although I do tend to use a variety of Tuba sources.

It's too bad no one has a Baritone Horn, which I generally prefer to Euphonium. I've even thought of buying a real one, as I feel moderately comfortable on a trombone mouthpiece (but not a trumpet).

Now I finally understand some confusion I've had over "Hollywood Brass Metropolis Ark" as I kept thinking that was a longer name for the more recent East/West stuff, so I never really looked into it. I'll look that one up when I'm fresh in the morning.
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Rusty Shackleford
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Re: Spitfire Brass vs Berlin Brass

Post by Rusty Shackleford »

Elektroakoustika wrote:I'll jump in here.

I own Berlin Brass, Spitfire Brass, a lot of VSL's line, CineBrass Core & Pro, & Hollywood Brass Metropolis Ark I (another Orchestral Tools library w/ large brass ensembles).

Right now, my usage is 85% Berlin & MA1, 10% CineBrass, and 5% Spitfire. Berlin Brass is a wonderfully crafted library and has, by far, the best short notes of any of the libraries. The space and recordings are just right and they have tempo-synced double/triple tongued items for each one. And the legatos are terrific across all instruments

There only downside of Berlin Brass is that some of the instruments don't have true FF or FFF sustains. For these, I use either Metropolis ARK I or Spitfire's large ensembles. I also find the Tuba in Berlin Brass to be fairly weak and LOVE the CineBrass Pro Tuba.

Another consideration is that Berlin Brass uses OT's Capsule, which is extremely powerful, but also not nearly as efficient in memory usage. I am pushing the limits of my 32GB right now; so much so that I'm about to upgrade to 64GB of memory to combat this issue.

I am a huge fan of Orchestral Tools libraries and highly recommend them. I use the Berlin Woodwinds & Strings all the time too. I have Berlin Percussion as well, but I still find myself using Spitfire's Percussion because it is so efficient and, I think, sounds better in most applications.

My woodwinds are about 1/2 Spitfire, 1/2 Berlin, and I find, with a little EQ and reverb, they can blend really well together. My strings are 1/2 Berlin, 1/2 Cinematic Studio Strings.

Another library to keep an eye out for is Cinematic Studio Brass from the Alex Wallbank down in Australia. It's a continuation of his Cinematic Studio Series and is recorded at TrackDown Studios in Sydney. No release date is set, but its the next library coming from them (their Piano, Strings, and Solo Strings libraries are fantastic).

Cheers.
Thanks for weighing in, Elektroakoustika. BB sounds fantastic to me for detailed mockups, but considering Capsules's extra-high CPU demand, are you able to use it in the sketching-ideas part of your writing process where having a more streamlined articulation palette that responds quickly is important for keep the creative flow going? Can a lighter-weight palette be configured in Capsule for such situation. The CPU demands are my biggest reservation with getting BB at the moment considering I will be working with 32GB RAM for awhile.

Also, how would you compare the sample quality of the trumpets, bones and horns between BB and Spitfire Symphonic Brass with SSB setup with more of a direct mic sound?
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Elektroakoustika
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Re: Spitfire Brass vs Berlin Brass

Post by Elektroakoustika »

Rusty Shackleford wrote: Thanks for weighing in, Elektroakoustika. BB sounds fantastic to me for detailed mockups, but considering Capsules's extra-high CPU demand, are you able to use it in the sketching-ideas part of your writing process where having a more streamlined articulation palette that responds quickly is important for keep the creative flow going? Can a lighter-weight palette be configured in Capsule for such situation. The CPU demands are my biggest reservation with getting BB at the moment considering I will be working with 32GB RAM for awhile.

Also, how would you compare the sample quality of the trumpets, bones and horns between BB and Spitfire Symphonic Brass with SSB setup with more of a direct mic sound?
I am, but I've had really fine-tuned my templates to run as efficiently as possible. My current template has around 60 Berlin series + 30-40 other tracks across 9 or so instances of Kontakt. Every single Kontakt instance sits in a local VE Pro 6 server (still on the same computer) and are decoupled from DP. It's almost impossible for me to work without VE Pro because DP simply can't run smoothly with that much loaded. I also had to lower my buffer setting to 512 to make it work without crashing down on me.

That said, I'm one of the few people who actually does detailed mockups from the get-go. I don't do "sketches." I compose concert music so everything I do ends up in front of live players thus I compose and mockup simultaneously. Any "sketches" are usually done on piano or a string-ensemble patch.

I can't really say how well Capsule would run on your machine, but my 12-core runs it pretty well. I'm still going to upgrade to 64GB soon just so I can have some extra head-room. For the record, in smaller projects, I've had no issues with CPU or memory. I recently finished several string orchestra works where I had around 20-30 Berlin Strings tracks going and never had any issues.

When it comes to Berlin vs Spitfire, Berlin simple offers more playability and flexibility. Before BB came out, my Brass template was all Spitfire and CineBrass. Berlin replaced all but Tuba for me. BB's legato is also much more flexible as it has 3 different transitions (slurred, fast-slurred, tongued). All three sound fantastic. They also have flexible shorts (staccatissimo, staccato, 2 lengths of marcato). I found that Spitfire is good for some things (general legato, staccato), but really lacks on flexibility. Berlin Brass's method of presenting multi tonguing is also the best and most realistic in the business. And having 3 different trumpets, 4 different horns, 3 different trombones, and then ensembles of each of those let's me have the flexibility to change between those instruments if I find one "performs" the passage a little better.

Lastly, my mockups sound, overall, better with Berlin Brass. It's my favorite Brass library by far and I would recommend it. I do hope that Orchestral Tools updates Capsule in the future to be a bit more efficient though.
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Elektroakoustika
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Re: Spitfire Brass vs Berlin Brass

Post by Elektroakoustika »

mhschmieder wrote:That's very helpful feedback. For orchestral horn in particular, I am heavily influenced by Richard Strauss and thus need good articulation and note separation for fast passages, which is a real challenge with most libraries. So it's good to hear that Berlin Brass excels in this area.

For Tuba, give Sample Modeling a try, as their Tuba is the one brass instrument in their catalogue that seems pretty well adaptable for orchestral work and not just jazz, klezmer, etc. Although I do tend to use a variety of Tuba sources.

It's too bad no one has a Baritone Horn, which I generally prefer to Euphonium. I've even thought of buying a real one, as I feel moderately comfortable on a trombone mouthpiece (but not a trumpet).

Now I finally understand some confusion I've had over "Hollywood Brass Metropolis Ark" as I kept thinking that was a longer name for the more recent East/West stuff, so I never really looked into it. I'll look that one up when I'm fresh in the morning.
I mistyped in my first post (now fixed). They're two different libraries. Hollywood Brass is East West. Metropolis Ark I is Orchestral Tools big epic library.

Metropolis Ark I just has some useful ensembles from across the orchestra. I really like it for loud bassoons, horns, and tubas. But it is a very niche library.

Berlin Brass has an expansion that has a euphonium but it also has a Bass Trumpet. I don't ever use the bass trumpet as that's never an instrument I'll likely write for, but it might be closer to the baritone sound you're looking for.
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mhschmieder
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Re: Spitfire Brass vs Berlin Brass

Post by mhschmieder »

The Baritone is a greatly overlooked instrument. It probably is a bit closer to a Bass Trumpet in sound than to the much-compared Euphonium. The bore is entirely different, like a clarinet vs. a saxophone. In some ways though, a Baritone is more like a bridge between an F Horn and a Tenor Trombone, in timbre. But like Cello, it has an amazingly wide range, and can mimic the human voice. It is also supposed to be a bit easier to learn than other brass, for a woodwind player.
iMac 27" 2017 Quad-Core Intel i5 (3.8 GHz, 64 GB), OSX 13.6.1, MOTU DP 11.31, iZotope RX 10
RME Babyface Pro FS, Radial JDV Mk5, Hammond XK-4, Moog Voyager

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35
Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, Johhny Marr Jaguar, 57 LP, Danelectro 12
Eastman T486RB, T64/V, Ibanez PM2, D'angelico Deluxe SS Bari, EXL1
Guild Bari, 1512 12-string, M20, Martin OM28VTS, Larivee 0040MH
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