standalone Brass VST question.

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Hi Everyone.
I have a question about standalone VST for Pop / Jazz brass sounds.
I know that there are tons of things out there, but I am limited to computer resources, that can not be upgraded...
From the start. I am using sound setup for software arranger that consists of 3gb custom SF2 bank + some instruments using Sampletank 3. My SF2 bank has some "ok" brass and Sampletank 3 has some "ok" brass sounds... but they are still very mediocre.... I know that Sampletank has Miroslav, but it is too heavy for my system.

With most of my sounds loaded, I have approximately 1.5gb of RAM left. In my tracks I usually do not use more than 2 brass instruments.

My goal is to find something that sounds realistic, that uses small footprint (about 1gb of Ram including VST + 2 brass instruments) and hopefully affordable. Mainly I need Trumpets, Trombones and Sax.

I think ideally would suit a standalone VST with library with 5-10gb with selectable instruments under 500 megs each. And one more thing... I do not like Kontakt.

P.S. I bought a few plugins from people here at KVR and I am very happy with them. Hope that somebody can point me to right direction.

Thank you!
Mike.

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Straight out. Good luck. Your PC limitations make finding a "good" sounding brass product next to impossible.

You can't squeeze 10 pounds of ham into a 5 pound bag.

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wagtunes, you are wrong. Some soundfonts under 30 megs per patch sound good... My SF2 bank sounds FAR better than some of cherished, "big balls" V. instruments packages out there. I do not believe this moto: "must be 50 gb" patch to sound good. Some good things come in smaller packages. I feel that most of these "fine" libraries are way too inflated. But that is just my opinion. Ok, back to original question.

I did not want to mention what I looked at, so I would get untainted ideas, but for people like wagtunes, who rushed with discouragement and negativity right away..., I looked at Garritan Jazz packages with Aria player as VST. It seems to fit both the sound quality and budget.... The only thing I am not on a shopping spree. As I mentioned earlier, I have most of my instruments as I want them. Just struggling with brass sounds :) Is there any other packages somebody can recommend with similar footprint of Garritan Jazz?

Thank you.

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xabkr wrote:wagtunes, you are wrong. Some soundfonts under 30 megs per patch sound good... My SF2 bank sounds FAR better than some of cherished, "big balls" V. instruments packages out there. I do not believe this moto: "must be 50 gb" patch to sound good. Some good things come in smaller packages. I feel that most of these "fine" libraries are way too inflated. But that is just my opinion. Ok, back to original question.

I did not want to mention what I looked at, so I would get untainted ideas, but for people like wagtunes, who rushed with discouragement and negativity right away..., I looked at Garritan Jazz packages with Aria player as VST. It seems to fit both the sound quality and budget.... The only thing I am not on a shopping spree. As I mentioned earlier, I have most of my instruments as I want them. Just struggling with brass sounds :) Is there any other packages somebody can recommend with similar footprint of Garritan Jazz?

Thank you.
Look, you want to call me negative or whatever the hell else you want to call me, fine. I honestly don't care. But I have very high standards when it comes to orchestral instruments. I own EWQL and, IMO, that's the bare minimum as far as sound quality goes that I would call "good". These 30 meg libraries or whatever that you consider "good" I'd get sick listening to. So whatever. If you think they're good then why not just use them? Obviously if you're not satisfied with what you already have you must not think they're so great.

Plus, you say you hate Kontakt. So that rules out a ton of stuff. Session Horns Pro, isn't bad. it's not great but it's usable. And you can get it pretty cheap right now. But you won't use Kontakt so that rules that out.

When you limit yourself so much, you don't leave a lot of choices.

I have listened to just about every brass and string product out there. There ones I'd really like to have cost a fortune and I just can't afford them. But what you're looking for, forget it. I'm just trying to save you a lot of time and frustration but if you don't want to hear it, fine. I'll just butt out of the rest of this thread and let you find out the hard way.

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wagtunes please, do not get sick... I am not trying to steal your high standards :)

"When you limit yourself so much, you don't leave a lot of choices." I know that, that is why I posted this message.

I believe Garritan Jazz has good packages with small footprint and decent VST interface. It might not be "Pro (high standard)" level, but it sounds better than what I got. Just wanted some opinions on any other brass standalone VSTs that can fit my setup.

thank you.

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xabkr wrote:wagtunes please, do not get sick... I am not trying to steal your high standards :)

"When you limit yourself so much, you don't leave a lot of choices." I know that, that is why I posted this message.

I believe Garritan Jazz has good packages with small footprint and decent VST interface. It might not be "Pro (high standard)" level, but it sounds better than what I got. Just wanted some opinions on any other brass standalone VSTs that can fit my setup.

thank you.
Garritan was the first brass I got a few years ago. At the time, when I was a total idiot, I thought it was good. Then I heard what real good brass sounds like and I can't even listen to those old recordings anymore and I don't even have the library installed anymore.

But hey, if that's good enough for you then you probably won't have too much trouble finding something similar that meets your requirements.

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wagtunes, I know about session horns and some other good BIG things. But I need something with small footprint. In my opinion a 300-500 meg per instrument should do just fine for what I am trying to accomplish. That is my question... What is out there that can meet my needs?

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xabkr wrote:wagtunes, I know about session horns and some other good BIG things. But I need something with small footprint. In my opinion a 300-500 meg per instrument should do just fine for what I am trying to accomplish. That is my question... What is out there that can meet my needs?
Kontakt libraries are out, correct?


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Here's another one.

http://www.soundsonline.com/hollywood-brass

Get the silver edition. It's really stripped down, small footprint and only costs $79. Of course you have to deal with the Play engine which, IMO, is way worse than Kontakt. It's very quirky at times when you've got multiple instances running.

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The trombone + NI Session Horns, in kontakt PLAYER. Not too cpu hungry iirc. Isnt there a mode in kontakt where it only loads sounds based on midi input or something. Cant remember the name but very small footprint.

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xabkr wrote: I know that Sampletank has Miroslav, but it is too heavy for my system.
Well ... there's Miroslav 2 CE, far cheaper and with a smaller footprint but no saxophones and the trumpets (solo/ensemble) just plain suck IMO. The trombones are OK for orchestral stuff but you might miss some more jazzy articulations, phrases, etc. you'd find in a more jazz/band oriented library like Garritan JABB 3 which was on sale for 29 pounds some days ago. IIRC there are no velocity layers but you might get away with that if you only use it for some background stuff.
Re. no-Kontakt saxophones there's LinPlug JazzLab and the free DVS saxophone. Just google and take a listen to the demos.

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wagtunes wrote:Straight out. Good luck. Your PC limitations make finding a "good" sounding brass product next to impossible.

You can't squeeze 10 pounds of ham into a 5 pound bag.
Unless that bag is your stomach.
Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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xabkr

and what is your processor?
1. Wallander Instruments WIVI Orchestral & Band Brass are very light on cpu and ram. There are lot of Brass instruments and you can use lot of brass and woodwinds realtime and you "never" go out of ram or cpu. You can try demo.
If you don't need lot of brass instruments try look for WIVI Band.
2. Samplemodeling, I don't know how many cpu they Brass instruments need, but I think brass instruments are similar to Wallander. And they don't need extra ram.
3. Synful Orchestra, similar to Samplemodeling or Wallander. But in my opinion, playability is not good as Wallander Instruments. You can try demo. The bad side Synful is not updated for very long time and there is hidden 64bit version with new user interface.

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The only honest answer I can give you is to check out sample modeling instruments when you're able to. Soundfonts won't get the job done. Heck, some supposedly good pop section libraries are still extremely limited despite a fairly hefty price tag.

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