Cinebrass Core

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Thelibrary's trombone ensemble features some star names: Alex Iles has played on hundreds of TV and movie soundtracks, while Bruce Fowler distinguished himself with recordings and live appearances with Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart (who memorably credited him as playing 'air bass'). Along with tuba players Doug Tornquist and Jim Self (who also plays cimbasso), these players are first-choice soloists for most film scores recorded in Los Angeles.

When it came to creating a high-end orchestral brass sample library to add to their catalogue of cinema-oriented titles, Cinesamples faced another dilemma: how to utilise the superior musicianship residing in LA without betraying the session players, some of whom, understandably, feel that samples pose a direct threat to their livelihood. Rather than conduct a covert 'dark date' in a shady studio, which could lead to trouble for the participants if word got out, the company approached the American Federation Of Musicians and negotiated a special sampling agreement. It took months to thrash out a deal whereby musicians, copyists and stage hands were supplied by the union with strict rules governing rates, overtime and even catering. Significantly, the agreement (which Cinesamples claim is the first of its kind) also entitles the players, copyists and engineers to a percentage of sales revenue.

CineBrass' Kontakt main screen, showing volume faders for the various mic positions. The eight pink keyswitches activate (from low to high) monophonic legato mode, polyphonic legato mode, short staccatos, double-tongue repeat, triple-tongue repeats, tenuto short notes, marcato short notes and sustains.Titled CineBrass, the end result is a product you can buy safe in the knowledge that ethical considerations have not been sidelined in the name of profit. The samples were recorded from multiple mic positions at LA's capacious Sony Pictures Scoring Stage, a famous venue where the music for The Wizard Of Oz, ET, Schindler's List, Star Trek and Spiderman (to name but a few) was recorded. A week after the CineBrass sessions, Hans Zimmer breezed in to record his rollicking cues for Pirates Of The Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides. Manning the mixing desk for the CineBrass sessions was distinguished film-music mixer Dennis Sands, whose credit list on the Internet Movie Database is so long I almost got RSI from scrolling down the screen.

Taken together, the Core and Pro libraries' instrumentation comprises trumpet, French horn and trombone (solo and ensemble), bass trombone, tuba and cimbasso, with the lower brass playing together in various combinations. The Pro version also contains a full brass ensemble (three trumpets, four horns, three trombones, bass and contrabass trombones, cimbasso and tuba) which performs chords and effects. See the 'Instrumentation & Articulations' box for a complete listing.

Sustained notes (including legatos) are looped, so unless there's a power cut in your area, you should never find yourself in the embarrassing position of playing a four-bar sustained brass pad that unexpectedly expires after two and a half bars. The instruments' short notes come in a choice of three lengths which the makers call 'eighths staccato', 'quarters tenuto' and 'halves marcato' (the numerical rhythmic references are intended merely as a guide). The staccatos are very short indeed, ideal for incisive, jabbing accents; the tenutos sound like longer staccatos, while the marcatos equate to quarter notes at around 90 bpm.

Clicking on the 'Custom Map' tab opens CineBrass' Articulations window. Here you can alter velocity splits, assign sustains to pedal, velocity or keyswitch control, and edit the sustains/short notes velocity assignment.The libraries' 'Articulations' patches combine sustains and short notes in a choice of five presets. The default 'Velocity' preset allows speed of touch to control note lengths: light key-presses trigger the staccatos, faster strokes produce tenuto samples and heavier key-presses trigger the marcatos. In this preset, long notes are selected by holding down the sustain pedal, but keeping the pedal pressed down doesn't sustain notes after you release the keys. If you prefer to use the pedal in the conventional way within the Velocity preset, you can assign sustains to velocity control with a couple of mouse clicks.

CineBrass' sampling sessions took place at LA's Sony Pictures Scoring Stage, a famous and historic recording venue where the music for The Wizard Of Oz was recorded back in 1939. More recently, the scores to ET, Schindler's List, Star Trek, Spiderman and Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 were also recorded there.

'True legato' patches incorporate all played intervals up to an octave in both directions; as is now the norm in contemporary orchestral libraries, the built-in legato scripting tracks your playing and intelligently selects the correct interval transitions to 'join up' your melody lines. Legato transitions between unison notes are also provided, so you can play repeated notes on a legato patch without hearing any awkward gaps.

I was pleased to see that Cinesamples have adopted the VSL-style monophonic legato mode, wherein a held note will re-sound after you release an overlapping note: very handy for playing trills and grace notes. In an improvement on conventional monophonic operation, the legatos may also be played polyphonically, with excellent musical results: the scripting handles two-part inventions and parallel chord movements very well, and it's great to be able to perform legato harmony lines in real time! The only limitation I noticed is that if you try to sustain a top note over chord changes, the high note will stop sounding. No big deal, though...

If you're in the mood for a bit of tweaking, you can use the dedicated 'legato volume' fader to control the legato transition samples. By assigning a MIDI controller to the fader, you can alter their level in real time, so that (say) a quick swoop from a low to a high note could be at a different volume each time it occurred. Such subtle details may not be noticeable in a full mix, but they have the potential to make an exposed solo passage sound more organic and realistic.

It's worth noting that in the core library the solo instruments' legatos are restricted to one mf dynamic layer; in the Pro expansion, that's increased to four layers, pp to fff. So if you need to program highly dynamic or very strident solo trumpet or horn legato lines, Pro would be the way to go; that said, the warm, expressive mf legatos of the solo horn and trumpet in the core library are highly effective and very enjoyable to play.

Automatic double and triple tonguing is a nice feature that enables you to create single or double round-robin repeats with a single played note. The effect (which sounds particularly exciting on chords) operates on staccato notes. The repetitions are triggered when you release a key, and the clever part is that the timing of the second note of the double repeat automatically matches the lapsed time between your initial key-press and the moment when you released it! Although it takes a while to master, this facility gives complete control over the timing of the double and triple tonguing, and can be used to create fast, galloping repeated-note passages that would otherwise be very difficult to play.

The CineBrass mixer provides volume controls for Close, Room and Surround mic positions, a full mix of the three mikings, a reverb stem (consisting of actual Bricasti reverb samples) and a simple, global, three-way EQ section. Green lights above each channel indicate the active mic positions.

I was impressed by the warm, luxuriant tone of the six horns' quiet sustains, and loved the way they open out into a glorious, full-throated roar when you push up the wheel. The staccato and marcato deliveries sound equally plush and retain a fat tone at all dynamic levels. Another big plus is this section's excellent legatos. Some makers curtail the ranges of their legato instruments, but CineBrass' horns span over four octaves, sailing unwaveringly up into the high trumpet register. With their wide, pp-fff dynamic range and creamy transitions, these are some of the most playable and convincing legatos I've heard. I also enjoyed the horn rips. Rather than terminating in a short, staccato note, they sustain their final high pitch, thus making the articulation satisfyingly climactic. If you're a fan of the style (as I am), you'll also enjoy the set in the Pro library, which are ballsier and more aggressive. Ripping stuff!

Chords played by four horns are a nice feature: 'Triad Chords' offers straight majors and minors in a choice of three voicings, played staccato, tenuto and sustained. 'Seventh Chords' combines two octaves of major sevenths, two octaves of minor sevenths and an octave each of dominant seventh and diminished chords, performing the same three articulations as the triads. The mapping of the chords is a little idiosyncratic: although they're laid out chromatically in the normal way, the type of voicing changes unpredictably within an octave, making it difficult to locate a particular shape for a given key. However, whether by accident or design, this mapping does tend to generate some musical-sounding voice leading!

For the Pro expansion, the makers pushed the boat out and hired 12 horn players, more than enough for any occasion, save, perhaps, the Day of Judgement. The players were seated in a semi-circle in the middle of the scoring stage, creating a wide, panoramic sound. I was bowled over by the quality, grandeur and power of their samples, particularly the stunning legatos. French Horn samples don't get much better than this, and their A-class performances are a massive selling point for CineBrass Pro.

Nestling alongside the solo trombone in the Pro library is an amazingly versatile tuba with a tonal range that runs from a warm, rotund warble to a stentorian mothership blast. Reflecting a commonly used orchestral timbre, CineBrass also recorded tuba and bass trombone playing together in unison. This is a great resource for bass lines. In a similar vein, the magnificent cimbasso joins forces with the bass trombone to produce a series of mighty, incisive, low-end trumps packing enough force to knock ornaments off a mantelpiece.

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