Cinesamples Brass

[Berenice Pretlow]

Alsoall of the mapping in the Articulations Patches is dynamic, so you can select from 5 intuitive presets in the user interface. A custom mapping grid is offered, for users who wish to customize the parameters beyond the presets. Every parameter and value is changeable, and nearly any combination is possible. Of course, if you are not a tweaker, you can stick with one of the 5 preset mappings (recommended).

What is True Legato? True legato means sampling all of the intervalic leaps throughout the ranges, both upwards and downwards, for each brass section. When you play a True Legato patch, it instantly analyses the intervals you play, then plays the appropriate transitional leap between the notes. The result is a smooth and realistic legato performance. For all sections Cinesamples did this at 2 dynamic levels, again using their dynamic morphing to blend seamlessly from piano to fortissimo.

A key feature of True Legato patches, is the Polyphonic Legato mode. This mode allows you to play lines of 2 or more notes simultaneously, while maintaining the appropriate transition samples between all notes. This is especially effective when playing chords that need to connect in a realistic way. These true legato patches are taken from the full articulation patches, and can be triggered in the full articulation patches by holding the down the pedal (by default.) Cinesamples included these separate patches for ease of access to the legato patches.

CineBrass CORE v1.7 has been rebuilt from the ground up to include the Cinesamples Adaptive Legato Engine featured in CineStrings SOLO, CineStrings CORE, and CineWinds CORE and PRO. It allows you to tailor the legato response to your own playing style, and is designed to respond musically to your performance. The engine detects your playing speed and intelligently adjusts the interval speed to match. This means you can play slow, expressive lines and fast runs in a single performance, without touching the speed dial. Additionally, the intensity parameter responds to velocity.

We returned to the MGM Scoring Stage at Sony Studios to record True Legato samples for Trombone Ensemble. These samples are now seamlessly integrated with our previous Trombone Ensemble Articulations.

CineBrass CORE includes a brand new mapping area that allows for greater flexibility in customizing composer workflows. The new mapping system allows for articulations to be blended together, using polyphonic keyswitching or overlapping velocity/CC ranges. This allows for even more flexibility for tailoring CineBrass CORE to your individual needs. You may add articulations using the + Add Articulation + button and subtract articulations using the X on the right. The ACCENTED LEGATO control layers an additional articulation (Marcato, Staccato, Spiccato) over legato transitions.

This is intended for orchestral quick sketch work. The GUI is user-friendly enough, if not the most flexible or feature-rich on the market. There is a learning curve. On sale it is a fine addition to one's composition toolkit.

cinesamples products require you to register with the manufacturer at www.cinesamples.com to activate your license. To use Kontakt Player Libraries you also need to register with www.native-instruments.com.

The library'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.

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