BRASS BAND SOLOISTS BY FRACTURE SOUNDS
KK-ACCESS REVIEW
The North of England has a long and historic association with Brass bands. In this region of the UK they are as engrained into the northern musical culture, almost as much as their equivalent culinary delights such as Whitby Scampi, chips, Eccles Cakes & tea, (provided it’s Yorkshire tea of course!) 🙂
It seems entirely natural then, that Fracture Sounds have for this release turned their sampling expertise to meticulously capture five of the core instruments from the heart of the Brass Band family, in this their latest library, Brass band Soloists.
With Fracture Sounds The quality of the sampling is never in any doubt, but with this release, fracture Sounds have boldly introduced their new legato engine into the Kontakt scripting, which can be a tricky technique to get right.
Let’s find out how they did!
TECH SPECS
Brass Band Soloists runs in Kontakt (v6.7 or higher, either the full or free player edition, and is compatible with all versions of Komplete Kontrol as a host.
The library requires 24GB of disk space for installation, utilising the NCW loss less compression format, which boils it down from around 50GB.
There are 5 Kontakt NKI presets each of which respectively reflect the included instruments which are, Solo Cornet, Solo Soprano Cornet, Solo Flugelhorn, Solo Tenor Horn, & Solo Euphonium.
There are no additional snapshots in this library, for this release Fracture Sounds have wisely foregone the sound design orientated atmosphere layers, in order to rightly concentrate on the purity and natural timbres of these instruments.
DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION
The Brass Band Soloists library download & installation is handled directly and entirely through Native access upon registration of your post purchase serial number.
Komplete Kontrol will quickly add the library to your browser after loading either the standalone application, or the plug-in within your DAW, using the KK autoscan feature.
Full Komplete Kontrol NKS parameter mappings are available at the end of this review, following the media links
ACCESSIBILITY
Brass Band Soloists demands little if anything in the way of sound design tools, and as such the spotlight here is squarely on the new Legato engine.
Suffice to say that Fracture Sounds have as always carefully ensured that all of the user functions needed to make full accessible use of the product have been included in their NKS mapping.
THE SMART LEGATO ENGINE
Fracture Sounds new Smart Legato feature offers a much more refined and realistic playing experience, with greater user adjustable control over the feel, dynamics, and latency.
The FS team have come up with some unique and innovative Kontakt scripting to analyse what you are playing, which not only looks backwards, but also looks ahead.
their founder Will Bedford, presented an excellent description of how the new Smart Legato system works in their original press pack, and this has now been made available for customers, and we have linked to this in the media section at the end of the review.
Watch this, and it all becomes clear just how clever this system really is, explaining things in far more detail than we have space to do so here, but rest assured, the end result is that it works quite brilliantly,
the downloadable user manual (also linked), is another excellent source of reference, describing how to work with the Smart Legato tool in your chosen DAW.
Further to this new Smart Mode, there is still an option for a classic legato mode, but for my money, between the two, the new Smart mode intelligently detects and translates the playing nuances in your performance, and results in a more natural sounding and realistic outcome, minimising the need for post performance midi editing.
The classic mode does however offer the opportunity to play convincing sounding trills, by holding down the root note and modulating it between the higher note you choose to play, and this serves for some very realistic results.
ARTICULATIONS
Fracture Sounds themselves have described the articulations within Brass Band Soloists as follows:
Legato (with and without vibrato)
There are two Legato articulations that include intervals performed with and without vibrato. Velocities below 100 will trigger slurred legato, whilst 100 and above will trigger tongued legato.
Sustain (with and without vibrato)
There are two polyphonic sustain articulations, played with and without Vibrato.
Staccato
A very short note with a sharp attack. Dynamics are controlled by velocity.
Tenuto (Short)
A short articulation with a rounded attack and extended decay compared to the Staccato. Dynamics are controlled by velocity.
Tenuto (Long)
An extended Tenuto with a more rounded attack and longer decay. Dynamics are controlled by velocity.
Performance Shorts
A multi-articulation that contains all three shorts, triggered by velocity (a higher velocity triggers a longer articulation). Dynamics are controlled by the mod wheel.
By default the articulation keyswitches are located starting at C0, however as we have seen in previous libraries, a useful NKS control found on the last page under global settings, will let you move the collective block of 8 articulations to a selected range on your keyboard that is more convenient to your needs.
INSTRUMENT PLACEMENT
Each of the instruments have been recorded in their traditional seating positions referred to as In-situ, as the first mode choice).
however Fracture Sounds recognise that with their diverse customer base, it is important for users to be able to adjust this to suit a variety of projects.
To this end, the placement feature offers two additional modes, Centre is exactly as described, or alternatively when switched to custom mode, the placement settings allow you to choose the seating positions, such as row 1 or row 2, followed by left, left mid, middle, right mid, and right, which again adds to the overall perception of realism.
This has been achieved not simply through the more typical use of stereo panning, but by capturing the real impulse responses which reflect the alternative seating positions.
MICROPHONES
The featured microphones offer the choice to blend between close, mid, & far, with the addition of a perspective control to refine things still further.
AS BOLD AS BRASS
The choice of instruments within Brass Band Soloists deliver a naturally warmer sound, in contrast to their traditional and often very bright sounding orchestral brass counterparts, which although differ in name, still occupy the same tonal playing range.
This of course does not preclude them from being used in a traditional orchestral environment alongside their brass cousins, and certainly for cinematic scoring, this velvety warmth I think adds a rich and emotive dimension, that can sometimes be a little lacking from their bolder, brighter counterparts.
There is an adjustable dynamics range control, and for the purpose of performance, dynamics are assigned to the modwheel.
The Colour control will dial in a little extra brightness, whereas Stereo Width as it says on the tin, increases the stereo field, where mono is the minimum value.
REVERB
The built in reverb can be used as a supplement to the natural reverb of the large hall of the Nave studio where the library was recorded, which dependent upon your microphone mix and perspective settings, can be relatively dry from the close mic, to audibly spacious using the far microphone.
This add on reverb, offers you the usual room and hall options, along with the slightly more ‘creative’ Shimmer, or for some extended real world ambiences, you can opt to use the convolution mode, and choose from the selection of available impulse responses.
Fracture Sounds have a couple of excellent videos available to accompany the release of Brass Band Soloists.
The official walkthrough from Marcus Warner is well presented and informative, and the explanation of the new engine from Will, as mentioned earlier does a great job to demystify the subject of sample library legato with a clear description of how it all works in practice.
CONCLUSION
Brass Band Soloists might at first glance appear to be aimed at a targeted audience, however in reality it can still work very well for orchestral, cinematic, or songwriters who are perhaps seeking less predictable instrumentation for their compositions.
The accessibility does not present any cause for concern, everything is there and fully functioning for blind & visually impaired users through the NKS template.
The newly added Fracture Sounds Smart Legato is an excellent bespoke feature which works particularly well, and is sure to become a popular mainstay feature for future libraries that can make use of it.
Overall, when you come back down to brass tacks, you will be hard pressed to find a similar library that sounds this natural, with such responsive legato and dynamics, where ultimately the instruments are also a joy to play.
Brass Band Soloists from Fracture Sounds is available from their website at the introductory price of £109 (inc vat), until November 5th 2024
Brass Band Soloists Product Page:
https://fracturesounds.com/product/brass-band-soloists/
Brass Bands Soloists Walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGeRJtfspXo
How Legato Works In Sample Libraries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJneejab0G0&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Ffracturesounds.com%2F
Brass Band Soloists User Manual:
https://fracturesounds.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Brass-Band-Soloists-User-Manual.pdf
Komplete Kontrol NKS parameter mappings
Page One – Sound, Microphone Mixer
Knob 1 – Dynamics
Knob 2 – Colour
Knob 3 – Stereo Width
Knob 4 – Reverb
Knob 5 – Close Microphone
Knob 6 – Mid Microphone
Knob 7 – Far Microphone
Knob 8 – Perspective
Page Two – Placement, Legato
Knob 1 – Placement Mode: In-situ, Centre, Custom
Knob 2 – custom: row 1, row 2 (when custom placement is selected)
Knob 3 – Seat: Left, left mid, middle, right mid, right
Knob 4 – Unallocated
Knob 5 – Legato Mode: Smart, Classic
Knob 6 – Latency: in ms values (smart mode only)
Knob 7 – Delay CC (smart mode only)
Knob 8 – speed: (classic mode only)
Page Three – Reverb Settings, Global settings
Knob 1 – Reverb Type: room, Hall, Shimmer, Convolve
Knob 2 – Reverb size
Knob 3 – Damping
Knob 4 – Modulation
Knob 5 – Impulse Response Selection: (when convolution is selected)
Knob 6 – Unallocated
Knob 7 – Volume range
Knob 8 – Keyswitch range
(c) Chris Ankin
KK-Access.com
4TH October 2024
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About the Author
Based in Buckinghamshire, England, Chris Ankin has worked as a freelance review writer and contributor with articles published in Sound On Sound, Home & Studio Recording and ST Format Magazines.
He has also successfully worked extensively in and around the music, recording, film Soundtrack scoring, Game & media composition, the creative arts, Charitable trusts,publishing, music streaming and property investments since 1982 whilst continuously and deliberately managing to evade any mainstream recognition under his own name by the use of various pseudonyms.
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