ALTERNATIVE WOODWIND SOLOISTS BY FRACTURE SOUNDS
KK-ACCESS REVIEW
This new library from Fracture Sounds makes a perfect companion for the earlier Emotive Woodwind Soloists library which we reviewed at the time of release back in March 2025.
Here, Alternative Woodwind Soloists further expands the concept with a less common collection of instruments covering alto flute, bass flute, tenor recorder, and bass clarinet, as well as a selection of alternate articulation presets, and ensemble patches.
Existing users who may already be familiar with the Fracture Sounds innovative smart legato can be rest assured of its return, alongside the Custom Positioning Tool which allows you to place the soloists according to your own choice of seating plan is again also firmly still in situ.
TECH SPECS
The library requires Kontakt 7.6 or higher, either the full or free Kontakt Player edition.
It is compatible with all versions of Komplete Kontrol that host the above Kontakt specifications.
For installation 20.1GB of disk space is required, the library uses the NCW format compressed from 42GB.
There are 10 Kontakt NKI presets, each of the four instruments consist of a central preset and also an accompanying additional articulation preset. There is also an Ensemble preset, which again has an Additional Articulations patch.
There are no Kontakt snapshot presets for this library, it being wholly instrument focused rather than including any of the sound design tools such as the atmosphere layers we see in other Fracture Sound releases.
DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION
Download & Installation is achieved entirely using Native Access, simply by registering the provided serial number, everything is taken care of for you.
Finally running an instance of Komplete Kontrol will get the library auto scanned into your factory browser, and you will be all ready to go.
FULL KOMPLETE KONTROL NKS PARAMETER MAPPINGS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE END OF THE REVIEW FOLLOWING THE MEDIA SECTION
ACCESSIBILITY
The NKS mapping and general overall accessibility of Alternative Woodwind Soloists remains consistent with previous Fracture Sound releases, so in a nutshell, every feature is fully usable, and keyswitches are also additionally utilised for articulation switching.
THE SOLOISTS ENGINE
The entire Kontakt engine scripting for Alternative Woodwind Soloists is the same as that seen in the Emotive Woodwinds library, and as the old adage goes, ‘if it aint broke don’t fix it’.
Although three pages of NKS controls may not seem much, they genuinely do cover all of the necessary parameters needed to exploit the full potential of the library.
dynamics, Colour, and Stereo Width, are sensibly found on the first page, which is ideal for the quick and easy access of common and performance controls.
Also found here are the Master Reverb, Microphone Close, Mid , & Far levels, along with the microphone perspective level control.
The next page has controls to adjust the players seating position, which ingeniously allows you to create your own non standard seating arrangements using the custom option. You can of course if preferred, stay with tradition with the In Situ selection, or alternatively opt for a simple stereo left & right placement if that is needed, the choices are all there.
LEGATO
There are two choices for Legato, the classic, or the Smart, the latter being Fracture Sounds own bespoke scripting solution which works extremely well, (see our review for Emotive Woodwinds for a more detailed description).
Like most legato systems, either will allow you to adjust the tightness, or include a latency factor for which you would typically compensate for by adjusting the track offset within your DAW, thus allowing you to fully capture the early transients of the players performance.
AMBIENCE
Fracture Sounds have as always made the reverb controls fully available through the NKS mappings, giving users a choice between those provided by Kontakt itself, or the convolution reverb with a nice selection of impulse responses.
These can be found on the last page, along with the keyswitch control, which allows you to move the keyswitch group from the default position on your keyboard to somewhere perhaps a little more convenient, this is really useful for those with a little less in the way of available keyboard octaves to work with.
ARTICULATIONS
The central instrument presets provide the user with the more commonly used articulations such as:
Legato sustains
Staccato
Sustain
Tenuto (Short)
Sustain (Slow)
Tenuto (Long)
Smart Trills
Performance Shorts (multi articulation that features all three short articulations triggered by velocity)
Alternate Articulations
The Alternate articulation presets feature less commonly used techniques and embellishments which are certainly useful to have on hand within your template toolkit.
Short Trills (Min2) Short minor 2nd trill bursts
Long Trills (Min/ Maj2)
Short Trills (Maj2) Short major 2nd trill bursts
Long Trills (Min/ Maj3)(Alto Flute Only)
Swells Slow crescendo and diminuendo.
Performance Short Sustain (another multi articulation option, triggering staccatos using low velocity or Sustains with high velocity)
There is also a temporary keyswitch generally situated on the B key after the main group, which when held delivers a softer tone when played.
ALTERNATIVE WOODWIND SOLOISTS – THE SOUND
Fracture Sounds have always placed a strong emphasis on sample quality, and this is brought into particular focus when creating a library which spotlights solo instruments.
The calibre of the players is obviously going to be a crucial starting point, the talent, concentration, and consistency of playing should never be overlooked or underestimated, and it seems abundantly clear that this has been achieved here.
To this end, the players all have outstanding playing and performance credentials which to their credit Fracture Sounds have ultimately managed to capture within the sometimes stark and brutally clinical reality of the digital ones & zeros of a sample library.
The timbres are all warm and authentic, with the Bass Clarinet sounding particularly woody, rich, and velvety.
Like all of the Soloists libraries before it, Alternative Woodwinds has also been recorded at Nave Studios, which promises an assuredness of consistency if building your own ensembles.
To coincide with this new release the Emotive Woodwind Soloists and Soft String Soloists libraries have received updates which offer some further articulations and also the Smart Legato mode being added.
Please do take a look at the walkthrough video for this library, where you will hear some excellent examples of these Woodwinds in action.
CONCLUSION
Alternative Woodwind Soloists is another worthy edition to the Soloists series.
For composers seeking a special emphasis on that much sought after realistic instrument sound that is required for emotive scoring, or perhaps those quieter subtle orchestral passages, this library addresses a gap in the market.
Fracture Sounds have retained their tried and tested NKS mapping template ensuring once again that their blind & visually impaired customers are not left out in the cold.
Alternative Woodwind Soloists is available from the Fracture Sounds website for an introductory 25% discount price until November 5th of £97.00, (regular price is £129.00).
Fracture Sounds are also offering some significant bundle discounts on related Soloist libraries, including Compendium: Eldenvale.
Alternative Woodwind Soloists – Product Page:
Alternative Woodwind Soloists – Walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGgJ9EB58Z0
Alternative Woodwind Soloists – User Manual:
https://fracturesounds.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Alternative-Woodwind-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- Dynamic Range
Knob 8 – Keyswitch range
(c) Chris Ankin
KK-Access.com
2nd October 2026
KK-ACCESS – Our NON PEER PROFIT POLICY
KK-Access believe in integrity, and out of mutual respect for our blind & visually impaired readers we feel that we should not profit from our peers.
Our product reviews always strive to be honest and unbiased, this is achieved because none of our opinions are influenced by financial gain or other incentives from a plug-in or sample library developer for which a review of their wares may be a subject matter.
Whilst such offers are appreciated, we do not publish or use affiliation links for any products under review on this website.
Disclaimer
The author can not accept any responsibility for subsequent purchase decisions made as a result of this review,or Any inaccuracies found therein. All opinions and product functions stated are based solely on information perceived as a blind user whilst using the product and/or gathered from official factual sources such as the developer, web or supplied product manual.
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.
E&OE
