Orchestral Tools Berlin Strings Review

• Orchestral Tools Berlin Brass

Berlin Woodwinds, from developer, has been one of the more noteworthy woodwind libraries out there for the last couple of years. Now, with the new -update (version 2.0), it is even easier to change those under-the-hood settings you may have thought possible only in your dreams.Eleven musicians were recorded in the renowned in Berlin. Berlin Woodwinds Berlin Woodwinds, from developer Orchestral Tools, has been one of the more noteworthy woodwind libraries out there for the last couple of years.

First True Adaptive Legato(including 4 legato types: Slurred, Agile (scripted), Fast Runs and Portamento); Up to 24x RR Spiccatos; Extensive collection of.

• Orchestral Tools collections are regularly updated with improvements and new features. The table below tells you the current version of all collections, the Capsule version used (if applicable) as well as the needed Kontakt version. Check back regularly for updates.
• All of the Orchestral Tools libraries were sampled here, so that Metropolis Ark will fit in very snugly with your other Berlin series instruments. This library is geared toward the sound of Mahler and Holst (rather than Vivaldi and Bach), but it is surprisingly versatile, as you will see in the review.

Now, with the new CAPSULE-update (version 2.0), it is even easier to change those under-the-hood settings you may have thought possible only in your dreams. Eleven musicians were recorded in the renowned Teldex Studio in Berlin. This might seem like overkill, as Berlin Woodwinds is a library consisting of solo instruments, but it makes true divisi lines possible, and we are spoiled with a choice of additional players who actually sound very different from each other. Berlin Woodwinds includes the following instruments: Flutes:- Piccolo- 1st Flute- 2nd Flute- 3rd Flute- Flute Ensemble 8va, a3Oboes:- 1st Oboe- 2nd Oboe- English HornClarinets:- 1st Clarinet- 2nd Clarinet- Clarinet Ensemble, a3Bassoons:- 1st Bassoon- 2nd Bassoon Installation Nothing out of the ordinary here: enter your serial code into the Continuata downloader (a link for this application is included in the email you are sent upon purchase, together with the serial code) and you are off. When you are done, the library takes up about 67 GB, and you need only register Berlin Woodwinds in the Native Instruments Service Center before you are ready to unleash your inner woodwind player. It can be used with either the full version of Kontakt 5 or the free player.

First impressions Who needs manuals, right? Well, when I first open a patch such as Flute 1 Multi, I am met with a very minimalistic GUI that is not at all self-explanatory. Obviously it is a keyswitching menu, and of course I can recognise some of the abbreviations, but not all. So, I begrudgingly find the manual, but it turns out the abbreviations page is incomplete (Orchestral Tools are aware of this, and are correcting it), so not much help to find there. While I eventually did figure it out by opening single articulations, my confusion could easily have been avoided by perhaps listing more of the articulations’ full names in the box, where there is clearly room (see picture below), at least when only one articulation is active. I should say that the single articulation patches are much easier to make sense of.

However, the sounds themselves more than make up for these small inconveniences. And when you get the hang of the library, it is easy enough to navigate. Articulations The articulations all sound great out of the box, and included in most of the instruments are the ones we would expect: Legato, sustains, staccato, staccatissimo, portato short and long, sforzando, double- and triple tonguing, run transitions, the famed trills orchestrator, and the runs builder in the ensemble patches.

The trills orchestrator is a clever little thing: you basically just play the two notes you want to trill between, all the way up to a fifth (depending on the instrument). It is even possible to have more trills going on at the same time, and on top of that, there is the measured trills patch that.

There were some comparisons on this forum around when Mural and Berlin Strings were launched. Since then, both have been updated and additional volumes have been released from both companies. I ended up with Mural, and based on my sound preferences (based on demos; I don't have Berlin Strings), that was a good choice. But based on playability, user friendliness and how advanced the 'adaptive legato' solutions are, Berlin Strings seem to be better than in Mural. Again - this is based on actually using Mural - but only watching Berlin Strings demos. Not a fair comparison. Hence this thread.I'm very impressed with the new, expanded adaptive legato in the new solo instruments from Orchestral Tools, and – based on things I've heard and seen eg on YouTube, the Berlin Strings library is also very good at automatically switching between various articulations on the fly, and (important!) this includes switching between the various legato types and all other articulations.

Some of this can be done by using combination presets in Mural, or by editing things after they have been recorded. I haven't heard the new Mural combination patches, but from what I already own (M1 and M2), I haven't been able to recreate what I have seen and heard in eg one of the initial Berlin demos.So - to those of you who own or have compared the two. What are your opinions?There are two questions in there, so you can select two reply options in the poll. You'll probably find few who have both!

I'm happy with Berlin Strings, except the Double Basses must have been a poor personality match (probably only two players, but they manage to be out of tune with each other most of the time). As to adaptive legato etc, the BS legato works pretty well and does not cause large rhythmic displacements; on the other hand, the new Nocturne legato is like some of the worst offenders in that department: takes a very large amount of adjustment to get a legato rhythmic motive to line up with other voices.

We also have both and its a little bit like comparing two nice car brands. It doesn't matter which one you drive you will probably have a big smile on your face while driving them both;o)Both are excellent libraries and depending on the musical style or way of writing or sound you will sometimes prefer the one or the other of the two or sometimes even experiment and mix them.

To have both libraries is more of a luxury and if you ask me. One of them will do the job perfectly fine and at the end its really about the sound you want to achieve and therefore i would just listen to the demos and walkthrough videos and decide yourself which grabs more your taste and attention.and if you can't decide which one and have some coins laying around then just take both;o)one more thing to add: i think the Berlin Capsule and their expanded adaptive legato leads the way at the moment but i guess it won't be long until other companies adapt their system as well. On the other hand Mural (as most of the SF Libs) is less demanding in the Computer compared to the Berlin Series. Click to expand.Sure. But I'd like to have a much more 'adaptive' solution. And regarding the combination presets, there's a lot of room for improvement there as well.

It's easy to imagine a lot of possible presets which moves eg. From normal Longs to Sul Tasto. Likewise, 'unrealistic' (but in some contexts useful crossfades) between Longs and Flautando would also be great - and so on. It would also be great to have legato versions of most of or all the relevant articulations. Maybe Mural 3 solves some of this, and maybe there will be improvements in the future. But – what happens in the beginning of this Berlin demo is AFAIK not possible to get straight out of the box, in Mural:Likewise, this wasn't possible in the Mural 1 & 2 combo either:But – I should probably keep my mouth shut until there's a demo of the new combo patches which includes Mural 3.

I did look at the walkthrough and playthrough for Mural 3, and while I skipped a few seconds here and there (because I know Spitfire is brilliant at making presets which covers one articulation at a time), I don't think there was any demonstration of new combos which included the new Marcato Attacks (are they implemented in the Legato presets also?). I also wonder if there is some integration between the new Rachmaninoff longs and legato transitions.Mural, 2 and 3 may all be great products if one doesn't expect presets which include all the needed dynamics and legato transitions which seem to come with Berlin. I really hope I'm wrong in most of this, because I have already invested in two Mural volumes.And - before someone says that one cannot expect a combination of legato and marcato pacthes from Mural because it won't be able to do that until volume 4 or 5.

I kind of agree. OTOH, I'd rather have a library for one or two instruments now - which I can use fully, than a number of instruments which lacks certain samples and some scripting for the first few years of it's existence (maybe Mural will support all this in another year or two).At the same time - Mural seems (to me) so much better if one needs gentle string sounds (and I do): True Con Sords, great Sul Tasto/Flautando and so on. Click to expand.I believe Paul mentions in his walkthrough that the Legato sul G (sul C) patches transition to the Rachmaninoff longs. Not sure if it's used as an extra layer in any other legato patch.Personally, I have both and I enjoy the transparency and lightness of BS. It can definitely be more nimble than Mural.

But for me, if it's a symphonic sound I want, Mural has no contender. It just has a slightly different workflow IMO but one which is in no way restrictive.The only major drawback to Mural right now over BS is they didn't release fast legato in the latest volume 3. That was a huge oversight IMO and very disappointing. They're clearly out to ensure people need to buy Vol.

Orchestral Tools Berlin Brass

Which is frustrating. But other than that, the sound and detail of Mural is unparalleled. It simply doesn't compare to any of the libraries here. It's just so detailed and the programming completely open so you can adapt it to your playing. Similarly to VSL it's flexible, but, you have to put work on it.But the sound, the sound of sable has no comparison. Just compare the simple run patch of sable to any library including orchestral tools runs, and sable kills every other with it's realistic sound.The reason I think sable is in the shadows of mural is because people relate sable to baroque stile composition and people want to compose trailer epic stuff, I don't know.Also, I don't understand the obsession with playability. At the end you have to program, because there is no way you can get the expressiveness of a real violin on a keyboard.

It will simply not happen. If it does, I guess we'll say goodbye to the real orchestra.Just compare any VSL solo string demo to any other library (including spitfire solo strings) and see what programming can do. Click to expand.Obsession?Here's how I see it. I've spent endless hours of work with tweaking, using known or relatively unknown ways to get to the results I want - for years.

And I don't like to admit this - but I've often spent this time in the midst of working on a musical idea I liked, in the midst of what originally was plain 'inspiration', whatever that is. And - believe it or not - that part is very important for some of us: we don't want to get lost in programming when the impulse was to just.

I know for sure that many composers have experienced exactly that, and this has been a dilemma since long before great orchestral libraries existed. I've read tons of manuals and wasted a lot of time on finding solutions in Logic's Transform and Environment windows in sessions which actually started out with only focussing on music.I believe that the reason both Spitfire, Orchestral tools and many others actually do invest a lot of time on scripting is that they know we'd rather have brilliant sounds and great scripting rather than just good sounding libraries.

That's actually part of what we pay for. So - even if one always have to tweak adjust things, a library which needs as little as possible of that is preferable.

I don't think this has anything to do with 'obsession'. If the programmers and product designers behind the DAWs and libs we use had lost as much time on tweaking as some of us has, I'm sure they'd focus more on making 'transparent' tools.Unfortunately, even if they have been developed over many years know, I still don't feel as the Spitfire libs and Logic Pro X are as transparent as they could and should have been.