The instruments provided in this all sound absolutely amazing, it's a lot more realistic than the free Muse Brass (which is already incredible). At the time of writing, there are a few cons/improvements to be made and pros (which massively outweigh the cons) with the library. Cons: - Only includes standard orchestral brass instruments; there is no euphonium, piccolo trumpet, bass trumpet nor contrabass trombone, which are included in the Berlin Brass Additional Instruments (the original Orchestral Tools product) - No muted brass - No rips sounds - Unconvincing trombone glissandi - Setting the gliss to portamento only produces a legato run (you can hear this in the demo video), which if you are not paying attention, kind of resembles a gliss (This also does not work at all on the bass trombone - The playback with no reverb at all has a slight white noise, although this is not noticeable by default (with Muse Reverb) - Vibrato on some instruments (Trumpet 1 in particular) is a bit over-the-top, although you can turn this off with the no vib sound flag, but note this results in reduced quality of phrasing - Solo horns and trombones (surprisingly) don't have a very brassy sound, even at fff unless they are playing short notes or with "bells up" sound flag for horn ensemble - Limited range of trills, and no shakes/lip trills Pros: - Legato and phrasing is very beautiful - Staccato and staccatissimo both sound great and DIFFERENT (in comparison to the free brass sounds) - Multiple sounds (1, 2, 3, etc.) for each instrument means if you don't like the sound of one, you can always switch to another until you get the interpretation and/or tone you want - HUGE range for each instrument, although the (very) high ranges were likely created artificially by transposing the pitch of the samples (sounding pitch) - Solo horns C1 to C6 - Horn ensemble G0 to C8 - Solo trumpets and trumpet ensemble C2 to C8 - Solo trombone (incl. bass) and trombone ensemble G0 to C8 - Tuba Ab0 to C8 - The bass trombone is POWERFUL; short notes in the low register are much better than the free sounds - The instruments don't sound terrible for jazz/big band music, just no slides or shakes Note, if some instruments don't sound when you first download the library, just delete (hold alt in MuseHub) and re-download. Overall this library is absolutely amazing, realistic and very flexible. This Muse Sounds version is very much worth the price; it is much cheaper than the original Orchestral Tools Berlin Brass products, as you lose some control achievable with DAWs, although this version is more than enough to produce a realistic mockup, owing to the Muse Sounds interpretation. I highly recommend the Muse Sounds version of Berlin Brass!
Berlin Brass Reviews
I'm absolutely shocked by how realistic the brass is! Excellent articulation, dynamic control, almost everything! What could need some work is the Horns, while they are decent but dynamics forte and above don't register too well. And the ensemble doesn't read articulation very well. Nevertheless, I highly recommend!
Heads up! No sax or euphonium yet! ArghhfiouewHFUISHFANOFAS
The sounds are immaculate, don't get me wrong. But spending 30 dollars for each section of the sound library that isn't even refined yet is crazy. The dynamics are basically a suggestion for the instruments and they almost completely ignore crescendos and decrescendos. The whole "articulation" palette is broken. Almost no difference between every single articulation. The whole Berlin sound font can not understand style markings in general. PLEASE FIX if you are going to price it this way.
It’s been a frustrating quest to find some libary—any library—that supports straight mutes for trumpet. Musesounds itself, when muted, applies a Harmon mute, which is a very different tone color. The brass sound of this library is great, quite realistic and excellent, but I’m still in search of the elusives straight mute.
Good sounds, but no glissando effects for trombones as advertised.
But beware, no mutes! Kinda disappointed.
Overall, a good brass library. High quality samples, multiple iterations of each instrument, and also blends well with Berlin Strings and Winds. However, the overall volume is lower than what I would excpect from a brass section, and the trumpets sometimes play with portamento.
Every instrument here (besides the bass trombone) sounds and plays the written music more realistically than I'd expect. Great dynamics, good sound, un-slurred runs and slurred runs sound different and are great. My only issue is with the bass trombones, it sounds like their quietest dynamic is mp which makes composing with it a challenge. Besides that everything is great!