Sample Modeling French Horn and Tuba 3.0

Created by Giorgio Tommasini & Peter Siedlaczek

French Horn & Tuba, v. 1 was first released in 2012. Even though it already included some advanced features of the most recent instruments, like early reflections and microtuning, we were asked to bring it to the same level of the currently available Trombone 3 & Trumpet 3.

That's why The French Horn & Tuba v.3 is here!

Instrument technology

French Horn & Tuba 3 further expands Samplemodeling™ technologies. Multi-microphone anechoic recording allows to capture the original timbre of the instrument, along with its radiation pattern. Our proprietary "Harmonic Alignment" yields continuous transitions across virtually infinite dynamics. Specially devised "early reflections" impulse responses add a virtual space to the anechoic sound, greatly contributing to realism (see below). The programming moves further away from conventional libraries, by exploiting physically-oriented modulation of the recorded sound. This yields the characteristic crescendo pattern of French Horns, typical brass flutter on transitions, or even the "watery" sound, knocks, breath noise, and metallic resonances from the bell and the body of the instrument, greatly contributing to realism. The result is a series of playable, very expressive virtual instruments retaining the rich, full sound of the real ones.

The package includes four different French Horns and a Tuba. The base material of the instruments consists of 270 MB of samples, chromatically performed by professional players over a very wide dynamic range. All samples are unlooped, and have a duration of 9 sec. As in the "The Trumpet" and "The Trombone" the musical engine is structured according to an adaptive model, based on the performance "fingerprints" of the real instrument. The purpose of the model is to minimize the differences between the real phrases and those played by the virtual instrument.

Proprietary modal resonance IRs, innovative techniques for sample modulation, and advanced artificial intelligence MIDI processing are used for real time construction of all articulations and morphing across dynamics, vibrato, legato, portamento, trills, vibrato-like endings, shakes and so forth.

Pseudo-random detuning, based on real performance-derived pitch trends, is another outstanding new feature of French Horn & Tuba 3, adding further realism.

Why anechoic?

The purpose of anechoic recording was threefold:

• avoid “contamination” of the pure French Horn & Tuba sounds with the uncontrolled resonances of a particular ambience,
• allow artifact-free “harmonic alignment” processing
• provide clean articulations and phrases as a database to build the “adaptive model”.

What's new in The French Horn & Tuba 3?

In addition to improved fortissimo in the upper range, French Horn & Tuba 3 includes several exciting features:

1. New Early Reflections algorithm. The early reflections (ER) are those components of the emitted sound reaching the listener shortly after being reflected from the closest rear and lateral walls, floor and ceiling. They convey information about the spatial localizaton of the instrument, and greatly contribute to realism. In French Horn & Tuba 3, a sophisticated algorithm extracts the directional information of multi-microphone anechoic recordings to recover the overall timbre of the instrument along with its radiation pattern, assembling this information into a suitable ER impulse response, which adds a virtual space to the anechoic sound.
2. Virtual Soundstage. This new feature allows precise positioning of the instruments in a virtual space located before the listener, using early reflections, pre-delay, convoluted panning and perceived distance algorithms. You can move your instrument back and forth, from side to side, or with a combination of the two, even in realtime, mimicking the natural movements of the player. You can modify the ratio direct/reflected sound, and even "displace" the back wall, for a variable depth effect. This virtual soundstage will set you free of adding a further suitable acoustic environment, without incurring multiple-ambience issues. This can be carried out within the same Kontakt Player, which provides a high quality convolution reverb.
3. Real time Timbral Shaping. This revolutionary new feature adds a virtually infinite timbral variety to sample-based instruments, by acting on the amplitude of individual harmonics, or groups of harmonics, even in real time. This is not a graphic equalizer; the controlling bars are not assigned to fixed frequencies, but to the first 10 harmonics of the played note. As a consequence, the affected frequencies vary with the pitch of the note. So, rising, for example, bar #1 will boost the fundamental frequency (first harmonic) of each note played, yielding a rounder sound. Rising bars #3, #4, #5 will increase the intensity of the corresponding harmonics for a more "nasal" sound, etc.
4. Expression Mapping. User-drawn rescaling of the expression CC may give better control of the dynamics, particularly when tailored to suit your own input devices like breath or wind controllers.
5. "For Unison Ensemble" IR. A specially devised Impulse Response, markedly reducing the phasing which may occur when several instruments are driven from the same MIDI track (i.e. in unison).
6. Unison Ensemble Multi. Special consideration has been given to creation of realistic ensembles from solo instruments, whether driven from separate MIDI tracks, or when playing unison. An advanced "Ensemble Maker" has been developed, affecting timing, static and dynamic pitch evolution, phase, response to dynamics, pitchbend, velocity, portamento time, in such a way that even if driven from a single MIDI source, each instrument will sound slightly different, as if played by a different musician. A ready-to-use Multi, including four specially devised French Horns, the Ensemble Maker, and an appropriate convolution reverb, suitable for unison playing straight out of the box, is included in the package.