Vienna Symphonic Library Forum
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  • Considering upgrading my brass from Vienna Special Edition: what do I get?

    I know this seems like a "Why don't you just click on the 'Pruducts' tab and see," but I was hoping to hear some information from people who have actually purchased the complete brass (or even complete French Horn) package. Does the actual sound of the sample change when upgrading from the basic Special Edition packages, or is it mostly the new full set of articulations that you get?

    Many thanks for the advice!

  • The "sound" doesn't change because SE uses a bare minimum selection of samples from the full package.  Usually you get more layers in sustains and short notes when you upgrade from SE and you also get half-tone samples.  SE is stripped down to full-tone samples, meaning that you might have the same sample playing C and C#.

    Oh, and you DO get a lot more samples.  You can see that on the articulations pages for those instruments.


  • Many thanks, Casiquire, that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

  • You could also consider buying Dimension Brass as an alternative to an upgrade.


  • Buy Dimension Brass and you will be very happy user [;)]


  • Hmmmm... I'll have to give Dimension Brass a closer look. My only hesitance is that as far as I can tell, Dimension Brass is only for ensembles: it has no solo instruments. Still, I only hear good things about it.

  • Yes that's true. It also has far fewer articulations than the other VSL brass libraries, as only a standard version has been released so far. You can buy solo brass instruments as single instruments, if your budget will stretch that far.


  • Partly true. The instruments were sampled individually so you have access to solo instruments, but they were recorded next to each other so a small amount of bleed-through exists (I have only reacted to this on the low brass patch solos, which imho only should be used as a group anyway). That said I don't feel there's any problem using those first players for solos, even in a passage without accompaniment.. And I don't think I can overstate how amazing the auto-divisi is.