Both solo horns go up higher.
As far as I know literature does not call for unisono passages of four or more horns at the highest range. Maybe it exists, but it would be a nightmare to perform this without flaws.

However, we tried humanly possible to make the library as consistent as possible. Recording legato samples means 24 variations on each key.
Highest register and four hornplayers means endless takes to get all these variations right. And this is simply not possible, because performing too long at this play range means that the hornplayers destroy their lips and need several days for regeneration.

There are natural limitations which we have to accept.

best
Herb

@herb said:

Both solo horns go up higher.
As far as I know literature does not call for unisono passages of four or more horns at the highest range. Maybe it exists, but it would be a nightmare to perform this without flaws.

However, we tried humanly possible to make the library as consistent as possible. Recording legato samples means 24 variations on each key.
Highest register and four hornplayers means endless takes to get all these variations right. And this is simply not possible, because performing too long at this play range means that the hornplayers destroy their lips and need several days for regeneration.

There are natural limitations which we have to accept.

best
Herb

Herb, the D one octave above middle C is hit by groups of horns many, many times. I have no idea what the literature says, but the real life uses are plentiful. I was just listening to an old Frank Sinatra piece where the horns hit that note, and it wasn't at a big climax, it was just during the course of a melodic phrase. I can't even remember a passage that hit the "E" above that, but the "D" is very common.
John Williams does that (and higher) all the time in his film scores, so it certainly isn't unheard of, at least at "D".

Regarding consistency, I also wondered why the EPIC Horns legatos were so short, compared to the regular Horns Legato, which hold out much longer. It's this kind of thing that is frustrating, because the sounds themselves are so magnificent. You are playing a big line with the Epic Horns and it just keeps dying out, and one has to keep trying to inject sustained patches in there to make do, and they don't always match.

Thanks though for your explanations.

Tom

@herb said:

As far as I know literature does not call for unisono passages of four or more horns at the highest range. Maybe it exists, but it would be a nightmare to perform this without flaws.

Herb, how about Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man"? All four horns go up to Eb. And F is not an uncommon unison for horn sections in film music.

Tom, I agree with you. I would be nice to have the complete range for the unison samples.

Regards,
Steven

Thanks for chiming in Steven.

I have seen this in the saxes as well, I think, with all due respect to the VSL team, that they are perhaps not understanding that many end users are not playing classical symphonies with VI....they are doing modern film scores, and even classic popular arrangements where the ranges are perhaps less conservative.

I don't feel like they need to go to extremes, but often, as in the case of the horns, one of VSL's strongest instruments, they have missed the mark on the unisons. Let's hope that some way, they could be added down the road. If it hurts the players lips, then so be it, let them take a break and do the final note. This collection is very expensive[;)]

Tom H

Hi Guys,

I thought I'd better add, that here in London, the session Horn guys would, and can play a4 in these highest ranges all day, with rarely a split.

Regards

Dave Hage

I agree with all the above sentiments. I have had to make copious use of the pitchbend wheel recently; not something that I am used to doing with VSL products [[:|]]

DG

@dfhage said:

Hi Guys,

I thought I'd better add, that here in London, the session Horn guys would, and can play a4 in these highest ranges all day, with rarely a split.

Regards

Dave Hage

they'd better - i've got a session at angel in a week when they're doing just that!!

Three weeks ago, I convinced my boss to get the VI Symphonic Cube. I finally finished the whole setup last week, and he tried the samples. He absolutely loved them.

However, while impressed at some of the instrument's ranges, when playing around with the 4 horns patch, he was absolutely dumbstrucked about them not going higher than that. He said that any good horn section could go at least a whole step above the VI limit. An excellent solo player could even go up to the F sometimes.

Just so the VSL guys know, my boss has been working in Los Angeles as an orchestrator for the past 25 years. He has a *very* good idea of how far an instrument can go, and he was really disappointed that the 4 Horns patch didn't go higher.

For him, as for many other poeple, it's creatively limitating.

Just my 2 cents!

Jerome

In addition to all of the above, we as users are no longer able to "cheat" by adding extra notes at the top or bottom, as we could in the Pro Edition. One can use an app like Melodyne to tweak a sample at least one or 2 tones up or down without sounding bad at all.

In VI, there is no user-configuration possible. While I understand VSL's reasons for doing this, it is sometimes frustrating.....

Perhaps in an update we will have an extra page in VI to extend or configure ranges?

Regards - Colin

Hi Paul,

It's a small world, at Abbey tomorrow re-recording "The Sound of Music"

Regards

Dave Hage
Dakota Music Services

@dfhage said:

Hi Paul,

It's a small world, at Abbey tomorrow re-recording "The Sound of Music"

Regards

Dave Hage
Dakota Music Services

the sound of music? you deserve all the pain coming your way [:D] [:D] off to prague tomorrow for part 1. neeeeddddddd sssllllleeeeeeeppppppppp...

Would be nice to have some kind f access to the instrument mapping, so we could extend the end notes, syntheticly. Sure its not real, but neither is pitchbend [:D]

And again today....was asked to do a replication of a Sarah Brightman orchestral track....I should have known ....key of D....and unison horns in the track I was imitating.....guess what notes their horns played....yep...D one octave above middle C.

Very frustrating.

TH

@Christian Marcussen said:

Would be nice to have some kind f access to the instrument mapping, so we could extend the end notes, syntheticly. Sure its not real, but neither is pitchbend [:D]

Me too - often have to use the Pro-Ed where extending the range is a 2 second job.

Julian

Even if there would be access to the mapping and you would understand the mapping interface, it wouldn't be any help, because the core engine does not allow upstretching.
It's an optimisation issue by design (in our engine), because upstretching means faster playback, means shorter timespan for the buffered part of the samples, means streaming problems.

best
Herb

Any chance accomodating this in the future - as well as standard orchestral scoring VI's are excellent to use in Sound Designs and being able to lift and lower sounds beyond their normal range is a widely used tool.

Thanks

Julian