Straight Ahead Jazz Horns v2.0

The ultimate virtual horn and sax band! With 13 deep-sampled solo instruments – trumpets, trombones, and saxes – this library has everything you need to produce incredible jazz, pop, funk, swing and big band music. Plus with new Smart Voicing ensembles, writing full harmonies and arrangements has never been easier.

Content:

• Over 75,000+ 16 or 24-bit samples
• 4 solo trumpets
• 3 solo trombones, 1 bass trombone
• 2 alto and 2 tenor saxes
• 1 baritone sax
• Sustain, staccato, staccatissimo
• Quarters, falls, long falls, turns
• Legato, glissando, doits, shakes
• ... and many many more!
• 2 unique mic positions

Features:

• Super playable instruments out of the box
• Ready-made multi ensembles
• Total Articulation Control Technology
• Smart Voicing: Easily create realistic harmonies and arrangements in real-time
• Send harmonized MIDI to other instruments
• Extensive articulation tweaks and options
• One-click FX (analog EQ, compressor, delay, reverb)

Concept

Welcome to version 2 of Straight Ahead Jazz Horns! This library is designed to give you all the tools to create realistic solo and ensemble brass band mockups, with thirteen (!!) deeply-sampled instruments and over 75,000 samples total. Everything from the recordings to the performance scripting and multis has been created with authenticity and respect for jazz genres, but the library is equally suitable for big band/swing, pop, R&B, funk, and much more.

SA Jazz Horns was originally released by Straight Ahead Samples, who we have collaborated with to present this newly revised virtual instrument. Though the sample pool is largely the same as version 1 (with some additional tweaks and clean-up), the script and interface has been totally redone, including the realization of Smart Voicing - described in more detail below.

The result of our nearly year-long collaboration is an even more playable, realistic, and customizable virtual instrument that offers both excellent solo instruments and some of the most powerful ensemble writing tools ever developed, powered by our new Smart Voicing technology. We’re sure this library will find a place in your template and we can’t wait to hear what you do with it!

Smart Voicing

Our gamechanging new Smart Voicing technology makes it incredibly easy to write fully-voiced harmonies and ensemble arrangements with a minimum of effort. Here's how it works in a nutshell:

1. Load an ensemble multi, such as 4 Trumpets or 5 Saxes.
2. In the left-hand, play or write a chord. (The engine can understand hundreds of left hand voicings and inversions!)
3. In the right-hand, play a melody. (Monophonic.)

Now, with each note of the melody, Smart Voicing will create a full voice-lead harmony based on the chord you play, the melody note, and the full context of the melody you're playing. To do this, we created a database of thousands of possible ensemble voicings which are also displayed as sheet music notation in real-time! There are multiple voicing styles available too, from simple triads, unisons, and octaves to jazzier close, drop, and open voicings These vary based on ensemble type, and we covered a large range of idiomatic jazz configurations. Additionally in the future, we will be adding many more!

With Smart Voicing, you don't need to know how to write intricate jazz parts, or laboriously copy MIDI data across many solo instrument tracks. Just play basic chords and a melody! Keyswitches, velocity and other MIDI CCs also work perfectly, and each solo instrument can use its full set of playing techniques including legato and glissando transitions.

As an added bonus, using Kontakt's "Send MIDI to Outside World" option, you can record the MIDI output to further edit your voice leading, and even send Smart Voicing harmonies to other plugins!