Last year I purchased a rather large sample upgrade to my sound library. It was a significant investment and it’s paid dividends in much better sounding work. However, the brass sounds still were not up to par yet. So a few days ago I upgraded my brass sounds and ho-lee-cow, what a difference. The portamento french horn alone was worth the upgrade cost. I’m working on a rather huge orchestral project right now and the new brass sounds are getting a workout. Check out this example:

Brass Example.mp3

Keep in mind that there isn’t a bit of “live” orchestra in there. It’s all midi triggered samples. Based on the strength of these demos, as well as my experience with the sample library from the past year, I went ahead and bought the brass library.

It’s wonderful. The horn makes you weep, the trumpets are declamatory, and the low brass is big and bombastic the way low brass should be, without a hint of “midi-ness” that often accompanies these libraries sometimes. The problem? Now my strings sound mushy by comparison.

The company has issued a single “orchestra-wide” sample set, which I purchased last year, and which is very good. But then they’ve gone in and started focussing on each of the individual sections (strings, brass, woodwinds, perc, etc) and started issuing whole libraries of just these sections, with much more depth and realism to their sound sets. I have the new brass set, but, like the new cherry cabinets, the spectacularness of the new sounds is making me crave the Wolf fridge… I mean the string sounds:

String Example.mp3

So now I’m listening to the online examples and thinking well, with this job I could easily pay for them… and they make my stuff sound so much better.

Curse you, cherry cabinets.

“The acoustic diode works much like the electrical component of the same name, letting current (or, in this case, sound waves) pass in one direction but blocking it in the other. Composed of a structured arrangement of elastic spheres that ferry the sound through the material, the diode can be tuned to work only at certain frequencies or to downshift the frequencies moving through the material to lower frequencies as needed….the tunable diode could scavenge energy from noisy machinery and channel it back into a transducer that converts those sound vibrations into electricity that could be fed back to the machine, reducing net energy consumption. It could also downshift sound frequencies to ranges that are optimal for energy conversion.”

SoundWorks Collection: The Sound of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

yup, check out the laurel leaves so far:

UPDATE: Bad guy Mr. Sawyer (played by really good guy Andrew Sensenig) sends this email:

Good evening to the amazing Team Paradise!

My wife and I had such an amazing time at the deadCenter Film Festival this weekend, and sure wish the entire team could have attended. While we are all very excited about taking home the Grand Jury Prize, I wanted to let you all know something about this festival. Many others have a “best feature, best doc, etc”; however, they are voted on by members of the viewing audience who turn in ballots after a screening. This typically ends up being a contest much like homecoming queen, which is never an equal playing field. deadCenter Film Festival however uses a very distinguished panel of judges that live in this industry, day and night. In particular, the leading judge this year is Nick Cassavetes who has directed such films as My Sister’s Keeper, John Q, The Notebook, and Alpha Dog, as well as writing and producing some of Hollywood’s greatest films. To be voted the best feature in this festival, by such a highly esteemed panel is HUGE!!!! You all deserve a huge pat on the back.

We were also amazed at the extended conversations we had with so many audience members, and in particular, so many members of the festival screening committee and jury. They couldn’t stop talking about all the aspects of the film.

SoundWorks Collection: Marie Ebbing & Jonathon Stevens – Advanced Noise Removal from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.