VBrass French Horns contains six instruments: four French Horns, a Triple Horn and a Wagner Tuba.

Each instrument was recorded individually by world-class players, and each has its own personality and character of sound.

They can all be used as soloists and will blend together perfectly to create ensembles.

The horn is one of the most versatile instruments in the world, capable of producing everything from the most beautiful pianissimos to the most powerful fortissimos, easily heard over an entire symphony orchestra.

Our primary aim with this collection was to offer 6 individually recorded instruments with their own characteristics, whilst still being able to gel together in a variety of ensemble set-ups.

On top of the instruments' natural characteristics, we implemented many features to help offer an limitless variety of sounds within each instrument itself.

Even though we have the French Horns listed as Horns 1-4, you will find that in all 6 instruments, some offer a brassier tone, some more mellow, some instruments sing best in particular registers, some combinations of instruments produce a completely different sound to others and so on. So a Horn Quartet set-up of Triple Horn, Wagner Tuba, Horn 3 and Horn 1 is just as valid here as a quartet with Horns 1 to 4.

We hope that you enjoy exploring these instruments as much as we enjoyed designing and producing them.

NEW: Recorded Legato
Legato transitions are often a sure giveaway that a performance is made with virtual instruments rather than real ones. Both fully-recorded and fully-modelled libraries run into their respective limitations in this area, with recorded instruments offering a more lifelike sound at the expense of speed and playability, and vice versa for modelled instruments.

Enter our brand new 'Legato Matrix' (v1.0) - an engine pushing the boundaries of sampling and modeling technology. Our new legato engine features recorded legato transitions of every single interval available on the instrument, without sacrificing any of the unparalleled playability these instruments are known for.

NEW: Bee Dial
Everybody has their own taste when it comes to the sound of a French Horn - it is an incredibly versatile instrument which can produce warm, mellow tones just as easily as it can a buzzing and sizzling fortissimo, capable of cutting through all other instruments in the orchestra.

Aside from recording 6 different horns of varying characters of sound, we wanted to go one step further and allow for timbral changes on each horn itself.

After carefully extracting specific frequencies one-by-one, we created a brand new 'Bee Dial', to control the amount of buzz the instrument is capable of producing. This sits right underneath the Airflow dial on the main interface, and works in sync with the Airflow, ensuring the intended dynamics and volume are preserved, regardless of the amount of buzz/sizzle in the sound.

NEW: Multi-Mic Mixer
We recorded these instruments with 4 microphone positions: 1 behind the player (the bell) and 3 in front.

This library also offers the option to use the raw, untreated sound as well as a processed sound to suit different purposes.

Reverb and EQ can be controlled from the Mix tab, and the four microphone positions can be mixed in any way you like, each one will work on its own in the right context.

We recommend using Mic 2 as a starting point, on both processed and unprocessed sets, and for a warmer 'front' sound, add Mic 3 or 4, or for a brighter 'Bell' sound, add Mic 1.
  
Virtual Space
Our Virtual Space features simulations of three concert halls with world-class acoustics, with four microphone configurations to choose from and customizable stereo width and room size (tail).

Brand new for VSeries is also the option to tame the high and low resonances of the reverb, as well as four options for stereo source width, offering an even greater capacity for depth and colour of sound.

When the virtual mics are used (in the Mix tab), selecting a seat in the Virtual Space will place the instrument at that exact spot in the hall, dealing with the basics of depth, delay and panning all in one single click.

When using this with multiple instruments on different seats, you immediately have the spatial impression of being in front of a whole ensemble.

Mutes
Mutes are an integral part of the French Horns' arsenal - employed by the likes of Jerry Goldsmith to create an unsettling soundworld in Alien, or John Williams or James Newton Howard, creating tension and terror in films such as The Village or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

You can choose from 4 different mutes, a stop mute, two different straight mutes (wood and metal), and a harmon/wah mute on which you can control how open or close you want it with a CC.

Simply select the mute you want to use in the top right corner of the instrument’s interface and start playing - or assign the menu to a CC, and enjoy swapping between open and muted sounds seamlessly in realtime.
  
Authentic Vibrato
We carefully measured the different parameters that change when a brass player uses vibrato and we combined everything into a highly realistic and customizable vibrato for VBrass.

There are multiple ways to control the vibrato: automatic, automatic depending on time 'Auto Time', and manually, where you have full control over each undulation yourself.

Pitch
VBrass offers a wealth of controls over pitch, controls that can be essential to achieving a colorful and realistic sound. It's very rare to hear everything perfectly in tune, even from professional players, so we created a number of features to help adjust the accuracy of the pitch in order to achieve an even more lifelike performance.

Pitch bend is also a key part of the performance of some brass instruments, and our Advanced Pitch Bend engine helps with the realism of these bends, from subtleties in trumpet solos, to small trombone slides, all the way to the openining Clarinet wail from Rhapsody in Blue.
  
General / MIDI
Our general controls allow for different playing techniques such as flutter, control over the harmonic series and volume of every note, as well as extraneous noises, natural variation and round robins.

MIDI controls offer the possibility to finetune live ensemble playing, as well as the usual tranposition, pitch control, MIDI controller selection and a grid to tweak the shape of the airflow curve.

Please note all of the features in the preferences tab that have a small die next to them, which turns on randomization for an even more unpredictable and life-like performance. Randomize means that the value for that setting will be randomized for each new note, between the minimum value and the value you set.

Ensemble
If you load multiple instruments at the same time, it will play unisons exactly at the same time.

We added some smart features that first can change the timbre of the instruments, transpose everything by a fixed interval and also act on the MIDI performance.

For example, you can have all 6 instruments with a different transposition value play the same C minor scale, so no matter what you play on the keyboard, it will sound in key.
  
Keyboard, Breath Controller or Wind Controller
VBrass can be played using a keyboard by selecting the notes on the keyboard and controlling the air flow with a MIDI controller like the modulation wheel or a breath controller.

You can also use a wind controller like an EWI, an Aerophone a Sylphyo or any other brand, in which case you need to use the appropriate controller menu in the MIDI section.