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I've been using Mojo Horns (ensembles) in Kontakt for a few years...just for roughing out ideas for the players. Since I'm doing all my new writing demos in the Kronos...what are you using?

I'm just not digging the stock horns at all.

With the disk streaming enabled, I've been considering converting the ensembles, which all I use Mojo for...but, I'm not sure how they will translate--all the tuning variation and such...

Sorry to say, this is the greatest strength of my JP-80. I love the trumpet.

But I do find the Brass Section sounds ok, just not happy with the solo trumpet sounds on the Kronos,

But I also believe it has more to do with my performance technics than the basic timbre of the Kronos.

popmann wrote:I've been using Mojo Horns (ensembles) in Kontakt for a few years...just for roughing out ideas for the players. Since I'm doing all my new writing demos in the Kronos...what are you using?

I'm just not digging the stock horns at all.

With the disk streaming enabled, I've been considering converting the ensembles, which all I use Mojo for...but, I'm not sure how they will translate--all the tuning variation and such...

What would you use to translate with? Are you actually going to convert them, or a sort of re-sample thing? AFAIK, that's an encrypted library.

Yeah...just audio sample. I've used sample Robot for hardware...but, the extreme sample converter seems to be what people are using for VSTi...

Just don't know if it will be worth the time. since the variation of tuning/time between players is pretty much what sets the mOjo engine apart. Capturing that as static samples might kill what's working...

Have you loaded the Brass EXs from the FACTORY folder on the SSD, or are you just using the brass sounds in ROM? The ROM brass sounds aren't that crash hot, but the streaming EXs samples are much better.

(Edit: it's EXs3. I love the fact that I can be typing this in bed and FTP into my KRONOS at the other end of the house to check!)

Yes, loaded those straight away a year ago. Though...I should recheck...OS updates...backups...restores...

Yes, I apparently modded my preload.ksc to include it when I got the board. They are what I'm playing.

Part of the issue with disjointed sounds...with both horns or strings...if you're going to include cool articulations--falls/doIt (in the case of horns)...you need SFZ and straight sustains that are all the same horns/mic/room/session. Else, may as well not have them. Not gonna use a SFZ patch through a whole song...you know? And if you use it to swell to a stab/fall, the stab fall needs to be the same section.

I tend to use the SFZ ones throughout. They have enough attack for the quick lines and add some movement with longer notes. Always did it on my Extreme too.
I think I made a combi with a few layers on that one though, to thicken it a bit. Haven't gotten around to that on Kronos yet, but it's also trickier cause they sound more realistic by themselves than the Triton ones did.

I agree they are not good I play the sax tenor alto soprano and flutes so I am adding live tracks

Want decent horns on your kronos.
3 words - Kick ass Brass. Look no further. Perfect for funk, rock blues etc. NOw if you are doing orchestral stuff professionally stop wasting your time and just use any vts ( garritan, East west gold, Holliwood strings). Kronos brass are good enough for orchestral too but no comparasson do the vsts mentioned. Kronos brass are too weak for funk, rock etc. So buy kick ass brass and convrt to soundfount. That's what I did and the result is ub-pair

Used kick ass brass years ago and honestly wasn't that impressed. Many samples seemed, eh, "barely in tune", too.

Well, I can convert the MojoHorns if I want to get into recreation of virtual instruments via sampling and not the engine...already owning that and being perfectly comfortable with it.

I did export some WAVs...not sure what makes it encrypted-I just pulled'em out. That said...there are FAR too many to use them to build. There don't appear to be any actual ensemble samples. The ensemble patches I dig are layers of the individual instrument samples--with various tuning and timing and stereo pan preset--so it would need to be resampled.

It does kind of beg the question though...if I can just plug in my MB Air via a single USB cable when I want to do horns...and sequence, them record audio over The single USB cable--seems a bit pointless to spend a lot of time half way recreating ensembles in the Kronos. If it were a simple library to port over, yeah...I'd do it...but, it's just easier to put a bigger SSD in the Air to hold Mojo and VSL strings--especially as well as CoreAudio/Midi handle the single Kronos USB connection.

Well Kronos has a wonderful feature that you can tune each note in a sample set , or the ones you think that are out of tune. Actually kick Ass Brass is the best only if you actually understand and know what a Brass section should sound like, also depend on what you are going to use it and how to.
Mojo is ok but not as punch + forget about converting it to use on kronos. The scripting was really well done and will not sound half as good on kronos, I only like using it for big band arrangements (Gleen Miller style) as the vibrato is very smooth. For funk it just doesn't cut, sounds like a keyboard

I think they should still deliver it properly tuned. Also, I don't mean to sound overly offended, but I've a degree in music and have spent years playing with actual horn sections in various bands. Any keyboard horn parts will always sound like keyboards to me, but of the available options, I just didn't like Kick Ass Brass that much. They don't lend themselves to live playing that well, in my humble opinion.

Here´s how I handle my horns in live situations:

Playing in a soul/funk band without any real horns I have to substitute that stuff on keys. Before purchasing my Kronos 61 I programmed all horns on the Fantom X (with brass expansion) and later on the Motif XF. They sounded very realistic and comments from the audience - and even musicians in the audience – always were like: “…Wow, you surely don´t need real horns. Where did you sample that?”

What I´ve learned from programming horn sections on different keyboards for playing live is:

1.
Always think like a conductor or producer putting a horn section together!
So I usually use 2 (high) trumpets slightly detuned, 1 or 2 trombones slightly detuned, 1 sforzando brass swell in a high octave and the same sforzando brass section one octave lower. For some “highspeed” licks I add a trumpet with a hard attack (staccato). Fine tuning the volume levels of these 6 or 7 parts, voila´ here´ s a decent horn section you can play along in band situation. For “horn special effects” I sometimes add a brass fall (consisting of 2 brass fall sounds in 2 octaves) in the highest range of the keyboard (1 octave on the keyboard is sufficient to play this). My first impression of the Kronos brass sounds was, no way, let´s stick with the Motif horns. Now digging deeper into the programs in “EXs3 extras” I recently programmed some horn combi´s on my Kronos that could fit my expectations.

2.
Never play any chords on keyboard horns!
This will never ever sound realistic. A real horn section wouldn´t do that either, so do not make this mistake. Play single note lines/licks, maybe sometimes a second harmony line.

3.
Never try to play a saxophone on a keyboard!
No matter how good the samples/programs may be, a saxophone played on a keyboard will always sound artificial. They don´t even mix with my programmed horn section, so I gave up to try adding saxes to my horns.

These are just my two cents worth, IMHO some very good horn sections can be programmed on the Kronos without using any third party sounds.