Suggestions: WESTGATE Clarinets and Bassoons

[timzydee]

Thanks for all the positive feedback on the Horns. Now that this library is out it's time for us to gear up for the production of our next libraries. We are now going to finish off the orchestral woodwinds with Clarinets and Bassoons. I thought I'd start this thread to see if anyone has any suggestions for features they'd like to see in these two libraries. The suggestions for Horns were very helpful. Time is a little short as we will begin recording in a couple weeks. Thanks in advance for your participation.

NEW INFO:
Thanks for all your suggestions. Recording for solo Bb Clarinet has wrapped and the download for this instrument will be available soon followed shortly by solo Bassoon. If you haven't purchased from us before and would like to know when these are available just send us an email (tim@westgatestudios.com) and you can be one of the first to download and start using these new instruments.

[danpowers]

It may be a minor point to most people, but I'd like to see the range of the clarinet include the low concert C sharp. Clarinets in A are often used in orchestral literature, but developers only sample clarinets in B flat, at least as far as I know.

[JT3_Jon]

I would love to see some extended techniques make it into your clarinet library. Stuff like multiphonics, slap tongue for the bass clarinet, harmonics, glissandos ala rhapsody in blue, etc. Subtones would also be cool for moody writing. Do you also plan on having some jazz/klezmer sounding clarinets as well? That would be great! What clarinets do you plan on sampling; Bb, A, or both? Do you also plan on Eb alto and Contrabass clarinets?

I dont know as much about Bassoon, but I'm sure there are some cool sounding extended techniques that would be neat to have. Contrabass bassoon also sounds great.

[timzydee]

We are sampling Bb (solo and 2 player unison), Eb, Bass and hopefully Contra.

We want to get the jazz sound right. Other than vibrato long notes what sort of articulations would you want access to for efficiently creating this type of performance? Should we sample scoops and bends or just let that be "faked" with the pitch wheel? It'd be nice to have those samples, but how to use them?

We are planning on Multiphonics and glissandos but I'm not familiar with slap tongue or subtones. Could you describe those or post a musical example?

[JT3_Jon]

Here is a great website I found going in detail all the instruments of an orchestra. Extremely well done and could prove a great resource for composer/developer alike. http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange/the_orchestra/

Heres a direct link to their "effects" page for clarinet, which has a clip of subtones. http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange/the_orchestra/instruments/clarinets/effects/ I personally love the sound of subtones in the lower register (not displayed here). I guess its just ppp dynamic and not a special technique, but clarinet is one of those rare instruments that can play from ppp-fff, and it would be great if you could somehow capture all of that nuance, especially in the soft side.

The other page, extended techniques, has a clip of a guy explaining slap tongue, but no example! http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/thesoundexchange/the_orchestra/instruments/clarinets/extended_techniques/

Here is a clip of slap tongue on various instruments: clarinets are at the end. http://www.jayeaston.com/sound%20files/slaptongue.mp3

I hear it all the time in modern compositions in particular. When you hear the bass clarinet do it, you'll recognize the sound.

I'm not too familar with jazz clarinet, nor sample programing jazz performances, so I dont know what would be required (sorry). Perhaps you could look at other libs that do jazz saxophone and adapt techniques for the jazz clarinet?

[Von Richter]

Philharmonia drives me insane because they sometimes cut off the video right before the player actually plays the examples... illogical.

[JT3_Jon]

Philharmonia drives me insane because they always cut off the video right before the player actually plays the examples... illogical.

LOL! looks like I spoke too soon above. You're 100% right!

[Justus]

- Many many round robin staccato samples

- grace notes stacs and sustains (a must for woodwinds)

- runs


Have fun!!!

[Mr. Anxiety]

I second & third recording the clarinets in their full dynamic ranges.
ppp or pp with/without vibrato is a must. As was said earlier, these instruments are so dynamic, it is a shame when the libraries don't give you all of it in their libraries.

ContraBass clari would be very, very welcome. Not too many libraries have it.

Both the bass claris should be done without vibrato as well.

Bassoon - Contra Bassoon as well!!

without vibrato as well!

The key is to remember that these instruments are always called upon to create low and soft effects, just as much as load and intense.

Good Luck - You've done great so far. Use your libraries all the time!

Mr. A.

[Steve_K]

No plans for an Oboe library planned?

S.

Also, slightly more relevant... especially for solo woodwinds... Is there any way to control the intensity of the vibrato with the legato samples? If a sample is sustained and every note has the exact same vibrato speed, it gets old pretty quickly... If you already provide a solution for this, or have mentioned plans to include one, I apologize for the oversight.

[Tomdini]

Steve - Westgate has already released an oboe library in the Modular Series.

-Tom

[timzydee]

Yes, Oboes is where we began. The Flutes are also already done.

Several people have mentioned success with vibrato scripts in Kontakt 2. You would of course use something like that with our No Vibrato samples.

[cmdratz]

Another vote for the bass and contrabass clarinets and the double bassoon. I also agree that various oft-used playing styles/effects for the whole range of clarinets would be great.

[Chaim Goldman]

Sample the Glisses and bends please. There is only one other library I know that has it and I'm not talking about runs or grace notes.

[scpax]

I'd love to see tremolos. Woodwinds often tremolo to the minor or major third (or more). Don't know if your flutes or oboes have this.

[FireGS]

Make sure that the volumes of the Staccato and Marccato notes by dynamics match the volumes of the respected Sustain patches. I cant tell you how annoying it is to have to try and match up those two.

Also, make sure if you are sampling FF or FFF staccato and marccato, make sure you have Sustain that can match the intensity of them. Same vein as the 1st paragraph. :D :D

Also, i agree with the 8(or more)x RR samples. ^_^

[JT3_Jon]

Make sure that the volumes of the Staccato and Marccato notes by dynamics match the volumes of the respected Sustain patches. I cant tell you how annoying it is to have to try and match up those two.

Also, make sure if you are sampling FF or FFF staccato and marccato, make sure you have Sustain that can match the intensity of them. Same vein as the 1st paragraph. :D :D

Also, i agree with the 8(or more)x RR samples. ^_^

Very good points!

[Ivan P]

We are sampling Bb (solo and 2 player unison)

We are planning on Multiphonics and glissandos but I'm not familiar with slap tongue or subtones. Could you describe those or post a musical example?

Excellent! Thks for listening to this suggestion! :)

Here are a few scores that use multiphonics and/or other avant-garde techniques for clarinet and/or bass clarinet:

R. Aitken: kebyar
T. Antoniou: Three likes for clarinet
J Fox: All things fancy
W. Holab: Woodshedding
P. Maxwell Davies: Eight songs for a Mad king
R. Reynodls: I/O: A ritual
T. Takemitsu: Waves
A. de la Vega: Interpolation for solo clarinet
G. Ligeti: Apparitions; Tne pieces for wind quintet

Techniques for Bassoon and/or Contrabassoon: Y. Yannay: preFIX-FIX-suFIX

Clarinet and Bassoon: D. Wilson: doubles

Flute, Clarinet and Bassoon:
B. Bartolozzi: Concertazioni a quattro, Tres Recuerdos del Cielo
L. Foss: Cave of the Winds

Oboe, Clarinet and Basoon:
D. Erb: Symphony of ouvertures
H.W. Henze: Heliogabalus Imperator
W. Szalonek: Aarhus Music (example 35)

Misc fx:

W. Szalonek: Improvisations sonoristiques (sucking trough the reverse end of the clarinet mouthpiece while pressing the reed w/ a finger)

Bruno Bartolozzi: New Sounds for woodwind
John Heiss: Some multiple sonorities for flute, oboe, clarinet and Bassoon
Philiop Rehfeldt: New directions for clarinet

Good luck!

Best,

Iván

[Ouch that hurts]

We want to get the jazz sound right. Other than vibrato long notes what sort of articulations would you want access to for efficiently creating this type of performance? Should we sample scoops and bends or just let that be "faked" with the pitch wheel? It'd be nice to have those samples, but how to use them?

Sample! Preferably at several different speeds/characters. Woodwind and brass bends made with the pitch wheel sound SO fake.

[JonFairhurst]

I find that very subtle pitchbends on clarinet aren't so bad. Don't push it past 1/4 tone though.

I suggest enabling the pitchwheel for live playing and improvising. Then, if there is time and a good sample replacement, one can slip in a bend patch offline.

[aLfR3dd]

just do what you've done with your Oboes and Flutes library.......they are amazing ! Really ...)(~

[ejr]

I'm glad you asked. I've got several $k sunk in sample libraries and every one of them seems to be a combination of occassional brilliance and lots of bad choices. The problem for the developer is that users want different things. To have a successful product, you have to appeal to all of them or you're going to loose your customers to someone that does. I don't mind stuff thrown in that I'll never use. It's infinitely preferable to having to go out and buy yet ANOTHER sample library just to get a needed articulation that the other guys left out.

I'd like to see separate patches for each articulation an instrument is capable of making. Not the really far out stuff you'd only hear in experimental or avant garde music. But you should adequately cover what a muscian should be expected to master in a typical pop or symphony orchestra.

I don't want to be limited to what is playable on a MIDI keyboard or what I am capable of playing as a performer.

(By all means, include keyswitched or modwheel instruments for users who want them. But it seems to me that, to make them, you have do the samples for the individual articulations anyway, so why not include them. They will make your product much more appealing to those who need them. I am gradually not upgrading libraries that do not include every articulation for the ones that do.)

This is the way that I have been working lately. In Sonar, I create a folder for the instrument - say, clarinet - and then put in a track for each articulation I will use in the piece - say, sustained, staccatto, and flutter tongue. I lay down the initial track by recording on the one for the sustained or staccatto instrument, then move move notes onto the other tracks (using Sonar's staff view) as necessary. Once everything is where it's supposed to be I make fine adjustments to velocity, volume, sustain (with the p ...*) or other controllers. Sometimes I overlap notes to transition smoothly from one note to another. I picked up this methodolgy from corresponding with composers who do a lot of film scoring using primarily sampled MIDI tracks and I have found that it works best for me.

That said, what type of articulations would I need? Well, obviously, the more you include the more useful it would be. Ideally, a sample library should sample every sound that a clarinet can make. Deffinately, the Eb Clarinet as well as the Bb. There are significant differences. I don't think any library has sampled a clarinet in A. Having one would be quite a distinction. Remember, most people will be ADDING your set to their existing library of samples from other vendors.

Personally, I'd like to have articulations for flutter tongue as well as different trills (minor and major intervals, in as many combinations as possible.) It's very hard for those of us trained on keyboard or string instruments to understand which types are playable and practical on a wind instrument. For example, I can rappidly alternate between C and D, or C and E, or C and C# on the piano with no significant difference in the difficulty or limitation on the speed. I always worry about whether I am composing something that a real clarinet player would have difficulty playing. If those limitations are built right into the soft instrument (slow trill, moderate trill, fastest possible trill for your typical clarinetist) then I'd use them with more confidence. You'd also be able to incorporate a more realistic legato between the two notes. (I hope I'm saying this right.) As opposed to a kind of marcato where each note is distincit.

Also, speaking of Jazz, a couple of soft instruments that capture the various types of glissandos that a clarinet could do would be a first. I mean, listen to Gershwin, for God's sake. Where do I find a patch that does THAT?

And, if a wind instrument is capable of vibrato, you should have a vibrato version of all the same patches (where it makes sense to.) I spent the last couple of days on a piece where the bassoon predominates in the bass line. I had several software libraries with good staccatto articulations - from the very punchy, to the not very - but I couldn't find a satisfactory sustained bassoon sound ... until I came accross a library I owned but had not used in a long time, which had a sustained vibrato bassoon. It was just what the piece needed at that point but I didn't realize I it, and wouldn't have thought of it, until I saw it sitting there and decided to try it out. Vibrato, definitely, for the bassoon.

Finally, take a look at the VSL patches bundled with Kontakt 2. I don't care for them much because they have an awfully colored sound. I'm not sure what's wrong. Maybe too much room ambience. But their staccatto instruments alternate between two patches, so that repeated notes don't sound like a machine gun. That's a must. No point in recording a fine instrument's staccatto if it's going to end up sounding artifical when you try to use it.

[jpjohn1980]

I often find sampled clarinets REALLY bright and spread. A clarinet should have darker, rounder tone than is often sampled. It doesn't cut through as well, but it blends ALOT better. I also think that the extended C# from an A would be ideal. Also, sampling the clarinet's whisper tone, which is so effective, might be fun. As a clarinet player myself, I am often frustrated by the sampled instruments - they usually sound so...unfocused. So, thats my two cents.

[timzydee]

NEW INFO:
Thanks for all your suggestions. Recording for solo Bb Clarinet has wrapped and the download for this instrument will be available soon followed shortly by solo Bassoon. If you haven't purchased from us before and would like to know when these are available just send us an email (tim@westgatestudios.com) and you can be one of the first to download and start using these new instruments.

[FireGS]

Awesome, Tim!

Can't Wait!! )(~

~Fire

[ejr]

Another thing ... I've noticed that all my bass clarinet libraries, to one degree or another, sound very pinched and nasal - almost like a sax or a bassoon. Presumably this was done intentionally, to make it blend better with those instruments or the brass. I'm not saying that a bass clarinet can't sound that way sometimes, or that a particular instrument might not have that characteristic. But that leaves me without a choice for what I usually think of as a typical bass clarinet ... you know, like in the Nutcracker, or the original cast recording of "Send in the Clowns" (not the single, which substituted the bassoon).

[Sicmu]

I have a question : will the contrabass clarinet be available separately?

Thanks,

[timzydee]

That wasn't the plan but we can probably work something out.

[Not Dudley Simpson]

I too am very much looking forward to your contrabass clarinet. The VSL edition sounds wonderful, but, at the equivalent of $1000 for the inclusive woodwind library, I simply cannot justify it (I don't have a need for the other woods in that lib, good as they are). I could probably record my own version for that kind of money!

I sincerely hope that you can record the widest possible range of articulations for the instrument, and also use the bbB contrabass (a full octave below the bass clarinet), rather than the contra-alto (which only goes down a fifth below the bass clarinet.

Good luck

[timzydee]

The breath is a natural part of the recording and can't be removed to my knowledge. Anyone else have any suggestions?

[tradivoro]

ONe thing which I didn't see suggested, is, using the mod wheel, to do a crescendo on one note while at the same time affecting the timbre of the clarinet... You hear this in a lot of scores, and the sampled clarinets out there don't do this too well...

[JT3_Jon]

In his oboe library Tim had a midi CC control a low-pass filter, which you could use in real time to give the oboe a darker sound (great in conjunction with his vibrato mod-wheel patches.

I'm sure this feature will also be available in the clarinets, and might be apart of every lib he makes.