Orchestral Tools Rotary: Free Big Band Horns

[Guy Rowland]

Big Band Horns have been added to OT's Sinefactory Free subscription service.

https://www.orchestraltools.com/sinefactory



The demo on the link above sounds incredibly good for a freebie, will check this out tomorrow. There's also a free string ensemble, studio percussion and grand piano on Sinefactory.

[Lawrence]

Has the download and installed worked for anyone else? Does the new content have to go to a specific place?

[Muziksculp]

Here is a very cool demo that was posted (not my demo), showing OT-Rotary Big Band Horns in action.

They sound fabulous for a free library.

[The Saxer]

Sounds good... but it's a typical sample brass thing. Accents, staccatos, shouts, effects... it sounds good because the melody is played by the piano.

[Tobias Escher]

Just to avoid the inevitable question: No, Rotary does not use any existing content. It is 100% new recordings not used in any other OT collection.

[Piet De Ridder]

Has the download and installed worked for anyone else? Does the new content have to go to a specific place?

No problems here, Larry.
I've created a folder on one of my Samples HD's where all the Sine stuff goes into.

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[Lawrence]

That may have to be the way it is, Piet. I put them on a different drive. The only way I can get them to play is to type "Rotary" into the search engine-then all the patches appear. Sort of silly system of location but I'm sure it could be worked out by putting everything in one folder. Then again, why should that be necessary in 2021?

As to the samples, they all sound great in terms of tone and room sound, but...what Saxer said. Without legato and with limited arts, Rotary is not of much use to me. Perhaps that should be expected given the price.

[Guy Rowland]

All seems to have installed ok here, Larry. I get offered a location to download to when I click Download, but it seems to be for selecting a drive, not a folder. I selected G, it then put them into an Orchestral Tools SINE Player folder on my G drive. This said, I wonder now if I'd previously set this up somehow, and when I selected a location it was just to download the files for installation?

The day we get a full list of articulations including legato for a Big Band Library for free is the day when every sane developer just calls it a day, so zero complaints from me on that score. Interesting it's new recordings Tobias, I guess I assumed it was a subset of the existing Big Band library. The room sounds very big for regular big band use, but this is kept at bay by leaning on the spot mics and not using Tree at all. Scoops are a nice addition, and there's certainly SOME writing you can do with Big Band without having legato, simple short phrases and stabs for backing can work well.

There seems to be a lot of volume variation between some of the articulations, and its perhaps to be expected that you can hear the samples being stretched over a number of notes. But the instruments do sound really nice and for a freebie, this is pretty great - thanks OT!

[Piet De Ridder]

(...) Interesting it's new recordings Tobias, (...)

They're actually recordings that pre-date Glory Days, from what I understand. In Rotary's description, it says that this library was 'curated' (I hate that word) from private recordings which Hendrik and Sasha made for a project they collaborated on.

Also recorded at Teldex though, which will help a little -- if you find these things important, that is -- when using it together with Glory Days

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[Scoredog]

It is extremely useful if you have Glory Days as you can write quickly with the sections instead of having to write for the individual instruments, a real time saver in certain circumstances. Also I have used it as a thickener for pop brass in a mixture of Session Horns Pro. the two sound nothing alike but that gives it a cool vibe.

[Lawrence]

“The day we get a full list of articulations including legato for a Big Band Library for free is the day when every sane developer just calls it a day, so zero complaints from me on that score.”

For clarity’s sake, I have zero complaints as well, but I have no use case for Rotary either. I would think that with Swing More, you wouldn’t either Guy.

[Muziksculp]

[Guy Rowland]

For clarity’s sake, I have zero complaints as well, but I have no use case for Rotary either. I would think that with Swing More, you wouldn’t either Guy.

Sorry I mean to reply to this! I find every library suits some things more than others. I have Swing, Swing More, CHH Vol 1, Broadway Big Band and Session Horns Pro, so I'm unlikely to reach for this first, but I do like the tone so it may come in handy here and there.