Brass and Horns VST

Can someone suggest a good VST for Brass and Horns (Trumpet, Trombone, Tenor Sax, Baritone Sax)? Thinking of the likes of Valerie by Amy Winehouse and Superstition by Stevie Wonder. Preferably free, but don’t mind paying (a bit, I’m not made of money) for something decent

Not free but not expensive and very decent: VG Trumpet

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NI Session Horns.

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I would also recommend NI Session Horns… it’s my “go to” for any form of brass section.

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NI would be my choice in a studio. Both songs have distinct keyboard pards in addition to horns and Valerie even has strings if you are talking about the Mark Ronson version. Might be difficult for a single player to cover all of the parts and manage intonation changes on the horns at the same time in a live setting. NI allows for intonation similar to how you change settings on Hammond organs.

I use Session Horns for some songs but use Session Horns Pro for a little more orchestral texture.

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For ultimate realism you could check out Acousticsamples “V-Horns”. Not cheap, but especially the solo instruments are very convincing.

I use Session Horns (pro)

I also do the good old Bruce Swedien trick and use Chordmaker to get “tight left hand single note brass section voicings” in Superstition.

It works like Amy Winehouse - Valerie (Brass Section)

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That jazz trumpet sounds so good that I get tempted to buy, even though I don’t need it at all at the moment :slight_smile:

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Session Horns came with Komplete 9 when I bought it many years ago. I’ve never updated Komplete, but have purchased the v6 and v7 upgrades to Kontakt and added the occasional Kontakt instrument. I picked up Session Horns Pro on a really good sale price. The Pro version is huge (almost 30 GB). The base version is less than 4 GB. The only reason to get the Pro version is if the base version can’t be made to do what you need. I didn’t buy the Pro version because I needed it at that moment. It was such a good price that I decided “what the heh” and picked it up just in case.

No Baritone in Session Horns, which is whyI quoted VG Trumpet :wink:

Unfortunately, the other recommendations made do not meet the above criteria.

OK, I meant Session Horns Pro (I have NI Komplete) which does have a Baritone Sax. Yes, it does cost, but is worth the money for what you get.

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I don’t think we have the same budget criteria :wink:, I personally could never pay the price of Session Horns Pro, even with 50% off, knowing that there are a lot of other things that go into a budget.

On the other hand, I came across this offer by chance, which seems too good to be true: can anyone tell me what they think?
Session Horns Pro

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Yes, you’re quite right… one person’s bargain is another person’s unobtainable.

The link you supplied seems far too good to be true, so most likely isn’t true! The consensus online seems to be that they are selling cracked version, unbelievably with customer support!

https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/comments/icldr9/is_saleonpluginscom_legit/

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My experience is Session Horns (standard) ends up being my go to horn section most of the time. It is not a “crippled” version of Pro (though, absolutely, Pro has capabilities frankly beyond what I have touched).

You could probably augment that, if needed, with with VG Trumpet sample libraries (they have far more than trumpets) or 8Dio instruments or other options. You could considering pick them up when good deals arise.

And you can also wait to see (as long as you want) if a good deal comes up (or license transfer) for (legitimate) Session Horns Pro if you feel like going that route.

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Apparently there are other sites of this type and it’s difficult to tell the difference with legitimate sellers sometimes offering equivalent prices during promotions and flash sales of up to 90%…

In any case, I always buy from trusted sites or those of the developers.

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I use the SWAM brass and woodwinds from Audio Modeling. Not cheap, but are very realistic to my hears. They are very effective in live performance.

Session Horns and Pro are both good for Realistic Horn sections.

People can be picky on brass sounds though so you might also want to give Korg Triton a try. It doesnt sound as Realistic as Session but sometimes people want something workstation quality which isnt Realistic but nonetheless hit a certain way. Also if you like your patches to stretch the whole key range, you might like the workstation style stuff. There has been a few times i load up a Kontakt patch in rehearsal, band director wants something more “realistic” and just end up choosing a Triton patch.

Also try to find some free General midi or brass soundfonts and use a decent soundfont VST like Plogue sfozando. Soundfonts are probably your best free alternative

Reason also has these type of sounds (workstation style) but is probably overkill.

If you’re looking for realism, do check out Acoustic Samples VHorns (they also have VWinds, VFlutes, VSaxophones etc.). Fairly priced and surprisingly convincing, even the solo stuff which usually sounds very unconvinging even in the pricier libraries. Of course, the realism requires some active modwheel usage, which may not always be practical when playing horn parts with other keyboard stems.

Unfortunately it does not fit either into the criteria of this topic (type of instruments and price), but that doesn’t stop VHorns from being an excellent bundle.

Currently only $10