you're familiar with the song “Feels So Good” by Chuck Mangione, then you're familiar with the sound of a flugelhorn. I am always on the lookout for great, realistic sounding solo instruments (whether brass or string) that will allow me to pepper my tracks with believable solos and fills. After spending some time with WFlugelhorn, I can say that it nicely fits the bill. Even though the library is at a modest (by some standards) 231 MB, the flugelhorn is very, very playable. This could be due to the velocity layers (four layers with three roundrobin layers each) or due to the way the library was recorded. According to their website, W-Flugelhorn was recorded with three mics: one in the front and a pair of stereo placed overhead mics. According to Wavesfactory, this mic placement is ideal because it “gives the most natural sound you can achieve.” While I don't know if that's true or not, I can say that the library has a great sound. It's very easy to just sit down and play a convincing solo line without having to worry about key-switches or multiple patches. The mellow sound of the horn makes it ideal for a number of genres particularly chillout or downtempo. Put on a little (or a lot of) reverb, and you can get lost in the brassy goodness. Yes, I just used the term “brassy goodness.”
Once again, there's no fancy Kontakt interface, but as before, this is not a big deal. There are two different Kontakt patches in the package. One allows you to control the breath intensity with the mod wheel while the other allows you to use the mod wheel for vibrato and velocity for breath intensity. I prefer the latter mainly because I'm not very skilled at controlling breath intensity with an external controller. At any rate, it's great to have the choice between the two different patches. My only minor quibble with the library W-Tambourine is that a couple of the low notes at certain velocities have a bit of “scoop” The tambourine is often the forgotten to them that isn't present in the step-child of the typical drum library. Many times you'll get highly detailed neighboring notes. This could be an snares, kicks, toms, and cymbals, but issue with the recording of the samples, or it could be a quirk about only get a couple of lightly sampled playing notes that low on a flugelhorn. tambourines. Well, W-Tambourine is intended to help you overcome this As they are near the lowest range of the instrument, they aren’t too much shortcoming found in many drum of an issue as you're not likely to be libraries. The instrument contains 117 MB of tambourine loops and samples. spending a great deal of time in that This content is spread out over three range anyway. different Kontakt instruments, and each one has a great looking interface Overall, though, the W-Flugelhorn sounds fantastic and realistic. It's with several controls right on them. easily worth the asking price. On the interfaces, you have basic control over EQ (lows, mids, highs), reverb level, and delay time/feedback. September 2011
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