This is just a quick video showing a track I made using some string a brass sounds from novaloops

these sounds came from the novaloops Coast to Coast Brass and String Collection

leave a comment below, lemme know what you think.

Today I’m checking out another instrument Big Fish sent over, from Vir2.

Ever since I got it I’ve been playing with it, it’s a dedicated horn instrument called Mojo.

Every time I used to buy a new keyboard workstation, I would always checkout the brass/horns.  Some of them had great sounding brass sections, and others were okay.

In the digital realm with all the samples available, you would think a great horn instrument would be easy to find, but it’s not.

Many of the brass sample available are either loops, or geared towards orchestral brass…nothing for that jazzy, funky, rnb style of music.

Until Mojo….

What is Mojo?

Mojo is a dedicated, versatile, and innovative horn section instrument.  This means it’s dedicated to the same type of horn sounds you would use for funk, jazz, soul, rnb, etc.

These are instruments, not just a dvd full of loops, so they respond to your playing and give you access to a huge and authentic collection of horn and brass sounds.

The instruments covered in the instrument are: Trumpet, Trombone, Trumpet Muted, Trombone Muted, Piccolo Trumpet, Bass Trombone, Soprano Sax, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Bari Sax, Clarinet, and Flugelhorn

It’s easy to control every aspect of the instrument from the instruments panel.

You can adjust it from solo to 10 players, right in the interface…allowing you to create an instant section of instruments.

You also have control over the various articulations like crescendo, trill, sustain, swell, stab, staccato, doit, etc.

There is a built in fx section for you to get your tweak on, including an “ez room” section that has multiple reverb space presets. it also has saturation, distortion, chorus, limiter, delay, eq, and reverb.

Quick Specs

• Content: 15gb of 24bit stereo samples
• Format: Kontakt powered virtual instrument
• Price: $499

How real does Mojo sound?

I’m not a sax player, or any type of brass instrument, but I’m always looking for the best and most realistic sounding to my ears.

The recording and production of these instruments is incredible, not to mention it’s easy to tweak them and just plain fun to play them.

You can load one of the core instruments, and it will load all articulations for that instrument, which are all keyswitchable.

In addition, you get premade ensambles, as well as some instrument special fx.

Another dope feature is that it comes with over 1600 riffs mapped across the keys.  The riff instruments are labeled by instrument type, tempo, and key.  And they are amazing.

There is also a folder of instruments labeled “wind controller” which work with midi wind controllers.

You can also go very deep tweaking the instrument with micro tuning, changing the vibrato, pretty much every characteristic of the sound can be altered to your liking.

So what’s the final verdict on Mojo?

Mojo delivers the goods and has become my favorite instrument from Vir2 to date. I love how real the sound, the quality is fantastic, but even more…it’s really just fun to play these sounds.  It’s fun to pretend you have the chops to play these amazing brass instruments and being able to add convincing horn sections to your music is creatively inspiring.

It comes in Kontakt player format, so even if you don’t have the full version of Kontakt you can still use this product, which I like.

Mojo gets a 5 out of 5 subs from me, I just love it!

It’s high quality, easy to use, fun to use, and easy to tweak.  It’s sounds super realistic and doesn’t lean towards “orchestral brass” like most libraries I’ve come across, which is a good thing, as there are many of those types of libraries available.

Bottom line is this: no Mojo isn’t cheap, but the quality speaks for itself.  If you really like to add realistic brass and horn sections to your music, I can’t see any other instrument outshining Mojo.

They way the instrument’s built in humanization responds to your playing and the ease at which you can access various articulations, riffs, sound fx, and playing styles is simply unmatched by any brass instrument I’ve come across to date.

I suggest you check it out, if you love brass and have been looking for an ultimate horn section library, look no further.

Go listen to the demos: Mojo Horn Section

leave me a comment below, let me know what you think.

Is it Friday already!?

Dang!

Well it’s time for another edition of Big Fish Friday…time to take a look at some more samples sent to me by big fish audio.

This week, we’re gonna get a lil jazzy on ya!

Talkin all that Jazz…

This isn’t one of those “hip hop jazz hybrid” collections, this is straight up for people looking to compose jazz music.

This is perfect for us! No matter if you’re not making jazz, a lot of urban producers like to sample jazz records, myself included.

So anything that can give us an authentic sound without worrying about royalties and sample clearance…bring it on baby!

What’s in this Jazz Session?

My personal description would be ” a gang of smoke flowing hole in the wall bare chicken bones on a napkin type sounds”

But that’s not really technical enough so, here’s what they say on the site:

Jazz Sessions is a unique sample collection bringing you all the vibes you would hope to hear at any great jazz club, and adds swing, soul and solid jazz attitude to your productions!

Featuring a huge 3Gig library of jazz samples played by seasoned professionals and captured with maximum realism and authenticity. Jazz Sessions is the consummate tool for jazz-influenced producers worldwide, whether you are looking to make pure traditional jazz, nu-jazz, broken beats, or are looking to melt a pure jazz feel into another style of music – Jazz Sessions will deliver what you need.

Okay, that sounds good but what does it actually sound like?

Dopeness, pure finger snapin, diggin in the crates, authentic jazz dopeness!

Seriously, the riffs,  licks and loops are well played and definitely have a certain “feel” about them.

Heck man, I heard the breathing and foot tapping when demoing some of the flute riffs!

Like I said, it’s not jazz with a hip hop affection…it’s straight up jazz from the horns to the drums.

So this would work well for folks trying to actually compose jazz records, but my purpose would be to put together jazz compositions that I can then slice up like I would on from a jazz record!

Works perfect, recorded right, no distortion whatsoever.

One thing I didn’t like though, the release noise on the rhodes multisample…it was pretty loud, but that’s okay, there are plenty of rhode loops and riffs to use, and I’m sure I could tweak the multi in Kontakt if I wanted. But I had to let ya know about that one.

Okay, so it sounds good, sounds authentic, what about the pricepoint?

The price is right baby! Just like a majority of sample dvd libraries, this comes in at 99 bucks, and with all the money you save in royalties…I think it’s a good trade off.

BUT, they also did something very nice, probably for folks like us. You can download separate section from the collection for 29-49 bucks!

So if you want JUST the flutes, or the keys, or guitars, or brass…you can do that. You may not want the drums and bass…maybe you just want the instruments. Go for it then!

Final thoughts on the library?

If you can’t tell by now, I really loved this one. I’m a jazz music lover, even just for listening pleasure, but also for sampling and music production.  To be able to add some nice authentic jazz sounds to your music that actually sound good, it’s always a pleasure. Especially when the library is made for jazz musicians and not “jazzy hip hop samples”

I like those too, but sometimes you just want some real jazz infusion for ya grooves.

This is a 5 out of 5 straight up no questions about it. Great content, tons and tons of samples, multiple formats, and if you don’t want the whole thing you can go with individual sections!

bottom line is, if you like to use jazz samples, you definitely should check this library out.

Go listen to the demo at Big Fish Jazz Sessions and tell em I sent ya

What do you think?  Leave me a comment below.

Bring in the horns baby!

We back with another sample collection from motionsamples

Today we are checking out their Hip Hop Horns collection.

I’ll admit, when I usually get a horn sample library, it’s pretty…uhh…wack.

So I didn’t know what to expect going in, especially it being hip hop focused.

Is it just a bunch of dirty south stuff? The demo didn’t make me think that…

They sent over this horn collection for review, let’s just find out what’s good!

Whatup with the horns?

Well I’ll just let motion tell ya what they are…

This original collection of synthetic horn loops is great for droppin’ those big hooks on top of your beats! It contains 120 loops of non stop bangin’ horns played in funky, motown, and orchestral styles. Why sample from the oldies when you can have that classic sound without having to get clearance. Beatmakers beware, you’re gonna eat this one up…

“Hip Hop” horns? How much variety is there?

Surprisingly there is quite a bit. You’d think there would be a lot of overlap in 120 hip hop horn loops but there isn’t.

You’ve got the bangers, the dirty south anthems, the smooth jazzy stuff, and some straight up NY funk.

I was definitely surprised at the diversity of the collection. You can really find some nice foundations for your next track.

How is the sound and production of the samples? What’s the quality?

As always, I’ve never been disappointed with motion’s quality.

The actual production is dope, the riffs are NOT corny, they are top notch productions. I found myself just listening to the riffs and wanting to just loop them!

Sometimes that’s a good thing lol. But there’s enough in the loops to chop them up as well. There are no over processed samples, no distortion ( unless on purpose) and no clipping.

The production is definitely high quality.

What about the price? Will it break the bank?

One of our members on the site suggested I should make mention of the prices on some of these things to better save you time when I”m reviewing.

I try to review stuff from all different pricepoints so I never made it a point to talk about price unless I specifically thought I needed to.

However, I’m all about helping each and every one of ya, so if it saves you from wasting time checking out things that aren’t in your budget, then I’m all for it!

Anyway.

For $25 bucks, I really don’t see how you can go wrong with this one.  The price puts these sounds in the reach of most people, and for what you get I actually think it’s a little low.

I’ve purchased sample collections from a lot of places, some almost double or triple this price, and they weren’t as good or well produced.

I definitely think this is a great value.

So what’s the bottom line, how many subs we talkin here?

This joint was well produced, well recorded, and diverse. It was a lot better than I anticipated, I assumed I would give it an above average score, about 3.5 or 4 subs.

But after I went through it and played with it, I had to give it 5 subs, it was really good, I mean really good.

I have to keep it real yall, I was seriously thinking it would be “good” or “pretty good” which would give it about 3.5 subs…not average, but not great.

These are great. And the price is right too.

So let me know what ya think. Leave me a comment below.

Also let me know if you like the new format of commenting on the price, if you think it should be included and if it helps you save time.

let me know below.