Review: Glory Days – Big Band Horns by Orchestral Tools

Orchestral Tools offers a comprehensive suite for virtual Big Band productions with Glory Days.

Traditionally, big band music has been very difficult to replicate with samples. This is in part due to the numerous articulations required for the style, and because essential instruments like saxophones are not even included in most brass or woodwind sample libraries.

With the Glory Days – Big Band Horns library, Orchestral Tools has attempted to give composers, producers, and music makers access to a new kind of tool that will allow us to approximate the big band style.

Glory Days contains 150GB of samples (75GB NCW compressed), is hosted in Native Instruments’ Kontakt, and runs on version 5.8.1. It’s also important to note that Orchestral Tools has released their own plugin called Sine Player, for which Glory Days will eventually be made available.

Among other benefits of the Sine Player, you will be able to purchase individual instruments (for example, if you don’t need an entire collection, you could opt to just purchase the Tenor Sax patches). Or if you don’t need access to all the microphone options, Sine lets you just download the close mics for all instruments and heavily reduce the file size needed to utilize the library.

This review will focus on the current Kontakt version of the library—let’s see what Glory Days has to offer.

Features

Glory Days has an incredibly wide range of brass and saxophone instruments on offer, with access to each individual player for full control of shaping your big band sound. You have a selection of 4 individual trumpets, each with the options of Bucket Mutes, Cup Mutes, Harmon Mutes, and Plunger Mutes. Trumpet 4 also contains an additional Solotone Mute patch with a Legato patch, Sustain WV (with vibrato), and Sustain RV (romantic vibrato).

The normal non-mute patches cover everything from the above-mentioned, as well as Staccato, Staccato Tongue, Staccatissimo, Crescendo Short and Long, Sforzando Short and Long, Falls Short and Long, Bends, Doits, Scoops, and Shakes. Some of the other mute patches don’t include all of these articulations, but the Plunger Mute ones also include a fun Do-Whap articulation.

Similarly, there are 3 different trombones in the library with 5 different mute variations of each. Additionally, Trombone 3 includes a Pixie Mute patch too! From there on, there’s one bass trombone with options for a Bucket, Cup, or Plunger Mute. There are also 2 alto saxes, 2 tenor saxes, and a baritone sax included in the collection.

The articulations offered among these are pretty much identical to those found in the above trumpet articulations, with the added bonus of Shake patches for the alto and tenor saxes. There are also Adaptive Legato patches included with each instrument and mute option.

In terms of the mic positions, you have options to choose and blend between Tree, Surround, AB (high stereo stage), Close 1 (condenser), Close 2 (ribbon), and Spot microphones (individual mics per instrument). This library was recorded at the Berlin Teldex Scoring Stage which has a lush, crisp, natural reverb to it, and a brightness and warmth that is hard to find in other sample libraries.

Orchestral Tools uses their Capsule Engine for Kontakt to host all the sounds of Glory Days. You can choose between Multi Articulation patches and Single Articulation patches. Multis host every articulation available for one instrument within one patch; these can be combined with Cubase Expression Maps or the Logic Articulations feature to quickly program complex brass lines that seamlessly switch between these multiple articulations.

In Use

As a fan of big band music and scores, I’ve found Glory Days to be a treat to work with. The legatos are very fluid and among some of the most natural sounding I’ve ever used. There’s a sharpness and punch that this library delivers that I simply didn’t have access to previously with any of the libraries in my almost-full 4TB sample drive.

In particular, the Trumpet Marcato and Staccato patches are so crisp that if abused, it can feel like you’re bombarding the listener with physical punches—and I love sonic bombardment! I found the library really shone when I programmed in lines that switch between the multiple articulations, for example, using Staccatissimo or Staccato patches for short notes and Sustain patches for longer melodic lines.

In addition, the effects such as Scoops, Doits, etc. really stood out and added an element of realism—and it’s so easy to switch between these different sounds using Cubase Expression Maps.

I also loved having access to each of the individual instruments, and found that I seldom needed all 4 trumpets playing in unison. Instead, I like to play with combinations of 2 or 3 of the different available players which can create a huge moving section sound. The trombones are similar in terms of layering, and as all the instruments were recorded in the correct positions at Teldex, the library sounds very cohesive; all the instruments blend incredibly well with one another.

The Solotone Mute trumpet and trombone were great for solo lines that evoke a vintage old timey charm. The Plunger Mutes were fun for a more comical effect, and I loved that with some articulations, pressing a note would trigger a sample with the Plunger Mute in and releasing the note would open the mute, creating a “wah” effect. The alto and tenor saxes have a richness and body while also sounding very realistic, even when just playing around with melodies using the RV Sustain. The bari sax has a throatiness and pleasing growl/bite for digging into short accentuated riffs and chugs.

To Be Critical

Glory Days and Orchestral Tools should be applauded for their audio demos and YouTube tutorials, as they really show off what this library is about. I’d say while it is versatile, the brass sounds aren’t ideal for softer scoring needs—but that’s not what this library was built for or marketed towards. And though it is somewhat pricey at €599, there are few libraries I can think of that compete with the sound and flexibility that Glory Days offers.

I do wish that this library contained a flugelhorn, french horn, and piccolo trumpet patch, though. Additionally, it seems you can only load up to 12 different articulations in the Multi patches per instrument, and it would be a welcome addition if you could load every single articulation for an instrument into one Multi.

Summing it Up

Glory Days is the first Orchestral Tools library to break into the jazz and swing styles, and is a welcome addition to their already sizable collection of orchestral libraries. The sharp, crisp sound and wide array of instruments this library covers allow for convincing mockups that could replace real players, or allow you to make better mockup parts which real players can replace and improve upon. Well done, Orchestral Tools!

Matthew Wang is a guitarist, songwriter, and jingle-writer from New York City. He is actively gigging, recording, posting guitar-related videos on his YouTube channel, and recently graduated from his studies in music production at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU.

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