Big Fish Audio and Funk/Soul Productions are proud to present The Vintage Collection!

This collection includes full versions of Vintage Strings, Vintage Horns, and Vintage Rhythm Section. There is no better set of virtual instruments on the market to help nail that sweet vintage tone and vibe we all know and love. Now you can have all three best-selling instruments at an all-time low price!


VINTAGE HORNS

Vintage Horns is a horn section virtual instrument that gives you every instrument you need to emulate the classic horn section sounds of R&B, Soul, and Funk bands from the '60s and '70s. It is available for Kontakt Player 5 and as a ReFill for Reason 6.

As with its sister product, Vintage VI, the goal for Vintage Horns was not to create a shiny, perfect-sounding virtual instrument. Instead, we tried to capture the way horn sections sounded back in the 60s and 70s, including the minor imperfections that added character to those sections and made them sound so good.



With Vintage Horns you can recreate the most popular horn section sounds of the '60s and '70s, including:

• The Memphis Soul horn section, which typically used a single trumpet  with one  tenor sax and
   occasionally a bari sax

• The famous horn section sound of the JBs, which featured trombone, trumpet, alto sax, tenor sax,
   and bari sax

• The classic big production sound of Detroit Soul

• The Philly Soul sound, with flutes and flugel horn

• And the powerful Oakland Soul sound, with bari sax, 2 tenor saxes, trombone, and two trumpet
   switching to flugel horns on ballads.



VINTAGE STRINGS

Vintage Strings is a virtual instrument for Kontakt 5 designed to emulate the classic violin string section sounds of R&B, Soul, and Funk records from the 1960's and 1970's. Whether you're an experienced arranger or casual producer, Vintage Strings was designed to make it quick and easy for you to create great sounding string tracks for your productions. Like its sister product, Vintage Horns, Vintage Strings was not designed to be a shiny, perfect sounding virtual instrument. Instead, we tried to capture the way string sections sounded back in the '60s and '70s; including the decidedly not classical playing style and minor imperfections that added character to those sections and made them sound so good.

For Vintage Strings we recorded a 6 piece violin section using vintage Neuman U-87 mics and Royer ribbon mics run through a great sounding SSL board. To capture a true vintage string sound, we used close mics, room mics, and string section positioning based on actual session notes from old Motown and Philly Soul recording sessions. Rather than record the violins in a magnificent concert hall or some other large and resonant recording space, we recorded our players in a funky old studio with a smaller, less-reverberant room that had characteristics similar to the rooms used to record classic Soul and R&B records. Using the tracks we recorded in this space, we then created three types of sections:

2 VIOLINS:

The 2VLN patches are very useful for creating the sound of smaller string sections. Even if played in 3-part harmony, these patches sound like a 6 piece section, rather than a full orchestral string section. The 2VLN patches take up a lot less sonic space in the mix, and also have the advantage of sounding like the smaller types of string sections used on a lot of old Soul and R&B records, which didn't have the time or budget to record a larger section.

6 VIOLINS:

The 6VLN patches are great for recording unison (1 part) lines that emulate the sound of a true 6 violin section, which was very commonly used in many old Soul recordings. When used for 2-part harmonies or octaves these patches can be used to replicate the sound of an overdubbed 6 violin section (i.e., a faux 12 violin section), which was a very common recording technique used on many Motown recording sessions.

12 VIOLINS:

The 12VLN patches are very useful for creating unison (1 part) string lines that sound like an overdubbed 6 violin section. If you want to get a bigger sound with the size of a larger orchestral string section, without the color and character present in a large recroding hall or symphonic space, use the patches for string parts in 2 or 3 part harmonies.

The result is a virtual instrument that has a sound and character that is distinctly different from orchestral based sampled string libraries. The sound of Vintage Strings is intentionally not big, rich, and glossy. It's a smaller, more intimate, and more "human" sound, which more accurately emulates the string sound on those classic old records.



FAST AND EASY STRING SECTION PARTS USING PRE-SET PATCHES

If you don't have a lot experience writing for strings, or even if you're an experienced string-arranger on a tight deadline, Vintage Strings also offers a number of pre-programmed instrument patches that can help you quickly create great sounding string parts. These include the Tonal Harmonization Patches, which contain 2 part, 3 part, and 4 part patches for 2, 6, and 12 violins. Playing with just one finger on your keyboard you can easily write string lines in 2 parts (intervals), 3 parts (triads), or 4 parts (seventh chords). Secondly, the Tonal Harmonization patches include Fixed Chord & Interval Patches containing 2 part, 3 part, and 4 part Chord Patches, for 2, 6, and 12 violins. These patches are programmed to play a specific interval or chord according to the type of patch in 12 different keys. 

THE VINTAGE STRINGS GUI

The Vintage Strings graphical user interface (GUI) is very simple and easy to use. The main page of the interface includes control over tape saturation, high EQ, and reverb with 15 custom selected convolution reverbs.



THE HARMONIZE PAGE

On the Harmonize page you can choose the key and scale of the interval or chord-based preset patches, or create custom interval and chord-based patches of your own. 






VINTAGE RHYTHM SECTION

Vintage Rhythm Section is a virtual instrument for Kontakt 5 designed to emulate the classic rhythm section sounds of R&B, Soul, Funk, Jazz, and Rock records from the 1960's and 1970's.

Vintage Rhythm Section (VRS) is easy to use, with a simple interface that lets you work quickly and intuitively. If you're producing retro or indie-style music on a budget, or if you're a TV or film composer working on a tight deadline, VRS can be used to create live-sounding drums, bass, guitar, keyboard, and percussion tracks.

CAPTURING THAT VINTAGE RHYTHM SECTION SOUND

For VRS, we sampled a large collection of vintage instruments - some amazingly still in mint condition, and others looking every bit as "vintage" as you'd expect a piece of 40-50 year-old gear to look. 

Wherever possible, we used the same types of amps and mics that were used in the 60's and 70's. Some of this old gear was pretty funky-sounding, which probably would have disqualified it from being used on most other types of sample libraries. But for VRS, it was just what we were looking for.



VINTAGE RHYTHM SECTION GUIs

VRS features two easy-to-use GUIs: 

1) A 12-channel mixer for drums

2) The main GUI, which is used for all of the keyboards, basses, and guitars. 

Here's a quick overview of both.

THE DRUM MIXER

• Reverb Select: This is a drop-down menu that allows you to select various types of convolution IRs.

• Channel Strips: Each offers controls for Treble, Bass, Reverb Amount, Pan, and Solo/Mute. Note that not all kits have the same number of toms and cymbals. Instead, each kit was custom-built to fit the musical genre and era it came from.

• Master Channel: Allows you to add tape saturation (SAT) and/or compression (COMP) to the entire kit.

THE MAIN GUI

From top to bottom and left to right, this GUI has the following controls:

- TAPE SAT adds tape-style saturation/compression

• TREBLE adds or cuts high end

• BASS adds or cuts low end 

• DISTORTION SWITCH - use this to turn the effect on or off

• DISTORTION adds amp-style distortion

• DELAY controls the amount of tape-style delay

• DELAY SELECT allows you to choose from several types of delay

• ROTATOR SWITCH turs Leslie-style effect on or off

• ROTATOR allows you to select the speed of the Leslie-effect

• REVERB controls the amount of reverb added

• REVERB SELECT allows you to choose from a selection of high-quality Convolution Reverbs designed to replicate a number of vintage amp-reverbs and recording spaces

• MOD-WAH SWITCH turns on your controller's Mod Wheel as a wah-wah pedal

Key-Switches
Key-switching is a function that allows the user to quickly change from one articulation to another. If an instrument has any key-switch options, it will have red keys located on the far left of the Kontakt virtual keyboard. Many of the basses and guitars offer key-switched long and short (sustain and staccato) articulations, and some of the keyboards offer different key-switched presets.