This collection of individual brass instruments was created with one goal: to provide maximum control and expressiveness to you—the user, the player. 

Starting from the instruments themselves: 4 trumpets, a piccolo trumpet, 2 bass trumpets, 6 French horns, 3 tenor trombones, 3 bass trombones, 3 contrabass trombones, a tuba, a contrabass tuba, and 2 euphoniums were all chromatically sampled and are all available as individual patches, allowing you to choose the size of your brass section and maintain that sound through your compositions by writing for and performing each instrument individually. 

All instruments have immaculate dynamic consistency across their entire range, which is a rare occurrence in the virtual instrument domain. This was an absolute must for Infinite Series instruments, as it enables you to just play and focus on the music, instead of fighting the samples and spending too much time trying to find workarounds for inconsistent or even incomplete sampling. 

• All 6 horns have a range from A1 to G5

• All 4 trumpets have a range from E3 to G6

• The piccolo trumpet has a range from C4 to A6

• Both bass trumpets have a range from E2 to E5

• All 3 tenor trombones have a range from B♭1 to F5

• All 3 bass trombones have a range from C1 to B♭4

Since Infinite Brass requires full Kontakt (5.7.0 or later), it’s loaded by either navigating to the “Instruments” folder from within Kontakt or by dragging-and-dropping patches from your file explorer into Kontakt. It’s even easier if you assign them to the Quick-Load menu, which is accessed by right-clicking the empty rack space, or by enabling it in the View menu. 

I recommend doing a batch re-save for maximum loading speeds. And that’s it! Set up your routing and you’re good to go!

There is a ~30ms delay from the start of a note until it reaches its rhythmic value. Setting the track delay for Infinite Brass outputs on your mixer to -30ms will rhythmically align the output with the click for grid-aligned notes. 

Controllers 95–120 cannot be used, since they are used for back-end operations and functions.

Most controls within Infinite Brass can be remapped to any controller you desire. Simply right-click on the control, click on “Learn…” and move the controller you wish to assign the control to. Or, you can find your desired CC# in Kontakt’s MIDI Automation tab and manually drag them onto the controls in the Infinite Brass interface.

The cornerstone of Infinite Brass is its mixer, along with Space and Position menus. Together they offer unparalleled control over space, instrument position within that space, and depth through mixing different sets of microphones. The available spaces are the warm and full Grosser Saal of Mozarteum in Salzburg; the bombastic Bersa Hall, a newly-built space located in the building of Academy of Music in Zagreb; and my dry recording studio.

Along with phase-aligned crossfading, Smart Legato function, playable vibrato, flutter, growl, and embellishments, these are some of the most expressive virtual instruments ever released. They are easy to use, sound great, and are so much fun to play!

Instead of turning to conventional sampling methods where each instrument or a section is recorded in a hall/stage/studio with a full mic loadout, Infinite Series takes a new approach to virtual orchestral instruments. Conventional samples use articulation switching and “Frankenstein” musical lines from multiple articulations, which are usually recorded at a single tempo, in a single style, with limited variations. “Legato patches” then crossfade between recorded sustaining notes and recorded transitions, and in worst-case scenarios transition back to recorded sustaining notes, eliminating the room response to the legato transition. Upon releasing a note, a “release sample” is bolted on, and it’s the same dynamic layer sample no matter what the actual loudness or the actual pitch in cents of the sustaining note was. Adjusting its length is impossible because doing so would reduce the reverb time of the room. 

Infinite Series bypasses these issues by splitting the sound of the instruments and the space they're playing in, then reintroducing the space after user input. Instruments were recorded bone-dry/in-the-bell, and the library features an extensive collection of over 2700 bespoke impulse responses from 3 different spaces. The dynamic layers are 100% in phase, with no apparent crossfades. Because of this, the instruments are fully playable. 

Aside from some outlandish aleatoric stuff, they can play anything. Think of Dynamics/CC1 as the amount of breath, not the written dynamic. You are the player in this case. Play any line exactly as you want, playing any “articulation” at any time by just using note velocity, duration, CC1/Dynamics along with pitch bend, vibrato, and flutter/growl sliders, and have your performance faithfully reproduced in one of 3 available spaces, in any position you choose. 

Attacks, pitch behavior, and legato are modeled to allow for infinite variations. This only works because of Infinite’s split approach to the orchestral sound. Any pitch changes that occur during playback either from the modeled random behavior of orchestral instruments or by player-induced legato, glides, slides, bends, rips, and falls, naturally trigger all the modes in a chosen space, in the exact chosen position, whereas conventionally recorded samples would have the entire sound, including the room response, bent along with the sound of the instrument by the pitch changes. 

Infinite Brass instruments can play shorts with nearly infinite variations. Behaviors like pitch fluctuation, embouchure resonance, and timbre fluctuations are generated randomly on every new note. Combine that with the fact that the odds of you inputting the same note duration twice in a row is extremely low, and you have yourself a true organic performance. 

Overlapping notes will slur the transition, but you might not always need it. Since there are no recorded “release tails”, but on note-off the instrument just stops playing, the “releases” are rendered in real-time through convolution. This means that you can switch between playing slurred and tongued phrases just by choosing whether to overlap the notes or play the next one right after releasing the previous one. While this sounds wonky and MIDI-ish with conventional “sustain” patches, Infinite Brass avoids this problem completely.

Let’s explore the features and how the whole thing actually works.

Infinite Brass instruments have 4 dynamic layers. All dynamic layers are phase-aligned, meaning the crossfading is super-smooth—even though there are only 4 layers, it sounds like there is only ever 1 voice playing. By default, Dynamics are controlled by CC1. This is the main and most important control in Infinite Brass. Due to quick response and a smooth fade, it offers unparalleled expressiveness and phrase-shaping options. Get familiar with it and use it all the time. 

All instruments feature a fully seamless ppp to fff dynamic range, from their lowest note to their highest. An industry first for virtual orchestral instruments. 

If Attack Range is set to an amount higher than 0, note velocity will determine the dynamics of the start of a non-legato note. If the note velocity value is lower than the current Dynamics value, the script will create a smooth attack, based on Attack Range and Attack Time values. If the note velocity is higher instead, a note with a hard attack will be played, with attack dynamics proportional to note velocity and limited by Attack Range. You can let go of the key at any point and the note will stop playing.

Attack Range (CC28) has values from 0 to 127. The value indicates the maximum range of the velocity-induced Attack and independence of Attack Dynamics from the main Dynamics value.

Having it at 0 will disable the Soft and Hard attacks, and you will have full control of Dynamics for non-legato notes, therefore having to play in the attacks yourself. This might be a desired behavior when using a breath controller. 

You can control the duration of the velocity-induced attack with Attack Time (CC29). The range is 100 -1000ms. At its highest value, the Attack Time knob will enter “velocity mode”, where note velocity will exponentially determine the attack time.

All of the Infinite Brass instruments load in legato mode by default. There are no “articulations” Articulations are performed and shaped by you, the player, using a combination of note velocity, note duration, and Dynamics to control Attack Dynamics and Legato Duration.

As is standard, playing a note within the instrument range while another note is already playing will create a “slurred” transition between the two notes. Legato in Infinite Brass is fully modeled; no transitions were recorded. This allows for maximum flexibility, consistency, smoothness, and ultimately–expression.

Hitting C8 on the keyboard (the right-most on an 88-key keyboard) while a note is playing will trigger a soft re-tongue. Harder re-tongues and repetitions are performed by playing short notes in quick succession instead.

Legato duration is determined by note velocity—higher velocity equals faster transition. The response follows an exponential curve and the response times can range from 1700 ms to 70-50 ms, to very short ranges like 350 ms to 50 ms (each instrument has a slightly different legato curve and different legato timing limits), meaning there are 127 different timings for each instrument. Very low-velocity values will induce a glide for trombones.

With this in mind, while it makes sense that you would have to play harder to pull off a good-sounding run, the Smart Legato script will accommodate if you’re not; if you’re playing a slow, quiet passage and you don’t press hard on your next quick succession of notes since don’t wish to play any louder (a pianist’s habit), the script will recognize what you’re trying to do and speed up the transitions. Still, it might not always be exactly what you had in mind, so editing the velocity value for these notes might be required.

You can set the minimum legato velocity in the Settings section.

Releasing the legato note while the previous note is still being held will create a legato transition back to the previous note. To determine Legato Duration, the velocity of the previous note will be applied. This feature is useful for performing embellishments including trills, mordents, and appoggiaturas, all without having to worry about releasing and hitting the same note again in a quick manner, or splitting the MIDI note in editing and trying to get the timing right. It’s simple, intuitive, and keeps the flow of the performance intact.

Legato can be bypassed at any time with the “Legato Bypass” switch, which you’ll find in the Settings part of the interface.. The switch is mapped to CC64 (Sustain Pedal) by default. Enabling the switch will completely bypass the Smart Legato and the Attack scripts, allowing you to play chords. Attack Dynamics will now always be determined by the current Dynamics value.

This feature is primarily meant for sketching and previewing chords. I would advise against using it in the final production, as any additional note you play with Legato Bypass will have the exact same vibrato pattern and pitch fluctuation, which is never, ever going to happen with a real instrument.

In the Settings section, you’ll also find Legato Minimum. This feature allows you to set the smallest possible legato velocity for each instrument. All legato notes played at a velocity below the set value will be played at that value instead. If you naturally start to press keys softly when playing at lower dynamics, this will let you set the minimum legato duration to avoid accidentally triggering glides/long legato transitions. 

Playing an overlapping note with trombones at a velocity between 1 and 20 will trigger a glide. Each of the velocity values represents a different glide length. The Glide knob (CC31) determines how much does the overall breath amount dip while the instrument is performing a glide.

In this section, you’ll find real-time controls for Vibrato, Flutter, and Growl, as well as Volume and Dynamic Range.

Flutter (CC16) and Growl (CC17) are fully seamless. They work together with each other, with vibrato, legato, shorts, trills, mutes etc.

Vibrato is controlled with Vibrato Rate (CC20) and Vibrato Depth (CC21) sliders. Besides Dynamics/CC1, these are the two controls you’ll find yourself using most often. They can bring life to a line or highlight a solo passage, and you have full control over its presence in your performance. 

You can enable the Progressive Vibrato Rate with the “ramp” icon next to the Vibrato Rate slider. When enabled, the script will create a non-linear progressive ramp-up of vibrato rate on every new note. This reduces the need for micromanaging the Vibrato Rate control. 

You can enable Playable Vibrato with the ‘play’ icon on the right side of the Vibrato Intensity slider. If enabled, the script will analyze modwheel movement and will attempt to predict whether you’re trying to play vibrato (sine wave-like movements) and will apply the appropriate amount of pitch modulation. On very fast modwheel movements, this will ‘trick’ the script and it will add a small amount of pitch bend to fast crescendos and decrescendos, making them sound more human. A happy little accident. 

The Volume (CC11) will control the instrument volume pre-convolution. If you want to take care of the volume yourself or want the timbre of fortissimo playing at a quieter level, you can do it with this slider. By default, it’s set to its maximum value and mapped to CC 11. If you wish to control the actual output of the instrument, use Kontakt’s volume slider in the upper right corner of the patch (you can right it and map it to a controller as well).

Dynamic Range (CC27) controls the overall volume range of the instrument. Reducing it will raise the volume of lower dynamics. When set to 0, the instrument will play at the same volume across all dynamics. It’s a great feature to use when you need to bring up those soft passages without having to use a compressor.

On this side of the interface you’ll also find the already mentioned Attack Range and Attack Time controls, as well as Pitch Accuracy.

Along with Humanize, Pitch Accuracy (CC33) is used for a more believable ensemble setup. It determines how accurate the note attacks are and how good of a job the virtual player can do maintaining the correct pitch while sustaining a note. Lower values mean the instrument will miss harder and more often. In other words, this knob determines how sober your virtual player is.

Jokes aside, it’s a fantastic setting for adding a bit of detuning to your ensemble. If/when an instrument misses the pitch while the Pitch Accuracy knob is below its maximum value, it will correct itself in a period of 0.5–1.0s (randomized on every note). If your leader is on point, i.e. if your e.g. Horn 1 has Pitch Accuracy set to max, this will simulate all the other instruments tuning to your leader as they play together.

All of the Infinite Brass instruments feature mutes. The mute control (CC26) is a standard slider (click and drag left or right), and like most other controls, it can be assigned to any CC controller. This slider is divided into as many areas as there are mute options, indicated by glowing arrows on either side of the icon. If a mute is added or changed while a note is playing, the (new) mute will be applied from the next non-legato note.

Here is the list of all the mutes available in Infinite Brass:

Here you’ll find the Legato Minimum feature, the Legato Bypass, Mixed Mic and Humanize switches, as well as the “Zone Options” menu. Additionally, in the bottom left corner of the interface are Pitch Bend Range (pretty self-explanatory) and Mono Compatibility controls.

The Humanize switch (CC65) enables note timing and velocity humanization. These will then be randomized on every new note. The maximum note timing offset ranges from 10 to 70ms, and the maximum note velocity offset ranges from 2 to 12. Use the Humanize feature on non-leader instruments e.g. Horns 2-6 for easier ensemble playing. You can now freely punch in all the instruments together and/or copy-paste MIDI and have humanized attack timings, attack dynamics, and legato duration. This feature significantly speeds up the workflow. If you then wish to play a solo on one of these instruments, you can disable it with a controller (and/or freely assign your own).

Additional zone options include Neighbor RR, which will include the neighboring shorts and sustains into the rotation. Infinite Brass was sampled chromatically, so transposition artifacts will be minimal.

There are also 4 “Transpose” options, allowing you to transpose the entire instrument and thus play different samples. This is a common trick with virtual instruments and sample libraries, allowing you to play 2 instances of the same instrument with no additional space or RAM impact while playing different samples, and is effectively used for doubling sections and creating sections from solo instrument patches, with a minor nuisance of missing 1 or 2 notes at one end of the sampled instrument range.

Since Infinite Brass was sampled chromatically, you can create 4 additional instruments from each of the included instrument patches. Transposing to a nearby semitone will yield the best results, and so I would suggest going for the whole tone transposition only once you’ve exhausted all other options. By that point you’ll already have plenty of instruments, so the minor timbral changes induced by the whole tone transposition won’t be audible unless that instrument is solo playing an exposed line. This effectively gives you control over 20 individual trumpets, 5 piccolo trumpets 10 bass trumpets, 30 horns, 45 trombones, 10 euphoniums, and 10 tubas, each to be positioned and mixed however you wish!

Use them wisely.

The samples in Infinite Brass are stereo by default. This was done to somewhat counter the static nature of impulse responses. Mono Compatibility will switch the instrument to single-channel mode, increasing correlation when using close mics, in exchange for a slightly more static stereo image.

The mixer is the sonic cornerstone of Infinite Brass. Three volume sliders (CC22-24) let you dial in three microphone sets. To be precise, you’re not controlling the volumes of samples recorded with different microphones at different positions, you’re controlling the volumes of convolution units sporting impulse response recorded with different microphones at different positions.

This allows for a flawless representation of brass instruments in a real space. All the reverb is correctly applied to your performance, and all is done in real-time. There are no weird tails, glitches, and missing ambiance bugs that happen with samples recorded in ambient spaces. Because there are 3 convolution units active, these instruments will have a higher CPU hit than your average virtual instrument.

The CPU hit can be reduced by 40% by enabling Mixed Mic (CC63). This option will only use one convolution unit and allow you to choose between 5 pre-mixed depth levels of a selected position within a selected space.  

If you decide to not use the Mixed Mic and only use one or two mic positions, you’re best off muting the unused mic positions. That will bypass the convolution effect in the back-end instead of leaving it on ‘stand-by’, saving CPU cycles. 

You can further reduce the CPU hit by choosing a smaller space (e.g. Studio), as the impulse responses for Studio are shorter, since its RT60 is only ~0.5s.

The Ambient set of microphones can be routed to a different output by clicking on the routing icon. This is the only set of microphones that can be routed because these instruments work with convolution, rather than groups and actual samples of different microphone sets, and as such is limited by Kontakt. If you add outputs after the instrument was loaded, make sure to re-initialize Kontakt (exclamation mark icon in the upper right corner) so the script can fetch new outputs to be displayed in the menu.

The Space menu lets you choose between 3 different spaces. Each space is different, has slightly different seating positions and they all have a full set of impulse responses.

Here are the average RT60 measurements for each space:

• Studio – 0.5s

• Bersa Hall – 0.9s

• Mozarteum, Great Hall – 1.5s

The icon next to the Space menu is also a slider, allowing you to learn the “room switching” to a CC controller (def. CC30), letting you audition different spaces effortlessly (especially if you have dozens of Infinite Brass instruments loaded). Simply select all of your MIDI tracks that route to Infinite Brass instruments and move the controller! You can also use Expression maps or hardware controllers. Note that this will reload the impulse responses in all the convolution units, so there will be a loading time and Kontakt might freeze for a second or two if you do it to a dozen or more instruments simultaneously.

That being said, be careful with automating this control in the middle of a project and rendering the automation. Rendering around the automation points should be fine, since DAWs usually send current CC values when you change the vertical guide position; the IR reload that happens inside Kontakt’s convolution units can sound somewhat unpredictable during offline render, resulting in random pops and clicks when the IRs are reloaded.

The Position menu lets you position the instrument in the selected space. Each instrument offers various positions across the room, with “Off-stage” and “Soloist” positions being the same across the entire Brass section. Each position has its own 3 microphone sliders and 5 pre-mixed depths. 

The Positioner GUI is not representative of the actual seating positions, as they vary slightly from space to space. Instead, think of it as an art piece that helps you visualize the process of positioning your instrument in the stereo field. 

Note: positions are shared within instrument types. if you can, avoid placing instruments of the same type in the same positions (e.g. a Tenor Trombone and a Bass Trombone in the position Trombone R 1), because impulse responses are almost like snapshots, and this would mean that these two sounds are originating from the same position relative to the mics. This will result in phasing. If you’ve exhausted all available positions and still need more power, rather than calling Scotty, try switching spaces or using delays and Haas effects on the overlapping instruments.