In Battalion, the first release in Hidden Path Audio’s new Orchestral Devices series, a wide variety of traditional and hybrid brass instruments are brought to life. Battalion is a terrific addition to the field of Kontakt-based brass libraries with excellent sample content, a strong sound creation engine, and 250 presets to get you started. With Battalion, Hidden Path Audio has entered the world of orchestral sampling for the first time. The fantastic classic brass patches you might anticipate from an orchestral brass library are not all that Battalion offers, though. Battalion is an excellent-sounding and simple-to-use brass library for both conventional and hybrid scoring that enables the blending of four sound sources and individual control over them with separate sequencers, fx, and settings.
Hidden Path Audio Battalion puts the power of epic brass at your fingertips by utilizing features like a contemporary XY pad, quad multi-lane sequencers, powerful FX and sound shaping capabilities, and a multitude of integrated sound sources. The XY pad interface makes it simple to blend up to four sources in real time, and with simple MIDI implementation for your controllers or pad control devices, you can quickly create distinctive tonal structures. With our built-in sequencers, you can quickly access melodic patterns or go totally random by setting the sequencer to “random playback” for some truly distinctive FX that aren’t available in most sample libraries.
There are 135 distinct sound sources in BATTALION, and you can easily layer and combine them into any of the four XY quadrants of the interface. Traditional brass articulations, a vast array of orchestral brass FX, several banks of hybrid sound design (taken from the acoustic content and then twisted and manipulated), as well as several banks of analog synth content—all of which complement brass in truly epic ways—are just a few of the sound sources used in this composition. Every orchestral content is available in three mixes (Close, Stage, and Whole Mix), allowing you to customize the exact amount of ambiance and space for your track. There are also 250 presets available in various categories to help you start composing a movie.
The first thing you’ll notice about Battalion is its amazing sample content. Its sample content is of a very high caliber and can easily fit into both your orchestral and trailer-style tunes. Although the traditional content provided by Battalion sounds fantastic, the processing of this content using Hidden Path Audio’s new Orchestral Devices Kontakt engine is where the real value lies. Four sound sources make up the engine, which can be mixed and matched as desired. Each sound source has a browser for choosing the sound to be played, mute and solo controls, a transpose knob for building complicated harmonies, and individual settings including filter choices, eq, delay, reverb controls, and envelopes. The outstanding autonomous sequencer that each sound source contains, in contrast, is in my opinion its best feature.
There are separate pitch, velocity, and filter lanes with independent step controls in each of the four sound source sequencers (1-32 steps each). Each sequencer has a rate control and the option to play the sequence either forward or randomly. It is possible to generate intricate rhythmic and melodic presets that are played by a single key thanks to the ability to create distinct sequences for each sound source. The modwheel control, which enables you to manage the overall dynamics of your combined phrase while still respecting the unique velocity controls inside each sound source, helps these sequences come to life.
Battalion contains excellent brass samples, a nice sound design engine, and a few useful presets to get you started.
