Chris Hein Winds Compact

Orchestral Woodwinds for your Computer in unheard Perfection!

Chris Hein Winds Compact is the light-version of the unique four-part library Winds Complete. It offers the same number of instruments: four transverse flutes, three clarinets, three oboes and three bassoons.

For the compact edition, we assembled the most important and common articulations and functions of the complete version. At the same time, this woodwind-library doubtlessly meets the highest standards of supreme sound quality, expression and applicability. The library's instruments use meticulously, carefully prepared multisamples with detailed phase-alignment for phase-correct blends and crossfades of dynamic layers. Up to eight dynamic layers guarantee realistically sounding results.

The exceptional and highly versatile sound quality of Chris Hein's Winds Compact makes it a perfect addition to any orchestral library, especially for productions with woodwinds playing a prominent role; be it in classical compositions, epic film-scores or orchestral pop-ballads.

Among the undeniable highlights of the library are true legato, variable attacks per note, innovative play-aids such as hot keys, note heads and MIDI remote controllability of all functions via TouchOSC.

Orchestral Woodwinds with highest possible Sound Quality

In case you do not need the the immense amount of articulations, as demanded by many elaborated scores, Chris Hein Winds Compact offers an efficient choice of woodwinds meeting the highest sonic expectations.

Chris Hein Winds Compact relies on Native Instruments' powerful sample-engine Kontakt Player with its costum-tailored user-interface and extensive scripting to live up to the specific requirements of these instruments. 

Orchestral Woodwind sounds tailored to Perfection

Both the high quality gear such as selected Neumann microphones and the musician's significant performaces drive the sound aesthetics. Unlike the award-winning Chris Hein – Horns, this library takes advantage of the renowned WDR Symphonic Orchestra.

For this library, dry close mic'ing was an intentional decision. All instruments were recorded individually avoiding any crosstalk. Despite that CH Winds Compact incorporated the inevitable interaction of an orchestra. Therefore, the participating musicians used headphone monitoring, to complement each other. 

Due to the sample-engine’s dual convolution reverbs and the intentionally dry sound of Chris Hein Winds Compact, you can easily adapt the instruments to various situations. The Kontakt Player permits free instrument-placement in the stereo panorama. In addition, separate convolution engines for both the corpus-sound (body) and the ambience (room) allow creating any spatial environment, ranging from close intimacy to large orchestral halls. This makes CH Winds Compact significantly different to many competitors and their fixed spatial characteristics. It makes this library greatly variable and, additionally, combinable with almost any other library available.

Unique Functions

Perfect dynamic transitions thanks to phase alignment

Over a research-period of six months, all samples were fully aligned in phase. Accordingly, the instruments offer perfect, seamless transitions of dynamic layers without sonic degradation.

Unique combination of short and long notes

The combination of long and short notes is a major problem in sample-libraries that often fails to deliver authentically sounding results. With real musical instruments, the note length often influences the attack behavior as well as the note end. CH Winds Compact addresses these aspects by its „Note Head Designer“. For every sustain, you can call up short, adjusted sample variations, so called shorts, via the controllers.

These shorts do not only offer the corresponding correct attack-behavior but also a note-end that perfectly matches the note length. These user-defined selections of short-note-variations are available in up to eight dynamic layers each and can be combined with the corresponding sustained phases, leading to astonishing, realistic results that cannot be achieved using random round-robin based selections. Of course, these shorts are also available as individual articulations.

True Legato

The instruments of Chris Hein Winds Compact offer true legato. The corresponding in-depth recordings and edits result in unexpectedly realistic sounds with perfect note-transitions. At the same time you can expand these realistic articulations by additional artificial inserted legatos.

Free Kontakt Player included (version 5.5.0 or higher required)

This product works with the free Native Instruments Kontakt Player, the latest version can be downloaded through Native Access, Native Instrument’s download manager!

The minimum required Kontakt version for this product is stated in the product description or can be found on the manufacturers wesite.

System Requirements:

Mac:

• macOS 10.14 or higher 
• 64 bit
• Intel Core i5 or Apple M1 (native)
• RAM: 4GB (6GB recommended)

Windows:

• Windows 10 or higher
• 64 bit
• Intel Core i5 or similar CPU
• RAM: 4GB (6GB recommended)

Supported Interfaces:

• Mac (64-bit only): Stand-alone, VST, VST3, AU, AAX
• Windows (64-bit): Stand-alone, VST, VST3, AAX

Legacy Versions:

If you require legacy installers of Kontakt Player please refer to this Knowledge Base Article.