Northern Woodwinds: Solo Oboe

User Documentation
To get up and running, read the Quick Start Guide first.
Overview
This oboe is the first in our modular range of orchestral virtual instruments. It was
recorded in a dry space, to allow it to be spatialised using any reverb or room emulation
plugin.
We sampled the full range of the instrument, including each note-to-note transition (up to
an octave up and down) to allow you to create realistic and expressive legato lines.
Dynamics and vibrato are modeled, allowing full, automatable control of the entire
performance, while avoiding any unwanted artifacts caused by crossfading between
different samples.
Performance
The performance view contains the most commonly used parameters. For most users, this
page should contain everything you need to start using the instrument.

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1. Dynamics

This knob controls how loud or softly the instrument plays.

Automate this to create expressive swells. By default, this is
controlled by the modulation wheel (CC1).

2. Vibrato rate

This slider controls the vibrato speed.

3. Vibrato depth

This slider controls the vibrato intensity.

4. Legato speed

This slider controls how much of the transition sample is played. At

a low setting, a long transition will be played, which sounds more
natural for a slow, expressive performance. At a high setting, the
transition will be shorter, and more suitable for faster playing. The
speed can be controlled with a CC, or it can be set to adapt
automatically to your playing speed, configurable on the Mappings
page.

5. Legato intensity

This slider controls the volume of the transition samples.

6. Tabs

Use these tabs to switch between interface pages.

7. Mode

These buttons switch between polyphonic and true legato modes.

The legato mode will play transition samples when you play
overlapping notes.

8. Microphone
selector

These buttons switch between condenser and ribbon microphone

samples. The condenser microphone has a brighter sound and
shines through a mix, while the ribbon microphone has a darker,
subtler tone.
Selecting a microphone will purge the samples of the unused mic,
which will help to save RAM.

9. Reverb

This slider controls the amount of reverb. The reverb is a short,

dense impulse response. If you wish to use your own reverb plugin,
simply turn this slider all the way down and the effect will be
bypassed.

Configure

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1. Envelope

These sliders control the attack and release of each detached note.

2. Player

If you have multiple oboe parts on separate tracks, use these

separate players to prevent conflict between parts. Players 2 & 3
use neighboring samples, meaning if the same note is played on
more than one player, a different sample will always be triggered.

3. Vibrato range

These sliders scale the range of the vibrato controls on the

performance page. This allows you to use the full throw and
precision of a fader, even if only a small amount of vibrato is
needed.

4. Vibrato onset

These sliders control the onset characteristics of the vibrato for

each note. Delay controls the amount of time before the vibrato
begins, and Attack controls how gradually the vibrato is introduced.

5. Legato mode

Record mode disables legato transitions, meaning you can play

without any latency. This is useful when recording notes into a
sequencer, before moving all the notes slightly to the left, or using
MIDI delay compensation in your DAW. Be sure to switch back to
normal mode after recording.

6. Auto delay

In any true-legato instrument there will be a small amount of lag

when playing joined notes. This can be corrected by dragging all
the notes slightly to the left in the sequencer, or by using MIDI
delay compensation. The problem with other libraries is that
detached notes dont share this lag, meaning the first note
in a phrase must be manually edited for it to play in time.
The auto-delay function applies the same delay to the first note in a
legato line, meaning the timings of all notes are consistent.
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7. Key clicks

We recorded separate key clicks, which can be mixed in to add

detail and presence to the instrument. The response slider
controls how much the clicks are affected by velocity.

Mappings
The mappings page allows you to map any instrument parameter to a MIDI CC or other
control source.

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1. Controller
selector

Use these drop-down menus to select any of the available MIDI

controllers. You can disable MIDI mapping for any parameter by
choosing --- in this menu.

2. MIDI Learn

Click a MIDI learn button then move a fader on your MIDI controller
to easily map it to the corresponding instrument parameter.

3. Tongue
Keyswitch

This sets the key for triggering tongued note repetitions (same-note
legato transitions).

4. Attack velocity
response

This slider scales how much the notes velocity affects attack.

If, instead of our mapping system, you wish to use Kontakts built-in automation mapper,
turn off all the controllers on this page by setting the drop-down menus to ---. Do not
use CCs 100 and above, as this may cause conflicts with the internal engine.

Licence
An individual licence can be used:
1. On any number of machines, if they are used only by one person.
2. On a single workstation, used by multiple users (a shared studio PC, for example).
For information about volume licences, please contact us.
You may use this instrument in your own music, commercially or non-commercially. You
may not share or distribute the instrument or samples themselves, either as-is, or as part
of another sample library.
This licence is granted to the original purchaser only and is not transferrable.

Credits
Nick Aldridge - Oboe performance.
Darius Alexander - Pre-production, recording and editing.
Will Bedford - Recording, Kontakt programming/scripting and UI design.
Dynamics Knob graphic by Mahmoud Altaf.
Beta testers:
Yarron Katz
Brendon Williams
Chris Harris