Mike Reagan - user testimonial & case study (22 min)

"I find Broadway Big Band to be revolutionary!  
...it actually helps me write better. I feel like I’m playing a live instrument. It makes it more fun. I feel less like I’m working and more like I’m making music. There are other libraries out there that do true legato, that do different articulations, but… I haven’t heard articulations and samples connect this way. It’s just seamless. However these guys are doing it, it’s different than anything else that I’ve heard and it’s definitely different than anything else I have played with.”

“It helps me create anything I want to create… it just allows me a lot of flexibility, to be able to hear different genres of music in my head and know that I can always go to Broadway big band to find not only the instrument that I need but the mic placement and the recording that I need.”

"Don't be fooled by the fact it''s called 'Broadway Big Band'. ...I'm using it in oechestral settings, I'm using it in Funk and soul pieces and I'm using it in cartoons... I use it extensively. It's the main focus of the pieces that I'm writing."

"The great thing about Broadway Big Band for me is that I'm able to hear a line in my head, play it in real-time with all the articulations without having to go back and tweak it and add articulations and use multiple midi channels. It's literally one midi channel per instrument. I play it and it's done. ...for a virtual instrument that is so deeply sampled there is nothing else that I know of currently on the market that even comes close to being able to do that."

“I’m reminded that music comes first. …it shifted my paradigm from samples first and then ideas second, and now I can reverse it. …  I can hear a sound in my head and I know that I don’t have to worry about it. I know that I’ll be able to accomplish it really quick because it’s easy to use.”

"for the first time I was feeling that I wasn't compromising the vision of the music, and I wasn't spending an enormit amount of time trying to create something to sound as live as I can. It just simply out of the box sounded great."

Mike Reagan
Film/TV & video game composer
Awards include: several "Best Score" and "outstanding achievement in music composition" awards for the video games "God Of War" and "God Of War 2", as well as "Darkwatch" and "Nowhere to Hide", Best use of music in TV for "Wow Wow Wubbzy" and Best original song for a children's soundtrack for his song"Take the First Step" featured in the muppets movie "Elmo in Grouchland".

Rob Arbittier - user testimonial (4 min)

"This is the most amazing tool I’ve ever come across for being able to do brass arrangements."

"It’s just amazing how realistic and clean the Broadway library sounds, and it’s definitely changed the way I work. "

"It was really easy to learn how to use..."

"At this point... if I would see a new title from Fable Sounds on the shelf I would just assume it’s amazing."

Rob Arbittier
Composer and music producer
Los Angeles

Jimmy Lockett - user testimonial (3 min)

"The sound, the concept, the whole approach to what they’re doing with the Broadway Big Band is something new in sampling, and something I think that’s going to really change the sampling world."

"A part of what makes it so special is the attitude that the samples were recorded with. It’s not just that they are recorded perfectly – which they are, and that you get all these options – that you do, but the musicians played the way they would play in a real performance and you really hear that, and when you try to use them that makes the difference."

"Once you get it you will not want to live without it."

Jimmy Lockett
Musical Theatre & symphonic composer
Las Vegas / New York

In a comparative round-up of top brass virtual instruments for 2012, Keyboard Magazine concludes that: "Broadway Big Band easily rises to the top of the heap for jazz, pop, and funk.". In his 10 page article in the January 2012 issue of Keyboard Magazine, reviewer Marty Cutler praises Fable Sounds for Broadway Big Band with a great deal of enthusiasm, especially in comparison to the other products on the market:

“BBB provides incredible diversity and realism of articulation, perhaps the best I’ve seen”.
“What’s most impressive about the articulations, is how well integrated into their respective instruments they are.”; “I wish more software instruments would follow BBB’s lead”.
He writes that Broadway Big Band offers “Enormously expressive brass and reeds.” and “provides tremendous real-time authenticity.”
He commands the “smooth, musically integrated release samples, and tremendously expressive modulation wheel control”.
He then concludes:

“I was mightily impressed by the remarkable live character and authenticity of the sounds, which jumped out at me as though I was sitting in the middle of the orchestra pit.”;
“With such a painstaking focus on injecting life and a musician’s attitude into each and every note, Broadway Big Band easily rises to the top of the heap for jazz, pop, and funk.”
Read the full article in the January 2012 issue of Keyboard magazine.

Gary Eskow of Recording Magazine says in his recent review that Broadway Big band is “A remarkable accomplishment.” Talks about the “vibrant character of the performances”, states that “The key-switching scheme in BBB is extremely intelligent and well designed, and it offers a level of expressive possibility that no other library in its category comes close to.“ and adds that “The importance of this advancement is hard to overstate. “ He also says that “BBB is in a league of its own”
And concludes that “Fable Sounds has produced the most thoroughly playable set of pop horn samples ever brought to market.“ and “In a cluttered field, this library has raised the bar and immediately takes its place as a standard against which future products of its kind will be measured.”

Read the full review in the January 2009 issue of Recording Magazine

Virtual Instrument magazine calls the Broadway Big band a "breakthrough library." , and says that it's "oozing with character and life." And that "these are the best sampled horns around." The review says that Broadway Big Band offers "terrific samples and programming", says that it's "very easy to play" and concludes that "This is one of the most impressive and ambitious libraries to come around in a few years."

Read the full review by Nick Batzdorf in Virtual Instrument Magazine…

Sound on Sound: (review)
Dave Stewart of UK magazine: "Sound on Sound", says that Broadway Big Band is a “highly versatile, well thought out package”; that it is “highly playable”; offers “clever programming” ,“innovative keyswitching” and “authentic musical timbres”; He calls it “expressive” and “animated”; He also states that “Fable Sounds are the only company apart from Vienna Symphonic Library to use this highly labor intensive, interval specific, sampling technique, and it works a treat” and says that it sounds “very realistic, and leaps out of the speakers as if possessed by the spirit of an avenging jazz warrior”. The review concludes that it has“all the styles and attitude required for a pop / rock / R&B brass section” and that “Once you've mastered its keyswitching techniques, the musical possibilities are endless.”

Read the full review by David Stewart on the SOUND ON SOUND website.