Concert & Marching Band 2

Name: Concert & Marching Band 2
Price: 129 USD
Author: Garritan

by Garritan · Instrument · Concert and marching band library

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Concert & Marching Band 2 is a Garritan library of wind band and marching band instruments, from piccolos to sousaphones.

It runs in the ARIA Player and costs $149.95.

Best for: Acoustic Instruments, Drums. Genres: Jazz, Acoustic & Classical.

Keywords: brass, musical, sample-based, woodwinds.

What it does

Concert & Marching Band 2 is a sample library for wind band and marching band music. Garritan aims it at band directors, educators and students, and at musicians who want band sounds in their tracks.

Woodwinds and brass: band instruments from piccolos to sousaphones, covering the concert band lineup.
Percussion: what Garritan calls its broadest range of concert and marching percussion.
Marching band: marching instruments alongside the concert ones, so drill and field show music can be mocked up.
Uses: writing marching drill routines, band arrangements, teaching and general production.
Player: it runs in Garritan's ARIA Player.
Size: a small sample set, which keeps it light on disk and memory.

An upgrade from the previous version is available.

Source: Garritan product page

When to use it

Concert & Marching Band 2 is a niche library, and its niche is the school and community band. Compared with BBC Symphony Orchestra Core and Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition, it covers instruments those orchestral libraries leave out, such as sousaphone and marching percussion. It is also much smaller, so it runs comfortably behind a notation program on a modest computer. The trade-off is realism: some buyers find its samples weak by current standards, so it suits sketching and notation playback more than polished production.

Best for: band directors, school band arrangements, marching drill writing and notation playback.
Genres: concert band, marching band and classical.
Look elsewhere if: you write for orchestra (BBC Symphony Orchestra Core) or need production-grade realism (Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition).
Tip: one Sweetwater reviewer uses it as a light sketching tool while writing, then layers other instruments in the DAW to fill out the ensemble.

What producers say

Press reviews were very positive at release, but recent buyers are mixed and judge it against newer libraries.

Sound On Sound (Dave Stewart) gave it 5 out of 5, calling it "unique, musically solid, workmanlike" and full of different timbres, as quoted by Garritan.
Keyboard Player said it "certainly hits the spot" for inspiring new work, also as quoted by Garritan.
Sweetwater users rate it 2.0 out of 5 from 2 reviews. A former band director praised the marching percussion and how little it slows a notation program; the other buyer disliked the sample quality.

Where to buy

AudioDeluxe: $129
Garritan: $149.95

Tutorials and reviews

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